William H. Tucker, The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund.

Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002. $34.95 hardcover.

Universities are widely regarded as centers where independent, rigorous research is undertaken free of bias and external influence. However, there has always been a tension between the pursuit of objective knowledge and the desire of external sponsors to fund research designed to promote their own agendas. In recent years, research funding by pharmaceutical and bio-technology firms has resulted in several well publicized cases in which concerns about autonomy and potential conflicts of interest involving university researchers have been expressed. These developments echo earlier concerns about the funding of research perceived to have military implications.

The issue is particular pertinent to social policy research where it is widely recognized that values and beliefs permeate the field and where it is not always possible to pursue `pure' investigation. Scholars have grappled with this issue for many years but it has not been fully resolved. Some believe that the problem can best be addressed by a declaration of values so that consumers of social policy research can have no doubt as to preferences and persuasions. Others believe that applied research with political implications should not be conducted at universities. Independent think tanks, they argue, is where this type of research rightly belongs.

These issues take on a dramatic character when viewed in the light of William Tucker's interesting and important book. A professor of psychology at Rutgers, Tucker has previously published on the subject of `racial research', which may be described as the use of scientific procedures to examine a variety of phenomena associated with ethnicity and race. Originating in theories of race superiority and fueled by the eugenics movement in the early decades of the last century, racial research lost popularity as its true purpose was better understood, and as its association with Nazism and other racist ideologies was exposed. But, as Tucker reveals, racial research is by no means a thing of the past. Indeed, the book opens with a striking reference to Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve which was published in 1994. Tucker shows how research of this kind has been supported by organizations with clear ideological agendas. One of these is the Pioneer Fund which was founded in the 1930s by Wicliffe Preston Draper, a wealthy businessman. The Pioneer Fund's sponsorship of racial research continues today. Although Herrnstein and Murray were not supported by the Pioneer Fund, the Fund distributed their work and it has sponsored numerous studies by academics including William Schockley and Arthur Jensen whose accounts of the links between race and intelligence attracted widespread and controversial attention.

This is an extremely detailed and thoroughly researched book. Although some may view the topic as esoteric, it makes for fascinating reading. It should certainly be consulted by scholars working in the field of social welfare where race and ethnic issues are of perennial relevance. The increasing trend towards the bio-medicalization of social problems and the growing impact of genetic research on the social and behavioral sciences requires a better understanding of the issues. Tucker's account of the Pioneer Fund, and the history of race research in the United States makes an important contribution and should be of interest to anyone engaged in social policy research today