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Advice from a Scientific Establishment: The National Academy of Sciences

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Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies

Part of the book series: Sociology of the Sciences a Yearbook ((SOSC,volume 6))

Abstract

Much of the literature on scientific advice and on the National Academy of Sciences takes for granted that scientists have a contribution to make to policy (1). Critics of the Academy question its suitability for performing this role, but do not doubt that some such role is incumbent upon scientists. The characteristic ways in which the Academy proceeds in providing scientific advice have been described in some detail (2); this essay seeks to account for these features in the light of the analyses of scientific establishments developed elsewhere in this volume, in the essays by Elias, Whitley and Weingart (3). Many of the recognized features of scientific advice, which are displayed by the Academy, can be subsumed under and explained by the theory of scientific establishments.

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References

  1. Nathan Reingold, ‘Definitions and Speculations: the Professionalization of Science in America in the Nineteenth Century’, in A. Oleson and S. C. Brown (eds.), The Pursuit of Knowledge in the Early American Republic, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1976, pp. 33–69.

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  2. Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: the History of a Scientific Community in Modern America, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, pp. 41–4.

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  3. Ronald Brickman and Arie Rip, ‘Science Policy Advisory Councils in France, the Netherlands and the United States, 1955–77: A Comparative Analysis’, Social Studies of Science 9 (1957) 167–98.

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  4. Zhores A. Medevedev, Soviet Science, Oxford University Press: 1979, pp. 72–3, 108.

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  5. T. Dixon Long, ‘Policy and Politics in Japanese Science: The Persistence of a Tradition’, Minerva 7 (1969) 426–53; T. Dixon Long, ‘The Dynamics of Japanese Science Policy’, in T. D. Long and C. Wright (eds.), Science Policies of Industrial Nations, New York, Praeger, 1975, pp. 133–68.

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  6. Daniel Greeberg, “The National Academy of Sciences: Profile of an Institution (I)” Science 156 (1967) 222–9.

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  7. Philip Boffey, ‘National Academy of Sciences: How Elite Choose their Peers’ Science 196 (1977) 738–41.

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© 1982 D. Reidel Publishing Company

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Hay, C. (1982). Advice from a Scientific Establishment: The National Academy of Sciences. In: Elias, N., Martins, H., Whitley, R. (eds) Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies. Sociology of the Sciences a Yearbook, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7729-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7729-7_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1323-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-7729-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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