Task Force on ASA/AAAS Relations
Final Report

August 2001

Submitted by A. Douglas Kincaid, Florida International University

The Task Force was formed in 1999 with the following mission: “to consider how the representation of sociology and the American Sociological Association can best be advanced within the American Association for the Advancement of Science”.  The Task Force was composed of the current and immediately past ASA representatives to AAAS sections (see Appendix 1).  It met several times at the 1999, 2000, and 2001 annual meetings of the ASA and AAAS.  The highlights of task force activity were a workshop at the 2000 ASA meeting on how to publish in Science, and a meeting at the 2001 AAAS congress with Peter Raven, the incoming AAAS president (see Appendices 2 and 3).

The premise for this report is that the ASA should care about how the discipline of sociology, and those of the social sciences more generally, are represented in the realms of AAAS activities and concerns.  In the past, through the efforts of the Committee on ASA/AAAS Relations that preceded the Task Force, this has primarily taken the form of seeking to promote the submissions by sociologists of research articles for publication in Science and proposals for sessions at the AAAS meetings.  Neither effort, it must be said, has ever worked well.  The journal’s acceptance rate of submissions by sociologists is believed to fall into its overall rate of 8-15%, but submissions have remained scarce, despite annual entreaties from the committee through Footnotes to encourage them.  Meanwhile sociological sessions at AAAS meetings have also been sparse; those that have made it onto the program in recent years have been the result of individual initiatives of particular section representatives or of a handful of sociologists who are active members of AAAS on their own. [1]

There have been occasional sociological highlights on AAAS programs.  Plenary topical lectures by sociologists William Julius Wilson on social inequality at the 1997 meeting and Troy Duster on the scientific construct of race at the 2001 meeting generated very large audiences.  However, a review of the scheduled symposia and topical lecturers for the 2002 AAAS meeting in Boston reveals no apparent presence of sociologists among the organizers or featured participants.

The current low level of activity is likely to continue without any further action on the part of the ASA, beyond the maintenance of sectional representation.  We do have some recommendations for strengthening this representation, presented below.  But there are other reasons for seeking a higher level of involvement for sociology in AAAS affairs.  On the one hand, it is obvious to most scientists that recent scientific and technological innovations are dramatically reshaping human existence at a rapid rate, and that efforts to understand these processes and deal with their consequences demand the collaboration of social scientists, physical scientists, medical researchers, engineers, and others in a continual dialogue.  This suggests a different approach to thinking about the presence of sociology within the AAAS than one that simply counts articles published in Science or meeting symposia organized by sociologists as indicators of success.  Instead, what may be needed is more effort to develop sociological participation in multidisciplinary collaborations to address the leading issues of the day.  This means, for one thing, that the ASA should be represented not only in the AAAS sections where normal social science is located, but also in the sections where multidisciplinary debates are most likely to emerge (see Appendix 4).

On the other hand, in part through the efforts of the Task Force, there is reason to think that the AAAS is more open to such an initiative in the past.  AAAS president Peter Raven has expressed support for the task force’s objectives and offered specific suggestions as to how these might be advanced.  Our recommendations below incorporate some of his ideas.  Science Deputy Managing Editor Brooks Hanson, who has primary responsibility for handling social science submission, has also been very supportive in a number of interactions with the task force.  He recently added sociologist Barry Wellman to a team of contributors for a special issue on information technology.  His ideas are also reflected in our recommendations.  In general, we believe there are some immediate, open windows of opportunity that can be taken advantage of.

Sociologists have an important contribution to make to the most important scientific dialogues of the early 21^st century, and the AAAS, through its meetings and publications, is a critical arena for that contribution.  We hope that the following recommendations will be seen in that light.

Recommendations for ASA representatives to the AAAS

1. The representation of the ASA in AAAS sections should be broadened from its current lineup of three (K - Social, Economic, and Political Sciences; Q – Education; and U – Statistics) to include four others:

   L – History and Philosophy of Science

   N – Medical Sciences

   T – Information, Computing, and Communication

X – Societal Impacts of Science and Engineering

2. The ASA representative to the AAAS’s international wing, the Consortium of Affiliated International Programs (CAIP), can be drawn from the ASA Executive Office.  CAIP has no role or presence on the program for the AAAS meeting except for an honorary award luncheon and holds its annual business meeting separately in Washington.

3. The naming of ASA representatives should be for three-year terms and staggered to ensure some continuity of experience in working together.  One representative should be designated as lead representative to the AAAS (or something similar), to provide some coordination to the group and the ability to address AAAS business at the level of the organization.

4. The representatives should seek to collaborate to develop AAAS symposia proposals. Given the competitiveness and tight turnaround for those proposals between the AAAS meeting and the proposal deadline, the group should meet at the ASA meeting in August to plan for one or more submissions to the AAAS by the March deadline for the meeting the year after that.  The group could then meet again at the AAAS meeting (usually in late January or early February) to finalize proposals.

5. Each ASA representative should be asked to prepare a brief annual report on the activities of his or her AAAS section.  The reports could be collected by the lead representative, submitted to the Executive Office, and published in Footnotes.

Recommendations for Increasing a Sociological Presence in Science

1. The president of the ASA should be requested to send a letter to Donald Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief of Science, with copy to Peter Raven.  Ideally, the letter would:
• express concern over the relative absence of social science represented in the articles published, books reviewed, and news covered in Science;
• present an argument for the importance of a greater social science contribution in terms not just of representation, but also in terms of integrative or interdisciplinary themes that will be of general interest to the scientific community (i.e., have the potential to increase readership); and
• suggest that the Science editorial team be broadened to include a social scientist as a deputy editor and/or on the editorial advisory board, as a means to promote greater social science submissions and facilitate the manuscript review process.

2. The editorial teams of ASA journals could serve as vehicles for alerting Science editors to cutting-edge sociological research.  Journal editors should be requested to send regular e-mail notices to Science editors identifying articles they are publishing that constitute path-breaking research, and new books whose impact would merit review in Science.

3. Footnotes should continue to publish, yearly or biannually, articles advising sociologists on how to publish in Science and the advantages of doing so.  The text of these articles would not need to be changed much from one time to the next, and could be reviewed by the AAAS section representatives at their meeting.

Recommendation for Increasing Sociological Involvement in the AAAS Annual Meeting

1. The ASA Executive Officer should request a meeting with Peter Raven and AAAS Scientific Program Director Michael Strauss to discuss how to better integrate social science in the AAAS annual meetings.  Ideally, this could take place at a time when Raven will be in Washington, and might also include representatives from other social science associations.  Agenda items would include the selection of social scientists to serve on AAAS meeting program committees, and identifying prominent social scientists as potential featured speakers at AAAS meetings.  The objective would be to develop some routine advisory procedures that will be of assistance to future AAAS presidents in developing their meetings.  The ASA’s AAAS section representatives should be able to play a role in these procedures.

Appendices

1. Task Force Members

2. Report on ASA Professional Workshop, “Publishing for a Scientific Audience of 140,000: How to Get an Article into Science.”

3. Report from San Francisco

4. AAAS Sections

Appendix 1

ASA Task Force on ASA/AAAS Relations
Task Force Members

Karl Alexander, Johns Hopkins University
Kenneth Bollen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Christopher Chase-Dunn, University of California, Riverside
Paula England, University of Pennsylvania (council liaison)
A. Douglas Kincaid, Florida International University (chair)
Edward Laumann, University of Chicago
Joanne Nigg, University of Delaware
Harriet Presser, University of Maryland, College Park
Judith M. Tanur, SUNY Stony Brook
Pamela B. Walters, Indiana University

Appendix 2

Report on ASA Professional Workshop,
"Publishing for a Scientific Audience of 140,000:
How to Get an Article into Science."

August 12, 2000

Brooks Hanson’s Presentation

Hanson holds a Ph.D. in geology (UCLA 1986) and has worked as an editor at Science for 15 years.  He is currently deputy managing editor for research and has primary responsibility for social science submissions.

Science is divided into a news department, which has its own writers, and a research department, which handles manuscript submissions.  Science seeks to publish the best research in all field of Science.  The criteria for acceptance of manuscripts are:

1. Novelty (the results cannot have been published anywhere beforehand)
2. Technical validity
3. Importance of findings (both in general and for a specific field)
4. Newsworthiness
5. Balance in the journal

There are two main categories of research publications: articles, representing major contributions to their fields (maximum 4,000 words); and reports, representing original research findings (maximum 2,500 words).  For these categories Science receives about 8,000 submissions per year.  The review process is as follows:

1. The manuscript is assigned to an editor, who in turn assigns it to a member of the editorial review board for comment on its suitability for Science, or an outside expert if no review board members is competent in the manuscript’s field.
2. Two-thirds of all submissions are rejected without in-depth review (7-10 days after submission).
3. Manuscripts are sent to 2 or more reviewers (4-6 week turnaround).
4. About 1,000 of 2,500 reviewed manuscripts are accepted annually for publication, mostly after revision .
5. Articles are published about 6 weeks after acceptance in final form.

The acceptance rate across the entire review process is between 8% and 15% according to discipline.  Brooks believes sociology falls within this range, but the number of submissions is very low.

Circulation is about 140,000.  Science articles are also disseminated immediately to 500 journalists and media outlets worldwide.

There are other avenues for publishing in Science, most of which are based on solicited contributions but are open to unsolicited work as well.  They include Book Reviews,  Perspectives (commentaries on recently published research discussing its broader significance; 1,000-1,500 words); Reviews (longer commentaries; 4,000 words); Technical Comments (comments on previous articles; 500 words); and Letters (200 words.

Prospective authors should ask themselves:

1. Is this some of the best work that I have ever done?
2. Are the results surprising?  Do they overturn existing theories or ideas?
3. Do the results open a new line of inquiry or area for research?
4. Ask a colleague.

Key Ideas Discussed

Harriet Presser (Maryland) has published two items in Science (one report  in 1986, one policy forum piece in 1999) and has had one rejected.  Advantages she sees in publishing work in Science include quick turnaround, major media impact, reaching a broader audience, and influence on other scholarship.  The main disadvantage she sees is that Science publications are not seen by many other social scientists, at least initially. She also commented on a double standard she sees in de facto Science editorial criteria; she doesn’t expect to be able to read the work published in biomedicine or astrophysics, and questions why she should be expected to write something that a non-social scientist could read.

Tom Gieryn (Indiana) is chair of the ASA section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology.  He commented on the degree to which the sociology of science has historically relied on Science Magazine as a source of data and as a forum for discussing sociological perspectives on science.  In the 1980s and 1990s, however, Science no longer was reviewing books nor publishing research on the sociology of science.  Gieryn attributed the change to a sea change in the way that sociologists study science (more critical, less understood by physical scientists) and, more generally, the “science wars”.  He suggested that Science book review editors need to be more informed as to what is being published in the sociology of science; that the book review section should include a “Sociology of Science” subhead in its contents, and that a Science editor specializing in the history/sociology/philosophy of science should be recruited to facilitate these changes.

Rob Sampson (Chicago) has published one research article in Science (1997).  He observed that the low acceptance rate should not discourage sociologists, as it is not much different from the major journals in sociology.  He ratified Harriet’s list of pros and cons for publishing in Science.  Based on his experience, he expressed concern over how Science editors would handle a split decision among manuscript reviewers when the editors would not have competence themselves in social science, presuming that rejection would be the most likely outcome.  He believes the main problem, however, is the low volume of sociology submissions to Science, reflecting a widespread antipathy on the part of sociologists.

Audience questions were mainly concerned with clarifying aspects of the review process.  Hanson reiterated that submissions to Science will be rejected if they have been published or are under consideration elsewhere, and that it is also better that they not be on the web and not have received prior publicity in the media.  It is important, however, to be able to say that the submission has been competently vetted among peers (presented in lecture form or as a paper in a professional meeting).  Another comment was that the shorter length of articles published in Science, rigidly enforced for economic reasons, may discourage submissions from sociologists who would have difficulty publishing a short piece elsewhere after being rejected by Science.  Others felt, however, that social science frequently would benefit from more economy of expression.  Another comment was that Science should send a strong signal of openness to sociology submissions, e.g., by putting a sociologist on its masthead.

Outlook and Options

It does not appear that there are any insuperable obstacles to achieving an increase in the volume of sociology published in Science.  The main problem seems to be a chicken-and-egg dilemma.  Sociologists do not perceive the Science editorial team as open or perhaps competent to evaluate sociological research, and thus do not submit their work to Science; on the other hand, the Science editorial team is not likely to be expanded to include sociology as long as the submission rate is so low.

While many sociologists are unlikely to want to publish their research where few of their sociological colleagues will see it, the greater public impact of a publication in Science ought to be motivation enough for a higher volume of submissions.  Both Presser and Sampson said that they were deluged with media and other public attention to their work after their articles in Science came out.

Hanson suggested a number of factors are working in favor of increased sociological content in Science.  The new editor, Donald Kennedy (previously president of Stanford), is open-minded and very interested in work that crosses normal disciplinary boundaries.  Moreover, physical scientists are increasingly recognizing the importance of legal, social, and ethical issues emerging around new scientific developments such as the genome project, biomedical discoveries, information technology, etc.

Hanson suggests that sociologists should enter into dialogue with the editors of Science and help them to identify key works of sociological research being published.  Suggestions can be addressed to him or to other members of the editorial team whom he thinks will be sympathetic:

Gilbert Chin, Senior Editor (psychology)

Barbara Jasny, Supervisory Senior Editor (Policy Forum)

Katrina Kelner, Deputy Managing Editor (biology)

Andrew Sugden, Supervisory Senior Editor (ecology)

Sherman Suter, Associate Book Review Editor

Julie Uppenbrink, Senior Editor (Perspectives)

Hanson is also willing to prepare an article for ASA Footnotes containing his outline of the Science review process and suggestions for prospective authors.

Appendix 3

"Report from San Francisco"
from Footnotes, 29:4, April 2001

A. Douglas Kincaid
Florida International University

Professional meetings in San Francisco are probably always more exuberant than the norm, but the 2001 conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) had an especially electric quality to it.  Held Feb. 15-20, the same week as the breakthrough reports on the mapping of the human genome were published in Science (the AAAS journal) and Nature, the meetings were dominated (or maybe determined) by the genome.

In his plenary address, Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and head of the international consortium of laboratories that worked on the project, classified the decoding of the genome as on the same plane with Darwin’s achievements, and laid out a series of predictions for rapid advances in medical science over the next three decades.  A packed house of 1,500 scientists gave hi9m a standing ovation.  A day earlier, in her presidential plenary, AAAS president Mary Good had proclaimed that if the 20^th century had been the century of physics, the 21^st century would be the century of biology.

As usual, social science was present at the AAAS meeting, but you had to look closely to find it.  The most noteworthy social science event was Troy Duster’s featured lecture on “Human Genetic Technologies and Taxonomies: Old Wine in New Bottles or New Wine in Old Bottles?”  Noting that biogenetic research reports have tended to reinforce an increasingly prevalent set of arguments that the concept of race has no scientific validity, except as a purely social construct, the Berkeley sociologist begged to differ.  Citing evidence from blood typology and transfusion practices, forensic investigations into genetic markers of racial and ethnic group categories, and differential group sensitivities to screening for genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis, Duster argued that socially defined categories of race (or ethnicity, or religion) can have feedback loops into the biological organism, which can in turn produce new social consequences.  Far from seeking to discredit them, he concluded, scientists should recognize that such concepts will always be “a complex interplay of social and biological realities with ideology and myth.”

Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the ASA’s Task Force on ASA/AAAS Relations was pursuing its agenda of seeking ways to raise the profile of sociology, and social science more generally, within the country’s largest professional organization of scientists.  Members of the task force, accompanied by ASA executive director Felice Levine and Howard Silver, director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations, met with Peter Raven, president of the AAAS for 2001-02, to discuss how the task force’s objectives might intersect with his own presidential agenda.

Raven, a renowned botanist and head of the Missouri Botanical Garden, has designated “Science in a Connected World” as his theme for the 2002 AAAS meeting in Boston.  The preliminary outline of the meeting promises to make this the most social science-friendly AAAS meeting in many years.  Planned thematic tracks for the symposia that make up most of the AAAS program include “ Science and the Public Trust in a Connected World”, “Connecting Diverse Disciplines”, “Communicating Across Boundaries”, “Cultural and Social Diversity in a Changing World”, and several others that might readily incorporate sociological contributions.  Raven expressed support for getting social scientists more involved with the AAAS and offered the group several suggestions for influencing the 2002 program, publishing in Science (see accompanying article), and other initiatives.

A consensus emerged in the meeting that an increased social science presence at AAAS meetings and in Science should not be pursued on purely representational grounds, as if there were a quota for each discipline’s content.  Instead, it should be constructed as an integrative effort that seeks to bring social scientists, physical scientists, medical researchers, engineers, and others into a continual dialogue.  The genome project may be getting all the ink at present, but it is only the latest of a series of scientific and technological innovations that are dramatically reshaping human existence.  Social science research and perspectives must be part of the scientific discourse on these developments.

One thing that has hampered past efforts to promote this integration is the lack of data on existing levels of ASA member involvement or interest in the AAAS.  In this context, our task force would like to hear from you.  If you are or have been a member of AAAS, have any experiences with the AAAS or Science that you would like to share, or are otherwise interested in getting involved, please let me know at kincaidd@fiu.edu.

A. Douglas Kincaid, chair of the Task Force on ASA/AAAS Relations, is vice provost for international studies and associate professor of sociology at Florida International University.

Appendix 4

AAAS Sections

Sections with ASA representatives:

K         Social, Economic, and Political Sciences

Q         Education

U         Statistics

Other Sections:

A         Mathematics
B          Physics
C         Chemistry
D         Astronomy
E          Geology and Geography
G         Biological Sciences
H         Anthropology
J           Psychology
L          History and Philosophy of Science
M         Engineering
N         Medical Sciences
O         Agriculture, Food, and Renewable Resources
P          Industrial Science and Technology
R          Dentistry
S          Pharmaceutical Sciences
T          Information, Computing, and Communication
V         Neuroscience
W        Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences
X         Societal Impacts of Science and Engineering
Y         General Interest in Science and Engineering
Z          Linguistics and Language Science