In A Scientist Speaks Out — A Personal Perspective on Science, Society, and Change, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry, 1951) Glenn T Seaborg shares some of his thoughts and reflections on his broad interests, from the formulation of national science policy to the promise of youth. During a distinguished career in science and public service that spanned more than 50 years, he published over 500 works and maintained a public speaking schedule that included about 700 speeches on a wide variety of topics. This volume is a collection of nearly forty of his more popular speeches and articles, directed at a mostly non-scientific and non-technical audience. Since this volume is a compendium of reprints, readers will be able to share some of Seaborg's thoughts, as he originally penned them.

In A Scientist Speaks Out ? A Personal Perspective on Science, Society, and Change, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry, 1951) Glenn T Seaborg shares some of his thoughts and reflections on his broad interests, from the formulation of national science policy to the promise of youth. During a distinguished career in science and public service that spanned more than 50 years, he published over 500 works and maintained a public speaking schedule that included about 700 speeches on a wide variety of topics. This volume is a collection of nearly forty of his more popular speeches and articles, directed at a mostly non-scientific and non-technical audience. Since this volume is a compendium of reprints, readers will be able to share some of Seaborg's thoughts, as he originally penned them.

Who are scientists? What kind of people are they? What capacities and virtues are thought to stand behind their considerable authority? They are experts—indeed, highly respected experts—authorized to describe and interpret the natural world and widely trusted to help transform knowledge into power and profit. But are they morally different from other people? The Scientific Life is historian Steven Shapin’s story about who scientists are, who we think they are, and why our sensibilities about such things matter. Conventional wisdom has long held that scientists are neither better nor worse than anyone else, that personal virtue does not necessarily accompany technical expertise, and that scientific practice is profoundly impersonal. Shapin, however, here shows how the uncertainties attending scientific research make the virtues of individual researchers intrinsic to scientific work. From the early twentieth-century origins of corporate research laboratories to the high-flying scientific entrepreneurship of the present, Shapin argues that the radical uncertainties of much contemporary science have made personal virtues more central to its practice than ever before, and he also reveals how radically novel aspects of late modern science have unexpectedly deep historical roots. His elegantly conceived history of the scientific career and character ultimately encourages us to reconsider the very nature of the technical and moral worlds in which we now live. Building on the insights of Shapin’s last three influential books, featuring an utterly fascinating cast of characters, and brimming with bold and original claims, The Scientific Life is essential reading for anyone wanting to reflect on late modern American culture and how it has been shaped.

In Sputnik's Shadow traces the rise and fall of the President's Science Advisory Committee from its ascendance under Eisenhower to its demise during the Nixon years. Zuoyue Wang examines key turning points during the twentieth century, including the beginning of the Cold War, the debates over nuclear weapons, the Sputnik crisis in 1957, the struggle over the Vietnam War, and the eventual end of the Cold War, showing how the involvement of scientists in executive policymaking evolved over time and brings new insights to the intellectual, social, and cultural histories of the era.

An award-winning historian's pathbreaking book uses federal education policy from the Great Society to Reagan's New Morning to demonstrate how innovative policies become entrenched irrespective of who occupies the White House.

"In this concices and luminous book ... [Russell] examines the changes in modern life brought about by science. he suggests that its work in transforming society is only just beginning"--from inside upper cover.