The Politics of Pure Science


Book Description

Dispelling the myth of scientific purity and detachment, Daniel S. Greenberg documents in revealing detail the political processes that underpinned government funding of science from the 1940s to the 1970s.




The Politics of Pure Science


Book Description




Science, Money, and Politics


Book Description

Greenberg explores how scientific research is funded in the United States, including why the political process distributes the funds the way it does and how it can be corrupted by special interests in academia, business, and political machines.




The Pure Theory of Politics


Book Description

In this concluding volume in the trilogy that begins with On Power and moves to Sovereignty, Bertrand de Jouvenel proposes to remedy a serious deficiency in political science, namely: the lack of agreement on first principles, or 'elements'. The author's concern is with political processes as they actually exist, not as they are conjectured to be in hypothetical models.




Impure Science


Book Description

Epstein shows the extent to which AIDS research has been a social and political phenomenon and how the AIDS movement has transformed biomedical research practices through its capacity to garner credibility by novel strategies.




Never Pure


Book Description

Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put simply, science has never been pure. To be human is to err, and we understand science better when we recognize it as the laborious achievement of fallible, imperfect, and historically situated human beings. Shapin’s essays collected here include reflections on the historical relationships between science and common sense, between science and modernity, and between science and the moral order. They explore the relevance of physical and social settings in the making of scientific knowledge, the methods appropriate to understanding science historically, dietetics as a compelling site for historical inquiry, the identity of those who have made scientific knowledge, and the means by which science has acquired credibility and authority. This wide-ranging and intensely interdisciplinary collection by one of the most distinguished historians and sociologists of science represents some of the leading edges of change in the scholarly understanding of science over the past several decades.




Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists


Book Description

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.




The Honest Broker


Book Description

Scientists have a choice concerning what role they should play in political debates and policy formation, particularly in terms of how they present their research. This book is about understanding this choice, what considerations are important to think about when deciding, and the consequences of such choices for the individual scientist and the broader scientific enterprise. Rather than prescribing what course of action each scientist ought to take, the book aims to identify a range of options for individual scientists to consider in making their own judgments about how they would like to position themselves in relation to policy and politics. Using examples from a range of scientific controversies and thought-provoking analogies from other walks of life, The Honest Broker challenges us all - scientists, politicians and citizens - to think carefully about how best science can contribute to policy-making and a healthy democracy.




Pure Science and the Natural Laws of the Universe


Book Description

This book is volume 1 of a 6 volume series of science books regarding the results of extensive technical analysis conducted by Larry Larcom (the author) on the straight forward characteristics of our physical existence without the influence of political, religious, and anti-religious biases. The real truths of the universe are simple and easy to understand and just as importantly, they are verifiable. The simple truths of the universe have been hidden from our view by biases of our day which are in the form of falsehoods sprinkled with bits of truth to make them seem true. The targeted audience is young adults with at least a high school education and higher. Emphasis is placed on having the reader understand the truths of our physical existence for themselves without having to choose what elitists to believe in. The importance of the general public having the same simple truths as part of their own personal knowledge base is seen as a needed unifying factor that will eventually come to fruition. Advanced technology is a factor behind this trend. The simple truths of the universe can not be hidden from view for ever. As effective technical advances prove themselves to be truthful concepts, so will our knowledge of actual truths be ascertained. Too many times this pure science approach has revealed that the real truths of the universe are 180 degrees away from what we have had shoveled into our heads. We, the general public of the world need to get past our era of believing in the partial truths of our day. Once we do get more of a grip on the genuine physical aspects of our existence, the intangibles such as integrity will fall more easily into place. The bulk of the emphasis is to show the reader what is out there and let them decide for themselves as to what to believe. It shouldn't be a matter of something like science vs religion, or politics. The pure and simple truths of the universe are what they are and what we want and need to know.




Basic and Applied Research


Book Description

The distinction between basic and applied research was central to twentieth-century science and policymaking, and if this framework has been contested in recent years, it nonetheless remains ubiquitous in both scientific and public discourse. Employing a transnational, diachronic perspective informed by historical semantics, this volume traces the conceptual history of the basic–applied distinction from the nineteenth century to today, taking stock of European developments alongside comparative case studies from the United States and China. It shows how an older dichotomy of pure and applied science was reconceived in response to rapid scientific progress and then further transformed by the geopolitical circumstances of the postwar era.