Download or read book The Politics of Scientific Advice written by Justus Lentsch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversies over issues such as genetically engineered food, foot-and-mouth disease and the failure of risk models in the global financial crisis have raised concerns about the quality of expert scientific advice. The legitimacy of experts, and of the political decision-makers and policy-makers whom they advise, essentially depends on the quality of the advice. But what does quality mean in this context, and how can it be achieved? This volume argues that the quality of scientific advice can be ensured by an appropriate institutional design of advisory organisations. Using examples from a wide range of international case studies, including think tanks, governmental research institutes, agencies and academies, the authors provide a systematic guide to the major problems and pitfalls encountered in scientific advice and the means by which organisations around the world have solved these problems.
Download or read book The Politics of Scientific Advice written by Justus Lentsch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversies over issues such as genetically engineered food, foot-and-mouth disease and the failure of risk models in the global financial crisis have raised concerns about the quality of expert scientific advice. The legitimacy of experts, and of the political decision-makers and policy-makers whom they advise, essentially depends on the quality of the advice. But what does quality mean in this context, and how can it be achieved? This volume argues that the quality of scientific advice can be ensured by an appropriate institutional design of advisory organisations. Using examples from a wide range of international case studies, including think tanks, governmental research institutes, agencies and academies, the authors provide a systematic guide to the major problems and pitfalls encountered in scientific advice and the means by which organisations around the world have solved these problems.
Download or read book Democratization of Expertise written by Sabine Maasen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-06-30 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Scientific advice to politics’, the ‘nature of expertise’, and the ‘relation between experts, policy makers, and the public’ are variations of a topic that currently attracts the attention of social scientists, philosophers of science as well as practitioners in the public sphere and the media. This renewed interest in a persistent theme is initiated by the call for a democratization of expertise that has become the order of the day in the legitimation of research funding. The new significance of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’ has motivated scholars to take a new look at the science – politics interface and to probe questions such as "What is new in the arrangement of scientific expertise and political decision-making?", "How can reliable knowledge be made useful for politics and society at large, and how can epistemically and ethically sound decisions be achieved without losing democratic legitimacy?", "How can the objective of democratization of expertise be achieved without compromising the quality and reliability of knowledge?" Scientific knowledge and the ‘experts’ that represent it no longer command the unquestioned authority and public trust that was once bestowed upon them, and yet, policy makers are more dependent on them than ever before. This collection of essays explores the relations between science and politics with the instruments of the social studies of science, thereby providing new insights into their re-alignment under a new régime of governance.
Download or read book Scientific Advice to Policy Making written by Peter Weingart and published by Barbara Budrich. This book was released on 2009-06-17 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are there connections between the structures of political systems and types of scientific advice to policymak - ing? This volume unites case studies from the Netherlands, France, the European Union and the USA that provide an overview of different institutional arrangements, focusing on issues such as the independence and balance of advice. Common to all is the question which forms of advice can increase the rationality of policymaking without loss of political legitimacy. From the Contents: Mark B. Brown: Federal Advisory Committees in the United States Paul den Hoed and Anne-Greet Keizer: The Scientific Council for Government Policy David Demortain: Designing Regulatory Tools for Pharmaceutical and Food Safety in the European Union Laurent Geffroy, Odile Piriou and Bénédicte Zimmermann: Scientific Expertise in Policy-Making: The Case of Work Policy in France Willem Halffman: The Dutch ́ ́Planning Bureaus ́ ́
Download or read book The Paradox of Scientific Authority written by Wiebe E. Bijker and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessing the influence of scientific advice in societies that increasingly question scientific authority and expertise. Today, scientific advice is asked for (and given) on questions ranging from stem-cell research to genetically modified food. And yet it often seems that the more urgently scientific advice is solicited, the more vigorously scientific authority is questioned by policy makers, stakeholders, and citizens. This book examines a paradox: how scientific advice can be influential in society even when the status of science and scientists seems to be at a low ebb. The authors do this by means of an ethnographic study of the creation of scientific authority at one of the key sites for the interaction of science, policy, and society: the scientific advisory committee. The Paradox of Scientific Authority offers a detailed analysis of the inner workings of the influential Health Council of the Netherlands (the equivalent of the National Academy of Science in the United States), examining its societal role as well as its internal functioning, and using the findings to build a theory of scientific advising. The question of scientific authority has political as well as scholarly relevance. Democratic political institutions, largely developed in the nineteenth century, lack the institutional means to address the twenty-first century's pervasively scientific and technological culture; and science and technology studies (STS) grapples with the central question of how to understand the authority of science while recognizing its socially constructed nature.
Download or read book The Politics of Expert Advice written by Anthony Barker and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a study of how scientific knowledge and opinion are transmitted to government authorities for use in public policy making. It discusses the formal and informal processes of scientific advice giving, and applies these to case studies taken from all over Europe.
Download or read book Presidential Science Advisors written by Roger Pielke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-06-16 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past 50 years a select group of scientists has provided advice to the US President, mostly out of the public eye, on issues ranging from the deployment of weapons to the launching of rockets to the moon to the use of stem cells to cure disease. The role of the presidential science adviser came under increasing scrutiny during the administration of George W. Bush, which was highly criticized by many for its use (and some say, misuse) of science. This edited volume includes, for the first time, the reflections of the presidential science advisers from Donald Hornig who served under Lyndon B. Johnson, to John Marburger, the previous science advisor, on their roles within both government and the scientific community. It provides an intimate glimpse into the inner workings of the White House, as well as the political realities of providing advice on scientific matters to the presidential of the United States. The reflections of the advisers are supplemented with critical analysis of the role of the science adviser by several well-recognized science policy practitioners and experts. This volume will be of interest to science policy and presidential history scholars and students.
Download or read book A Bias Radar for Responsible Policy Making written by Lieve Van Woensel and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-12-26 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policymakers prepare society for the future and this book provides a practical toolkit for preparing pro-active, future-proof scientific policy advice for them. It explains how to make scientific advisory strategies holistic. It also explains how and where biases, which interfere with the proper functioning of the entire science-policy ecosystem, arise and investigates how emotions and other biases affect the understanding and assessment of scientific evidence. The book advocates explorative foresight, systems thinking, interdisciplinarity, bias awareness and the anticipation of undesirable impacts in policy advising, and it offers practical guidance for them. Written in an accessible style, the book offers provocative reflections on how scientific policy advice should be sensitive to more than scientific evidence. It is both an appealing introductory text for everyone interested in science-based policy and a valuable guide for the experienced scientific adviser and policy scholar. "This book is a valuable read for all stakeholders in the scientific advisory ecosystem. Lieve Van Woensel offers concrete methods to bridge the gap between scientific advice and policy making, to assess the possible societal impacts of complex scientific and technological developments, and to support decision-makers’ more strategic understanding of the issues they have to make decisions about. I was privileged to see them proove their value as I worked with Lieve on the pilot project of the Scientific Foresight unit for The European Parliament’s STOA panel.” - Kristel Van der Elst, CEO, The Global Foresight Group; Executive Head, Policy Horizons Canada “A must-read for not only scientific policy advisers, but also those interested in the ethics of scientific advisory processes. Lieve Van Woensel walks readers through a well-structured practical toolkit that bases policy advice on more than scientific evidence by taking into account policies’ potential effects on society and the environment.” - Dr Paul Rübig, Former Member of the European Parliament and former Chair of the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology
Download or read book Science and Environment in Chile written by Javiera Barandiaran and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The politics of scientific advice across four environmental conflicts in Chile, when the state acted as a “neutral broker” rather than protecting the common good. In Science and Environment in Chile, Javiera Barandiarán examines the consequences for environmental governance when the state lacks the capacity to produce an authoritative body of knowledge. Focusing on the experience of Chile after it transitioned from dictatorship to democracy, she examines a series of environmental conflicts in which the state tried to act as a “neutral broker” rather than the protector of the common good. She argues that this shift in the role of the state—occurring in other countries as well—is driven in part by the political ideology of neoliberalism, which favors market mechanisms and private initiatives over the actions of state agencies. Chile has not invested in environmental science labs, state agencies with in-house capacities, or an ancillary network of trusted scientific advisers—despite the growing complexity of environmental problems and increasing popular demand for more active environmental stewardship. Unlike a high modernist “empire” state with the scientific and technical capacity to undertake large-scale projects, Chile's model has been that of an “umpire” state that purchases scientific advice from markets. After describing the evolution of Chilean regulatory and scientific institutions during the transition, Barandiarán describes four environmental crises that shook citizens' trust in government: the near-collapse of the farmed salmon industry when an epidemic killed millions of fish; pollution from a paper and pulp mill that killed off or forced out thousands of black-neck swans; a gold mine that threatened three glaciers; and five controversial mega-dams in Patagonia.
Download or read book Virtue and Responsibility in Policy Research and Advice written by Berry Tholen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-09-06 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that ethical judgment by individual scientific policy advisors is more important than is often acknowledged. While many scientific policy advisors routinely present themselves as neutral or value free scientists, here is demonstrated that the ideal of scientific integrity as neutrality is misguided and that an alternative understanding is demanded. The book provides an overview of the type of social and political value decisions that have to be made in all phases of research and advice. It moves on to examine proposed procedures or guidelines for scientists and critically assesses plans for the democratization of decision making in science and scientific advice. The book offers a reflection on the practice of scientific advice that will appeal to practitioners and scholars of Public Administration, Public Management and Policy Analysis.
Download or read book Nutritionism written by Gyorgy Scrinis and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popularized by Michael Pollan in his best-selling In Defense of Food, Gyorgy Scrinis's concept of nutritionism refers to the reductive understanding of nutrients as the key indicators of healthy food—an approach that has dominated nutrition science, dietary advice, and food marketing. Scrinis argues this ideology has narrowed and in some cases distorted our appreciation of food quality, such that even highly processed foods may be perceived as healthful depending on their content of "good" or "bad" nutrients. Investigating the butter versus margarine debate, the battle between low-fat, low-carb, and other weight-loss diets, and the food industry's strategic promotion of nutritionally enhanced foods, Scrinis reveals the scientific, social, and economic factors driving our modern fascination with nutrition. Scrinis develops an original framework and terminology for analyzing the characteristics and consequences of nutritionism since the late nineteenth century. He begins with the era of quantification, in which the idea of protective nutrients, caloric reductionism, and vitamins' curative effects took shape. He follows with the era of good and bad nutritionism, which set nutricentric dietary guidelines and defined the parameters of unhealthy nutrients; and concludes with our current era of functional nutritionism, in which the focus has shifted to targeted nutrients, superfoods, and optimal diets. Scrinis's research underscores the critical role of nutrition science and dietary advice in shaping our relationship to food and our bodies and in heightening our nutritional anxieties. He ultimately shows how nutritionism has aligned the demands and perceived needs of consumers with the commercial interests of food manufacturers and corporations. Scrinis also offers an alternative paradigm for assessing the healthfulness of foods—the food quality paradigm—that privileges food production and processing quality, cultural-traditional knowledge, and sensual-practical experience, and promotes less reductive forms of nutrition research and dietary advice.
Download or read book Science in Environmental Policy written by Ann Campbell Keller and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the later, more structured legislative and implementation phases, scientists--working hard to give the appearance of neutral expertise--cede the role of persuader to others.
Download or read book Science Policy and the Value Free Ideal written by Heather E. Douglas and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009-07-15 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of science in policymaking has gained unprecedented stature in the United States, raising questions about the place of science and scientific expertise in the democratic process. Some scientists have been given considerable epistemic authority in shaping policy on issues of great moral and cultural significance, and the politicizing of these issues has become highly contentious. Since World War II, most philosophers of science have purported the concept that science should be "value-free." In Science, Policy and the Value-Free Ideal, Heather E. Douglas argues that such an ideal is neither adequate nor desirable for science. She contends that the moral responsibilities of scientists require the consideration of values even at the heart of science. She lobbies for a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, thus protecting the integrity and objectivity of science. In this vein, Douglas outlines a system for the application of values to guide scientists through points of uncertainty fraught with moral valence.Following a philosophical analysis of the historical background of science advising and the value-free ideal, Douglas defines how values should-and should not-function in science. She discusses the distinctive direct and indirect roles for values in reasoning, and outlines seven senses of objectivity, showing how each can be employed to determine the reliability of scientific claims. Douglas then uses these philosophical insights to clarify the distinction between junk science and sound science to be used in policymaking. In conclusion, she calls for greater openness on the values utilized in policymaking, and more public participation in the policymaking process, by suggesting various models for effective use of both the public and experts in key risk assessments.
Download or read book Science Advice to the President written by William T. Golden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a provocative, behind-the-scenes introduction to the vital and complex role science plays in United States politics. It includes the first formal statement from former President Clinton's former Science Advisor, John H. Gibbons; a fresh retrospective from D. Allan Bromley on science advice in the George H. W. Bush Administration; and a unique viewpoint from John McTague about his brief tenure under President Reagan. Among the twenty-four contributors are former members of the President's Science Advisory Committee, distinguished scholars, and industrialists.
Download or read book Politics and Expertise written by Zeynep Pamuk and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-11-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new model for the relationship between science and democracy that spans policymaking, the funding and conduct of research, and our approach to new technologies Our ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and climate change to artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, depends on knowledge provided by scientists and other experts. Meanwhile, contemporary political life is increasingly characterized by problematic responses to expertise, with denials of science on the one hand and complaints about the ignorance of the citizenry on the other. Politics and Expertise offers a new model for the relationship between science and democracy, rooted in the ways in which scientific knowledge and the political context of its use are imperfect. Zeynep Pamuk starts from the fact that science is uncertain, incomplete, and contested, and shows how scientists’ judgments about what is significant and useful shape the agenda and framing of political decisions. The challenge, Pamuk argues, is to ensure that democracies can expose and contest the assumptions and omissions of scientists, instead of choosing between wholesale acceptance or rejection of expertise. To this end, she argues for institutions that support scientific dissent, proposes an adversarial “science court” to facilitate the public scrutiny of science, reimagines structures for funding scientific research, and provocatively suggests restricting research into dangerous new technologies. Through rigorous philosophical analysis and fascinating examples, Politics and Expertise moves the conversation beyond the dichotomy between technocracy and populism and develops a better answer for how to govern and use science democratically.
Download or read book How To written by Randall Munroe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “How To will make you laugh as you learn…With How To, you can't help but appreciate the glorious complexity of our universe and the amazing breadth of humanity's effort to comprehend it. If you want some lightweight edification, you won't go wrong with How To.” —CNET “[How To] has science and jokes in it, so 10/10 can recommend.” —Simone Giertz The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, the bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer, and What If? 2, coming September 13, 2022 For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole. Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you're done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth's mantle, or launching it into the Sun. By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and fun illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.
Download or read book Principles and Practices for Using Scientific Advice in Government Decision Making written by William Smith and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report characterizes the international responses to the changing demands on the science policy process. Chapter 1 discusses the role of science advice in government decision making with regard to such issues as the science/policy interface, the decision-making environment, internal procedures & outside advice, quality control, risk assessment, science communications, and science in a social context. Chapters 2 & 3 review the key elements of different systems of science advising, best practices, and approaches to risk assessment & public communications in the European Union, New Zealand, the Nordic Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, the World Bank, and national science academies. Chapter 4 contains case studies that examine the effective use of different principles for the incorporation of science into decision making. The final chapter reviews the main points & lessons learned.
