The
American Association for the Advancement of
Science (or
AAAS) is an international
non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting
cooperation between
scientists, defending
scientific freedom, encouraging
scientific responsibility, and supporting
scientific education and
science outreach for the betterment of all
humanity. It is the world's largest general scientific society,
with 126,995 individual and institutional members at the end of
2008, and publisher of the well-known scientific journal
Science, which has a
weekly circulation of 138,549.
History
The American Association for the Advancement of Science was created
on September 20, 1848 in Pennsylvania. It was a reformation of the
Association
of American Geologists and Naturalists. The society chose
William Charles Redfield as
their first president because he had proposed the most
comprehensive plans for the organization. According to
the first constitution which was agreed to at the
September 20 meeting, the goal of the
society was to promote scientific dialogue in order to allow for
greater scientific collaboration. By doing so the association aimed
to use resources to conduct science with increased efficiency and
allow for scientific progress at a greater rate. The association
also sought to increase the resources available to the scientific
community through active advocacy of science.
There were only 87 members when the AAAS was formed. As a member of
the new scientific body,
Matthew
Fontaine Maury,
USN was one of those who
attended the first 1848 meeting.
At a meeting held on Friday afternoon, September 22, 1848, Redfield
presided, and Matthew Fontaine Maury gave a full scientific report
on his
Wind and Current Charts.
Maury stated that
hundreds of ship navigators were now sending to the United States
Naval Observatory
abstract logs of their voyages. With pride
he added, “Never before was such a corps of observers known.” But,
he pointed out to his fellow scientists, his critical need was for
more "simultaneous observations."
"The work," Maury stated, "is not exclusively for the benefit of
any nation or age." The minutes of the A.A.A.S. meeting reveal that
because of the universality of this "view on the subject, it was
suggested whether the states of Christendom might not be induced to
cooperate with their Navies in the undertaking; at least so far as
to cause abstracts of their log-books and sea journals to be
furnished to
Matthew F. Maury,
USN, at the Naval
Observatory at Washington."
William Barton Rogers,
professor at the University of Virginia and later founder of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, offered a resolution:
"Resolved that a Committee of five be appointed to
address a memorial to the Secretary of the Navy, requesting his
further aid in procuring for Matthew Maury the use of the
observations of European and other foreign navigators, for the
extension and perfecting of his charts of winds and currents." The
resolution was adopted and, in addition to Rogers, the following
members of the Association were appointed to the committee,
Professor Joseph Henry of Washington, Professor Benjamin Peirce of
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Professor James H. Coffin of Easton,
Pennsylvania, Professor Stephen Alexander of Princeton, New Jersey.
This was scientific cooperation, and Maury went back to Washington
with great hopes for the future.
By 1860 membership increased to over 2000. But the course of
American history, however,
intervened to prevent the continued growth of the AAAS.
The AAAS
became dormant during the American
Civil War after their August 1861 meeting in Nashville,
Tennessee
was postponed indefinitely just after the outbreak
of the first major engagement of the war at Bull
Run
. The AAAS was not, however, to become a
casualty of the war.
In 1866, Frederick Barnard presided over the first
meeting of the resurrected AAAS at a meeting in New York City
.
Following the reformation of the AAAS, the group once again
experienced a period of growth. The growth, however, was not
unlimited as peace brought with it the expansion of other
scientific-oriented groups. The AAAS's focus on the unification of
many fields of science under a single organization still yielded
some novelty. A large subset of all new science organizations that
were founded to promote a single discipline. For example,
American Chemical Society, founded
in 1876, promotes
chemistry.
The National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) was, however, founded by the United States Congress in 1863 which
provided an alternative multidisciplinary sciences
organization. Unlike the NAS, which elects members, the AAAS
permitted all people regardless of scientific credentials to join.
The AAAS did, however, institute a policy of granting the title of
"
Fellow of the AAAS" to
well-respected scientists within the organization.
Activities
- Since 2006, AAAS’s CEO Dr. Alan
I. Leshner has published many
op-ed articles stating that science and religion can co-exist
within the context of many people’s lives, but emphasizing that
non-scientific content such as creationism or “intelligent design”
should not be inserted into scientific curriculum.
- In December 2006, the AAAS adopted an official statement on
climate change in which they stated,
"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by
human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to
society....The pace of change and the evidence of harm have
increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control
greenhouse gas emissions is
now."
- In
February 2007, the AAAS used satellite images to document human
rights abuses in Burma
.
- In 2008, AAAS launched the Center for Science Diplomacy to advance both
science and the broader relationships among partner countries, by
promoting international scientific cooperation.
Governance
The most recent Constitution of the AAAS which was enacted on
January 1, 1973 establishes that the governance of the AAAS is
accomplished through four entities:
Presidents
Individuals elected to the presidency of the AAAS hold a three-year
term in a unique way. The first year is spent as
President-elect, the second as
President and the third as
Chairperson of the
Board of Directors. In accordance with
the convention followed by the AAAS, presidents are referenced by
the year in which they left office.
Peter Agre, Director of the Johns Hopkins
Malaria Research Institute, became President of AAAS as of 16
February 2009, the last day of the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting. At
that time, 2008-2009 President
James
J. McCarthy became Chairman of
the Board.
Agre shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Roderick
MacKinnon of Rockefeller University for the discovery of
aquaporins, the key proteins that transport water across cell
membranes.
McCarthy is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological
Oceanography at Harvard University and has served on and led many
national and international groups charged with planning and
implementing studies of global climate change. McCarthy co-chaired
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group
II, which had responsibilities for assessing impacts of and
vulnerabilities to global climate change for the Third IPCC
Assessment (2001).
Past presidents of AAAS have included some of the most important
scientific figures of their time. Among them: explorer and
geologist
John Wesley Powell
(1888); astronomer and physicist
Edward Charles Pickering (1912);
anthropologist
Margaret Mead (1975);
and biologist
Stephen Jay Gould
(2000).
A
complete list of presidents is also available.
Administrative officers
There are three classifications of high-level administrative
officials that execute the basic, daily functions of the AAAS.
These are the
Executive Officer,
the
Treasurer and then each of the AAAS's
section secretaries. The current CEO of AAAS and executive
publisher of
Science is
Alan I. Leshner.
Sections of the AAAS
The AAAS has 24 "sections" with each section being responsible for
a particular concern of the AAAS. There are sections for
agriculture,
anthropology,
astronomy,
atmospheric science,
biological science,
chemistry,
dentistry,
education,
engineering, general interest in science and
engineering,
geology and
geography, the
history and
philosophy of science,
technology,
computer
science,
linguistics,
mathematics,
medical
science,
neuroscience,
pharmaceutical science,
physics,
psychology,
social and
political science, the
social impact of
science and engineering, and
statistics.
Affiliates
AAAS affiliates include 262 societies and
academies of science, serving more than
10 million members, from the
Acoustical Society of
America to the
Wildlife
Society, including, for example, also the
Parapsychological
Association
The Council
The Council is composed of the members of the Board of Directors,
the retiring section chairmen and elected delegates.
Among the elected
delegates there are always at least two members from the National Academy of Sciences and one from each region of the country. The
President of the AAAS serves as the Chairperson of the Council.
Members server the Council for a term of three years.
The council meets annually to discuss matters of importance to the
AAAS. They have the power to review all activities of the
Association, elect new Fellow, adopt resolutions, propose
amendments to the Association's constitution and bylaws, create new
scientific sections, and organize and aid local chapters of the
AAAS.
The Board of Directors
The Board of Directors is composed of a Chairperson, the President
and President-Elect along with eight elected directors, the
Executive Officer of the Association and up to two additional
directors appointed by elected officers. Members serve a 4-year
term except for directors appointed by elected officers, who serve
3-year terms .
The current chairman is
James J.
McCarthy. He is the Alexander
Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University.
McCarthy will serve in the post until the end of the 2010 AAAS
Annual Meeting, 22 February 2010. [The chairperson is always the
immediate past-president of AAAS.]
The Board of Directors has a variety of powers and
responsibilities. It is charged with the administration of all
Association funds, publication of a budget, appointment of
administrators, proposition of amendments and determination the
time and place of meetings of the national Association. The Board
may also speak publicly on behalf of the Association. The Board
must also regularly correspond with the Council to discuss their
actions.
See also
Notes
- Publisher's own data
- BPA Worldwide, June 2008
- "'Academic Freedom' Bill Dangerous
Distraction," Alan I. Leshner, The Shreveport Times 28
May 2008
- "Anti-science law threatens tech jobs of
future," Alan I. Leshner, The Times-Picayune 6 May
2008
- "Design: Critical Deception?," Alan I. Leshner,
Akron Beacon-Journal 11 September 2006
- "Science and Public Engagement," Alan I.
Leshner, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle
Review 13 October 2006
- AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change
www.aaas.org December 2006
- "Peter Agre's Ambitious Plans," AAAS 2009
Annual Meeting News Blog 14 February 2009
- "For Peter Agre, “the People’s Laureate” and AAAS
President, Civic Engagement is Essential," AAAS 2009 Annual
Meeting News Blog 14 February 2009
- AAAS - Science Talk, the AAAS Experts &
Speakers Bureau
- ScienceTalk: Alan I. Leshner, AAAS.org
- AAAS Sections, AAAS.org
- list of affiliates starting with the letter
P
- Board of Directors, AAAS.org
- 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting, AAAS.org
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