Riding natural scientists' coattails onto the endless frontier: the SSRC and the quest for scientific legitimacy

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Mark Solovey

Abstract

This article proposes that the postwar National Science Foundation (NSF) debate constituted a critical, transitional episode in American social science and partisan politics. I show that by responding to powerful conservative critics in the scientific and political communities, the Social Science Research Council's (SSRC's) leading scholars (re)asserted a contested scientistic strategy-to advance the social sciences by following the natural sciences. Further, I reconstruct a wider and longer framework of analysis in order to recover central challenges to the scientistic strategy raised by prominent liberal scholars who rejected the associated commitments to value neutrality and disinterested professionalism. In developing this framework for understanding the contrasting fortunes of each strategy, this article argues that the NSF debate has a deep historical significance-for the social sciences, for American liberalism, and for the nation.

References

Mar 1, 1977·Isis; an International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences·D J Kevles
May 2, 1947·Science·R M Yerkes
Aug 2, 1946·Science·H A Meyerhoff
Jan 1, 1948·Human Relations; Studies Towards the Integration of the Social Sciences·D CARTWRIGHT

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Citations

Jan 24, 2014·Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine : ECAM·Giovanni SartoreLapolla Annunziata
Oct 7, 2006·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·Hunter Crowther-Heyck
Jul 7, 2011·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·Joel Isaac
Apr 5, 2011·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·Janet Martin-Nielsen
Aug 29, 2013·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·Andrew Jewett
Jun 10, 2014·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·B Robert Owens
Apr 27, 2010·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·B Robert Owens
Nov 25, 2014·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·Philippe Fontaine
Feb 18, 2011·History of the Human Sciences·Janet Martin-Nielsen
May 17, 2018·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·Gerhard Sonnert

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