“Although it builds on a vast foundation of first-hand journalistic knowledge, <I>Science, Money and Politics<I> transcends journalistic fact gathering and presents cogently argued themes to explain the history and present state of the ‘science enterprise’ in the United States. . . . The real strength of this study lies in its challenging and disturbing analyses, which constitute an indispensable primer for all serious debate on the future of the science enterprise in the United States."

“A broad assault on the business of doing science in America, which, the author argues, prizes profit and professional advancement over knowledge. That emphasis, science journalist Greenberg holds, regularly yields ethical lapses in violation of the spirit of science, which is supposed to value critical inquiry and the search for truth. Reagan’s science advisors, for instance, knew that the Star Wars missile-defense program was based on flawed assumptions that would make its implementation all but impossible, but they kept their mouths shut. Rushing to cash in on the human genome bonanza, University of Pennsylvania researchers took a few experimental shortcuts that led to the death of a human subject—not an isolated instance. Greenberg writes, provocatively, that ‘the scientific gold rush left behind a dead body and revelations of indifference to ethical safeguards and deep concessions to the money chase.’ . . . The irony of it all, Greenberg observes, is that there has never been a shortage of federal money available for scientific research, even in times of austerity and libertarian rumblings from the likes of Newt Gingrich and his Republican-radical cronies; in the late 1990s, that funding soared, amounting to grants of more than $25 billion in 1998 alone. Still, he suggests, the scientific establishment has become so used to fat budgets and the absence of accountability that much of its effort is devoted not to research, but to lobbying for still greater access to the public trough. . . . Greenberg’s . . . attack on the big-science machine merits attention."

“Washington-based journalist Daniel S. Greenberg delves further into his favorite issue in <I>Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion.<I> Debunking science industry and policy myths left and right, Greenberg combines archival research and interviews with scientists and politicians in the know to explore why and how research has happened in the postwar U.S. . . . He goes on to describe the sycophancy, backbends and, sometimes, dishonesty practiced by researchers, and the willingness of some government scientists to keep their mouths shut when it behooves their bosses. A disturbing, compelling, and well-researched conspiracy story of the “I <I><knew<I> it!” variety.”

"Greenberg's profoundly important new book depicts American 'Big Science' as a classic self-perpetuating bureaucracy. . . . [It] is better documented than most National Academy of Sciences reports yet reads as briskly as a Dashiell Hammett detective story. . . . For four decades, Greenberg has been the conscience of American science writers. . . . We need more Greenbergs. . . . This admirable book should be required reading for science policy makers, science journalists, and any American who gives a damn whenever science—one of the nation's crown jewels—falls into irresponsible hands."

“[H]eroically researched . . .  Were the politics of science as important as the altitude of Presidential trousers, Greenberg would certainly be acknowledged as one of the greatest American investigative journalists of the last half-century. . . . [Greenberg’s]  <I>The Politics of Pure Science<I>, published in 1967, was, like <I>Science, Money and Politics<I>, a lively journalistic book which argued that the politics of science was just like any other kind of politics. Such differences as there were arose from the fact that scientists weren't very good politicians, and the vital role of science and technology in modern American life meant that, for many purposes, they didn't have to be. More vividly written and polemically argued than Greenberg's earlier book, <I>Science, Money and Politics<I> brings the story up to date."

“[A] unique and indispensable guide to the nether regions of the federally funded research enterprise in the United States. . . . [C]ertainly part of Greenberg's cantankerous intent is to expose the all-too-human motives and behavior of a community that often rests its demands for public support on the claim of special privilege. But this is not the whole story that he wants to tell. He also believes that the scientific community's ongoing infatuation with money has led to a progressive withdrawal from important

 political issues.”

“[T]he culmination of 40 years of pounding the science-policy beat. It is a masterly overview of how big science and big government have operated together in post-war America. . . . It is probably fair to say that, through the medium of his newsletter, <I>Science and Government Report<I>, Mr. Greenberg pretty well invented a new way to cover big science—as a form of government spending no different, in budgetary terms, from defense procurement or agricultural support.”

“Greenberg . . . does not require of us the careful construction of an ideal, but assuming, quite correctly, that we all know corruption and self-interest when we see them in their most egregious manifestations, tells it like it is.”

“[Greenberg] is snidely contemptuous of the politicos of science, indicting them, often with good reason, for hypocrisy, misrepresentation, and unwarranted doomsaying. This is on the whole an informative and provocative book. It includes riveting material from Greenberg’s conversations with Washington insiders . . . and it advances several arresting themes about the interplay among the subjects of its title.”

“In the case of Daniel Greenberg, who has been the gadfly of the U.S. scientific establishment for four decades, stimulation and provocation have often been leavened by wit and always motivated by sharp intelligence. Greenberg has made a career of puncturing the self-important puffery that sometimes passes for public discourse in this community. . . . [In this book] the gadfly delivers a stinging three-count indictment of the contemporary scientific community and adduces a large body of evidence to support it.”

“Other professionals—physicians, lawyers, and teachers—long ago entered electoral politics, but scientists for the most part have stuck to their nineteenth-century detachment. To compensate for the lack of direct access to politics, they simply developed sharper and slyer tools to assure their future access to government money. <I>Science, Money, and Politics<I> is a gripping, sometimes amusing, and often provocative <I>tour de force<I> discussion of the ultimate consequences of their success.”

Greenberg’s <I>Science, Money, and Politics</I>provides a more sweeping survey of the disorder that afflicts contemporary science. . . Greenberg’s irreverence has always offered a square meal for those woozy from the puffery and piety served up by most science journalists. The present book doesn’t disappoint; Greenberg is especially adept at capturing folly and hypocrisy with memorable phrases.”

"Greenberg has constructed a tour de force exploration of the world of science policy and politics over the pasty forty years, with pleasant forays into the worlds of big science, university research shops, government labs, scientific societies, and granting agencies. . . . [Greenberg] stands without peer as the outside science observer in Washington, and brings to his work both a fine appreciation for the work of scientists and the possible abuses of a system which funnels over $15 billion per year into basic research. . . . This is a superb book, and should interest scholars and laypersons alike interested in how the scientific enterprise has become what it is over the past fifty years.”