lewenstein, public understanding of science in us after wwii

7/27/2019 Lewenstein, Public Understanding of Science in US After WWII

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Public Understand. ki I 45-68. Printed in the UK

The meaning of public understanding of science in theUnited States after World War I1BruceV.LewensteinIn the United S tates after World War 11, the term public understand ingof science becameequated with public appreciation of the benefits that science provides to society. Thisequation was the result of the independent, but parallel, social and institutional needs offour different group s with an interest in pop ularizing science: commercial publishers,scientific societies, science journalists, and government ap nc im . A new more critical eraof popular science began in the 1960s.

As a number of sociologists of science have shown, popular science can be understoodas part of a continuum of science communication.,*Yet historically, popular science-and especially science journalism, the part of popular science which presents sciencenews through the mass media-has been considered a process in which science istranslated into a new, simpler idiom.

Practitioners of this translation model claim that they create popular scbnce thatconsists entirely of technical information recast into words and images accessible topeople who do not have the specialized training and vocabulary of working scientists.Because popular science produced by the translation model focuses on technicalaspects of science, it rarely provides information about the social context of scientificactivity, and only incidentally explores the social implications of scientific knowledgeAs such, according to its critics, the translation model produces popular science whichcan be viewed as serving the institutional interests of science: if science is presented asan activity independent of social pressures, it can claim special treatment by the publicat

Practitioners, on the other hand, tend to present their motives in less Machiavellianterms. Most frequently, they claim that they are interested in general public under-standing of science, a goal which they present as neither good nor bad, but simplypart of the general enlightenment appropriate and necessary in the modern world.6They rarely specify precisely what they mean by understanding, however. Do theymean increasing the publics level of knowledge of particular scientific facts anddiscoveries? Do they mean increasing the publics grasp of the scientific method?Do they mean improving public attitudes toward science?Or do they mean increasingthe publics ability to criticize scientific institutions?

In this article, I will argue that in the United States in the generation after WorldWar 11, advocates of popular science who used the term understanding were in fact0963-6625/92/01010045+24 03.50 @ 1992 IOP Publishing Ltd and The Science Museum 45


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46 B. V. ewensteinseeking public appreciation of science. That is, they were seeking to improve theattitude of members of the public toward science as a body of knowledge, science as away of knowing about the world, scientists as individuals, and the particular requestsfor support and funding that came from scientific institutions. All of these concernswere lumped together under the label of 'science'. Advocates of popular science variedin their commitment to direct and indirect ways of achieving appreciation. Somepeople believed that increasing public knowledge about scientific discoveries wouldnecessarily yield better public appreciation, while others thought that popular scienceshould be aimed specifically at improving public attitudes toward science.

Regardless of the path to public appreciation that individuals advocated, however,I will show that they agreed in their overall equation of the term 'public understandingof science' with 'public appreciation for the benefits that science provides to society'.This agreement led to a significant coalition of groups advocating a commonapproach to popular science in the generation after World War 11. I will show thatthis coalition was strengthened by the social and institutional needs of the variousgroups with an interest in popular science, and that it represented a broad socialresponse to the need for information about science and technology in the modemworld.

so origins of popular seienceSince the nineteenth century, the United States had been developing a variety ofinstitutions devoted to presenting information about science to the general publicoutside of the formal educational system. The Lyceum and Chataqua movements,which offered short courses and lecture series on a variety of topics in citiesthroughout the country, were joined by less systematic public lectures in a thrivingpublic discourse throughout the nineteenth century. As literacy expanded, books andpamphlets about science began to appeal to broader audiences. Vigorous magazineshad developed that were devoted to presenting science to nonscientists, and news-papers were beginning to find science an appropriate topic to cover if they were toappeal to broad middle-class audiences.'-' By the late nineteenth century, the 'greatmen' of science had become renowned not only for their science, but also for theirability to present to the public their vision of a rational world ruled by science."Published material about science tended to reflect the need for science to establishitself as an objective, independent force in social affairs.

In the first decades of this century, scientific organizations discovered that organizednews bureaus and public relations campaigns could serve useful institutional purposes.The American Medical Association created its first news bureau in 1910, spurred by itscampaign against quacks and nostrums." Chemists used a variety of institutionalhomes to launch a 'Chemists' Crusade' that ran from World War I for nearly twentyyears.'* In 1920 three major institutions of American science (the American Associ-ation for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, and theNational Research Council) co-sponsored the founding of Science Service, a syndi-cated news service devoted to dissemination of objective and responsible informationabout science."By this time, science had acquired social authority. Everyone from radical social-ists to conservative politicians turned to objective science to justify their a~tivities.'.'~In addition, the practical benefits of science and technology were becoming widely


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Public understanding of science in the United States after World W ar I I 41accepted, and the confirmation of Albert Einsteins theories of relativity in 1919 andthe development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s provided new occasions for theintroduction of scientific ideas into general intellectual discourse.15In the 1920s and 1930s, journalists began to take up full-time science reporting.Spurred by the efforts of Science Service, several of the major newspapers andnewspaper chains had by the 1930s added full-time science writers to their staffs.By 1934, a dozen science journalists in the United States had discovered that they hadenough in common to create the National Association of Science Writers (NASW).Members of the NASW believed that it provided science writers with some legitimacyand recognition as an independent group with independent standards, both withinjournalism and among the scientific community. Despite its independence, the newscience journalism community continued to espouse beliefs welcome to the scientificcommunity. According to Watson Davis, longtime director of Science Service, Sciencereporting and interpretation does not accomplish its purpose if it does not bringabout an appreciation and a utilization of the method of science in everyday life..By the time World War I1 began, the NASWs size had more than tripled. As thepressures of specialization and growth in science began to restrict the ability ofscientists to he active popularizers themselves, this new community of science journaliststook on more and more of the responsibility and initiative in science popularization.18This became the context for popular science in the United States at the time of WorldWar 11. Although there had heen a tradition of great men of science who wouldlecture and write about science for the general public, that tradition had graduallybeen overtaken by the institutional needs of organizations such as the AmericanMedical Association and the American Chemical Society, and by the pressures ofspecialization and growth in science itself. As the war ended, a network of organiz-ations and journalists devoted to science was ready to respond to new opportunities.We shall see that four major groups did respond: commercial publishers, scientificassociations, science writers, and government agencies. But it is important first to seethe broader social context in which they responded.

After World War IlAs World War I1 ended, national leaders in the United States began to worry about apent up demand for information necessary for scientific progress and industrialapplications of our science by ind~stry.~here was considerable discussionabout the remolding of the world by science and technology, [and] zbout theimportance of the scientific method, one educator wrote in 1947. It was a time,according to historian Walter McDougall, when the spectacular achievements ofwartime R&D encouraged the belief that conscious application of ManhattanProject methods to problems of poverty, health, housing, education, transportation,and communication might eliminate material want?From that belief emerged a moral certainty about the social importance andefficacy of science, especially basic research. In his famous report Science-TheEndless Frontier, presidential adviser Vannevar Bush wrote that:

basic research is performed without thought of practical ends. It results ingeneral knowledge and an understanding of nature and its laws. Today it istruer than ever that basic research is the pacemaker of technological progress.


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48 E . V . LewensreinIn a New York Times essay, historian of science I. B. Cohen wrote that a member ofthe general public needed a full synthesis of scientific knowledge.

Above all, his reading must bring home the lesson that only by following aprogram of fundamental or basic research aimed at increasing knowledge-even if apparently for its own sake alone-will we in the end obtain the curesfor disease and the easier and better lives that the fruits of science will makepossible.23Moral certainty in the importance of science allowed leading scientists to focus on

meeting a demand for information about science despite a lack of evidence that thedemand existed. Astronomer Harlow Shapley, for example, claimed in a Harpersarticle that among the voters, it is becoming widely known that the basing ofconclusions on observations, on testing and logical reasoning, with a minimum ofemotional grasping and evading, is the scientific method. Reflecting his own concerns,Shapley continued: It is also the intelligent method. It works.24 Other scientistsentirely skipped the claim that a demand existed, merely assuming that because theybelieved in science, public interest should follow. Because applications of scienceplay so important a part in our daily lives, matters of public policy are profoundlyinfluenced by highly technical scientific considerations, wrote Harvard Universitypresident James Conant (who was trained as a chemist). Some understanding ofscience by those in positions of authority and responsibility as well as those who shapeopinion is therefore of importance for the national elfa are ?^ Democratic idealsloomed large in the rhetoric of popular science.

The scientists were not entirely alone in their commitment to basic science. TheNew Republic (a liberal magazine of political and social comment), for example,devoted part of a special issue on The State of the Union: A Program for LiberalAmerica to a defence of fundamental research.26A Business Week editorial pushed forpublic understanding of the nature of basic science because, it said, of the need toconstruct a way of financing research that would somehow avoid the stultifying ofbasic research by an insistence on early and visible profit from research generally,for basic research is by definition ~nprofi table .~~Gradually, the underlying consensus of scientific, cultural, business, and otherleaders led to the emergence of an ongoing concern with the problem of publicunderstanding of science?* Much of that concern can be traced in the New YorkTimes, which had long been committed to covering science as news. Science writerWilliam L. Laurence, for example, had achieved fame when the US Army selected himto provide the only first-hand accounts of the dropping of the atomic bomb. Now,after the war, he argued that the accurate and objective dissemination of science wasthe highest goal to which a writer could aspire, for such information would play amajor role in preserving our democratic society. In addition, one of the majorfunctions of science writing is to reduce the lag between discovery and application, hetold an audience of teachers. He said that penicillin, if discovered in 1950, would notlie forgotten and neglected in some technical publication for even 15 weeks, muchless 15 years. This, he said, provided a measure of the importance of addressing thepublics knowledge of science.z9

The New York Times also demonstrated its belief in the need for public under-standing by providing continuing coverage of developments in the field of publicunderstanding of science. A 1946notice on the first college course in science reportingand editing at New York University claimed that it had been organized to meet a


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Public understanding of science in the United States after World War t 49demand for trained science writers, which has grown out of the war. A 1947 itemreported the growth of lists of science hooks issued by libraries and selected with theaid of experts for readability as well as authoritative treatment of scientific subjectsto broaden science understanding.MTaken together, these expressions of concern about public understanding of sciencedo not demonstrate that a true demand existed. But they were pleas for additionalsupply that were falling on receptive ears. Few opposed the call for more popularscience, for it echoed and amplified a general concern in the public at large. Expressedmainly by scientists with a deeply felt, almost moral certainty in the power of scienceto address the worlds problems, the demand was accepted by the lay community. Noexplicit demand existed, however-only various individuals and groups advocatingvarious approaches to improving the public understanding of science.

Commercial publishersThe first people to take action on the implied demand for popular science werecommercial magazine publishers. Almost alone among the advocates of popularscience, they explicitly thought that demand for popular science could be defined ineconomic, rather than moral, terms. In 1946 McGraw-Hill, one of the largest andmost powerful technical trade publishers in New York, created Science INustruted, aglossly monthly magazine in which the average citizen [could] find in his own terms areporting or an interpreting of what the scientists are doing, what they are beginningwhich will soon be affectingour live^ .^ . ^The founders of Science IIIusfruted were motivated by the desire for profits: theyproduced a variety of internal reports showing how to structure a new magazine forthe best financial returns. But their reasoning was based on the same moral certaintyin the power of science as was being expressed by scientists, by business leaders, andby prominent political figures. In virtually every move an individual makes these daysis reflected the work and products of our science, wrote J . K. Lasser, a consultant tothe magazine. Like other prominent Americans, Lasser drew on the experience ofWorld War 11:

Since scientists set the pattern for the war, they would also set the pattern forthe peace. Their hands are on such vital controls that their dominant influencewas inevitable. And yet the mental processes, the terminology, objectives, andmeans of the scientific world were as remote as the stars from the average~itizen.3~Accepting the common view that technology flows from scientific knowledge, Lasserdescribed the need for a new magazine without identifying a specific demand that theneed be met. He argued that an informed public could control the products ofscience. He told the McGraw-Hill board of directors that:

a gap existed between science and the public which was both disturbing to thescientist and dangerous to the public-dangerous because the products ofscience must be dealt with by informed people if the consequences were to hesocially useful rather than wasteful. This gap was one of the most remarkabledefects in public inf~rmat ion. ~


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B. V.LewensteinOver the next four years McGraw-Hill pumped nearly five million dollars intoScience Illustrated, attempting to reach a circulation of one million, which was thesame as Popular Science Monthly, the most obvious competitor (although it served avery different audience from that McGraw-Hill hoped to reach). That was a lot of

magazines: Life magazine at the time had a circulation of about five million; The NewYorker had 300000.Even today, most popular science magazines in the United Stateshave circulations of under one million.35Science Illustrated had a strong start, selling nearly I50000 copies of its first issueon the news-stands. But then the McGraw-Hill staff made a series of blunders, froman insufficient distribution network to an unfocused editorial stance. The covers of thefirst issues revealed the indecision: the first three were montages, made up of picturestaken from inside the magazine. At a glance, each was indistinguishable from the last.Finally, in a desperate attempt to regain readers, the fourth issue featured a scantily-clad, buxom young lady reclining provocatively on the beach, representing a story onultraviolet radiation and suntans. The following issue took up the theme of sex evenmore blatantly, displaying a new bathing beauty atop a bright red motor scooter-anillustration with essentially no tie to the contents of the magazine, only to athree-sentence new-product announcement near the back.36 Though the risque coverphotos undoubtedly drew in some readers, they also probably alienated many of themore intellectual readers and advertisers. Forty years later, a series of publishingexecutives from both inside and outside McGraw-Hill commented derisively on thecove~s.~At the time, advertisers were already unsure about how to economically reach theleaders of the post-war community. Many advertisers accepted the rhetoric describingthe post-war world as one based on science, and they had originally hoped that .~Science Illustrated might provide a route for getting to the leaders of the n world.However, the instability in Science Illustrateds format and direction undermined beliefsbased solely on rhetoric and reinforced the advertisers uncertainties. Advertisers andagencies at the time of the launching announcement practically universally acceptedwith enthusiasm the publishing premise of Science Illustrated as sound, timely, andone that would be successful, wrote advertising manager George Red eaman. Butthere was widespread disappointment and criticism of the editorial execution andappearance of the early issues.3s The advertisers turned away from the magazine, andthe next few years were not easy ones for McGraw-Hill or Science I l l ~ s t r a t e d . ~ ~While McGraw-Hill, the experienced trade publisher, was struggling to reach aconsumer audience, two journalists trained in mass-circulation publications weretaking exactly the opposite approach, aiming at a small, carefully circumscribedtechnical audience. Gerard Piel and Dennis Flanagan were Life magazine editors whosaw a need to serve the need of the scientist, the engineer, the doctor, the educator,and the intelligent layman for information concerning the progress of science, engineer-ing, and medicine in all their branches and in their application at the social andeconomic level to the lives of all men. Defining the common denominator of thisaudience [as] the interested layman: the scientific professional who is a layman indepartments outside his own, Piel and Flanagan called their project one of popularscience p~ b l i s h i n g . ~ ~The definition of a layman used by Piel and Flanagan is a very tightly drawn one.Piel, Flanagan, and their partners were not altruistic. They recognized that success-ful commercial publications depended on advertising revenue. But unlike ScienceIllustroted, they chose to limit their audience, to define popular science in such a way


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Public understunding of science in the United Stares after World War I1 51that their business would not depend on reaching an audience with only a tenuousinterest in science. As a result, they thought they could appeal more directly to theindustrial advertisers who would be most interested in reaching the post-war techno-cratic elite.

Although the partners initially planned to start a new magazine from scratch (theyhad a dummy already laid out, using the title The Sciences), they ended up buying the103-year-old Scientific American and pasting its logo on top of their dummy. The firstissue of the new Scienrific American came out in May 1948.40

The magazine focused almost entirely on reporting new developments in science.Each issue contained stories from the three main divisions of science-physical,biological, and social-as well as stories on engineering and medicine. Flanagan, whoserved as editor, interpreted science widely and published stories on cybernetics, theH-bomb, the economic relations of science, the National Science Foundation, and thehistory of science (in addition to more traditional science topics such as particlephysics, the biology of aging, and the relationship between temperature and life)? Buthis vision of how to present science did not extend to essays or reflections on scientificmethod. Piel and Flanagan, as with other science writers, believed that the best way tostimulate the scientific approach was not to advocate it explicitly, but to present thefindings of science in comprehensible, responsible form. Science, they were convinced,was so obviously crucial to the modern world that presenting it intelligently wouldmake its relevance and implications for society immediately a~paren t . ~ .~*hemagazine was, in essence, a monument to the vision of science as saviour of the

Like so many others engaged in supporting or producing popular science, Piel andFlanagan felt an almost missionary zeal to demonstrate the value of science foraddressing the problems of the day. We believe, they had written in a prospectus,that without such information [about scientific discoveries], modern man has only thehaziest idea of how to act in behalf of his own happiness and welfare, or that of hisown family and community. They continued, We certainly have a point of view. It isthat we are for science. With the men of science, we agree that human want istechnologically obsolete.M It is not surprising that with opinions like these thepartners found the scientific community eagerly supporting them. In 1946, more than60 well-known scientists had responded to a call for letters of end0rsement.4~Later,one scientist called the new Scientific American an extraordinarily good journal, toogood to survive I almost fear?6By 1949, it was clear that McGraw-Hill had made a mistake in aiming ScienceI h s t r a t e d at the mass consumer audience. The advertising dollars to support it justwerent there. Despite its rhetorical claim to interest in the mental processes, theterminology, objectives, and means of the scientific world, Science INustrated hadbecome a gadget and gee-whiz publication. That wasnt the way to attract industrialadvertisers. In June 1949, Science I h s f r a f e dannounced that it was f0lding.4~

For Piel and Flanagan, however, the missionary approach to the technocratic Cliteproved profitable, precisely because that was the audience the new industrial adver-tisers wanted to reach. Although i t took several years, and more than twice the initialinvestment of 450,000, by 1951 the new Scientific American was financially profitableand embarked on a thoroughly successful publishing track.40,48

Thus for the first group-commercial publishers-successful popular sciencemeant disseminating scientific knowledge to a well-educated technocratic elite. Focus-ing on an M e audience was quite different from the mass audience that rhetoric


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52 B. V . Lewensteinabout popular science often described, and the emphasis on translating technicalknowledge required assuming that understanding would automatically lead toappreciation. The commercial publishers found their success by preaching to theconverted.

The scientifc communityThe technocratic appeal of successful popular science was not lost on the secondgroup that responded to the demand for popular science: the scientific community.Piel and Flanagan knew that. In 1949, when they nearly ran out of money, they hadapproached both the Geological Society of America and the American Association forthe Advancement of Science (AAAS) for help. Pitching their project as one funda-mentally directed to the scientific community, they had asked both organizations form0ney.4~

Neither organization agreed to help. Nonetheless, the scientific societies did seepopularization as one of their goals. That became most explicit at the AAAS, which in1951 adopted a new policy statement, known as the Arden House statement, thatcalled for the Association to focus on broad, synthetic issues in science. The emphasison over-all problems, said the Arden House statement,

demands that the AAAS not only recognize but attack the broader externalproblem of the relation of science to society. It seems to us necessary that theAAAS now begin to take seriously one statement of purpose that has longexisted in its constitution. To quote: The objects of the American Associationfor the Advancement of Science are to increase public understanding andappreciation of the importance and promise of the methods of science in humanprogress.5o

Written by Rockefeller Foundation officer Warren Weaver, who was then an activemember of the AAAS board, the Arden House statement recognized the difficultiesofpursuing the goal. But, Weaver argued, in our modern society it is absolutely essentialthat science-the results of science, the nature and importance of basic research, themethods of science, the spirit of science-be better understood by governmentofficials, by businessmen, and indeed by all the people. Weaver stressed that theattendants at the Arden House Conference did not intend that this statement beviewed as a polite rephrasing which suggests only minor changes. Instead, it calledfor active reassessment and redirection of AAAS, away from technical topics andtoward more synthetic issues within science and more concern with improving theattitude and support for science among members of the nonscientific ~ommunity.~Again, Weavers goal was to use public presentations of scientific information as away of strengthening both the intellectual and social authority of science.

Over the next four years, as the AAAS attempted to define what its precise policiesshould be, programmes for the mass media and for mass public education regularlyappeared in the deliberations. These included: renewed attention to The ScientificMonth1.v. a AAAS magazine directed largely to tcaihers and scientists reading forpleasure in fields outside their own; book projects intended for general readers;expanded support for reporters at the Associations annual meetings; and increases inthe number of synthetic or general-interest sessions at the annual meeting^.^


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Public understanding ofscience in rhe United Srares after World War 11 53Many members of the AAAS supported the new initiatites, drawing on the samemoral certainty in the efficacy of science used by scientists, commercial publishers andothers in their calls for more popular science. If we can, as scientists, become wellenough organized and our knowledge of the great problems of the day be recognized

as having more weight than the opinions of pressure groups and selfish politicians,wrote one engineering professor, we would make a very important contribution tonational welfare. Another scientist wrote that I take it as needing no argument thatthe importance of science to t he national welfare, an d the consequent imperative needfor the people and their elected representatives to understand something of howscience operates, makes such public education the prime d uty of the AAAS.But a significant block of AAAS members worried that attention to the broaderpublic would dilute the associations technical core. If we lose contact with thebedrock of specialized research, wrote one, we , run the dange r of shallow, vapid,unfounded generalizations. Be our integrators ever so careful, if they operate withoutthe sharp light of detailed investigations they may fall into facile dilettantism.Howard Meyerhoff, the Associations administrative secretary (who led the Associ-ation on a day-to-day basis), sided with this block, and in a 1953 editorial blastedthose who would redirect Association activities. Where else but at a AAAS con-vention, he asked.

can engineers, biologists, psychologists, industrialists, physical scientists, andpublic leaders assemble to consider Disaster Recovery? Or the Interface ofLand and Sea? Or Problems of the Pacific Rim? It is not the Association thatlags, but those who fail to comprehend the scope and impact of its currentprogram. Intellectual bankruptcy and deterioration will indeed set in if theAAAS turns from programming important science merely to ballyhooing theimportance of ~cience.~

Although Meyerhoffs concern about the distinction between public education andpublic relations reflected an understanding that the moral certainty of the scientistswas not universally shared, his advocacy of this position was sharply limited by aseries of personal conflicts with other AAAS leaders. In March 1953, he abruptlyresigned from the Association. The resulting turmoil took until 1955 to resolve, andconsequently few of the initial plans for increasing the public understanding of scienceactivities were im ~l em en ted .~After 1955, the AAAS chose not to implement the Arden House policy statementwith grand programmatic leaps. Instead, i t explicitly opted to judge the programmesan d initiatives tha t it ran across in th e normal co urse of events by w hether or not theycontributed to Arden House goals. Arden House activities were no longer treated assomething in addition to or parallel with the rest of th e Associations responsibilities,structure, and activities, wrote the new administrative secretary (later, executiveofficer), Dael Wolfle, in a 1989 memoir. Instead, they became integral parts of AAASplanning and a~ tivi ty .~Among the programmes that evolved were popular book series, co-operativerelationships with television producers, internal public relations offices, co-ordinatedactivities with science journalists, and changes in the structure and content of theannual meetings. These programmes were justified by the same belief in the moralsuperiority of science that others had expressed earlier. One memo said that theconcerns of the Arden House conference had been validated by events (withoutspecifying which events). Echoing phrases used since the advent of institutionalized


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54 B. V. Lewensreinpopular science around World War I (and still appearing today), the memo said thatin recent years,

the direct results of scientific research have become of increasingly immediateconcern to the public. Yet, there has occurred a simultaneous decline in thepublic influence of the scientist, and public education about science, whichmust ultimately come from the scientists, has suffered. There is, therefore, anunprecedented need for bringing science to the public, which has not yet beenmet by means adequate to the task, or to the opport~nit ies.~

One AAAS staff member, John Behnke, described a vision of popular science that sawscience as essentially different from the individual sciences. He implied that sciencewas morally better than virtually any other topic, including the specific sciences suchas chemistry and physics. Each special organization has vested interests and acircumscribed field which it, consciously or unconsciously, must sell, he wrote. TheAAAS on the other hand, could and should be selling science in its broadest andhighest sense. Most organizations focused on new gadgets and discoveries, Behnkeclaimed. We have a deeper interest and a special role in educating the public inbaric science. This should be the keystone and the keynote of our program.

Behnke served as the staff member most intimately involved in the AAAS popularscience activities, and he helped initiate several series of popular science books and,when those series proved difficult to sustain, a book distribution system. He alsoco-ordinated the creation of an internal press office and contacts with editors andbroadcast programmes. In 1957, he helped prepare proposals to seek funds forworking with newspaper, magazine, radio, television, and motion picture authors andproducers in ways that would help to guide their presentations concerning science.This guiding help would not be entirely neutral, the AAAS proposals noted, for thestaff member involved would push popular science products in the directions that[his] knowledge and experience and his contacts with the scientific communityindicate would be the most desirable, Behnkes certainty in the value of sciencebrooked no doubts. To him, as to other members of the scientific community, anyactivities that increased public knowledge of technical scientific information werenecessarily good for society.In 1960, the AAAS hired E. G. Sherburne, who had experience in educationaltelevision, to direct its public understanding of science activities. Using money raisedfrom the Sloan Foundation, to which Warren Weaver had moved as an executive,Sherburne helped television producers create specials from AAAS annual meetings,arranged for seminars on science to be presented to newspaper editors and reporters,and supplied information to producers of television drama shows (hoping to interestthem in including science on television). The response from television producers was sogood that Sherbumes boss, executive officer Dael Wolfle, seriously contemplated open-ingAAAS offices in Hollywood and New York to serve the television ~ommunity.~Despite the broad reach of these activities, the AAAS was careful to maintain astance that supported the primacy of science in public affairs. By the beginning of the1960s, the early environmental and antinuclear movements had begun to grow;political and social concerns were developing that suggested that science, rather thansolving problems, might be creating them. Science was coming under attack.60 In thatcontext, the AAAS hoard responded cautiously in 1963, when AAAS staff memberDaniel Greenberg proposed establishing a new magazine to cover the general area ofscience policy. Warren Weaver, then a senior statesman in the AAAS was pleased


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Public understanding o/science in the United States a/ter World W ar I I 5 5with the project and warned that it would be fatal if [the magazine] started out withthe arrogant premise that scientists are always right (on public as well as scientificmatters). T he majority of the A A A S board, however, was concerned ab ou t dilutingscientific authority; i t was especially disturbed by Greenbergs highlighting in aprototype issue of the phrase science is too important to be left solely to thescientists. In an angry discussion sparked by the phrase, the AAAS board voted toterminate plans for the magazine.61The AAAS is only one example of the many scientific organizations that workedclosely with reporters and expressed a commitment to public understanding of sciencein the years after World War 11. As noted earlier, the Geological Society of Americahad expressed interest in the Scientif ic American. In 1956 the American Institute ofPhysics established a new office of information and public relations, and hired awell-known science writer to run it . Thro ugho ut the 194Os, 195Os, and 196Os, organiz-atio ns such as the A merican Chemical Society and the Am erican M edical Associationcontinued to actively sup po rt their press offices an d related activites.62But the AAAS was certainly the major scientific organization to make publicunderstanding of science a b asic organ izing tenet of its operation . I t expressed broadergoals than did the publishers of Scienrif ic Ame rican, claiming that it wanted to reachan audience not fundamentally or professionally interested in science. Nonetheless, itscommitment to the ideology that science was purely a social good led it to initiativesthat the technocratic &litewould almost certainly support. As with the commercialpublishers, the AAAS proved successful with programmes that proclaimed the benefitsof science to all of humanity. And although these activities were clearly motivated bythe phrase public appreciation in the official AAAS charter, the activities werecarried out under the label of public understanding, thus allowing the AAAS toclaim tha t it was responding t o a post-war dema nd for more po pul ar science.

Science w ritersBy stressing the distinct visions of these groups, I do not mean to imply that thevisions were incompatible. Link s often existed between scientific organization s such a sthe AAAS and commercial publishers such as Gerard Piel (who in the 1980s wouldserve as president and chairman of AA AS). In a similar way, there were links betweenboth of those groups a nd th e third group: the science writing comm unity.In working with the media, AAAS executive officer Wolfle told his board ofdirectors, we have chosen to co-operate on leverage projects where we work withthe mass media staffs, rather than trying to r each the pub l i c d i rec t ly o~ rse lves .~~Wolfle an d oth er A AA S leaders reasoned tha t helping professional science writers wasmore productive than trying to write, produce, and distribute material completelyfrom scratch. This leverage was relatively easy to exert, because the National Associ-at ion of Science Writers (NA SW ) was a formal affiliate of the A AA S.Although the NASW had been created in the early 1930s it ha d only 63 membersa t the end of World Wa r 11. But by 1950 that number had doubled. I t doubled againby 1955, an d almost again by 1960, when the NASW h ad 413 members.64Its memberswere committed to promoting science as the saviour of the world. It is not enoughth at scientists discover and invent, wrote G eorge W . G ray , a science writer who ha dbeen called one of the ablest popularizers of science writing in English. Instead, G ra ywrote, it is absolutely essential to balanced progress and social welfare and equilib-


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56 B. V . Lewensteinrium that their results be interpreted into the vernacular and made a part of thethinking as well as the doing and acting of ci~i l izat ion.~~

The NASW was an organization devoted to obtaining wider prestige and respectfor the profession of science writing, and to promoting the overall prestige of NASWas the spokesman for the entire field of science journalism in this country. TheNASW had a rigid rule requiring substantial experience in covering science beforegranting membership, thus limiting its membership to those with proven professionalcredentials. In addition, to protect the NASWs claim to unbiased journalism (a funda-mental commitment of American journalism at the time), it pushed several membersinto associate or honorary categories when they began working as public relationsofficers for scientific organizations. Another way of promoting professionalism was aseries of seminars for which science writers would receive credits, much as teachers inthe US today get continuing education credits that count toward salary increases andprofessional promotion and status. In 1953, the NASW arranged to have a prestigiousaward for medical journalism presented at the meetings of the American Society ofNewspaper Editors (instead of at the American Medical Association meetings). Thethinking in this case is that presentations before such groups would stress the value ofscience writing more directly to editors and publishers, said a notice of the arrange-ment. Through activities such as these, the organization was largely concerned withmaintaining both the image and reality of professionalism.66

As the NASW grew in the years after World War 11, it began to organize itscampaign for respectability on a broader scale. One element of that campaign was theN A S W News le f f e r , first published in 1952. On the very first page of the first issue ofthe newsletter, editor John Pfeiffer wrote that Some medical and technical journalsapparently are not aware that NASW exists, which was leading to occasionaleditorials which criticize American science reporting in vague, sweeping terms andthrow off uncomplimentary comments as if there were no organization ready topresent the facts. The NASW was ready to defend its members with informationabout the facts of science writing-and also to defend science writers dedication tothe facts of science.6

Members of the NASW periodically complained that scientists did not like toco-operate with the press, and that editors did not like to print responsible sciencenews (that is, science news with the caveats and explanations that science writers,conditioned by their commitment to scientific ideals, believed were necessary). But theNASW itself provided evidence to the contrary on both charges.

On the scientific side, the N A S W Newsle t ter frequently reported on the co-operationNASW members received from various scientific organizations, such as the CaliforniaMedical Association and the American Psychological Association, as well as therelatively high opinion that many scientists held of newspaper science reporting. Inone survey, for example, nearly 95% of the researchers responded favourably tostories publicizing their work.68 In retrospect, it is easy to see that many scientists-especially leaders of the community like Warren Weaver-understood the value ofgood public relations. Studies of the American physics and chemistry communities, ofthe National Institutes of Health, and even of individual scientists like biochemistWendell Stanley, have shown that.69 But even at the time, a 1952 NASW survey ofAmerican scientists (reported in the NASW Newsle t ter ) revealed that more than halfgave unqualified support to contemporary newspaper reporting of science develop-ments. Another survey found that 86% of the scientists polled believed that sciencestories in the newspapers were reasonably accurate.


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Public understanding of science in the United Slates after World War I I 57Evidence compiled by NASW suggested that charges against editors were also

exaggerated. A 1950 survey of newspaper managing editors found that 85% of themhad increased the amount of science covered by their papers by at least 50% in theprevious decade. Much of that news came from medicine, public health, atomicenergy, agriculture, new inventions for the home, and aviation. But nearly 20% ofthe editors reported that basic research was a special interest of their^.^

To a degree, the NASWs campaign for respectability worked. Science writerscame to be a distinct-and at least partially elite-group within journalism. Twomembers of the Association were called as representatives of science writing to testifybefore Congress during hearings about science and secrecy. Journalism school thesesbegan to address science reporting in the American press. And in 1956, the N A S WNewsletter reported that President Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted as plausible theidea of appointing an NASW representative to the board of the new Library ofMedicine. This doesnt mean, of course, that NASW has won a seat ., said anNASW officer. But it does point out one way we can gain official recognition topromote the overall prestige of NASW as the spokesman for the entire field of sciencejournalism in this country.72

Indeed, the campaign for elite status worked so well that one general news reportercomplained that science writers gave me the impression that they looked down theirnoses at me. They gave me nasty looks when I asked some dumb question, but, Hell,1 had to make sure I knew what the guy was talking about. Sometimes they talked asthough they were more interested in showing the scientist what they knew than infinding out what he knew. An active NASW member concurred, adding, My God,sometimes youd think [science writers] had invented science and were doing all theresearch personally rather than just writing about it and interpreting

Not only did the science writers form an Clite, but they viewed themselves asadvocates for science. In 1955, when it still appeared that the AAAS might neverimplement its Arden House policies, John Pfeiffer-by now president of NASW-wrote that it seems clear that the AAAS is not likely to take the leadership or evento spark developments in such matters. That leaves things up to the NASW. Herecommended that NASW find out whatever became of those ambitious plans forexpanded public relations in science. After that, we might consider how thenations science writers and editors, working with the AAAS, could help get thingsunder way.

And the science writers concerns about accuracy reinforce the picture of reportersmore concerned with accepting the scientists judgment than their own. When a pro-posed NASW ethics code included a commitment to factually correct information,two members proposed adding a requirement that scientists be given an opportunityto read and comment on manuscripts. Citing their own experience, freelance magazinewriters Ed and Ruth Brecher said that the number of errors we have avoided [bysubmitting manuscripts for review] must by now run into the hundreds-many ofthem not errors of fact hut of emphasis. Though the Brechers expressed confidencethat most of the corrections make little difference to editors or readers, i t is notablethat professional journalists found occasion to believe that matters of news emphasisshould be left up to the scientists instead of the news professional^.^^To members of the NASW, better science writing meant more science writing. Justas the commercial publishers and scientists believed that increasing the amount ofinformation available about science would automatically improve the publics attitudetoward science, so the science writers believed that increased information would lead


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58 B. V . Lewensleinto greater support for science. Understanding and support were so often linked instatements by NASW leaders that they are hard to disentangle, leading to theconclusion that the leaders saw little difference in the terms. One N A S W N e w s k t e ritem reported that:

NASW members may be called on increasingly for advice on scientific edu-cation in foreign countries. During the spring, Watson Davis [director ofScience Service] visited Cairo cooperating with the Egyptian Ministry ofEducation. Premier Nassers government has thus officially recognized thatscience journalism must play a significant role in its plans to modernize itsnation and win public support for research and te c h n ~ l o g y . ~ ~

Two years later, the NASWs 1958 president, John Troan, said that one of his majorgoals was to Promote greater recognition of science writing as a majorcommunications skill which can be drawn on for expert advice in formulatingprograms designed to encourage support and understanding of the basic aims of all~cience.~

Despite these commitments to the scientific worldview, the NASW did take abroader view of the audience for popular science than did either the commercialpublishers or the AAAS. During a 1956 meeting between AAAS and NASW repre-sentatives, AAAS leaders worried that aiming information at the general mass ofnewspaper readers, and TV and movie viewers necessarily involved a dilution anddistortion of scientific information. After the meeting, NASW president Pfeifferconcluded that AAAS efforts are being devoted exclusively to an audience consider-ably smaller than all the people [the phrase used in the Arden House statement]-an audience of scientists and intelligent, responsible laymen. Nothing is plannedfor the 50000000 or more people who obtain their science news from the newspaperscience reporters, press services, and popular magazines. Pfeiffer recommended thatNASW sever its affiliate relationship with AAAS, though the NASW did not pursuethe idea.78

To achieve its goals, the NASW frequently sought foundation funding. Onceagain, Warren Weaver proved to be a faithful friend of science writing. From 1955 to1958, he committed Rockefeller Foundation funds to three separate surveys of news-paper readers, each intended to elicit information about the demand for science news.These surveys revealed strong demand and-after the Sputnik debacle, which led to anoutcry in the United States about losing the space race to the Communists-a strongneed for more science ~ r i t i ng . ~

In the late 1950s, the science writers found that they needed to put more organ-izational resources into the promotion of science writing than a professional member-ship organization could sustain. So they created in 1960 a new, nonprofit foundationcalled the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW). At first theCASW was just an extension of the NASW, listing its purpose as the interpretation ofscience and its meaning to society. But within a year the CASW bad become evenmore committed to treating science as the scientists would like to have it treated.A revised statement of purpose was explicit about the underlying conviction that moreinformation about scientific developments was the key to improving the publicsappreciation of science, linking the word understanding with appreciation. The newstatement called for increasing the quantity and quality of scientific information inthe public press. Such information would heighten the publics understanding andappreciation of scientific enterprises.80


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Public understanding ofs cience in the United States af fe r World War I1 59In another example of the constant linking of understanding with appreci-

ation, CASW president Earl Ubell told one correspondent that the CASW is not onlywilling but anxious to help any organization arrange programs or get going on otheractivities which would increase the flow of scientific information to science writersand to the public.8 Ubell and others clearly believed that the vitality of sciencein a democracy depends in large measure upon public appreciation of science-appreciation that science writers could provide.82

The CASW owed much of its initial momentum to, once again, Warren Weaver.Weaver had reached the Rockefeller Foundations mandatory retirement age, but hewas immediately recruited by the Sloan Foundation (which, then being run by the85-year-old Alfred Sloan, had no retirement age). The CASW applied to him formoney, saying that its activities would change the climate of appreciation forscientists and the scientific enterprise. He provided 1 10,000 to support sciencewriting seminars over the organizations first three year^.^ .^^

To decode the historical meaning of the term public understanding of sciencerequires understanding Warren Weavers vision of popular science. Luckily, Weaverwrote in 1960 a wonderful discussion of some of the philosophy that underlies theCASW.84 In that piece, called A Great Age for Science, Weaver argued that it isimperative that the individual citizens of our democracy have an improved under-standing of what science is, how it operates, and the circumstances that make itprosper. Why? Because dealing with the difficult and important social and politicalproblems that involved science (such as nuclear weapons, air and water pollution, andthe population explosion) required scient,ific knowledge-and these problems, in ademocracy, must be the concern of the citizen. Weaver also noted the financialdemands that science now made on government agencies, and the corresponding needfor political support. Finally, he discussed the problem of the two cultures, whichC. P. Snow had recently defined, arguing that all citizens would be given a richer innerlife if they could have a chance to appreciate the true nature of science and thescientific attitude.

It would be easy to label Weavers words as merely rhetoric and to wonder abouthis real motivation. Weaver was a scientist and represented the scientific community;he can be expected to have supported his colleagues for both economic and socialreasons. But i t may be overly cynical to not believe that Weaver and his contem-poraries would act on deeply held beliefs. Weaver clearly could not conceive of asituation in which it was not appropriate for science to prosper. To him, scienceis nottechnology, it is not gadgetry, it is not some mysterious cult, i t is not a greatmechanical monster. Science is an adventure of the human spirit. It is an essentiallyartistic enterprise ~ based largely on faith in the reasonableness, order, and beautyof the universe of which man is partB5

For Weaver, and for people such as Gerard Piel, a simple and fundamentalpatriotism motivated the concern that the United States-especially a democraticUnited States-should not fall behind in science. The triumph of good over evil inWorld War I1 reinforced the belief in basic American democratic ideals, and sociologistRobert Merton had recently enunciated the equation of science with those ideals.(Merton, who had been one of Piels tutors at Harvard, first published his famousnorms of science in an article called Science and Technology in a Democratic Order.)It was an easy step for Weaver to complete the syllogism and argue that support ofAmerica required support of the scientific enterprise86 And Weaver firmly believedthat the most productive way to support science was to support basic research. The


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60 B. V.Lewensfeinwhole history of science, he claimed, shows most impressively that the scientists whoare motivated by curiosity, by a driving desire to know,are usually the ones who makethe deepest, the most imaginative, and the most revolutionary discoveries-and thosewhich eventually turn out to he the most practical? Since Weaver acknowledgedthe growing governmental role in providing material support for science, and since, ina democracy, the decision to provide that support rested ultimately with the entirepopulation, he concluded with the vague and yet all-encompassing recommendationthat We should vastly increase and improve all ways of giving every citizen a betterunderstanding of science.88

Despite Weavers goal of reaching the entire citizenry, and the apparently similargoal of the science writers, the CASW continued to aim some of its efforts above theheads of those it hoped to reach. After its first couple of annual science writerseminars, one editor complained that the programme is rather on the sophisticatedside for achieving its goal of bringing deeper understanding of science. In general, hewrote, the improvement of science writing by qualified writers is a worthy goal. But Iwould he more interested in trying to reach the unqualified, the general assignmentman covering science part-time. These are the people whose eyes can he opened byan exposure to science.89

Although science writers were affected by these limitations, they clearly had abroader definition of the audience for popular science than did the commercialpublishers or the scientific societies. But their vision of public understanding wassimilar: it was inextricably linked to the desire to promote the public appreciation ofscience and its benefits. Once again, a different group had arrived via a differentroute-to the same place.Government agenciesThe sense of interlocking directorates and parallel interests continues in the history ofhow US government agencies responded to the demand for popular science. First, thesame people keep appearing in the story, especially NASW members. In 1949, one ofNASWs first members, Herbert Nichols, left his job as science editor of the ChristianScience Monitor to become public information officer for the United States GeologicalSurvey. A few years later, in 1956, another of NASWs original members, JaneStafford, finished 30 years of reporting for Science News and moved to the publicinformation office of the National Institutes of Health. In 1957, a new NASWmember, Howard Lewis, helped the National Academy of Science set up its publicinformation office. He was motivated by a deep revulsion against the shallowness ofmost fields outside of science. He said he hoped to use his new position to further thenotion that a knowledge of scientific method is one of the mightiest weapons againstmyth and ignorance, the twin sources of evil in the world.90

The most important figure to reappear, however, was Warren Weaver. In thespring of 1958 (just half a year after Sputnik) while serving on the National ScienceFoundations (NSF) board of directors, Weaver criticized the lack of attention thatthe NSF was giving to public informational activities. Within a month, NSF staffhad prepared plans for a Public Understanding of Science programme with a budgetof 1.5 m i l l i ~ n . ~ . ~ ~

The NSF plan was motivated by the same moral certainty in science that hadcharacterized earlier responses to the demand for information about science. TheNSF, said the document proposing the new programme,


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Public understanding ofscience in the United Slates after World War I I 61must develop programs designed to arouse citizens to the need for re-examiningtheir attitude toward science and science education. Through such improvedpublic understanding a basis will be created for a sound national policy toimprove science and education. Enlightened national policy toward science andeducation will quickly evolve when citizens-particularly parents, are preparedto act on the basis of incontrovertible facts.93

The NSF staff identified the new plan with President Eisenhowers recent charge to thePresidents Committee for Scientists and Engineers to publicize the problem [of publicknowledge about science] and possible solutions in order to stimulate widespreadunderstanding and support-a charge that had once again tied increased knowledgeto the goals of improved public attitudes and thus supp0rt.9~The new plan wasadopted, apparently without debate, and by the fall of 1959, the NSF was activelysupporting conferences for science writers, newspaper editors, and others.The NSF was not alone in its response to advisers like Weaver who advocatedpopular science, although some advisers were less broad-minded in their visions. Whenthe Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established in 1947, its General AdvisoryCommittee urged it to adopt a policy of active dissemination of information, particu-larly to further the goal of convincing the nation that atomic energy could play animportant role in peaceful projects. Such a policy would allow the AEC to control theimage of atomic energy, the General Advisory Committee suggested, because it wouldremove pernicious public misconceptions such as those current on the power aspectsof atomic energy and super bombs.95Despite the clearly self-serving nature of the AECs activities, science writersapproved of its work. The New York Times praised one of its first projects as a hroad-scale public seminar in just what the atom is all about. Volta Torrey, a prominentmember of the NASW, also praised the AEC, saying that good science writers thinkof their periodicals as channels of communication between the specialists and thepublic and are constantly trying to improve them. He called the physicists who oftenhelped science writers explain nuclear science missionaries for science, expressingapproval of their activities?6Most of these government activities (such as the United States Geological Surveyand the National Institutes of Health press offices) could reasonably be considered as

public relations for the agency involved. Indeed, one crusader tried in 1963 to pillorythe NSF for its support of science writing junkets. But the NSFs goals were different.Although the original response to Weavers demand for a programme was written bythe NSFs public relations officer, the NSF quickly removed the programme from hisoffice, for it recognized the inherent conflict between public relations and education.The NSFs goal was not public relations for the NSF. It was public relations forscience as a whole. The same was true at the AEC, where the goal was also clearly notpublic relations for the agency itself, but public relations for the field of atomicenergy.97We can best understand these activities as formal government commitments to thesame ideal as that held by the scientists and the science writers: to disseminatescientific information for the purpose of increasing public appreciation for science. TheNSF argued thatprogress in science depends largely upon public understanding and support ofadequate programs of science education and basic research. With few excep-tions, the adult public learns little about science other than that which is


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62 B. V . Lewensreinconcerned with the more spectacular results of applied research and tech-nology. As a consequence, very few of our adult citizens acquire an adequateunderstanding of the role of basic research and science education and theirrelation to further progress in engineering and technology9*In government, just as in the other groups that responded to the demand forpopular science, the concept of public understanding of science came to mean

committing resources to improving the publics appreciation of the benefits thatscience provides.

Conclu oaBy the early 1960s, four major groups had responded to the post-war demand forpopular science, each for its own reasons. Each group-the commercial publishers,the scientific organizations, the science writers, and the govemment agencies-definedpublic understanding of science in slightly different ways, to serve their own needs.

Yet each group, despite different rationales, adopted similar definitions, focusingon disseminating technical information about the discoveries of science. It seemed toeach of these groups that this was what the public-whatever public they happened tobe talking about-wanted. And this was a field in which what the producers ofinformation defined as wanted was what got produced, with little sense of what thevarious publics might choose on their own. Each definition focused on promoting anuppreciution of science, and especially the benefits of science to society. Though muchof the rhetoric of these groups talked about improving the publics understanding ofthe relationships between science and society, in practice they meant improving thepublics uppreciution of the benefits that society received from science.

Thus, though the terms popular science and public understanding of sciencemeant different things and implied different actions to the different groups, the groupsultimately came to consensus about their goals. Each could use the terms as i t wished,without dramatically conflicting with the interpretations preferred by the othergroups.

A new era for popular science began in the early 1960s, when criticism began toappear of the unbridled enthusiasm for science that had reigned in the United Statesfor the previous 20 years or so. In 1963, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, herdevastating indictment of our tarnishing of the environment. Also that year, biologistBarry Commoner-who had been an editor at Science Illustruted and active in theAAASs public understanding of science activities-organized the Scientists Institutefor Public Information, which was then an organization distinctly critical of howscience was pursued in the United States. With the rise of a new, politically-orientedenvironmental journalism, the close ties between science journalism and mainstreamscientific institutions began to break down.99

In sociologist Dorothy Nelkins survey of contemporary American science journal-ism, Selling Science, she says that public communication [of science] is shaped by theco-operation and collaboration of several communities, each operating in terms of itsown needs, motivations and constraints. Her comment on the contemporary situationclearly holds as well for the historical context that existed in the 20 years after WorldWar 11


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Public understanding of science in the United States after World War II 63In part, these different communities could work together because they oftenconsisted of the same people, just wearing different hats. Gerard Piel is the bestexample: he was the founder of Scientific American, he was an active member of theNASW and CASW, he co-operated frequently with the AAAS in the mid-l950s, andin 1986 he was chairman of the AAAS. But many others crossed over between groups,as demonstrated by people like Herbert Nichols and Jane Stafford, experienced sciencewriters who went from media outlets to government agencies.And moving throughout these stories is Warren Weaver. Too many intelligentpeople were involved in these activities for too long for a great man theory of historyto be appropriate. But Weaver was a catalyst in many of these activities and we cannotunderstand how science writing in the United States achieved the form that it had bythe early 1960s without understanding him and his interests. Those interests are theones with the deepest and most important implications: the complex interactions andcommunication necessary in a society based on both mass political support and on the

achievements of a scientific, technological, and intellectual elite.

AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank the organizations and individuals who have given me access totheir private files and time: the McGraw-Hill Corporate Resource Center, Willis S.Brown, Proctor Mellquist, Edward Hutchings, Jr , Scientific American Inc., GerardPiel, Dennis Flanagan, the American Association for the Advancement of Science,Dael Wolfle, the National Association of Science Writers, Diane McGurgan, theCouncil for the Advancement of Science Writing, William J. Cromie, and BowenD e e SAn earlier version of this paper was published as que significa conocimientopublico de la ciencia? Una investigacion intercultural, Sylva Clius, 2 6) (December1988), 263-284. The current version has benefited tremendously from the comments offour anonymous referees.

ReferencesArchives cited here include: Science lllustrated files, McG raw-Hill Corpo rate Resource Center, New York,NY (SI); Scientific American Inc., corpo rate archive s, New York, NY (SA); American Association for theAdvancement of Science (AAAS) archiv es and executive office files, Washington, Dc ockefellerFoundation RF) rchives, North Tarrytown, Ny; National Association of Science Writers (NASW ) officefila nd Coun cil for the Advancem ent o f Science Writing (CA SW ) office files both now located in ScienceWriters Archives. collection no. 4448,Cornell University Department of Ma nuscripts and UniversityArchives, Ithaca, NY); Hillier Krieghbaum papers. State Historical Society of Wisconsin. M adison, W I;Atomic Energy Comm ission records, Energy H istory Collection (EHC ), D epartment of Energy.Germantown, MD , National Science Found ation (N SF) records (Files of the Director: Alan T. Waterman).Na tiona l Archives, Civil Archives Division, Record G rou p 307, Wa shington, LX;nd George W. Graypapers, Columbia University Department of Ma nuscripts. New York. NY.

I Hilgartner. S., 1990, T h e dominant view of popularisation: conceptual problems, political u x s. Social2 Shinn, T., and Whitley, R., 1985, Exposirory Science: Forms and Funcrionr of PopularisorionStudies ofScimee, 20 3), 519-539.(Dordrecht, Lancaster, Boston: Reidel).


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6 B. V.Lewens te in3 Nelkiin, D., 1987. Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science ond Technology (New Yo rkW. H. Freeman); Friedman, S. L., Dunwoody, S., and Rogers, C. L., 1986. Scientists Journalists.Reporring Sc ience as Ncws(New Y or k Free Press); Burnham, J., 1987. How Superstition Won and

Science Losf:Popularizing Science and Health in the Un ited Stores (New Brunswick, N J RutgersUniversity Press); Krieghbaum , H.. 1967, Science and the Mass M edia (New Y ork University Press).4 See he relative emphasis given to the technical and social as pe as of science in the recommend ations toscience writers in such books a s Burket:, W.. 1986, News Writing: Science. Medicine. High Technology(Ames, Iowa: Iow a Sta te University Press), and Shortland. M. nd G regory, J., 1991, CommunicatingScience: A Handbook (London: Longm an; New York: Wiley).Chronique Sociale); and Gm nbe rg. D. S.,1967, The P olitics of Pure Science (New Yo rk NewAmerican Library).American Association for the Advan cement of Science, 1989, Scien cefor A ll Americans (Washington,Dc:American Association for the Advan cement of Science).7 s Burnham, I.. 1987, How Supersrition Won andScience Lost: Popularizing Science and Hea lth nthe UnitedStotes New Brunswick. NJ: Rutgers University Press). pp.29-32.36, 13 61 38 ;Sheets-Pyenson.S., 1985, Popular science periodicals in Pa ris an d Londo n: the emergenceof a lowscientificculture. A M a b of Science. 42.549-572.8 Whalen, M. D., and Tobin, M. F ., 1980, Periodicals an d the popularization of science in A merica,1860-1910. Journal of American Cuirure 3 195-203.9 Sch udson, M.. 1978. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New Y orkBasic Books); an d Krieghbau m, H., 1941, Am erican newspaper repar ling of science news.Kansas SfateCollege B ulletin 25 (15 August), 1-73.UnitedStotes (New Brunswick, N J R utgers University Press), pp.29-32; Meadow s, J., 1986, A historyof science popularization. Impact ofScience on Society 36,341-346.Press). pp.48-50.Unpub lished PhD thesis. University of Pennsy lvania.Unpub lished masters thesis, University of North Carolina a t Chapel Hill.History o Eh co lio n Quarterly l4.201-214; Burner, D. 1984, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (NewYork: Atheneum).

15 Kevles, D., 1977, The Physicists (New York: Kno pf), pp.170-184; LaFollette, M. C., 1990. MakingScience Our Own: Public Imoges of Science 1910-1955 (University ofChicago Press); Tobey, R. C .,1971, The American Ideology ofN orional Science 19/9-1930 (University of Pittsburgh Press).16 H ay, C., 1970, A history of science writing in the United States and of he National Association ofScience Writers. Unpublished masters thesis, Medill Scho ol of Journalism, Northwestern University.17 Davis, W., 1948, The rise of science understanding. Science. 108 (3 Sep tember), 239-246, on p.241.18 Burnham , 1987, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: P op lw ii in g Science and Health in the United

19 n o m a s , C. A., 1945, Scientific suicide of America: training of technical an d scientific students. Virol20 Kandel, 1. L., 1947, Science in general education. School Society, 5 (3 May), 326.21 McDougall, W. A., 1985, The H eavens and The Earth: A Politico1 History o the Space Age New22 Bush, V., 1945, Science-The Endless Frontier (Washington, DC Government Printing Office),23 Cohen, 1. B., 1947, For the education of the layman. New York Times 7 September. sec. 8, pp.30-32.24 Shapley, H., 1945, Status q ua or pioneer? FaLe ofAmerican science. Harpers. 191 (October ), 312-317,25 Conant, J., 1947, n Understanding Science: An Hisrorial Approach (New Haven, C T Yale University26 Anon., 1949, Aiding scientific rerearch. New Republic. supplement I O January), p.12.27 Anon, 1947, New role of science in the USA. Buriness Week, 30 August, p.92.

5 Fayard, P., 1988, Ln communication scienr@quepublique: de lo vulgorisorion I la m ediatisarion (Lyon:

6 Sce or examp k, Bcdmer. W.. 1985, Public Understding o Science (London: Royal Society); and

IO Burnham, J.. 1987, How Superstition Won andScience Lost Popularizing Science and Health in the

1 Burrows J . G . . 1963 A M A : Voice ofAmerican Medicine (Baltimore, M D ohns Ho pkins U niversity12 Rh ea , D. J., 1987, The Chem ists Crusade: the rise of an ndustrial science in America, 1907-1922.13 Rhees, D. J.. 1979, A new voice for science: Science Service under Edwin E. Slossan 1921-1929.14 Cotkin, G., 1984, The socialist popu larization of science in A merica. 1901 fa the First World War.

Srotes (New Brunswick, N J Rutgers University Press), pp.194-2W.Speeches. 11 I 1 June), 543-545, on p.543.

Y o rk Basic Books), p.6.pp.13-14.

on pp.312-313.Press), p.3.


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Pubhc unders tanding of science in the U n i t e d S t a t e s a f t e r World War I I 6528 ndebted to C hris Doman for directing me to the concept of a problem of public understanding.

See Doman, 1988. The problem of science and the m edia: a few seminal texts in their context,1956-1965. Journal o CommieorionInquiry (Summer). 53-70; and Dornan, 1990, Some problems inmncep tualizing the issue of science and the media. Crilicnl Sludies in Mass Communicorion.7,48-71.29 Anon.. 1950, New bomb s called real peacemakers, New York Times, IO May, p.21.30 Anon., 946, Notes on science. New York Times, 3 February, p.lV9; and Anon., 1947. Nates on31 Report from I. K. asser Co. to McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., 20 October 1945. 1-2, 16-17 (SI), on32 Fa r a mo re detailed study of the creation of Science Illurrmred, see Lewenstein, B. V., 1989. Magazine33 See or example, memo from Willis Brown, n.d. (early 1945). New publication in the mechanical field

science. New York Times, 24 August. p.IV9.pp.1-2.publishing and popular science after World W ar I I Americon Jou rnalhm, 6(4), 218-234.(SI); Howard Ehrlich el al. to J. H. McCraw, Jr, 30 March 1945 (SI); and Ehrlich. 31 October 1945,Report and recomm endations re: McG raw-Hill entry into the science field of publishing (SI).34 Report from I. K. Lasser Co. to McGraw-Hill Publishing C o., 20 October 1945, 1-2, 16-17 (SI), on

35 Direcrory ofNewspopers and Periodicoh (Philadelphia: N. W. A yer), 1947 and 1950 editions. Oncontem porary science magazines, see h e n s t e i n , B. V., 1987. Was there really a popular scienceboom? Science. Technology Humon Valws 12(2), 2 9 4 1 .36 G. I. Seamen to Don Roy, 16 October 1946 (SI); Russell Anderson, letter to author, 14 March 1986and Edward L. Hutchings, taped interview. I I September 1986. Pasadena. CA.37 Gerard Piel, interview, 5 May 1986, New York; Russell Andenon, telephone interview, 24 February1986, New York; Proctor Mellquist, taped interview. 21 July 1986. Los Altos Hills, CA, and EdwardL. Hutchings, taped interview, 1 I September 1986, Pasadena, CA.

p.3.

38 G. J. Seamen lo Don Roy, 16 October 1946 (SI).39 Proposal for a monthly magazine, p.2 (SA, file cabinet 2, Summary 1946 file); Anon., 1947. Anannouncement to our readers, Scient@ Americon, 177 (Dsember) . 244.40 Fo r details on he creation of the new Scient@c American, see Lewenstein, B. V., 1989, Magazine

publishing an d popu lar science after W orld W ar II. American Journalism, 614). 218-234.41 Solicitation brochure with Krochs bookstore, spring 1950; Norma G Behr to Mary Mulligan e t al.,I I May 1953; renewal letter. January 1958 (all in SA, circulation department files); Editorial planningfor the Scientific American. n.d. (SA, Dennis Flanagan files); Introduction to The Sciences, 1947, v.6(SA, file cabinet 2, Announces the Forthcoming Publication folder); and Denn is Flanagan, oralhistory. 26 February 1986, Columbia University Oral History office New York, pp.17, 37.42 Ge rard Piel, interview, 5 May 1986: Dennis Flanagan, personal communication, 23 July 1987.43 Piels intellec tual beliefs can be followed in his two collections of essays: Piel, G.. 1961, Science in theCause o Uon (New York: Knopf), and Piel, G., 1972, The Acee leralim qf Hislory (New York: Knopf).Flanagans ideas appear in Flanagan, D., 1988. Flonagons Vrrs im (New York: Knopf).Forthcoming Publication file).

44 The Sciences: a prospectus in the form o f a dialogue. [I9471(SA, file cabinet 2, Announces the45 Book of letters, 1947 (SA, file cabinet 2).46 Karl Lark-Horovitz to Howard Meyerhoff, 2 May 1949 (AAA S, B orras papers, The ScientificAmerican, 1949-1955 folder). For other indications of supp ort from the scientific comm unity. seeGeorge W. Gray to Warren Weaver, 20 June 1956 (Gray papers, box 140, Science Writing folder); andWarren W eaver, diary, 30 December 1949 (RF, RGI.1, ser. 200F. box 175, folder 2124).47 Science Illusrrored to board, pencilled note. n.d.; untitled memo, 8 June 1949; H. G . Strong to Eugene

S . Duffield, 21 June 1949; untitled press release, 17 June 1949; and Paul Montgomery to advertisers,mimeographed memorandum, 17 June 1949 (all in SI).48 Anon, 1952, Forum of science.Newsweek, 31 March.49 Gerard Piel to Howard Meyerhaff, I5 October 1948 and Roger Adams to Howard Meyerhoff, 23 May50 Weaver, W., 1951, AAAS policy. Sriencc 114(2 November), 471-472.51 Fo r details, see the Arden House folder, AAA S executive office records.52 J. C. Jensen to Howard Meyerhoff, 10 October 1951; and R . W. Gerard to M eyerhoff, I5 November1951 (bath in A AAS, executive office fi ls . Arden House folder).53 Relis B. Brown to How ard M eyerhaff, 13 DeDember 1951 (AA AS , executive office files, Arden Housefolder); and Meyerhoff, H. A ., 1953, Boston 1953. Science. 117 (20 February). 3A (also published inScientific Monrhly. 76 (March 1953). 195).

1949 (both in AAAS, Borras papers, The Scientific Am erican, 1949-1955 folder).


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66 B. V . L e w e n s f e i n54 For details of AAAS history in these years, see WalRe, D., 1989, Renewing Y Scientific Society: The

American Association for the Advancement of Sciencefrom World War II to 1970 (Washington, DCAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science).Sciencefrom World War II IO 1970 (Washington, Dc: merican Association for the Advancement ofScience), p.57.56 Memorandum, preliminary draft, 20 February 1956, AAAS board m inutes, 3 4 March 1956,supplement to item 22 (AAAS). For an introduction to the long history of these concerns, seeR h m , D. . 1987, The Chem ists Crusade: the rise of an industrial science in A merica, 1907-1922.Unpub lished PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania; Rhees, D. J., 1979, A new voice for science:Science ScM ce und er Edwin E. Slosson, 1921-1929. Unpu blished masters thesis, University of N orthCarolina a t Ch apel Hill: Lnvenstein, B. V., 1987, Was there really a popular science boom? ScienceTechnology Human Values, 42). 29-41.39: Dornan, C., 1990, Some problems in concep tualizing theissue of science an d the media, Critical Studies n Mass Communication. 7.48-71.(AAAS).3 4 March 1956. supplement lo item 2 9 A A A S board minutes, preliminary agenda, 3 4 March 1956,p.7; Laurence H. nyder and Dael Wolfle to H enry Heald, 12 November 1957, AAA S board minutes,December 1957, tab B, pp .1, 2.4; Memorandum, 20 February 1956, p.7 (all in AAAS); and Wolfle,1989, Renewing a Scientific Society : The American Association for the Advancement of SciencefromWorld War I I to 1970 (Washington, DC Am erican Association for the Advancement of Science).pp. 189-21 20.59 Sherburne, E .G .. 1987, interview, (9 March). Washington, D C; Dees, B.. 1987, interview, ( I2 M arch),Philadelphia, PA; Alfred Friendly to Officers and Board of Directors, American Society of New spaperEditors, 23 December 1960, and Friendly and Dael WolRe to Alan T W at er . 6 January 1961 (bothin AAA S. Borras papers, box 2, American Society of N ewspap er Editors folder); and AAA S boardminutes, June 1964, tab A, p.2.Commoner, B., 1966, Science MdSuiurvival (New Y o rk Viking Press); Carson. R., 962. Silent Spring(Boston: Houghton MiWin); and Holton. G., 1965, Science M d Culture (Boston: &con Press). Morehistorica lly analy tical are Siegel, F., 1984, Troubled Journey: From Pearl Harbour to Ronald Reogan(New Y o rk Hill and W ang); Graham , F., 1970, Since Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mitliin); an dKatz, M. S., 1987, Ban rhc Bomb: A History q lS A N E . rhe Commirtee or c1SoJe Nuclear Polic y,19S7-1985 (New York, Westport CT, ondon: Greenwood Press).1987; and AAAS board minutes, Jun e 1964, p.6.collection no. 4448, Cornell University Department of M anuscripts and University Archives. Ithaca. NY 1.

55 ~Wolfle,D., 1989, Renewing a Scient@c Society; The Ame rican Associorionfor the Advancement of

57 An AAAS television series. M A S board min utes, 3-4 March 1956, supplement to item 25, pp.1-258 AAA S popular science books: Memorandum on selection of a publisher. AAAS b a r d minutes,

60 To set this scene equires a com plex history of the early 1960s. Three con temporary sources are

61 See the items in A AAS Archives, Scienceand Public Policy folder; Wolfle, D., interview, 14 February62 Details of these activities can be found throughout the NASW Newsletter (Science Writers archives,63 AA AS board minutes, June 1964, tab A, p.1.64 Hay , C., 1970, A history of science writing in the U nited States and of the Na tional Association ofScience Writers. Un published masters thesis, Medill School of Journ alism, Northwestern University.p.319.65 Anon ., 1937, Understanding without stars. Time, 27 Septem ber), 22-24, an p.23; and typed query,n.d., attached to notes on Science in the spotlight (Gray papers, box 140, science writing fo lder).66 NASWNewsle t ter , June 1956, 13; Desember 1956, 7; July 1953, 13-14; March 1953, 3; and untitledmemo, 21 November 1962 (CASW papers, 1962 binder).61 NASW Newslerter, December 1952, p.168 NASWNewsle t ter , December 1952, pp.2, 7; October 1953, pp.10-13; March 1953, pp.10-12.69 On the physics comm unity. see Kevles, D., 1977, The Physicirrs (New York: Knopf), especiallyChap. 12; on he chemists, see Rhees, D. I. 1987, The Chem ists Crusade: T he rise of an industrialscience in America, 1907-1922. Unpublish ed PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania. and Th ackray, A .,

et al. , 1985, Chemistry in A m e r i m Historical Indicarprs, 1876-1976 (Dordrecht: Reidel), especiallyCh ap. 3; on National Institute of Health, see Strickland, S . 1972, Politics. Science. ond Dre odD isea se(Cambridge. MA: HdN ard University Press) and Harden. V. , 1986. Invenring the NIH(Bal1imore. M DJohns Hopk ins U niversity Press); on Stanley, see Kay, L., 1986, W. M. Stanleys crystallization of thetobacco mosaic virus, 1930-1940. Isis 77,450-472.70 NASWNewsle t ter . 1 March 1953, pp.9-11.


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Publ ic unders fanding of s c ie nce in the Un i te d S la te s a f t e r W o r ld War I I 6171 An on., n.d . [1950], Rep ort on New York University-National As socia tion of Science Writers science72 NASWNewslerrer, Jun e 1956, pp.lO, 18-19; M arch 1957, p.21; December 1956, po.7-8.73 N A S W N e w l e t t e r , M arch 1955, p.4.74 NASW Newsletter. December 1955, p.775 NASWNewsler ter . December 1955, p.14.76 NASWNcwsler ter , September 1956, p.16.77 NASWNewsle l ter , Se ptem ber 19581pp.15-17.78 'Mem orandum , Preliminary Draft', 20 Feb ruary 1956. 3 (AA AS Board M inutes, 3-4 March , suppl. toitem 22): NASWNewsle t ter , March 1956, pp.10-12.79 Krieghbaum. H., 1958, Science. The News. and thr Public (New York University Press); Anon.. 1959,

Sorellites.Scie nce. and rhe Public (An n Ar bor: Survey Research Center, Ins titute for Social Research,University of Michigan).(CASW, 'corporate papers' file).

writing survey (Hillier Krieghba um papers. box 7, folder 5 .

80 Certificate of inco rpora tion, 6 Ja nuar y 1960, an d Certificate of extension of powers, November 19M)81 Earl Ubell to Thom as L. Mo ore, Ir, 29 Novem ber 1963 (CAS W, C orrespond ence 1963 folder).82 Proposal for a )-year sup portin g grant. n.d., p. I (CAS W files, [SloanFoundation] folder).83 Earl Ubell to Robert McD onald, 28 January 1965 (CASW. '19M-1965' file).84 Pierre C. F raley to Joseph K aplan , 23 Augu st 1961 (CASW, 1961 binder).85 Weaver, W., 1960, A great age for science. President's Com mission on N ational Goals,Goals orAm ericons(New Y o r k Prentice-Hall), pp.104-105. (Reprinted as Weaver, W., 1961, A Greot Agefo r

Science (New Y o r k Sloan Foundation).Acrelerorion o History (New York: K no pf ); Merton , R. K . 1942. Science and technology in ademocratic order. Journal o Legnl and P olitical Sociology. 1 115-126. (Reprinted as Merton. R.K.,1949, Science and demo cratic social structure. Social Theory ond Soeiol Snurrure (Glencoe, 111.:Free Press). pp.307-316; and as M erton, R. K.. 1973, The normative structu re of science. TheSociology o Science (Chicago, Lo ndo n: U niversity of C hicago Press). pp.267-278.)Americans (New Y o r k Prentice-Hall), p.108.Americons (New Y o r k Prentice-Hall), p.123.

86 See Piel G., 1961, Science in the Cause o Man (New Y o rk Kno pf), and Piel, G., 1972, The

87 Weaver. W., 1960, A great age for science. President's Commission on National Goals, Goalsfor88 Weaver, W., 1960, A great age for science. President's Commission on National Goals. Co olsf or89 Robert P. Clark to Barry Bingham, 16 November 19M (CAS W. 'Correspondence, 19M' file).90 NAS W 50th anniversary celebrations. 1984, tape recording, NA SW archives; H. B. Nichols, telephoneinterview, 29 July 1987; Nic hols, pers ona l comm unic ation . 10 Septem ber 1987; Jane S taffor d. oralhistory interview. 6 February 1987, NASW archives; Howard Lewis, oral history, M IT SpecialCollections, Cam bridge, MA, Recombinant DN A History Collection, b a r IO. older 121; and Lewis,'Academy News', NASW Newsletter. December 1957, p.18.

Fou ndatio n, W ashington, DC. N S F historian's office files; and Alan C . Waterm an to N ational ScienceBoard, 20 Jun e 1958, NSFfiles.91 Natio nal Science Board min utes, 53rd meeting. 18-19 M ay 1958. pp . 10-1 I National Science92 Hall, C. C., 1967, Wh at can you buy with peanuts? Understanding,5 (Summer), 6.93 Alan C . W aterman to the National Science Board, 20 June 1958, p.1-3.94 Na tion al Science Board minutes. 53rd meeting, 18-19 M ay 1958, 10 11 (NSF); Memor to Members ofNational Science Board on 'Proposed program for im proving public understanding of the role o fscience', 20 Ju n e 1958 (NS F); M inute s of 32nd meeting of divisional co mm ittee for scientific personneland education, 5-6 November 1959 (NSF ).95 General Advisory C omm ittee draft m inutes, 4th meeting. 30 May- I lune 1947; and G A C draft minutes,3-5 October 1947 (b oth in EH C).96 New York Times Magazine, 2 November 1947. pp.12-13. cited in Boyer. P.. 1985. By rhe Bomb's Early

Light (New York : Pan theon ), p.295: and Torrey, V., 1949, Magazines and nuclear-energy educatio n.Journol ofEducationa1 Sociolo gy, 22,324-327.97 B,oyer, P., 1985, By the Bomb's Early Lig

lewenstein, public understanding of science in us after wwii

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