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.

To characterize this book as dedicated to a proposition suggests that the proposition itself is largely unchallenged. Although a number of the contributors in the first two sections raise some interesting questions concerning its adequacy, at least by implication, the authors of the third accept it as a given. Unfortunately, the result is a distinct polemical tenor to a number of these essays. This is especially true of those by Keith Parsons, whose targets are feminist critics of objectivity and fundamentalist critics of evolution, and Philip A. Sullivan, who takes aim at postmodernist scholarship. These are certainly well-informed essays, but they are no more than critical reports, offering few if any genuine arguments. Much the same could be said of the contribution by Barbara Forest and Paul R. Gross on the advocates for intelligent design as a scientific alternative to natural selection, but their focus on a specific, organized effort and its pretensions to scientific legitimacy render their essay an interesting exposé, rather than a mere jeremiad.

Many readers may find the essays of the third section more interesting than those of the first two because they are focused on contemporary events, but I personally found the preceding essays, without exception, both intelligent and intellectually significant. However, I question the editor's claim (p. 155) that they collectively present “a positive appraisal of the values that animate scientific research and an optimistic picture of how they reinforce the civic virtues necessary for a liberal democratic society.” This is certainly the case for the chapter by Gerald Holton, comparing physicists Percy Bridgman and Niels Bohr, and also for that by Allan Franklin illustrating the weight of evidence in scientific disputes. Yet Michael Ruse's essay on the necessity of trust in science and its role in scientific disputes, amply illustrated by examples from evolutionary biology, would seem to have disturbing implications for those who would find a democratic ethos in the scientific community. In brief, Ruse describes a tendency for persistent scientific disputes to become personalized as scientists call into question the integrity or qualifications of opponents who resist evidence taken to be conclusive. Although scientific discourse is governed by norms of openness and rationality, it is a discourse confined to the qualified, and as such it would seem to be aristocratic rather than democratic. Not everyone can be a citizen of the scientific community, and once attained, citizenship is never assured.

The three historical chapters of the first section provide scant support for the idea that scientific values were important in the development of either liberal democratic regimes or liberal democratic ideas. Edward Grant traces the growth in the prestige of reason, as opposed to mere faith, in the Middle Ages, as well as the beginning of a tradition of dispute and challenge to authority. Both of these developments, however, involve the influence of Aristotle, usually considered the bête noire of modern science, rather than one of its pioneers. As Grant points out (p. 40), “it is unclear if there were any scientists to uphold scientific values” during this period. Rose-Mary Sargent finds that a concern for the public good did indeed animate a number of the real pioneers in the development of the scientific community, but also makes clear that such factors had largely disappeared by the time liberal democratic societies became consolidated. Finally, John C. Moore's assessment effectively captures the conclusion I would draw from these essays: “Although modern science has helped to promote civic virtue in modest, indirect ways, it has been the beneficiary of civic virtue more than its source” (p. 60).

With a single exception, these authors have a much more sophisticated understanding of science than of democracy. This is not surprising since, with a single exception, the contributors are scientists, historians, or philosophers rather than political scientists. It is also not surprising that the infrequent and brief discussions of democracy in this book clearly indicate that the authors see the aim of politics as the discovery of a true, rational public interest (pp. 3, 159, 174). I suspect that if a democratic ethos is to be found in scientific endeavor, this is a necessary assumption, since the values necessary to the community of science are not based on justice or communal commitment but are instrumental to the pursuit of truth. Actual politics, however, is not animated by a search for truth, but rather by a commitment to realize goals that are assumed to be valid, valuable, or true. Actual politics is essentially a form of struggle rather than deliberation. Consequently, there is a normative deficit, so to speak, in this book. It is not obvious that the public good is simply something to be discovered. Nor is it obvious that deliberation is capable of generating sufficient consensus to sustain the public authority necessary for collective decisions.

As the sole political scientist represented in this volume, and as a sophisticated theorist of deliberative democracy, Steven M. DeLue knows what is obvious and what is not. He argues that, despite Rawls, public commitment to constitutional democracy can only be assured if it is grounded on the Kantian principle of personal autonomy and on the respect for other persons that follows from this principle. DeLue hopes that a general belief in the practical value of science will encourage those incapable or unlikely to work their way through Kant to support the values necessary for scientific success, which significantly overlap with those of constitutional democracy. Perhaps so, but this assumes that science needs constitutional democracy, or if not, that the populace can be deluded that it does. So perhaps DeLue is also positing rather than arguing the proposition to which this book is dedicated.