Social interests and the organic physics of 1847
pp. 169-191
in: Edna Ullmann-Margalit (ed), Science in reflection, Berlin, Springer, 1988Abstract
Judging by articles in the scientific press, an issue of increasing concern to observers of the scientific enterprise is the politicization of science. There is, quite naturally, concern that good science is undermined when political agendas and ideological alignments begin to exercise an influence over the funding of scientific research.1 Historians and sociologists of science have traditionally assured us that such influences are at best fleeting; the real momentum of science, we are told, is provided by its technical culture and by the exigencies of the investigative path, and these will ultimately prevail. But is the development of science in fact so immune from the external pressures of its environment? Might not "good science" be part of a seamless web of political and economic institutions sustained by sets of value orientations and ideologies?