Scientific Values and Civic Virtues. Edited by Noretta Koertge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 256p. $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

This interesting collection of essays is dedicated to the proposition that the values essential for the functioning, indeed even the existence, of a scientific community are by and large the very values necessary for the sustenance and optimal functioning of a democratic society. To this end, the book is divided into three sections: The first is devoted to explicating the values entailed in any real scientific community and to exploring the historical nexus between the development of civil society and science; the second to illustrating the role of these values in science through a number of case studies; and the third to the examination and critique of contemporary anti- or pseudoscientific cultural movements as threats not only to science but to civil society itself.