Scientists as Prophets

Scientists as Prophets by Lynda Walsh is a thought-provoking examination of why science advisors have become the new prophets of our time. Walsh argues that they perform a prophetic ethos to manufacture certainty, and charts the genealogy of this hybrid scientific-prophetic ethos from its roots in ancient oracles to its flourishing in modern-day events like the UN's climate change panel. With a focus on ethical and political defects embedded in this genealogy, Walsh evaluates proposed remedies and concludes that there is little chance of remedying the dysfunctions in our current science-advising system without a radical shift in our style of deliberative policy-making. Accessible to readers interested in the roots of current political debates about the environment, nuclear energy, and science education, this book is a cogent rhetorical analysis of over 1,000 archival documents from 10 historic cases.