Art, Science, and the Spirit of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory

This paper explores the cosmological and moral aspects of the "systems" model used to model life in US Nuclear programs during the mid-20th century. Through the lens of the friendship between medical researcher and UN Atomic Energy Agency administrator Ralph Kniseley and artist and critic Charles Counts, it argues that the "systems" models developed in life sciences division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratories were deployed as a means of atonement for the scientists who developed the bomb, through which they sought to integrate "ethics" and "spirit" into scientific practice. Counts and Kniseley were both critics of and participants in this process. This paper reflects on the power of "systems" to capture the concept of "ethics," suggesting that contemporary theorists who draw from "ecosystems" and "networks" as a form of moral solution may be repeating the mistakes first made by nuclear scientists in those concepts' early past.