Olby, Robert C. (Robert Cecil)

Robert Cecil Olby is an historian of science.

From the description of Papers, 1951-1963. (American Philosophical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 122589236

A graduate of the University College London and Oxford, Robert C. Olby (b. 1933) earned a reputation as an innovative historian of genetics with the publication of first book The Origins of Mendelism in 1966. When a former undergraduate friend of his, John Preble, suggested that he study the history of molecular biology, Olby gained an introduction to Francis Crick, the British biophysicist and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, who became both a scientific informant and close friend. Olby's The Path to the Double Helix (1974) provided an overview of the intellectual and institutional background that resulted in Watson and Crick's "physical and chemical account of the gene." In his introduction, Olby stated simply that his hope was that the book would "afford the historian, sociologist and scientist a guide to the source material relating to the origins of molecular biology, with special reference to DNA," but in fact it presented a masterful use of both primary written sources and oral histories. Ironically, Olby claimed that as a student at the University College London in the fifties, he could not remember hearing the word DNA ever being uttered.

Olby taught history of science at the University of Leeds from 1969-1993 and in the department of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1994-2001, where he remains as Research Professor.

From the guide to the Robert C. Olby Collection, 1951-1963, (American Philosophical Society)