Robert N. Proctor facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert N. Proctor
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Proctor in 2009
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| Born | June 25, 1954 Corpus Christi, Texas |
| Occupation | Professor, Historian |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Indiana University Bloomington |
| Spouse | Londa Schiebinger |
| Children | Geoffrey Schiebinger and Jonathan Proctor |
Robert Neel Proctor (born in 1954) is an American historian. He teaches the history of science at Stanford University. He also helps out as a professor of Pulmonary Medicine. In 1999, while teaching at Pennsylvania State University, he became the first historian to speak in court against the tobacco industry.
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Learning and Early Career
Robert N. Proctor earned a science degree from Indiana University Bloomington in 1976. He then went to Harvard University. There, he got his master's degree in 1977 and his doctorate in 1984. Both degrees were in the History of Science.
At Pennsylvania State University, he worked with his wife, Londa Schiebinger. They led a program about science, medicine, and technology for nine years.
Exploring Human History and Science
Proctor has studied how humans first appeared and how the idea of evolution has changed over time. He looked at how we understand the oldest tools. His 2003 article, Three Roots of Human Recency, won an award in 2004/2005. This award was for excellent research that combined different fields of study.
In his Three Roots article, he showed how some ideas about human origins had unfair views about race. He pointed out that questions like "when did humans become human?" were sometimes shaped by changing ideas of race.
Understanding History and Race
Race has been a main topic in Proctor's work since the 1970s. His 1988 book, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, explored how the Nazi government used medical ideas in a terrible way. They tried to create what they thought was a "perfect" society based on race. Doctors joined the SS (a Nazi organization) more than any other group. Proctor showed how Nazi Germany's ideas about race were influenced by similar ideas in the United States. These ideas were called eugenics.
His book Racial Hygiene has been used as a source by many other researchers.
Studying How Ignorance is Created
In 2008, Proctor co-edited a book called "Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance" with Londa Schiebinger. This book looks at Agnotology. This word was created in 1992 by a linguist named Iain Boal. It means the study of how people intentionally create ignorance or doubt. This often happens when misleading scientific information is shared on purpose.
Investigating the Tobacco Industry
Robert Proctor is also well-known for his 2012 book, "Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition". This book is a detailed history of the tobacco industry. It won the Rachel Carson Prize in 2014. This work helped show how the tobacco industry developed and the problems it caused.
Personal Life
Robert Proctor's longtime partner is Londa Schiebinger. She is also a historian of science. They met at Harvard. They have two sons together, named Geoffrey Schiebinger and Jonathan Proctor. Before their children were born, they decided that each son would have one of their surnames.
