Science Under Siege?

Interest Groups and the Science Wars

Leon E. Trachtman, Robert Perrucci

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2000
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781461705499
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The combative metaphor of Oscience warsO has taken on a predominant position within the collective conscious, from being featured on the programs of scientific meetings to being splashed across the pages of leading national magazines and newspapers. Some in the scientific community perceive their profession to be under siege by members of the academic left, radical environmentalists, religious fundamentalists, eco-feminists, and others. This book, based on in-depth interviews with sixty members of groups with alleged Oanti-scienceO attitudes, examines how pervasive and uniform these critiques are. The research is designed to examine two conflicting hypotheses: 1) that anti-science attitudes reflect a general cynicism about all major social institutions, and 2) that anti-science views are not broadly based but are reflective, instead , of the particular interests of a given social grouping. In the final analysis, Perrucci and Trachtman dig at the root of the so-called Oscience warsO by presenting evidence that the wars are not the product of an overarching suspicion of the institutions at the core of our society, but are instead the product of organized interest groups, which shape the attitudes and beliefs of their respective members.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Science under Siege: Historical Perspective
• Reflections of a Feminist
• 2. The Feminist Voice: Problems of a Male-Dominated Science
• Reflections of an Environmentalist
• 3. Environmentalists and the Control of Nature
• Reflections from the Political Right
• 4. Political Right and Science Captured
• Reflections from the Political Left
• 5. Political Left and Science Corrupted
• Reflections of a Fundamentalist
• 6. Creationism and the Fundamentalist Critique
• Reflections of a Community Leader
• 7. The Voice of the Tertium Quid
• 8. Interest Group Politics and General Cynicism: Group Comparisons
• 9. Reconsidering the Science Wars
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Authors