The Political Resources of American Science

Abstract

In the light of the traditional ethos of science, and particularly its emphasis on a complete separation between science and politics, a discussion of the political resources of science is bound to appear somewhat perverse, if not entirely heretical. Yet, while the idea of the separation of science and politics may still be consistent with feelings and wishes prevalent among scientists, it seems increasingly inadequate as a statement about reality. The tendency to confuse the question of what the social status of science is with what it ought to be continues to interfere with the development of a fruitful theoretical discourse about the social and political aspects of science. Attempts to call attention to the links of science with its political environment have usually stimulated in scientists such associations as the Marxist approach to the sociology and history of science, which views scientific theories and institutions as the outgrowth of specific social and economic conditions. While some scientists have been attracted by this analysis, most have strongly rejected this type of approach, on the grounds that the description of science as derivative from its social context destroys its claim to be politically neutral and its right to be free from external control. It has suggested to them the dangers of censorship and political interference, and aggravated their fear of the consequences of linking science and politics. By the same token, scientists have tended to be much more sympathetic to those theories in the sociology and history of science which perceived scientists as obeying the inherent imperatives of scientific ideas and the logic of inquiry. The theory that scientists follow only the internal rules of science would seem to reinforce their effort to prevent the subordination of their work to standards extrinsic to science and to protect themselves from external political interference. Such autonomist social theories of science, as formulated by Polanyi, Hagstrom and Storer, provide, however, a more adequate description of the social reality of science as it was when science was still