Social Function of Science

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J. D. Bernal's important and ambitious work, The Social Function of Science , was first published in January 1939. As the subtitle - What Science Does , What Science Could Do - suggests it is in two parts. Both have eight chapters. Part 1: What Science Does : Introductory, Historical, The Existing Organization of Scientific Research in Britain, Science in Education, The Efficiency of Scientific Research, The Application of Science, Science and War and International Science. Part 11: What Science Could Do : The Training of the Scientist, The Reorganization of Research, Scientific Communication, The Finance of Science, The Strategy of Scientific Advance; Science in the Service of Man, Science and Social Transformation and The Social Function of Science. To quote Bernal's biographer, Andrew Brown, 'The Social Function of Science . . . was Bernal's attempt to ensure that science would no longer be just a protected area of intellectual inquiry, but would have as an inherent function the improvement of life for mankind everywhere. It was a groundbreaking treatise both in exploring the scope of science and technology in fashioning public policy, with Bernal arguing that science is the chi

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