Review of the Monograph

Chapter scheduled for 2009 in New Agendas in Science Communication, LeeAnne Kahlor and Patricia Stout (Eds). Taylor & Francis Publishers.

John Walley Littlefield

<i>Notes on Contributors</i>

For many years, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)1 has been at the forefront in responding to challenges to the teaching of evolution, working with other national and state organizations with similar objectives (summarized in Alberts and Labov, 2004 ; Labov, 2005 ). The NAS has established a website2 that makes freely available its three current publications on evolution education (NAS, 1998 , 1999 , 2004 ; National Research Council, 1996 ). Other publications about evolution (e.g., Hazen, 2005 ; Ayala, 2007 ), a variety of position papers, and links to evolution resources from other organizations comprise the balance of the site. One of these publications, Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, 2nd ed. (NAS, 1999 ), has been widely used by people in many communities and especially by legal scholars and practitioners. It has been a prominent resource for major court cases, including Selman v. Cobb County Board of Education and Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Education. The first edition (NAS, 1984 ) was originally prepared as an amicus brief for the United States Supreme Court.3 These booklets were important because they provided courts, educators, policy makers, and the public with a clear synopsis of the kinds of evidence that support both the fact and the theory of evolution, and they offered succinct explanations of the processes and nature of science (Ayala, 2008 ). The second edition of Science and Creationism was released just before the ascent of the intelligent design creationism movement as a prominent voice in the “controversies” about evolution, and this publication devotes only two paragraphs to that challenge. Thus, the leaders of the NAS decided that an update to this booklet that addresses these more recent challenges was both timely and necessary. The new edition has been renamed Science, Evolution, and Creationism (SE&C) (Figure 1). Given the increasing importance of an understanding of evolution for prevention and treatment of disease, this new booklet has been developed jointly by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine (IOM).4 As with the two earlier editions, SE&C (NAS and IOM, 2008 ) was authored by a committee of prominent scientists, many of whom are members of the NAS or IOM. And, this committee includes two teacher leaders, both of whom have served as president of the National Association of Biology Teachers. Figure 1. Cover of Science, Evolution, and Creationism. However, unlike its predecessors, this new edition was shaped to a large extent by a careful program of audience research. This research was initiated to bring about a better understanding of the frame of reference that the intended audiences bring to this issue. The committee decided early in the revision process that its goal was to successfully inform opinion leaders and influentials who could then use this information to help reframe5 discussions about the evolution “controversy.” By presenting authoritative scientific information in ways that address the questions and concerns of those who are unsure about teaching evolution in science classrooms, the authoring committee would provide opinion leaders and influentials (scientists, business leaders, clergy, teachers, members of school boards, policy makers, judges, lawyers, and others) with the tools needed to change the understanding and decisions of other people who comprise the “wobbly middle.” They defined the wobbly middle as the large percentage of citizens that various national polls have shown to be undecided about whether or not evolution, creationism, or some combination should be taught in public school science classrooms.

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The facts of evolution: fighting the Endarkenment

A right royal spat

S urely it is unnecessary to remind Science's readers that we are in the middle of a run-up to a U.S. presidential election. They—you—have a big stake in the outcome, because even more than in 2000, science and technology issues will undergird many of the critical policy decisions of the next administration. Accordingly, as we have done before, Science 's editorial and news staffs sat down to think up the most important and challenging questions about science that we could pose to these candidates and their staffs. In mid-June, we sent the questions around to the science policy mavens in each campaign, asking that they respond by mid-August. Senator Kerry met that deadline, barely. President Bush took 3 weeks more, so we let him have an untimed exam and got longer answers. We are not going to trouble you with a point-by-point comparison of the candidates' views. But a few areas are worth some special attention, starting with the very first question, which was identical to the one asked in 2000. We asked both candidates to choose their science and technology priorities. Four years ago, candidate Bush emphasized education. This year, he emphasized bandwidth, research toward a hydrogen economy, and recruiting science and technology to fight terrorism. Candidate Kerry looked for a balanced research support portfolio, put changing stem cell policy near the top, and promised to elevate the Science Adviser position to its former status as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. The climate change query produced some interesting differences. Bush quoted sentences from a 2001 National Academy of Sciences report that indicated uncertainty about the effects of anthropogenic sources of global warming in this century, but omitted reference to the recent report from his own administration's task force that accepted the importance of those effects. He then turned to his plans for research on clean coal and hydrogen technology. By contrast, Kerry called the evidence for human involvement in global warming convincing and supported a cap-and-trade system that would resemble that in the McCain-Lieberman bill now before the U.S. Senate. In their responses on space, both candidates said good things but ducked an important choice. Bush reprised his man-Moon-Mars (3M) project and talked entirely about human exploration. Kerry praised NASA and spoke of both manned and robotic successes. But neither he nor Bush dealt realistically with costs, especially not the price tag for 3M or other manned missions, nor did they realistically approach the challenging question of which kind of space exploration produces the greater scientific yield per dollar invested. There's an interesting area of disagreement about matters of fact. Bush asserts that he holds firmly to NSDD 189, the 1985 Reagan doctrine declaring that there is no information or knowledge control mechanism short of classification. Kerry claims that instead Bush has created a murky area of “sensitive but not classified” information that is subject to control. It is to be hoped that Bush will turn out to be right on this one, but he will need to convince the Department of Commerce that it has gone “off message” by attempting to assert exactly that kind of control in university contracts. Where do we find agreement? Well, it's no surprise that both men love the National Institutes of Health budget and support this administration's record of completing its doubling from $13 billion to $27 billion. Both praise the Ocean Commission report and say they will work to follow its recommendations. They both think that foreign students are an asset to the United States and cite our long history of benefiting from such exchanges. Kerry criticizes aspects of the implementation of the visa program, whereas Bush cites surveys that show that the majority of land-grant institutions have suffered no losses in foreign applicants, but their agreement outweighs their differences. And—wonder of wonders!—both support the role of peer review and merit-based competition in allocating federal funds for research. The only difference is in how they label legislative intrusion in the process: Kerry comes right out and calls it “pork.” But in case this analysis makes them look like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, look at their answers carefully. The president and his Democratic challenger have some real differences about core scientific issues: climate change, space, stem cells, and the Endangered Species Act, among others. There's a lot of important stuff here, and it will repay careful reading.

S urely it is unnecessary to remind Science's readers that we are in the middle of a run-up to a U.S. presidential election. They—you—have a big stake in the outcome, because even more than in 2000, science and technology issues will undergird many of the critical policy decisions of the next administration. Accordingly, as we have done before, Science 's editorial and news staffs sat down to think up the most important and challenging questions about science that we could pose to these candidates and their staffs. In mid-June, we sent the questions around to the science policy mavens in each campaign, asking that they respond by mid-August. Senator Kerry met that deadline, barely. President Bush took 3 weeks more, so we let him have an untimed exam and got longer answers. We are not going to trouble you with a point-by-point comparison of the candidates' views. But a few areas are worth some special attention, starting with the very first question, which was identical to the one asked in 2000. We asked both candidates to choose their science and technology priorities. Four years ago, candidate Bush emphasized education. This year, he emphasized bandwidth, research toward a hydrogen economy, and recruiting science and technology to fight terrorism. Candidate Kerry looked for a balanced research support portfolio, put changing stem cell policy near the top, and promised to elevate the Science Adviser position to its former status as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. The climate change query produced some interesting differences. Bush quoted sentences from a 2001 National Academy of Sciences report that indicated uncertainty about the effects of anthropogenic sources of global warming in this century, but omitted reference to the recent report from his own administration's task force that accepted the importance of those effects. He then turned to his plans for research on clean coal and hydrogen technology. By contrast, Kerry called the evidence for human involvement in global warming convincing and supported a cap-and-trade system that would resemble that in the McCain-Lieberman bill now before the U.S. Senate. In their responses on space, both candidates said good things but ducked an important choice. Bush reprised his man-Moon-Mars (3M) project and talked entirely about human exploration. Kerry praised NASA and spoke of both manned and robotic successes. But neither he nor Bush dealt realistically with costs, especially not the price tag for 3M or other manned missions, nor did they realistically approach the challenging question of which kind of space exploration produces the greater scientific yield per dollar invested. There's an interesting area of disagreement about matters of fact. Bush asserts that he holds firmly to NSDD 189, the 1985 Reagan doctrine declaring that there is no information or knowledge control mechanism short of classification. Kerry claims that instead Bush has created a murky area of “sensitive but not classified” information that is subject to control. It is to be hoped that Bush will turn out to be right on this one, but he will need to convince the Department of Commerce that it has gone “off message” by attempting to assert exactly that kind of control in university contracts. Where do we find agreement? Well, it's no surprise that both men love the National Institutes of Health budget and support this administration's record of completing its doubling from $13 billion to $27 billion. Both praise the Ocean Commission report and say they will work to follow its recommendations. They both think that foreign students are an asset to the United States and cite our long history of benefiting from such exchanges. Kerry criticizes aspects of the implementation of the visa program, whereas Bush cites surveys that show that the majority of land-grant institutions have suffered no losses in foreign applicants, but their agreement outweighs their differences. And—wonder of wonders!—both support the role of peer review and merit-based competition in allocating federal funds for research. The only difference is in how they label legislative intrusion in the process: Kerry comes right out and calls it “pork.” But in case this analysis makes them look like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, look at their answers carefully. The president and his Democratic challenger have some real differences about core scientific issues: climate change, space, stem cells, and the Endangered Species Act, among others. There's a lot of important stuff here, and it will repay careful reading.

Are most journals published in Africa too weak to be useful to local practitioners, researchers, and policy makers?Might a new method for scholarly communication on the African continent improve the utility of these journals?According to a provocative article published in Learned Publishing (Smart 2007), the answer to both questions is yes.Smart argued that the African research and education communities need to rethink their tendency to "slavishly . . .follow the Western model of academic promotion based on publishing in journals."In an earlier article, Horton (2000a) voiced concerns that researchers, policy makers, and philanthropic organizations in developed countries believe simply providing access to Western information will solve many of the problems of developing nations.On the contrary, he wrote, in Africa "there is already a well-developed local information culture that needs support, not swamping," noting, moreover, the lack of African journals in MEDLINE (Horton 2000a).According to a survey conducted in 2005, about 158 medical journals were published in 33 African countries, but most had circulations <1,000, were published ≤ 4 times per year, and were excluded from major bibliographic indexes (Siegfried et al. 2006).African Journals Online, an online repository of African scholarly abstracts hosted by the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), lists 111 health and medical journals from 18 African countries in 2008 (African Journals Online 2008).However, compared with those of other continents, African medical and health journals continue to be poorly represented in international indexing services: among 5,000 journals indexed in MEDLINE, 38 are from Africa (13 countries), and among 6,700 journals in the Institute for Scientific Information's Science Citation Index, only 20 are from Africa (4 countries), including just 1 medical journal.Even within Africa, there is a disparity in research publication, with South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria producing 60% of the total number of articles indexed by PubMed between 1996 and 2005 (Uthman and Uthman 2007).Moreover, there are gaps in research information published in leading Western and Northern journals on conditions and diseases that are most relevant to low-income countries in Africa (Horton 2000b).Thus, despite the recognized benefits of medical journals to health practitioners (Gross 2000; Lamas 1992), Africa's medical journal and research production and distribution are low, and as a result, research from Africa is not readily available to colleagues on the continent or in the international scientific community.Quality journals are needed throughout Africa to help raise the visibility of African science to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in countries within Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, and to the wider international community (Ofori-Adjei 2006).Both Smart (2007) and Horton (2000a, 2000b) provide insights into the troubling issue of scientific and medical communications within Africa.Although there is no doubt that many of the medical and health journals published in Africa are weak, it would not be appropriate to declare them moribund and give up on the traditional peer-reviewed journal model for these medical, health care, and research communities (Ofori-Adjei 2006).In fact, substituting another communication vehicle for this specific subset of journals would need to be undertaken with extreme caution, if at all.Scientific

Bibliography of Czechoslovak Legal Literature 1945-1958 By the Institute of Law, Czechoslovak Academy of Science, Viktor Knapp, Scientific Editor. (Prague: Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1959. pp. 261. Kes. 11.60.) - Volume 54 Issue 4

Nuclear physics applications in medicine and energy are well known and widely reported. Less well known are the many important nuclear and related techniques used for the study, characterization, assessment and preservation of cultural heritage. There has been enormous progress in this field in recent years and the current review aims to provide the public with a popular and accessible account of this work. The Nuclear Physics Division of the EPS represents scientists from all branches of nuclear physics across Europe. One of its aims is the dissemination of knowledge about nuclear physics and its applications. This review is led by Division board member Anna Mackova, Head of the Tandetron Laboratory at the Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the review committee includes four other members of the nuclear physics board interested in this area: Faical Azaiez, Johan Nyberg, Eli Piasetzky and Douglas MacGregor. To create a truly authoritative account, the Scientific Editors have invited contributions from leading experts across Europe, and this publication is the combined result of their work. The review is extensively illustrated with important discoveries and examples from archaeology, pre-history, history, geography, culture, religion and curation, which underline the breadth and importance of this field. The large number of groups and laboratories working in the study and preservation of cultural heritage across Europe indicate the enormous effort and importance attached by society to this activity.

Previous articleNext article No AccessNew Biological BooksZoology Lagomorphs. Mammals of Russia and Adjacent Regions. By V.E.Sokolov, E.Yu.Ivanitskaya, V.V.Gruzdev, and V.G.Heptner; scientific editors:, RobertS.Hoffmann and AndrewT.Smith. Enfield (New Hampshire): Science Publishers. $119.50. ix 400 p.; ill.; no index. 9781578085224. Originally published as Mlekopitaiushchie Rossii i Sopredel'nykh Regionov: Zaitseobraznye, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, Russia, 1994. 2009.E.A.LyapunovaE.A.LyapunovaKoltzov Institute of Developmental Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Search for more articles by this author Koltzov Institute of Developmental Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, RussiaPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 84, Number 3September 2009 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/644717 Views: 5Total views on this site 2009 by The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Reviewed by: Max Webers Sprache. Neue Einblicke in das Gesamtwerk by Edith Hanke Barbara Thériault Edith Hanke, Max Webers Sprache. Neue Einblicke in das Gesamtwerk (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2022), vii+206pp. (pbk). ISBN 978-3-447-11775-3. €49.00. ‘How one would have loved to be there!’ (‘Zu gerne wäre man dabei gewesen!’) (89). It’s hard to doubt Edith Hanke’s sincerity when she exclaims how much she would have liked to attend one of Weber’s conferences. As scientific editor and, since 2005, general editor of the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, she came as close to it as it gets. Her contribution to deciphering and interpreting material (manuscripts, letters, notes on slips of paper) gathered over the years was instrumental in reconstructing the evolution of Weber’s concepts and life. Max Webers Sprache is a collection of seven loosely connected chapters structured around language, somewhat following the division of the MWG (writings and speeches, letters, lectures and transcripts of lectures). The book has been released in the wake of the publication, in 2020, of the last of the 47 volumes of the MWG—the largest social science publishing endeavor ever made in terms of financial and time investments1—and could be seen as a kind of ‘bonus content’ intended for Weber’s fans, to help them wean off their long-lived series. One discovers developments in the protagonist’s personality, learns about his torments, and gains some new insights into his work process and teaching style, while also getting to meet some background characters (women, students and colleagues, family members). Although the first two chapters focus on language in a narrow sense, one should not expect a formal analysis of Weber’s ways of writing and speaking. Chapter 1 (‘Max Webers Sprache—Zur Einführung’) introduces general aspects of Weber’s written language (his use of exclamation points, dashes, or italics for instance) and style. A central [End Page 126] aspect of this style is nicely captured by Gangolf Hübinger’s reflection: ‘Within the pathos of objectivity his rhetoric is always rigorous, always bossy, always agonal’ (‘Im Pathos der Sachlichkeit ist seine [Webers] Rhetorik immer rigoristisch, immer rechthaberisch, immer agonal’) (9). Drawing on examples from Weber’s best-known concepts and research interests, Hanke explores in chapter 2 (‘Begriffsprägungen—die Sprache als Arbeitsinstrument’) his language and characteristic thinking patterns, reconstructing the birth and the shaping of the concepts of capitalism, domination, bureaucracy, and charisma. Although one could argue that it is nearly impossible to really write anything new about these concepts in just a few pages, it turns out to be quite interesting to set them in their historical context, for instance, how the three domination patterns (traditional, constitutional, plebiscitary] were already present in political discourses at the end of the nineteenth century. In chapter 3 (‘Sprachliche Ausdrucksformen: brutal—männlich— witzig’) the author takes Weber’s Freiburg inaugural lecture as a starting point to share some of his harshest and most nationalist comments at the turn of the 20th century. She introduces us to Weber’s historical and political context and offers us a taste of some of the swearwords prevailing at the time (verfluchter Pack, Rindviehcher, Schweinebande, Hundsfott). Weber is portrayed as polemical, brutal, macho, provocative, hurtful, but also—as Hanke stresses—funny. In chapter 4 (‘Redekunst—Die Macht des gesprochenen Wortes’) Hanke’s interest turns to the effect Weber had on his audience. She is attentive to his tone, mentions how members of the audience from his two vocation lectures stressed his confident bearing and his elegant hand movements, his way of talking freely, relying only on a few notes. Weber was a popular speaker who was reduced to silence for many years (1898–1904) by anxiety, insomnia, and aphasia. He did eventually go back to writing and talking, but those activities—especially teaching –now used up all of his strength. In chapter 5 (‘Das Briefwerk—die Metaphorik der Gefühle’), Hanke contrasts Weber’s talents as a public speaker with his limitations when it came to talking about emotions. Late in his life, as some love letters reveal, he did seem...

Explaining the Inexplicable. Lucjan Dobroszycki and Jeffrey S. Gurock (eds.), The Holocaust in the Soviet Union: Studies and Sources on the Destruction of the Jews in the Nazi‐Occupied Territories of the USSR, 1941–1945, with a foreword by Richard Pipes. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1993. 260pp. More Encyclopaedism!. Mikhail A. Parkhomovsky (comp., ed. and publ.), Evrei v kulture russkogo zarubezhia: Stati, memuary, publikatsii i essey (Jews in the Culture of Russia Abroad: Collected Articles, Memoirs, Publications and Essays), v. 1, Jerusalem, 1992. 528 pp. Illustrations. Notes. $30; v. 2, Jerusalem, 1993. 640pp. Illustrations. Notes. Index of names. $36. Bibliography on Migration from Former USSR. Elazar Leshem, Scientific Editor, Dina Shor, Editor, Aliya v'Klita shel Yehudei Brit ha‐Moatsot L'she'avar: Bibliografia Nivkheret v'Taktsirim 1990‐7993/lmmigration and Absorption of Former‐Soviet Union Jewry: Selected Bibliography and Abstracts 1990–1993. Jerusalem: The Henrietta Szold Institute, The Information Retrieval Center for Research in the Social Sciences, 1994. xxiii +265pp., Hebrew, with an English introduction. Subject and author indices in Hebrew and English. Symptom of a Sickness. Vladislav Stanislavovich Shumsky, Trupnye pyatna ozhidovleniya (The Putrid Stains of Judaization). Moscow 1994. 147pp. In the Finest Tradition of Hungarian‐Jewish Co‐existence. Sándor Scheiber, Magyar zsidó hirlapok és folyóiratok bibliográfiája/ Bibliography of Hungarian Jewish Newspapers and Periodicals (1847–1992). Edited from the author's manuscript by Livia Bernáth Scheiber and Györgyi Barabás. Hungarica Judaica 3. Budapest: Centre of Jewish Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 1993. 417 pp. Into the Realms of the Apologist. Larry L. Watts, Romanian Cassandra. Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform, 1916–1941. Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 1993. x+390pp. No bibliography. No index. ‘The Last Jew in Auschwitz‘. Ruth Ellen Gruber, Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East‐Central Europe, Yesterday, and Today. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. 310pp. $34.95. The Greatest Miscalculation in Soviet Foreign Policy. William Korey, The Promises We Keep: Human Rights, the Helsinki Process and American Foreign Policy. Foreword by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. New York: St Martin's Press in association with the Institute of East West Studies, 1993. xxxvi+ 529pp. Index. £22.95.