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History of Science Society Newsletter
In Memoriam
David B. Kitts (1923–2010)
David B. Kitts, long a member of the History
of Science program at the University of Oklahoma,
died at Norman, OK on 30 October 2010 at the
age of 87. Trained in zoology — he earned his
PhD at Columbia University (1953), supervised by
George Gaylord Simpson — Kitts began his career
as a geologist and paleontologist. As early as his
college years at Penn, he cultivated an interest in the
logical and conceptual structure of science, which
led him to important and influential analyses of the
foundations of geological and biological thinking.
While doing research in vertebrate paleontology at
OU, he explored these interests further by teaching
a new course, Metageology, and began a long-term
affiliation with the History of Science program.
A collection of his main papers on the
underpinnings of geological thought, The Structure
of Geology (published in 1977), was a pioneering
work in turning attention in twentieth-century
philosophy of science to the logical and historical
processes in geological reasoning. His research in the
philosophy of biology centered first on the concept
of biological species, then on the logical structure
of Darwin’s argument in The Origin of Species, a
subject he continued to investigate for many years
after his retirement in 1988. In this work, as in the
philosophy of geology, he closely analyzed historical
and contemporary scientific and philosophical
texts in order to inform philosophical claims with
historical accuracy. In 1966 Kitts was named David
Ross Boyd Professor, an appointment recognizing
the institution’s finest teachers. He divided his
instructional time at OU between Geology and
History of Science until assuming a full-time
appointment in 1978 in the History of Science
Department, in which he served as department
chair from 1973 to 1979. Over a hundred family
members, colleagues and friends gathered in Norman
on 5 February 2011 for a memorial tribute to David
B. Kitts and a reception hosted by his wife Nancy
and his sons Peter and David. Following Ken
Taylor’s opening remarks on David’s life and work,
punctuated with stories of his personal qualities
and legendary foibles, there followed a dozen short
recollections of David’s teaching, writing, field work,
cycling, camping, sculling, and vacation travels.
Among these were stories from his history-of-science
colleagues and former students Marilyn Ogilvie,
Steve Livesey, Liba Taub, Bob Nye, and Mary Jo Nye.
The snow drifts beneath the brilliant blue sky of an
Oklahoma winter day provided a beautiful setting for
celebrating David’s life.
Mary Jo Nye, Oregon State University
Ken Taylor, University of Oklahoma
Alexander M. Ospovat (1923–2010)
Alexander Meier Ospovat died 21 December
2010, at Stillwater, Oklahoma. He was a member
of the History Department at Oklahoma State
University from 1962 until his retirement in 1988.
Born in 1923 in Königsberg, East Prussia,
Ospovat spent most of his childhood in Memel,
Lithuania. In 1940 his family fled, first to Mexico,
then to the US. Ospovat earned a degree in civil
engineering at the University of Oklahoma in 1945.
Following several years of employment as an engineer,
he returned to school and earned his PhD in 1960.
He was the first to complete the OU doctoral
program in history of science.
At Oklahoma State Ospovat taught history of
science and medicine, and early modern European
history. His research focused primarily on the
development of geology in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. He is particularly well known
for his research on the geological career and thought
of Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817). His was a
pioneering voice in revising the negative judgments
on Werner that had been taken in most British and
18 History of Science Society Newsletter • April 2011