The New Know-Nothings

In recent years, political, religious, & other special interest groups have waged war on behavioral & social research projects that threaten their interests & values. They have hounded researchers out of universities, cut off their funding through congressional & state legislative pressure, & harassed them with public demonstrations & picketing, all in the hope of forcing them to abandon their research. Formerly such unwanted involvement came from activists on the left. Now it comes from all across the political spectrum, as anti-science attitudes & techniques have diffused throughout society. In addition, conservative & religious forces lobby Congress & state legislatures against funding for major research projects of which they disapprove. This phenomenon represents a grave threat to both scientific freedom & the well being of modern society. The author gives us the first serious overview of this threat to behavioral & social science research. He illustrates precisely how scientific research has been subjected to political attack. The New Know-Nothings illustrates this phenomenon using in-depth case histories & background discussions of the conflicting social forces involved. It considers the prevalence of each form of opposition to research, using interviews with expert observers in the sciences & government. The author reviews the nature-nurture debate, biological contributions to gender differences, conservative opposition to sex research in the schools, the debate over the controlled drinking approach to alcoholism, animal rights versus scientists' rights to use animals in research, the controversy over day care, anthropological research needs versus the Native American repatriation of remains, & other cases. He argues that beyond the specific projects targeted, the most important thing threatened is the social valuation of scientific freedom. The belief that it is permissible & laudable to obstruct research is neo-Luddite, obscurantist, & anti-intellectual. This comprehensive, nonpartisan study is possibly the only book-length treatment of this important subject. It treats attacks on science from both the left & the right & is timely, lively, & accessible in style. It will be of interest to behavioral scientists & scientists in general, readers interested in the sciences & in social issues, & government policymakers.

Morton Hunt is adjunct professor of sociology at the State University of New York. Stony Brook