Among other things, Trilling suggested that humanism had become the basis for social improvement, rather than science and the scientific method as has been predicted by Thomas Jefferson, the Lectures' namesake.
[2] Ten years later, Gerald Holton, the first scientist invited to deliver the lecture, drew attention for responding to Trilling, proposing that Jefferson's vision of science as a force for social improvement was still viable, opining that there had been a "relocation of the center of gravity" of scientific inquiry toward solving society's important problems,[2] and cautioning that science education had to be improved dramatically or only a small "technological elite" would be equipped to take part in self-government.
The heads of the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Humanities Alliance expressed concerns about introducing political considerations into the selection, while William J. Bennett, a conservative Republican and former chairman of the NEH under President Ronald Reagan, charged that the proposal was an example of how Clinton had "corrupted all of those around him.
"[9] Recent Jefferson Lecturers have included journalist/author Tom Wolfe;[10] Straussian conservative political philosopher Harvey Mansfield;[11] and novelist John Updike, who, in a nod to the NEH's Picturing America Archived 2016-11-23 at the Wayback Machine arts initiative, devoted his 2008 lecture to the subject of American art.
[19] A number of the Jefferson Lectures have led to books, including Holton's The Advancement of Science, and Its Burdens,[20] John Hope Franklin's Racial Equality in America,[21] Henry Louis Gates' The Trials of Phillis Wheatley[22] and Jaroslav Pelikan's The Vindication of Tradition.
[24] Bernard Lewis' 1990 lecture on "Western Civilization: A View from the East" was revised and reprinted in The Atlantic Monthly under the title "The Roots of Muslim Rage".