Social Research articles from September 2006

Social Research archives from September 2006

Editor's introduction.(Editorial)
September 22, 2006... "POLITICS AND SCIENCE" IS THE FIFTEENTH IN THE SOCIAL RESEARCH conference series, which began in 1989. From the beginning, this series has tried to foster public discussion of matters of grave importance, and has explored those matters both in...

Introduction.(I. Recent History: The Emerging Conflict between Politics and Science)
September 22, 2006... THE FIRST SECTION OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE COVERS THE RECENT HISTORY of the emerging conflict between politics and science in the United States. The questions to be explored include: Has the balance of power among the various interests that play a...

Science policy in the United States: a commentary on the state of the art.(I. Recent History: The Emerging Conflict between Politics and Science)
September 22, 2006... TIMELY, UNBIASED SCIENTIFIC ADVICE IS ESSENTIAL FOR EFFECTIVE public policy, but the system now operating in the United States is in a state of dangerous disrepair. The danger takes two forms. First, we are missing critical benefits in...

Cholera outbreaks and ocean climate.
September 22, 2006... WHAT I SHALL DO IN THIS BRIEF PAPER, RATHER THAN JUMP INTO THE ring with gloves to join the debate on science and policy, is put a human face on one of the most serious issues we are discussing: the complexity of climate change." We need to...

What's New about the Politics of Science?(I. Recent History: The Emerging Conflict between Politics and Science)
September 22, 2006... THIS IS A TIME or PARADOX IN FEDERAL SCIENCE POLICY. UNDER THE administration of President George W. Bush, the federal government has been providing handsome and steadily increasing dollar support for research and development. In constant 2005...

Introduction.(II. Health)(Social Research)
September 22, 2006... HEALTH POLICY HAS ALWAYS BEEN INFORMED BY BOTH SCIENTIFIC research and political will. Though the National Academies of Science was established in 1863 with the role of informing government on scientific matters, President Dight D. Eisenhower...

The permanent limits of modern science--from birth to death.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... ONE OF THE GREATEST EFFORTS TO THINK ABOUT THE MEANING OF modern science is Max Weber's essay on "science as a vocation." Weber's meditation was originally given as a lecture in 1918, with the bloodbath of World War I in the immediate...

The politics of health care.(Report)
September 22, 2006... DESPITE ALL OF OUR SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS IN THE AREAS OF HEALTH and biological sciences, we still have a huge unfinished agenda and multiple problems that must be addressed. We confront problems with health care access for all of our citizens....

Science, religion, and the politics of Stem cells.(II. Health)
September 22, 2006... IN JULY 2005, AMERICA'S ONGOING DEBATE OVER EMBRYONIC STEM cell research reached a dramatic moment during a Senate subcommittee hearing. * In a conference room crowded with television camera crews, newspaper journalists, fellow legislators, and...

Abstinence-only education: politics, science, and ethics.
September 22, 2006... INTRODUCTION UNTIL AUGUST 2004, I WORKED AT THE US CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL and Prevention (CDC) as a researcher on adolescent health issues, an Institutional Review Board chairman, and a supervisor of other public health scientists.*...

Politics and science: a series of lessons.
September 22, 2006... OF COURSE, POLITICS IS IN THE NEWS ALL THE TIME AND SOME FOLKS have been a bit cynical about it. I grew up in Oklahoma, which is a little south of Nebraska, the home state of the New School president and former senator from Nebraska, Bob...

Introduction.(environmental policymaking)
September 22, 2006... SINCE ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS FIRST SURFACED AS A NATIONAL issue in the late 1960s, there has been a running argument between one side focused on protecting the environment and the other side calling attention to the need to assure continued...

Science and environmental policy: the role of nongovernmental organizations.
September 22, 2006... THIS PAPER ADDRESSES THE ROLE OF NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, or NGOs, in the science-policy nexus. I shall draw on my 21 years of experience working for a nongovernmental organization, Environmental Defense, my earlier experience as a...

Environmental science and public policy.(IV. The Environment)
September 22, 2006... The method of science depends on our attempts to describe the world with simple models. Theories that are complex may become untestable, even if they happen to be true. --Karl Popper (1982: 44) IN SURVEYING THE CONTENTIOUS NATURE OF...

Environmental science input to public policy.(IV. The Environment)
September 22, 2006... AN EARLY VERSION OF THE AGENDA OF THE CONFERENCE ON POLITICS and science at the New School stated: "Public policy is determined through careful balancing of various interests, including science." The meaning of this statement was somewhat...

Can we still avoid dangerous human-made climate change?
September 22, 2006... 1. SUMMARY THE EARTH'S TEMPERATURE, WITH RAPID GLOBAL WARMING OVER THE past 30 years, is now passing through the peak level of the Holocene, a period of relatively stable climate that has existed for more than 10,000 years. Further warming...

Introduction.(V. Energy: Technology and Sources of Power)(nuclear weapons and technology usage)
September 22, 2006... IF YOU COULD ASK AN ORACLE TWO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE HUMAN condition a century from now, they might be "Have nuclear weapons been used?" and "Has a way been found to provide all a comfortable living for everyone on the planet without a disastrous...

An energy revolution for the greenhouse century.(V. Energy: Technology and Sources of Power)
September 22, 2006... When there is no vision, the people perish. --Proverbs 29:18 You see things: and you say, "Why?." But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?" --George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (1921) We choose to go to...

Science, policy, and politics: comparing and contrasting issues in energy and the environment.
September 22, 2006... THE DEGREE TO WHICH SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION IS relied upon in policymaking is related to the perception of the value of that information for the evaluation of options and the degree to which the other factors being evaluated,...

Climate change and nuclear power.(V. Energy: Technology and Sources of Power)
September 22, 2006... CLIMATE SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY SURELY IT IS EVIDENT THAT SCIENCE--AND RATIONAL THOUGHT IN general--has had little influence on the federal government's energy policy recently. That had better change fast, because it is clear that what...

Introduction.(climate change and its effects on fossil fuels)
September 22, 2006... MELTING GLACIERS. RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES. RISING SEA LEVELS. raging forest fires. Hellish hurricanes. Reemerging diseases. These are all symptoms of a changing climate, scientists tell us, a warming of the earth and a shift in the balance of...

Ethics, politics, and genetic knowledge.
September 22, 2006... THE DAY MAY COME WHEN BIOTECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCE MAKES IT possible for parents to custom design their offspring, manipulating genes to produce children with the "superior" traits--strength, intelligence, beauty--the parent or parents desire. But...

Some thoughts on Politics and Science.(VI. Roundtable Discussion)(ethical aspects of stemcell research)
September 22, 2006... MUCH OF WHAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN LATELY ABOUT POLITICS AND SCIENCE suggests that the intersection of the two has become far more treacherous because of the actions and attitudes of the Bush administration. But while this administration has...

Science and citizenship.(innovations and teaching)
September 22, 2006... OUR CHALLENGE BEGINS WITH AMERICA'S AVERSION TO SCIENCE. I believe that this aversion began to emerge after the application of the National Defense Education Act, which was created in response to the Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnik...

Translating good science into good policy: the US factor.(VI. Roundtable Discussion)
September 22, 2006... IN A WORLD OF CONTENTIOUS ASSERTIONS, HERE IS A STATEMENT THAT everyone can agree with: science has never been more important to the citizenry and to the body politic. But instead of becoming better understood by the public and its...

Creating a broader political center for science and policy.
September 22, 2006... AS HAS BEEN NOTED BY MANY DISTINGUISHED HISTORIANS OF SCIENCE, there was a comparatively great distance between science and government in the United States until the middle of the twentieth century. While government had supported some research...

The principles of public engagement: at the nexus of science, public policy influence, and citizen education.
September 22, 2006... YOU CANNOT BE A SCIENTIST WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING AND ACCEPTING the core principles of the scientific method--the techniques for developing knowledge based on observable, empirical, and measurable evidence, and subject to laws of reasoning. The...