Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America

Turn-of-the-century Americans strongly believed that science--"disinterested" and authoritative--could help them to organize society and understand the natural world. Yet today, even scientists themselves are raising disturbing questions about the nature and practice of science. In Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America Ronald G. Walters brings together a distinguished group of contributors to reflect, often critically, on scientific and medical claims to moral, social, and political authority. Writing from a variety of perspectives--intellectual history, social history, feminist theory, philosophy, medical history, political theory, and visual analysis--the authors demonstrate that science no longer belongs exclusively to its practitioners or to any particular discipline.