Freedom's Laboratory Quotes

“In 1939, the British crystallographer J. D. Bernal published a remarkable book, The Social Function of Science. The book’s thorough accounting of scientific institutions, research salaries, career trajectories, educational systems, and national priorities makes it a landmark publication in the sociology of science, but Bernal’s careful research wasn’t what sparked a public controversy and political backlash. Bernal, a Marxist and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, premised his book on the idea that the scientific process was intimately tied to social and economic conditions. Bernal acknowledged the concept of “science as a pursuit of pure knowledge for its own sake,” but he described the attitude as only one end of a spectrum bounded at the other by “science as power.” He relentlessly pointed out how capitalism shaped the production of knowledge in the United States and repeatedly referred to scientists as “scientific workers.” The book was, in many ways, a brief on behalf of Soviet-style planning as the surest and swiftest path to transform society and improve the human condition.1”
― Audra J Wolfe, Freedom's Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science