ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I describe the development of ideas on the role of scientific expertise in democracies, from the Lippmann-Dewey debates of the 1920s, to the independent science advisor model of the Cold War (which aligned with other science policy conceptions at the time), to the tensions that arose because of the untenability of that model starting in the late 1960s. I describe a controversy over science advising regarding the development of supersonic transport in the Nixon administration, demonstrating that current controversies on science advice are not new, and I show how this controversy ended with both the disbanding of science advising institutions and the creation of new science advising legislation. I then describe an alternative to the independence model for understanding scientific expertise in democracy, arguing for three lines of accountability (to the scientific community, to the advisee, and to the broader public) that science advisors must respect in order to do their job properly. Integrity in science advice is thus found not through independence from politics but from joint accountability along these three lines.
