Scientific Values and Civic Virtues. Edited by Noretta
Koertge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 256p. $70.00 cloth,
$24.95 paper.
This interesting collection of essays is dedicated to the proposition
that the values essential for the functioning, indeed even the existence,
of a scientific community are by and large the very values necessary for
the sustenance and optimal functioning of a democratic society. To this
end, the book is divided into three sections: The first is devoted to
explicating the values entailed in any real scientific community and to
exploring the historical nexus between the development of civil society
and science; the second to illustrating the role of these values in
science through a number of case studies; and the third to the examination
and critique of contemporary anti- or pseudoscientific cultural movements
as threats not only to science but to civil society itself.