Vale, Bob Young

I've written elsewhere about Bob Young's theoretical contributions to science studies and politics during the 1970s.1 Bob was the radical science movement's Bernal, but - in spite of themselves - they were both Cambridge men. Otherwise I don't feel qualified to comment on Bob's work and legacy either before or after that turbulent decade.

What I can acknowledge is the inspiration as well as the upset that his journey from Cambridge donhood to becoming an independent Marxist scholar and agitator aroused in those around him. There is no question that Bob was better at burning rather than building bridges to the scholarly community that he so precipitately abandoned. Encounters with Bob could be alternately bracing and bruising, occasionally both. Sometimes, sadly, they could lead to a permanent rupture with peers, students, and activists with whom he had worked closely for many years. In later life Bob brooded over these breaks and the shadow that he thought they cast over his legacy as a scholar.

I first encountered Bob 50 years ago when I was happily ensconced with Barry Barnes and David Bloor in the Science Studies Unit. Until Bob turned up in Edinburgh in early 1971 to present his paper on ‘Evolutionary Biology and Ideology: Then and Now’,2 I was maintaining a comfortable equilibrium as a participant in both the intellectual ferment of my discipline and the politics of the anti-war movement. By the end of his seminar, this hulking figure, with his John Wayne-like accent, massive erudition, and evangelical conversion to the far Left, had succeeded in putting me well outside my comfort zone. While Barry Barnes was repelled by Bob's performance, I found his call to action utterly persuasive. Two years later I found myself in academic limbo as I joined Bob in London to help launch the Radical Science Journal. Meanwhile the SSU had found in Steve Shapin more than adequate recompense for my departure.

Working with Bob on the RSJ was as exhilarating as it was exhausting. Al