Science, Money & Politics – Political Triumph & Ethical Erosion: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion - Softcover

Greenberg, Daniel S

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226306356 ISBN 13: 9780226306353

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2003

Synopsis

Each year, Congress appropriates billions of dollars for scientific research. In this book, veteran science reporter Donald S. Greenberg takes us behind closed doors to show us who gets the money, and why. What he reveals is startling: an overlooked world of false claims, pork, and cronyism, where science, money and politics all manipulate one another.

About this title

Review:

In Science, Money, and Politics--a wide-ranging indictment of the way in which science is conducted in the United States--journalist Daniel Greenberg writes that science, in the abstract, is supposed to be nonpolitical, even to transcend politics entirely. In truth, though, science is always conditioned by political reality--and by money. Although funding for scientific research has been readily available since the end of World War II, (he maintains), research bureaucrats have transformed the enterprise into "a clever, well-financed claimant for money"; the successful quest for that funding into a condition of employment and advancement. Given that climate, Greenberg suggests, basic research has suffered, so that many diseases go unconquered, while more politically glamorous investigations are rewarded. Increasingly corporatised--industry, he writes, accounts for two-thirds of all research and development dollars spent, and its "profit-seeking values" are radiating throughout the culture--scientific research is insufficiently policed and criticised, watched over only by the inmates . In the rush for funding, Greenberg argues, science becomes increasingly subject to ethical lapses, with scientists too easily endorsing dubious causes such as the so-called Star Wars missile-defence system and too readily putting human subjects in danger.

Greenberg's arguments are broad but well supported, and his book is sure to excite controversy within the scientific community. Lay readers, however, will also find it of much interest. --Gregory McNamee

Review:

"Other professionals-physicians, lawyers, and teachers-long ago entered electoral politics, but scientists for the most part have stuck to their nineteenth-century detachment. To compensate for the lack of direct access to politics, they simply developed sharper and slyer tools to assure their future access to government money. "Science, Money, and Politics" is a gripping, sometimes amusing, and often provocative "tour de force" discussion of the ultimate consequences of their success." -- Michael S. Reidy "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists"

"Which science book should the next US president read? . . . . Daniel S. Greenberg is the outstanding writer on the politics of modern US science, and this is his most pertinent book."--Steven Shapin "Nature (2008) "

"Although it builds on a vast foundation of first-hand journalistic knowledge, "Science, Money and Politics" transcends journalistic fact gathering and presents cogently argued themes to explain the history and present state of the 'science enterprise' in the United States. . . . The real strength of this study lies in its challenging and disturbing analyses, which constitute an indispensable primer for all serious debate on the future of the science enterprise in the United States."--Claude E. Barfield "New England Journal of Medicine "

"Greenberg''s profoundly important new book depicts American ''Big Science'' as a classic self-perpetuating bureaucracy. . . . [It] is better documented than most National Academy of Sciences reports yet reads as briskly as a Dashiell Hammett detective story. . . . For four decades, Greenberg has been the conscience of American science writers. . . . We need more Greenbergs. . . . This admirable book should be required reading for science policy makers, science journalists, and any American who gives a damn whenever science"--"one of the nation''s crown jewels--falls into irresponsible hands."--Keay Davidson "Scientific American "

"Greenberg''s book [is] the product of almost four decades of close observation of the Washington science scene by one of its most acute analysts and sharpest critics . . . Greenberg, a former news editor of "Science," for many years chronicled in his fortnightly newsletter, "Science and Government Report," the complex interaction between the scientific community and the political establishment. No one, therefore, is better placed to document how each has successfully managed to meet the needs of the other since the end of the Second World War. . . . Many scientists continue to believe that science''s generous support from the federal government is based primarily on the innate value of its potential contribution to social well-being. Greenberg''s analysis of such events may well cause them to reconsider their view of how decisions about science funding are taken in practice. . . . [A] unique and revealing perspective on the way that the science-funding process actually works in Washin

Greenberg's "Science, Money, and Politics"provides a more sweeping survey of the disorder that afflicts contemporary science. . . Greenberg's irreverence has always offered a square meal for those woozy from the puffery and piety served up by most science journalists. The present book doesn't disappoint; Greenberg is especially adept at capturing folly and hypocrisy with memorable phrases."--Jonathan Kimmelman "The Nation "

"Other professionals--physicians, lawyers, and teachers--long ago entered electoral politics, but scientists for the most part have stuck to their nineteenth-century detachment. To compensate for the lack of direct access to politics, they simply developed sharper and slyer tools to assure their future access to government money. "Science, Money, and Politics" is a gripping, sometimes amusing, and often provocative "tour de force" discussion of the ultimate consequences of their success."--Michael S. Reidy "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists "

"[Greenberg] is snidely contemptuous of the politicos of science, indicting them, often with good reason, for hypocrisy, misrepresentation, and unwarranted doomsaying. This is on the whole an informative and provocative book. It includes riveting material from Greenberg's conversations with Washington insiders . . . and it advances several arresting themes about the interplay among the subjects of its title."--Daniel J. Kevles "The New Republic "

"Greenberg . . . does not require of us the careful construction of an ideal, but assuming, quite correctly, that we all know corruption and self-interest when we see them in their most egregious manifestations, tells it like it is."--Richard Lewontin "New York Review of Books "

"In the case of Daniel Greenberg, who has been the gadfly of the U.S. scientific establishment for four decades, stimulation and provocation have often been leavened by wit and always motivated by sharp intelligence. Greenberg has made a career of puncturing the self-important puffery that sometimes passes for public discourse in this community. . . . [In this book] the gadfly delivers a stinging three-count indictment of the contemporary scientific community and adduces a large body of evidence to support it."--Issues in Science and Technology "Issues in Science and Technology "

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0226306356
• ISBN 13: 9780226306353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528