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London Review of Books

"Shapin has produced a work of exceptional originality, power and significance. He has also given readers much to chew over in regard to contemporary developments and perennial issues. . . . Shapin tells this story exceediongly well, framing its episodes richly and developing them through vivid depictions of representative figures, texts, incidents and anecdotes."

— Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Nature

"The pockets of science that are unaffected by commerce, or by the state, are steadily shrinking. To ignore this would be to deny the realities of today's science. After this book, that cannot happen again. The Scientific Life should therefore be required reading for all scientists and those studying the social activity of science.. . . . Shapin's study is neither a sources-based history of the past nor an empirical social science analysis of the present. It is instead an extended insightful essay. This genre enriches public debate."

— Jerome Ravetz

Journal of American History

"An evocative look at both the history of sociology of science and of lives in science."

— Sally Gregory Kohlstedt

New York Review of Books

"Remarkably rich in detail and revelation. . . . Shapin may not be doing a conventional history of the 'scientific life,' but what he has done is both novel and provocative."

— H. Allen Orr

Choice

"A stunning antidote to the naive portraits of how science is or should be done."

Science

"The Scientific Life provokes us to discard worn-out understandings that science outside universities is necessarily aberrant and that the credibility of scientific knowledge no longer depends upon moral judgments about the experts who make reality claims. In that task, the book succeeds masterfully."

— Thomas F. Gieryn

Scott Vieira - Library Journal

Shapin (history of science, Harvard Univ.; The Scientific Revolution) here examines science as a vocation. The practice of science, once a calling from God or, perhaps, a mere amateur's hobby, has come into its own as a profession, particularly following World War II. Shapin's sociological history documents this vocational evolution as he raises the following questions: How does the practice and authority of science relate to the virtues of its practitioners? Is academic science superior to the commercialization of science? How does industry compete for the best minds in science? Can the practice of scientific research be organized, team driven, and accountable to investors? Shapin addresses all these questions without weighing in with his personal opinions on the topic. The result is a thought-provoking challenge to the assumptions of scientific objectivity by science's practitioners and an acknowledgment of just how important the morality of scientists may be in the advancement and authority of knowledge. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents