When ungroovy scientists did groovy science: how non-activist
scientists and engineers adapted their work to a rapidly changing social
and political landscape.
In The Squares, Cyrus Mody shows how, between the late 1960s and the
early 1980s, some scientists and engineers who did not consider
themselves activists, New Leftists, or members of the counterculture
accommodated their work to the rapidly changing social and political
landscape of the time. These "square scientists," Mody shows, began to
do many of the things that the counterculture urged: turn away from
military-industrial funding, become more interdisciplinary, and focus
their research on solving problems of civil society. During the period
Mody calls "the long 1970s," ungroovy scientists were doing groovy
science.
Mody offers a series of case studies of some of these collective efforts
by non-activist scientists to use their technical knowledge for the good
of society. He considers the region around Santa Barbara and the
interplay of public universities, think tanks, established firms, new
companies, philanthropies, and social movement organizations. He looks
at Stanford University's transition from Cold War science to
commercialized technoscience; NASA's search for a post-Apollo mission;
the unsuccessful foray into solar energy by Nobel laureate Jack Kilby;
the "civilianization" of the US semiconductor industry; and systems
engineer Arthur D. Hall's ill-fated promotion of automated agriculture.
