American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s oldest and most influential international organization dedicated specifically to the promulgation of scientific research, engineering, and technology. That embrace of a wide scientific community has given the AAAS a membership of more than 125,000, making it the largest nonprofit organization in the world. From its beginnings in the early nineteenth century, the vision of the AAAS has been to promote science by encouraging communication worldwide, recognizing that science impacts virtually every aspect of life and respects no national borders, political parties, ethnicities, or religious affiliations. The mission statement of the AAAS dedicates it to encouraging not only communication and collaboration among scientists but also to promoting the integrity of scientific research itself and to ensuring the freedom to pursue responsible scientific investigation. In addition, the organization promotes funding for cutting edge research and curriculum development in science, engineering, technology, and mathematics.

Brief History

From its inception as a revolutionary political and economic entity in the late eighteenth century, the United States has nurtured a vibrant and robust community of scientists, both amateurs and those trained in universities. Many early challenges drew on the expertise of scientists in many fields, most notably geology (the exploration and codification of a wealth of natural resources); engineering (the construction of buildings, factories, mills, roadways, bridges); agriculture (efficient cash crop production); meteorology (the charting of water and wind currents as well as weather events); biology (the classification of hundreds of species in thousands of miles of open wilderness); as well as mathematics and astronomy (the charting of longitude and latitude lines). These first generation American scientists quickly realized that the sciences crossed lines of expertise, that the problems and challenges of establishing a nation required the cooperation of the sciences and technology. In addition, given the scant network of communication available to the developing nation, scientists had few forums for open dialogue and profitable communication.

On September 20, 1848, meeting in a cavernous basement hall of the Academy of Natural Sciences building in Philadelphia, members of two organizations representing meteorology and geology, respectively, created a single body devoted to a cooperation and collaboration among scientists to encourage efficiency in research and the application of the newest ideas to specific technology. Science, they argued, offered universal benefits. Scientists across the disciplines and around the world needed a forum to discuss their work. Indeed, under the leadership of William Charles Redfield (1789–1857), an accomplished meteorologist, one of the earliest projects undertaken by the AAAS was to invite observational data from scientists around the world to help chart ocean wind currents for navigation, a problem that concerned all nations that moved goods or people across open water.

The initial membership was eighty-seven. The organization welcomed those interested in the sciences, and membership required no recommendation, no credentials, no published work, no university appointments, and no references for admission. Among its earliest members was amateur naturalist Henry David Thoreau. Membership grew steadily, and by the outbreak of the Civil War, membership had risen to more than two thousand. The war interrupted AAAS activities, but the organization was saved largely through the efforts of mathematician Frederick A. P. Barnard (1809–1899).

The Society returned dramatically in the Gilded Age, responding to that generation’s fascination, even obsession, with technology and its grand expansive vision of the promise of science. Annual and regional AAAS meetings were treated as major news events, and scientists became the era’s celebrities. The organization touted its position as a forum for forward-thinking progress, international cooperation and problem-solving. Its major weekly publication, Science, increased the organization’s visibility and its prestige as well as its international impact, publishing during the first decades of the new century groundbreaking work by, among many others, astronomer Edwin Hubble, theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, biochemist Robert Koch, and mathematician David Hilbert.

AAAS Today

The importance of the AAAS historically has been twofold. Its commitment to fostering communication among scientists around the world as a way to promote the progress of science and technology to address problems, is a mission that has only expanded in the era of mass communication. Its advocacy of scientific education has resulted in ambitious programs of public awareness about the importance of unfettered scientific research and ardent championing of science education in schools and colleges.

In the politically charged environment of postwar America, however, the AAAS has itself grown increasingly politicized, advocating the expansion of science into the realm of human rights and public policy. The move has not been without significant controversy. In the closing decades of the twentieth century and into the new millennium, the AAAS has pursued an aggressive agenda to promote science rather than religion in education, specifically objecting to the introduction of intelligent design into high school curricula; to encourage using scientists as diplomats to reach out to Third World countries with significant human rights violations; to promote stem cell research as a way to learn about catastrophic diseases; to lobby for sustained public funding for critical research programs in the face of dramatic government cutbacks; and to crusade for the implications of global warming and climate change and for renewable energy research. Its new headquarters, opened in Washington, D.C., in 1999, was hailed for its energy efficiency and its environmentally friendly design. Although criticized in some circles for involving itself in matters of government, politics, and religion, the AAAS leadership asserts that in these endeavors the organization is staying true to its founding mission to promote the unfettered development of scientific research as a way to mediate problems facing the global community.

Bibliography

"About AAAS." American Association for the Advancement of Science. Web. 7 July 2015.

Barnard, Frederick A. P. "A Letter to the President of the United States." 1863. Internet Archive. Web. 7 July 2015.

Burns, William Earl. Science and Technology in Colonial America. Westport: Greenwood P, 2005. Print.

Carbo, Toni. "Information Science & Technology and Human Rights: ASIS&T's Participation in the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition." Bulletin of the Association for Information Science & Technology 40.1 (2013): 10–12. Print.

Freedman, Diane P. Midlife with Thoreau: Poems, Essays, Journals. Pawcatuck: Hiraeth P, 2015.

Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory. The Establishment of Science in America: 150 Years of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1999.

Kramer, David. "From Congress to AAAS, Rush Holt Reflects on Science Policy." Physics Today 68.3 (2015): 22–24. Print.

Raum, Elizabeth. The Cold, Hard Facts about Science and Medicine in Colonial America. Mankato: Capstone, 2011. Print.

Zielinski, Sarah, and Becky Ham. "AAAS Speakers Seek Ways to Expand Science Communication." Science 343.6178 (2014): 1447. Print.