Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
objectivity
when discussing atmospheric research. But they employed the
concepts frequently in their commendations of “good science” and the
“good scientist,” as well as in their condemnations of politically motivated
science and “emotionalism.”
During the SST debate, William Kellogg and Fred Singer were at once
specialists in the field and arbiters of scientific propriety, and they couched
their claims to neutrality and objectivity in terms of good science and the
limits of advocacy. Kellogg's review of James McDonald's written testi-
mony on the SST in the spring of 1971, for example, complained that the
document was “angry and finger-wagging, clouding the real issues.”
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“He
is a good scientist,” Kellogg acknowledged, “and most (though not all) of
his facts are correct— but he presents the case with too much emotion and a
rather transparent hostility to the whole idea of the SST.”
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Kellogg did not
immediately object to the details of McDonald's work— in fact, he called
for a careful reconsideration of McDonald's main points.
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Instead, he
undermined the validity of McDonald's study by highlighting its apparent
bias— a cardinal sin against the ideals of “good” value-neutral science. Sci-
entists like McDonald who criticized the potential environmental impacts
of the SST thus expressed their opposition at the risk of damaging their
professional reputations as scientists.
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McDonald's and Harold Johnston's outspoken objections to the SST
may have transcended Kellogg's boundaries of good science, but Kellogg
himself frequently used environmental concerns to advocate on behalf
of NCAR and the atmospheric sciences more generally within the larger
scientific community. Like the concept of neutrality itself, the line between
political and scientific advocacy was fuzzy, and institutional leaders often
had to balance their commitment to neutrality against the obligation to
promote the interests of their science. Funding was a central concern.
Through executive-level organizations, the federal government funded the
majority of atmospheric science conducted in the United States. NCAR,
technically a nongovernmental research center, relied heavily on the fed-
erally controlled National Science Foundation. NOAA, a government
institution, leaned on its parent agency, the Department of Commerce.
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NASA was its own federal agency. Each of these agencies, in turn, ulti-
mately depended on Congress and the executive Office of Management
and Budget to approve their budgets. Congress increasingly demanded that
the nation's scientific institutions directly serve the “national interest,”
