Scholars exploring the history of science under the Nazis have generally concentrated on the Nazi destruction of science or the corruption of intellectual and liberal values. Racial Hygiene focuses on how scientists themselves participated in the construction of Nazi racial policy. Robert Proctor demonstrates that the common picture of a passive scientific community coerced into cooperation with the Nazis fails to grasp the reality of what actually happened—namely, that many of the political initiatives of the Nazis arose from within the scientific community, and that medical scientists actively designed and administered key elements of National Socialist policy.

The book presents the most comprehensive account to date of German medical involvement in the sterilization and castration laws, the laws banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and the massive program to destroy “lives not worth living.” The study traces attempts on the part of doctors to conceive of the “Jewish problem” as a “medical problem,” and how medical journals openly discussed the need to find a “final solution” to Germany’s Jewish and gypsy “problems.”

Proctor makes us aware that such thinking was not unique to Germany. The social Darwinism of the late nineteenth century in America and Europe gave rise to theories of racial hygiene that were embraced by enthusiasts of various nationalities in the hope of breeding a better, healthier, stronger race of people. Proctor also presents an account of the “organic” health movement that flourished under the Nazis, including campaigns to reduce smoking and drinking, and efforts to require bakeries to produce whole-grain bread. A separate chapter is devoted to the emergence of a resistance movement among doctors in the Association of Socialist Physicians. The book is based on a close analysis of contemporary documents, including German state archives and more than two hundred medical journals published during the period.

Proctor has set out not merely to tell a story but also to urge reflection on what might be called the “political philosophy of science”—how movements that shape the policies of nations can also shape the structure and priorities of science. The broad implications of this book make it of consequence not only to historians, physicians, and people concerned with the history and philosophy of science, but also to those interested in science policy and medical ethics.

Why have scientists shied away from politics, or defended their work as value free? How has the ideal of neutrality come to dominate the world of science? These are some of the central questions that Robert Proctor addresses in his study of the politics of modern science.

Value-Free Science? emphasizes the importance of understanding the political origins and impact of scientific ideas. Proctor lucidly demonstrates how value-neutrality is a reaction to larger political developments, including the use of science by government and industry, the specialization of professional disciplines, and the efforts to stifle intellectual freedoms or to politicize the world of the academy.

The first part of the book traces the origins of value-neutrality prior to the eighteenth century. Plato and Aristotle saw contemplative thought as superior to practical action, and this separation of theory and practice is still invoked today in defense of "neutral science." In the seventeenth century the Baconian search for useful knowledge allowed a new and closer tie between theory and practice, but it also isolated moral knowledge from natural philosophy. Another version of neutrality was introduced by the mechanical conception of the universe, in which the idea of a benevolent, human-centered cosmos was replaced with a "devalorized" view of nature.

The central part of the book explores the exclusion of politics and morals with the emergence of the social sciences. Proctor highlights the case of Germany, where the ideal of value-neutrality was first articulated in modern form by social scientists seeking to attack or defend Marxism, feminism, and other social movements. He traces the rise and fall of positivist ethical and economic theory, showing that arguments for value-free science often mask concrete political maneuvers. Finally, he reviews critiques of science that have been voiced in recent debates over critical issues in agricultural science, military research, health and medicine, and biological determinism.

This provocative book will interest anyone seeking ways to reconcile the ideals of scientific freedom and social responsibility.