Peerless Science

This book examines the structure and operation of peer review as a family of quality control mechanisms and looks at the burdens placed on the various forms of peer review. Assuming that peer review is central to the functioning of U.S. science policy, Chubin and Hackett explore the symbolic and practical value of peer review in the making, implementing, and analysis of this policy.

What do we know about the possible poisons that industrial technologies leave in our air and water? How reliable is the science that federal regulators and legislators use to protect the public from dangerous products? As this disturbing book shows, ideological or economic attacks on research are part of an extensive pattern of abuse. Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner reveal the range of sophisticated legal and financial tactics political and corporate advocates use to discredit or suppress research on potential human health hazards. Scientists can find their research blocked, or find themselves threatened with financial ruin. Corporations, plaintiff attorneys, think tanks, even government agencies have been caught suppressing or distorting research on the safety of chemical products. With alarming stories drawn from the public record, McGarity and Wagner describe how advocates attempt to bend science or “spin” findings. They reveal an immense range of tools available to shrewd partisans determined to manipulate research. Bending Science exposes an astonishing pattern of corruption and makes a compelling case for reforms to safeguard both the integrity of science and the public health.

Historically, the scientific method has been said to require proposing a theory, making a prediction of something not already known, testing the prediction, and giving up the theory (or substantially changing it) if it fails the test. A theory that leads to several successful predictions is more likely to be accepted than one that only explains what is already known but not understood. This process is widely treated as the conventional method of achieving scientific progress, and was used throughout the twentieth century as the standard route to discovery and experimentation. But does science really work this way? In Making 20th Century Science, Stephen G. Brush discusses this question, as it relates to the development of science throughout the last century. Answering this question requires both a philosophically and historically scientific approach, and Brush blends the two in order to take a close look at how scientific methodology has developed. Several cases from the history of modern physical and biological science are examined, including Mendeleev's Periodic Law, Kekule's structure for benzene, the light-quantum hypothesis, quantum mechanics, chromosome theory, and natural selection. In general it is found that theories are accepted for a combination of successful predictions and better explanations of old facts. Making 20th Century Science is a large-scale historical look at the implementation of the scientific method, and how scientific theories come to be accepted.

He has tried - in his career and, specifically, in this volume - to understand science without accepting the culture of science uncritically.

In the days of global warming and BSE, science is increasingly a public issue. This book provides a theoretical framework which allows us to understand why and how scientists address the general public. The author develops the argument that turning to the public is not simply a response to inaccurate reporting by journalists or to public curiosity, nor a wish to gain recognition and additional funding. Rather, it is a tactic to which the scientific community are pushed by certain "internal" crisis situations. Bucchi examines three cases of scientists turning to the public: the cold fusion case, the COBE/Big Bang issue and Louis Pasteur's public demonstration of the anthrax vaccine, a historical case of "public science." Finally, Bucchi presents his unique model of communications between science and the public, carried out through the media. This is a thoughtful and wide-ranging treatment of complex contemporary issues, touching upon the history and sociology of science, communication and media studies. Bucchi's theories on scientific communication in the media are a valuable contribution to the current debate on this subject.

The contributors analyse and contrast the need and demand for RIT performance measurement and evaluation within the US and European innovation and policy making systems. They assess current US and European RIT evaluation practices and methods in key areas, discuss applications of new evaluative approaches and consider strategies that could lead to improvements in RIT evaluation design and policies.

Science and Technology Policy theme is a component of Encyclopedia of Technology, Information, and Systems Management Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Science and technology policy covers all the public sector measures designed for the creation, funding, support, and mobilization of scientific and technological resources. The content of the Theme on Science and technology policy provides the essential aspects and a myriad of issues of great relevance to our world such as: Science and Technology Policy; International Dimensions of Science and Technology Policy; The Innovation System; The Policy Making Process in Science and Technology; Regional Perspectives: A New Scenario for Science and Technology Policies in the Developed and Developing World . These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs

Activists, scientists, and scholars in the social sciences and humanities explore in productive dialogue what it means to democratize science and technology. The contributors consider what role lay people can have in a realm traditionally restricted to experts, and examine the socio-economic and ideological barriers to creating a science oriented more toward human needs. Included are several case studies of efforts to expand the role of citizens—including discussions of AIDS treatment activism, technology consensus conferences in Europe and the United States, the regulation of nuclear materials processing and disposal, and farmer networks in sustainable agriculture—and examinations of how the Enlightenment premises of modern science constrain its field of vision. Other chapters suggest how citizens can interpret differing opinions within scientific communities on issues of clear public relevance. Contributors include Steven Epstein, Sandra Harding, Neva Hassanein, Louise Kaplan, Daniel Lee Kleinman, Daniel Sarewitz, Stephen H. Schneider, and Richard E. Sclove.