BOOK REVIEWS The Professional Scientist: A Study of American Chemists
Anselm L. Strauss and Lee Rainwater with Marc J . Swartz and Barbara G . Berger. Aldine Publishing Co., Chicago, l!IFZ. xiv 282 pp. 15 X 21.5 cm.
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This book provides a goad picture of the thinking of approximately 3000
touches on a wide variety of subjccts such ss how chemists become chemists, types of careers of chemists, the chemist's work morale, haw others see chemists. The second is the chemist as a professional; here there are questions dealing with chemistry and other professions, chemistry and medicine, chemists and the public, some potential dangers to the profession, and chemists and industrial mnnzgement. Thc final facet has to do with the chemist and his professional orgsnieation-The ACS; non-members, membership and participation, wllctlrer the Society is sufficiently professional, the Society's fnnctions-past and present, who runs it, attitudes toward membership, and symbolic meanings. The book closes with a concluding note on professions. The qualitative data, used to identify the belieis, ideas, and prejudices of the 3000 chemists came in part from interviews
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Journol of Chemical Education
with 200 randomly selected ACS members in 10 cities, 75 non-ACS chemists in Chicago, and 50 businessmen and other professionals. The quantitative data, evaluated via IBM cards, were the results of a questionnaire sent to 2700 male ACS members. Chapter I entitlrd Professions and Industrialization: A Framework for the Studv. " , and Chanter XII. 4 Concludine Note on Professions, provide what might be called background for the data d e veloped by the interviews and the answers to the questionnaire. Here the authors leave the fairly safe field of data summariaing and interpretation for tho vagaries of speculation. There are many statements in these chapters which the reviewer questions. Example (p. 7), "The professional schools are putting more emphasis on science in their graduate education as a result of its prestige i n the unive~sity." They are, but not for that reason. Example (p. 220), "Professors in purescience disciplines typically are interested i n teaching future colleagues, not i n turning out personnel f o ~na-academic settings." This I do not believe. Exsmple (p. 225), "The graduate students (in physics) who enter the aircraft and othcr industries are scarcely regarded a t the great universities as equal to physicists who remain on the campus or join such institutions as Bell Laboratories." How an individual is regarded depends on the individual and not on where he takes a are in the imiv?rsities. Example (p. 218), "As longau university
departments graduate only those students who fallow primarily in the footsteps of their teachers, there is no question of professionalization. The graduate is a scientist, or more accurately, a scientist and a professor" (but apparently not a professional man). Finally (p. 3) "They [the chemists] are also, in response to the needs of an industrializing society, engaged in teaching, administration, and other activities less obviously connected with research. Primarily, however, the profession (of chemistry) is one of scientijc &cowry and the practical application of the r e d t s to the creation of new products." This could seeningly exclude the chemist who is concerned with pure scientific re~earchand who has no interest whatever in new products. Example (p. 29) "Chemistry of all the natural sciences has the highest proportion of men+070." Physics has approximately 97%. Example (p. 36) "One out of six chemists does his work a t an educational institution" while on p. 29 we read that "in 1950 one tenth of the chemists were found on campuses." There is something missing in this comparison-it is the number of "chemists" who teach chemistry in high school. Any quotations from this book should be confined to quantitative data. IBM machines cnn count-but interpretation and specul tio on certainly are beyond them. HARRYF. LEWIS Institute of Paper Chenzist7y Appleton, Wisconsin (Continued on page 4 4 7 2 )
