Holding to account

摘要

It is less fashionable than it was to ask what science is or who it is for. The theoretical debates of the 1980s and 1990s have died away in mutual exhaustion as other issues―the uses and abuses of technology, the education of a voting public that both-knows more about science and is less awestruck by its practitioners―have come to seem more pressing. Yet the two sorts of issue cannot really be disentangled. What scientists think they are up to affects the way they plead for public money, and how far government and the public understand the aims of science affects how well scientists succeed. Purists hold that pursuing scientific truth is necessary and valuable in its own right. And in one sense we are all purists. But as these two thoughtful books show, the actual conduct of that pursuit is highly contingent and political. Daniel Greenberg's "Science, Money and Politics" is the culmination of 40 years of pounding the science-policy beat. It is a masterly overview of how big science and big government have operated together in post-war America. Over the years, Mr Greenberg has been an often lonely voice championing the public's right to know how wisely scientists were spending its hard-earned money. It is probably fair to say that, through the medium of his newsletter, Science and Government Report, Mr Greenberg pretty well invented a new way to cover big science―as a form of government spending no different, in budgetary terms, from defence procurement or agricultural support.