History of science and American science policy

Historians of science have participated actively in debates over American science policy in the post-World War II period in a variety of ways, but their impact has been more to elucidate general concepts than to effect specific policy changes. Personal experiences, in the case of the debate over global warming, have demonstrated both the value and the limits of such involvement for the making of public policy. To be effective, historians of science need to strive for clarity in public expression, to accept the importance of engaging with the public at all levels and through diverse media, and, above all, to recognize that the nature of such debates will make normal scholarly nuance hard to achieve. Moreover, in the current political climate, historians may be surprised to find themselves defending sciences, when the usual stance of historians is to be critical.     

The cultural authority of science: public trust and acceptance of organized science

Using the National Science Foundation's 2006 Science Indicators Survey, this study explores three distinct explanations of public attitudes. First, the knowledge-attitudes model refers to a well tested relationship between public knowledge of science and more favorable attitudes toward science. Second, the alienation model hypothesizes that public disassociation with science is a symptom of a general disenchantment with late modernity, mainly, the limitations associated with codified expertise, rational bureaucracy, and institutional authority. A third approach emphasizes the cultural meaning of science: how various public beliefs about "what science is" relate to acceptance or reservations about science. The Science Indicators Survey shows that US adults view science (what it is or should be) in three distinct ways: (1) in terms of having a systematic method, (2) in terms of social location (i.e., takes place in a university or a laboratory), and (3) in terms of knowledge that should accord with commonsense and tradition. The findings in this study indicate that the knowledge-attitudes, alienation, and cultural meanings models are all valuable for understanding the cultural authority of science. However, the strength of these explanations depends on the type of attitude analyzed.     

The reductionism of genopolitics in the context of the relationships between biology and political science

The past two decades have seen an increase in the use of theories, data, assumptions and methods of the biological sciences in studying political phenomena. One of the approaches that combine biology with political science is genopolitics. The goal of the study was to analyse the basic ontological, methodological and epistemological assumptions for the reductionism of genopolitics. The results show that genopolitics assumes methodological reductionism but rejects ontological and epistemological reductionism. The key consequences of the findings are the irreducibility of political science to biology and the complementarity of genopolitical explanations and political science explanations based on culturalism. If my findings prove to be correct, they give rise to the formation of a hypothesis regarding the anti-reductionist orientation of the contemporary links between political science and biology. An important step towards confirming or falsifying such a hypothesis will be exploring the reductionism of contemporary biopolitical approaches such as neuropolitics or evolutionary political psychology.     

Gendered contexts: masculinity, knowledge, and attitudes toward biotechnology

Research into the public understanding of science has revealed that the effect of scientific knowledge on attitudes toward science is contextualized by gender; however there has not yet been an account of how gender contextualizes knowledge. This paper investigates how gender identification affects attitudes toward science, and tempers the effects of scientific knowledge on attitudes toward science. Utilizing data from the Eurobarometer 52.1, it is predicted that when males perceive a threat to their masculinity (as measured by a perceived threat to their financial security) they will become more likely to be aversive to biotechnology, and that increased levels of perceived threat will reduce the effects of knowledge on attitudes toward biotechnology. Moreover, it is predicted that these effects will be smaller than their female counterparts. All predictions are affirmed.     

Public support of science: A contingent valuation study of citizens' attitudes about CERN with and without information about implicit taxes

Large-scale projects in fundamental science, such as major particle colliders, radio telescopes, synchrotron light sources are promoted by scientific communities in the first place, mainly funded by governments, and ultimately by taxpayers. Little is known, however, about preferences of the latter except in the form of qualitative social attitudes survey. We suggest that understanding taxpayers' preferences in the form of their willingness to pay (a money metric) for fundamental science is feasible and informative. We have designed a contingent valuation (CV) experiment about public support of science as reflected in the preferences of Swiss taxpayers for particle physics research at CERN, the laboratory where the Higgs boson has been discovered in 2012. Differently from a previous study on the attitudes of French citizens, in this paper we propose a novel methodological framework by a dual repeated bidding mechanism where sub-samples of respondents are respectively given/not given the information on the implicit tax they already pay to support CERN in the first place. We find clear convergence of results between the groups and discuss why such a finding has policy and methodological implications for research on government funding of basic research. We compare findings in Switzerland and France. The experiment is replicable in different countries and scientific fields and opens the way to a new empirical research avenue on the public support to science.     

从专利引文看公共科学对技术创新的重要作用

定量考察公共科学对技术创新的贡献大小 ,可以为政府支持基础研究提供有用的论据。专利引文分析 ,是测度基础研究对技术创新的贡献的一个重要方法论。通过对专利引证的科学论文的计量研究 ,发现 :工业技术与公共科学的联系不断加强 ,公共科学在技术创新中起着重要的作用。其政策意义在于 ,政府应该继续支持基础研究 ,而企业应该加强对外部知识资源的“吸收能力”的建设。     

Scientific and political orientation of American scientists

The paper presents some findings of a study which surveyed the political attitudes and involvement of American scientists.We found an unambiguous rank ordering based on political orientation among the various subgroups of scientists. The greater the scientists' identification with basic science and the university, the greater the liberalism. However, the claim that scientific elites are more liberal than the rank-and-file and that physicists are the most liberal among natural scientists was not substantiated.The fear that a scientific-technological elite might become a dominant political elite was not reflected in the thinking of a large majority of our 1205 respondents. A majority expressed reservations about the skill and knowledge of the citizenry to understand and resolve the increasingly complex problems of our society, recognize that a separation of science and politics is not attainable or even desireable, but remain somewhat uneasy with the new situation in which their work has become so enmeshed with policy concerns.The traditional norm system of science continues to receive substantial support and takes precedence over either the concern about the social consequences of certain types of “dangerous” knowledge, or the costs that heavy investments in basic science involve. We find that scientists are largely prepared to sacrifice the norm of communality at the altar of nationalism. The clash between an internal ideology of science that values disinterested search for knowledge and an external ideology of society which focuses on utility presents a continuing dilemma.     

论国家科技发展目标影响下的科学技术活动

国家科技发展目标影响一个国家包括大学研究开发在内的科技活动。讨论改革开放以来我国科技发展的国家目标的变化,分析现代科学技术发展强调国家目标的原因和科学技术活动自身的特点对国家目标的有效性的影响,探讨国家目标对科技活动的双重影响,认为国家科技发展目标的制定和实施也要处理好政府和市场的关系。对于包括大学研究开发在内的科学技术活动来说,除了近市场的技术创新活动需要充分发挥市场的导向作用之外,不与市场接轨、具有溢出效应和公共产品特征、需要政府干预的科学领域还要处理好政府干预与科学技术自身的发展规律、大学自身特点的关系。     

Communication challenges for science and religion

How can the very different worlds of science and religion communicate effectively? Religion requires faith, belief without question. Science demands we take nothing on faith, reject any anecdotal evidence. How might these seemingly opposed disciplines collaborate to improve public understanding of science and impact pending policy making without undermining spiritual well being? Are scholars from both disciplines engineering the needed bridges?     

Pathogenic organization in science: Division of labor and retractions

Science is increasingly a team activity, and the size of the teams has been growing. At the same time, there are concerns about an increasing rate of pathologies in science. The growth of team science suggests the need to look beyond individual-level explanations and focus on organizational structures and institutional contexts to explain pathologies in science. Drawing on the literature on organizational pathologies, we argue that division of labor may be a key factor contributing to pathologies in science. Furthermore, we examine the effects of high-stakes incentives and of institutional corruption as additional predictors of scientific pathologies. Using retractions as an indicator of pathologies, and drawing on a matched sample of 195 retracted papers and 349 paired papers that were not retracted, we develop indicators of the division of labor in the team that produced a paper and find that the rate of retractions is higher as the division of labor increases (net of team size). Additionally, we find that high-stakes incentives and institutional corruption are also associated with increased retractions. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for science policy, in particular for organizing team science projects.     

让科学回归真实--对两种科学模型的一些思考

罗伯特·金·默顿最早对科学建制以及科学与社会间的相互作用做出了系统描述,所得出的默顿规范一直被奉为科学社会学的经典。随着科学的发展,今日科学逐渐显露出一些与默顿模型有所背离的征兆,由此产生了对科学的某种“信任危机”。约翰·齐曼等默顿之后的科学社会学家具体研究了今日科学的社会运行,提出了后学院科学模型,就默顿规范在新时代的新内涵和科学的信任危机作出了某种解释。我们将看到,后学院科学模型是在新情况下对默顿学院科学模型的合理修正。     

Rights of animals, perceptions of science, and political activism: profile of American animal rights activities

This article reports original research examining characteristics of the active followers of the American animal rights movement. Typical respondents were Caucasian, highly educated urban professional women approximately thirty years old with a median income of $33,000 (1989). Most activists think of themselves as Democrats or as Independents, and have moderate to liberal political views. They were often suspicious of science and made no distinction between basic and applied science, or public versus private animal-based research. The research suggests that animal rights activism is part of a symbolic manifestation of egalitarian social and political views concerning scientific and technological change.     

Public culture and public understanding of genetics: a focus group study

As the role of genetic science in everyday life has grown, policymakers have become concerned about Americans' understandings of this science. Much effort has been devoted to formal schooling, but less attention has been paid to the role of public culture in shaping public understanding of genetics. Research into public cultural messages about genetics has claimed that the public is likely to adopt problematic accounts, but few studies have explored the public's articulation of these messages. This study is based on 25 focus groups convened to explore the lay public's understanding of genetics. The study found that the public processed a greater variety of messages than assumed by previous researchers, including documentaries, non-science-fiction films, and popular television in addition to previous researchers' focus on science fiction and news media. The study also found that the public does not process the messages through the linear, transmission model assumed by previous research. The public processes messages about genetics complexly and critically. On the basis of these findings, the study suggests that researchers should include a greater variety of texts about genetics in their research and attend more fully to audience processing in addition to content analyses of these texts.     

公众从事科学家职业的意愿及其影响因素分析

利用"我国科技工作者社会公众形象调查"数据,分析了公众从事科学家职业的意愿,并运用定序回归分析探讨了影响公众从事科学家职业意愿的因素。研究发现,公众从事科学家职业的意愿较强。个人兴趣因素、职业价值观因素、社会资本因素和人口统计学因素都对公众从事科学家职业的意愿有着较大的影响。具体而言,是否参加科技活动相关社团,社会网络中是否有科学家,以及对科学家职业的社会贡献、社会声望和职业权力的评价对公众的从业意愿影响最为显著。基于研究发现,本文提出了相应的政策建议。     

Crowdsourcing research questions in science

Scientists are increasingly crossing the boundaries of the professional system by involving the general public (the crowd) directly in their research. However, this crowd involvement tends to be confined to empirical work and it is not clear whether and how crowds can also be involved in conceptual stages such as formulating the questions that research is trying to address. Drawing on five different “paradigms” of crowdsourcing and related mechanisms, we first discuss potential merits of involving crowds in the formulation of research questions (RQs). We then analyze data from two crowdsourcing projects in the medical sciences to describe key features of RQs generated by crowd members and compare the quality of crowd contributions to that of RQs generated in the conventional scientific process. We find that the majority of crowd contributions are problem restatements that can be useful to assess problem importance but provide little guidance regarding potential causes or solutions. At the same time, crowd-generated research questions frequently cross disciplinary boundaries by combining elements from different fields within and especially outside medicine. Using evaluations by professional scientists, we find that the average crowd contribution has lower novelty and potential scientific impact than professional research questions, but comparable practical impact. Crowd contributions outperform professional RQs once we apply selection mechanisms at the level of individual contributors or across contributors. Our findings advance research on crowd and citizen science, crowdsourcing and distributed knowledge production, as well as the organization of science. We also inform ongoing policy debates around the involvement of citizens in research in general, and agenda setting in particular.     

Militainment and mechatronics: Occultatio and the veil of science fiction cool in United States Air Force advertisements

In 2009, the United States Air Force aired a series of science fiction-themed recruitment commercials on network television and their official YouTube channel. In these advertisements, the superimposition of science fiction imagery over depictions of Air Force operations frames these missions as near-future sci-fi adventure, ironically summarized by the tagline: “It’s not science fiction. It’s what we do every day.” Focusing on an early advertisement for the Air Force’s Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle, this essay explores how themes essential to the science fiction genre play a role in influencing contemporary attitudes about autonomous and semi-autonomous robotic weapons, as well as the way in which the aesthetic and functional qualities of these advanced technologies are used to frame moral arguments about their use. As a reconfiguration of the near-future battleground in the guise of science fiction, the “Reaper” ad reveals the way in which science fiction has come to serve as a functional-aesthetic benchmark and cultural sounding board, against which “every day” technologies can be measured and claims about their value, ethos, and social appeal are made. This essay explores the ethical entanglements between science fiction film and video games, and military technology, and the complex role science fiction plays in influencing public attitudes towards military technologies.     

Developing science, technology and innovation indicators: What we can learn from the past

The science-technology-innovation system is one that is continuously and rapidly evolving. The dramatic growth over the last 20 years in the use of science, technology and innovation (STI) indicators appears first and foremost to be the result of a combination of, on the one hand, the ease of computerized access to an increasing number of measures of STI and, on the other hand, the interest in a growing number of public policy and private business circles in such indicators. Such growing interest might be expected in societies that increasingly use organised science and technology to achieve a wide variety of social and economic objectives and in which business competition is increasingly based on innovation. On the basis of 40 years of indicators work, we argue that frontiers and characteristics of STI indicators that were important last century may no longer be so relevant today and indeed may even be positively misleading.     

The effects of a genetic information leaflet on public attitudes towards genetic testing

Genetics opinion surveys often include information to ensure that respondents have sufficient understanding to give informed responses. The information is assumed to be neutral but may skew responses. We assessed the impact of a seemingly "neutral" information leaflet on attitudes towards genetic testing among 1,024 survey respondents, half of whom received the leaflet. The leaflet group reported higher levels of subjective understanding of genetic testing (68 percent vs. 53 percent), were mre interested in genetic testing (81 percent vs. 77 percent), and held more positive attitudes towards genetics than people who did not receive the leaflet. Information leaflets may have the intended effect of increasing understanding, but may also unintentionally influence reported views of genetics. In the light of the weight given to public consultation in today's governance and regulation of human genetics, increased awareness of how even seemingly neutral information can influence public attitudes is recommended.     

Pens and purse strings: Exploring the opportunities and limits to funding actionable sustainability science

Producing actionable science to improve social and environmental well-being enables the scientific enterprise to uphold expectations that accompany public funding for science. While innovations in the management of science funding may help overcome institutional hurdles to generating actionable science, the role of program managers in implementing such changes is relatively underexamined. Using sustainability science and related fields as a case, this study examines program documents (n = 33) and interviews of program management staff (n = 61) from public science funding programs in the United States and Europe. The results illuminate program management perspectives on the changing relationship between science and society and their own role in shaping it. In many instances, program managers in both regions are actively experimenting with practices that may strengthen links between knowledge and action. In certain contexts, program manager discretion may also amount to a form of science policy formation. However, program managers may still be limited in their ability to enact changes due to capacity constraints and still prevalent norms expressed by the research community. These results provide a window, and basis for future research, into the contemporary practice of science funding program management and its implications for sustainability and the social contract for science.     

基于标度无关性指标的我国科学创新绩效评价

如何合理有效地评价国家科学创新绩效一直是政府部门、科研管理机构以及学术界倍受关注的问题。本文基于标度无关性指标,有针对性地进行了规模效应对科学创新绩效影响的国际比较研究,揭示出我国GDP、科技经费投入等系统规模要素的增长对科学创新绩效的非线性作用,进而对我国科学创新的相对绩效进行了评价,并得到相关的启示和建议。