Robert N. Proctor

{{Short description|American historian of science (born 1954)}} {{Infobox writer  | name = Robert N. Proctor | image = Robert N. Proctor at HSS 2009.jpg | caption = Proctor in 2009 | birth_date = {{Birth date|1954|06|25}} | birth_place = [[Corpus Christi, Texas]] | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Professor, Historian | nationality = American | alma_mater = [[Indiana University Bloomington]] | spouse = [[Londa Schiebinger]] | children = Geoffrey Schiebinger and Jonathan Proctor | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature = }}

'''Robert Neel Proctor''' (born 1954) is an American historian of science and Professor of the History of Science at [[Stanford University]], where he is also Professor by courtesy of Pulmonary Medicine.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stanford.edu/dept/history/Faculty/proctor.html |title=Stanford History Department : Robert N. Proctor |access-date=2007-08-12 |publisher=Stanford University |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070319025655/http://www.stanford.edu/dept/history/Faculty/proctor.html  |archive-date = 2007-03-19}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://history.stanford.edu/people/robert-n-proctor|title = Robert N. Proctor | Department of History}}</ref> While a professor of the history of science at [[Pennsylvania State University]] in 1999, he became the first historian to testify against the [[tobacco industry]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/14/arts/14HIST.html?ex=1371009600&en=e10e0387e68ab30f&ei=5007 |title=History for Hire in Industry Lawsuits |date=2003-06-14 |access-date=2007-08-12 |author=Cohen, Patricia |work=[[New York Times]] |quote='The historical profession has really not been prepared for this,' said Robert N. Proctor, a professor of the history of science at the University of Pennsylvania, who in 1999 became the first historian to testify against the tobacco industry. 'We don't have disclosure rules for publications, we haven't had discussions about the ethics of whether to testify or not to testify.' |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140125094042/http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/14/arts/14HIST.html?ex=1371009600&en=e10e0387e68ab30f&ei=5007 |archive-date=2014-01-25 }}</ref>

==Career== Robert N. Proctor graduated from [[Indiana University Bloomington]] in 1976 with a [[Bachelor of Science]] in biology. He then took up studies at [[Harvard University]], earning master's and doctoral degrees in [[history of science]] in 1977 and 1984, respectively.<ref>{{cite web|title=Robert N. Proctor {{!}} Department of History|url=https://history.stanford.edu/people/robert-n-proctor|website=history.stanford.edu|access-date=3 January 2018|language=en}}</ref>

At [[Pennsylvania State University]], he and his wife, [[Londa Schiebinger]], co-directed the Science, Medicine and Technology in Culture Program for nine years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/october13/londa-1013.html |title=IRWG director hopes to create 'go to' center for gender studies |access-date=2007-08-12 |date=2004-10-13 |work=Stanford News Service}}</ref>

Proctor has worked on human origins and the history of evolution, including changing interpretations of the oldest tools. His 2003 ''Three Roots of Human Recency'' won the 2004/2005 Award for Exemplary Interdisciplinary Anthropological Research from the American Anthropological Association. In his ''Three Roots'' article he exposed the racism implicit in celebrating "leaving Africa" as a fundamental stage in human evolution (which he mocks as “out of Africa, thank God”); one of the points of this article was to show that anthropological ideas of human origins, including efforts to answer the question "when did humans become human?", have been scarred by changing notions of race.<ref>Proctor, Robert N. "Three Roots of Human Recency: Molecular Anthropology, the Refigured Acheulean, and the UNESCO Response to Auschwitz." Current Anthropology 44, no. 2 (2003): 213-39. Accessed September 4, 2021. doi:10.1086/346029.</ref> Race was also the focus of his 1988 book ''[[Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis]]'', which identified the Nazi regime as a monstrous effort to create a biomedical utopia. Hitler was celebrated as "the doctor of the German people" and physicians joined the SS in greater numbers than any other professional group. Proctor detailed how racial theorists in Nazi Germany were inspired by eugenicists operating in the United States, including men like Madison Grant and Harry Laughlin, and that one reason the Nazis mandated sterilization of "the unfit" and bans on racial intermarriage was to prevent the US from becoming “the world’s racial leader.” As of 2021, ''Racial Hygiene'' has been cited nearly 2000 times, according to Google Scholar.

However, Robert Proctor is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking 2012 history of the [[tobacco industry]], ''Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition'',<ref>"Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition", edited by Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, [[Stanford University Press]], 2008</ref> winner of the Rachel Carson Prize in 2014.<ref>[[Society for Social Studies of Science]], [[Rachel Carson Prize (academic book prize)]] 2014</ref> He also published dozens of articles related to the history of the tobacco industry.<ref>{{Cite journal |author1=K. Michael Cummings |author2=[[Robert N. Proctor]] |date=12 January 2014 |title=The changing public image of smoking in the United States: 1964–2014 |url=https://aacrjournals.org/cebp/article/23/1/32/158084/The-Changing-Public-Image-of-Smoking-in-the-United |journal=[[Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention]] |pmid=24420984 |doi=10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-13-0798 |doi-access=free |access-date=22 January 2026|pmc=3894634 }}</ref>

His 2008 book ''Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance'', co-edited with [[Londa Schiebinger]], examines the concept of [[Agnotology]]", a term coined by linguist [[Iain Boal]] in 1992<ref>Proctor writes in the postcript to his book "Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, page 27, that "My hope for devising a new term was to suggest...the historicity and artifactuality of non-knowing and the non-known - and the potential fruitfulness of studying such things. In 1992 I posed this challenge to linguist Iain Boal, and it was he who came up with the term in the spring of that year."</ref> to describe the study of intentionally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of intentionally inaccurate or misleading scientific data.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/business/22mistakes.html?ex=1313899200&en=e687ef6c5786717f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss|title=What Organizations Don't Want to Know Can Hurt|author=Arenson, Karen W|work=New York Times|date=2006-08-22|quote='there is a lot more protectiveness than there used to be,' said Dr.Proctor, who is shaping a new field, the study of ignorance, which he calls agnotology. 'It is often safer not to know.'}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_6.html |title=We Will Overcome Agnotology (The Cultural Production Of Ignorance)|page=6|author=Kreye, Andrian|year=2007 |access-date=2007-08-12 |publisher=[[Edge.org|Edge Foundation]] |work=The Edge World Question Center 2007|quote=This is about a society's choice between listening to science and falling prey to what Stanford science historian Robert N. Proctor calls agnotology (the cultural production of ignorance)}}</ref>

A central theme in Proctor's work is the history of race and racism, a focus of his career already in the 1970s, when he taught ''The changing concept of race'' with [[Nathan Huggins]] and [[Barbara Rosenkrantz]] in the African American Studies department at Harvard. In 2008, Proctor served as an expert witness in a wrongful death suit against [[Philip Morris International|Philip Morris]] and used the [[n-word]] in his testimony, triggering a [[mistrial]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=N-word causes mistrial of suit over cigarettes|url=https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2008-12-05-0812040418-story.html|last=Writers|first=Tonya Alanez and John Holland Staff|website=Sun-Sentinel.com|date=5 December 2008 |language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-25}}</ref> Later, in 2019, Proctor again drew scrutiny for repeatedly saying the racial slur aloud when quoting from [[nicotine marketing|cigarette advertisements]] in a guest lecture at [[Stanford Law School]]. He responded to this backlash with, "I didn't 'use' the N-word in my lecture, I showed and cited its use in three different brands of cigarettes sold in the middle decades of the twentieth century."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Professor's Use Of Racial Slur Sparks Backlash At Stanford|url=https://patch.com/california/paloalto/professor-s-use-racial-slur-sparks-backlash-stanford|date=2019-12-13|website=Palo Alto, CA Patch|language=en|access-date=2020-05-25}}</ref>

==Personal life== He is the longtime partner of fellow historian of science [[Londa Schiebinger]], whom he met at Harvard. They have two sons together, named Geoffrey Schiebinger and Jonathan Proctor. Before having children, the couple decided they would have two and each would receive one of their [[surnames]].

==Bibliography== *{{cite book |author=Proctor, Robert N. |title=[[Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis]] |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1988 |isbn=0-674-74578-7}} *{{cite book |author=Proctor, Robert N. |title=Value-free Science?: Purity and Power in Modern Knowledge |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1991 |isbn=0-674-93170-X}} *{{cite book |author=Proctor, Robert N. |title=Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know about Cancer |url=https://archive.org/details/cancerwars00robe |url-access=registration |publisher=BasicBooks |location=New York |year=1995 |isbn=0-465-02756-3}} *{{cite book |author=Proctor, Robert N. |title=The Nazi War on Cancer |url=https://archive.org/details/naziwaroncancer00proc |url-access=registration |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey |year= 1999|isbn=0-691-07051-2 }} *{{cite book |author=Proctor, Robert N. |title=[[Adolf Butenandt]] (1903-1995): Nobelpreisträger, Nationalsozialist und MPG-Präsident: Ein erster Blick in den Nachlass |publisher=Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften |location=Berlin |year=2000 |lccn=2001375957}} *{{cite book |author=Proctor, Robert N. |title=Blitzkrieg gegen den Krebs. Gesundheit und Propaganda im Dritten Reich |publisher=Klett-Cotta |location=Stuttgart |year=2002 |orig-year=1999 |isbn=3-608-91031-X}} *{{cite book |author=Proctor, Robert N. |title=Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |year= 2012 |isbn=9780520270169}} *{{cite book | last1 =Cross | first1 = Gary S. | last2 =Proctor | first2 = Robert N. |title=[[Packaged Pleasures|Packaged Pleasures: How Technology and Marketing Revolutionized Desire]] |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |year= 2014 |isbn=9780226121277}}

==Prizes and fellowships== *Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2002–Present *Visiting scholar, Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, Hamburg, Germany, 1995 *Senior Scholar in Residence, U.S. Holocaust Research Institute, Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., 1994 *Visiting Fellow, Shelby Collum Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton, 1992–1993 *Research grant, National Center for Human Genome Research, National Institutes of Health, 1992–1993 *Penn State Distinguished Scholar Medal Recipient, 1997.

== See also == * [[Tobacco in the United States]]

== References == {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{Wikiquote|Robert N. Proctor}} *[http://www.rps.psu.edu/0109/agateer.html The Agateer] *[http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/configurations/v009/9.3proctor.html Anti-Agate: The Great Diamond Hoax and the Semiprecious Stone Scam] *[http://www.adl.org/Braun/dim_14_1_nazi_med.asp Nazi Medicine and Public Health Policy] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20121205091200/http://www.adl.org/Braun/dim_14_1_nazi_med.asp |date=2012-12-05 }} *[http://www.tobacco.org/resources/rendezvous/proctor.html Rendez-vous with Robert Proctor] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100616162203/http://www.tobacco.org/resources/rendezvous/proctor.html |date=2010-06-16 }} *[http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/archive/7070nd2.htm The anti-tobacco campaign of the Nazis: a little known aspect of public health in Germany, 1933-45] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080807180908/http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/30/1/31 Commentary: Schairer and Schöniger's forgotten tobacco epidemiology and the Nazi quest for racial purity] *[http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=vmm56c00&fmt=gif&ref=results&title=A%20HISTORICAL%20RECONSTRUCTION%20OF%20TOBACCO%20AND%20HEALTH%20IN%20THE%20U.%20S.,%20540000%20-%20940000&bates=2075493217/3265 Historical Reconstruction of Tobacco and Health in the U.S., 1954-1994] *[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance The man who studies the spread of ignorance] - Gerorgina Kenyon, BBC, 6 January 2016 *[https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/proctor.html Robert N. Proctor]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proctor, Robert N.}} [[Category:1954 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:21st-century American historians]] [[Category:21st-century American male writers]] [[Category:Harvard University alumni]] [[Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni]] [[Category:Pennsylvania State University faculty]] [[Category:Stanford University Department of History faculty]] [[Category:American historians of science]] [[Category:American male non-fiction writers]] [[Category:Politics of science]]