“The Politics of Pure Science” Revisited

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Daniel Greenberg’s The Politics of Pure Science, we discuss trajectories of 20th century science policy concepts. Statistical analyses of digitized text corpora shed light on how ‘basic research’ became the predominant concept during World War II and in the postwar decades. In contrast to the 19th century ideal of pure science, ‘basic research’ conveys both the promise of utility and the promise of autonomy. The historical concept succeeded to bridge the gap between political and industrial expectations on the one hand and the uncertainty of the research endeavor on the other hand. Despite the more recent criticism toward the ideal of basic research, our analysis indicates that the very same concept remains relevant in normal science communication.