What does the state expect for its research dollars? What intellectual and political compromises does a scientist make by seeking government grants or contracts? Do such questions haunt you as you write your final reports, your new proposals? Perhaps they should. In her recent book, Chandra Mukerji, professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, studies oceanographers as paradigms of soft-money scientists at large (those who seek government funds to further their research, not solely those whose salary depends on such funds) and concludes that most scientists delude themselves as to the extent of their individual scientific autonomy—that scientists have sold their “voice” for a mess of pottage.

Dickson, A.G. 1990. Review of A Fragile Power: Scientists and the State, by C. Mukerji. Oceanography 3(2):62–63, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1990.13.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.