Braun Tibor, Schubert András (szerk.): Szakértői bírálat (peer review) a tudományos kutatásban : Válogatott tanulmányok a téma szakirodalmából (A MTAK Informatikai És Tudományelemzési Sorozata 7., 1993)

IAN I. MITROFF and DARYL E. CHUBIN: Peer Review at the NSF: A Dialectical Policy Analysis

140 MI I ROI'I & CHUBIN: PEER REVIEW A I" THE NSF 74 We thank an anonymous referee lor reminding us to call attention to these questions. 75. This is the spirit oi the proposed Science Court — the involvement of various publics in scientific decisions which arc 'too important to be left to the scientists'. But another anonymous referee observed: Basic to the Science Court concept is the idea of scientific judgment. Its purpose is not simply 'presentation and review' of the issues, but indeed, a verdict that reflects the assessment of a 'scientific judge' ... I have argued this out with Kantrowitz suggesting that he maintain the 'presentation and review' procedure and minimize the importance of the verdict, but he claims that would change the intention in a fundamental way. See D. Nelkin, 'The Political Impact of Technical Expertise', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 5 (February 1975), 35-54, and op. cit. note 10. 76. As Dorothy Nelkin, reflecting on the recombtnant-DNA debate, has recently argued: see her 'Threats and Promises: Negotiating the Control of Research', Daedalus, Vol. 107, No. 2 (Spring 1978), 191-209. Ian Mitroff's latest book is Methodological Approaches to Social Science (Jossey-Bass, 1978) coauthored with Ralph H. Kilmann, Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. Daryl Chubin has just completed a book manuscript entitled Viruses and Cancer: A Social Study of Growth and Specialization in Biomedical Research, coauthored by Kenneth E. Studer, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Virginia Commonwealth University. Their most recent publication is 'Knowledge and Structures of Scientific Growth: Measurement of a Cancer Problem Domain', Scientometrics, Vol. 1 (January 1979), 171-93. Authors' addresses (respectively): Interdisciplinary Department of Information Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA; Department of Social Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.