Notes on the Politics of American Science: Commentary on Papers by Alice Kimball Smith and Dorothy Nelkin

Abstract

We have here two papers which build one upon the other. Smith's admirable treatment, a precis of her book, A Peril and a Hope, provides a reference point for Nelkin's, whose acute analyses of the contemporary movement are enriched by her historical perspective. Both papers raise important substantive issues about the politics of science; but just as Smith's paper provides a benchmark for Nelkin's, so it would seem that we need a historical frame for Smith's. Examination of certain key features of science and politics before World War II will increase our understanding of how the politics of science has changed since 1940 and how it has not.