Literature

Good Introductions to Science Policy

Policy-relevant Introductions to Philosophy of Science

  • Douglas, Heather, 2009. Science, policy, and the value-free ideal. University of Pittsburgh Press.

    • Douglas is the best introduction to philosophy of science policy issues, and has caused a sea change in how philosophers think about values in science. The historical component of her book significantly revived old debates over what role values should play in decisions, noting it is roughly impossible to escape any role of values in science.

  • Brown, M.B., 2004. The Political Philosophy of Science Policy. Minerva, 42(1), pp.77-95.

    • An excellent critique of Philip Kitcher’s book, Science, Truth and Democracy, which brings to bear much of the policy and social science literature that hadn’t been captured in the book.

Specific topic areas:

History of science policy

  • Kevles, Daniel J., 1995. The Physicists: The history of a scientific community in modern America. Harvard University Press.

    • Gives a broad history of science, including across the first two World Wars. Studying early science policy debates can be deeply rewarding for teasing out ‘paths not taken,’ and to more clearly assess the value choices that exist in science policy practice today.

  • Zachary, G.P., 2018. Endless frontier: Vannevar Bush, engineer of the American century. Simon and Schuster.

    • So much of US science policy was shaped by events at the end of World War II, where Vannevar Bush’s Endless Frontier report shaped narratives about science policy that are still endlessly debated today. Zachary’s biography of Bush casts a far more complex picture of a talenated engineer and manager, whose work in managing in World War II engineer projects contained more policy nuance than what was captured in his final report.

Science Policy Frameworks

  • Sarewitz, D. and Pielke Jr, R.A., 2007. The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science. environmental science & policy, 10(1), pp.5-16.

    • Offers up a framework to think about the supply of research against user demands.

  • McNie, E.C., Parris, A. and Sarewitz, D., 2016. Improving the public value of science: A typology to inform discussion, design and implementation of research. Research Policy, 45(4), pp.884-895.

    • To help ensure that there is a sufficient variety of research, the authors develop a set of dimensions by which research managers can try to fund different kids of research.

  • Guston, D.H. and Sarewitz, D., 2002. Real-time technology assessment. Technology in society, 24(1-2), pp.93-109.

    • This created a framework of several research approaches for trying to follow emerging technologies.

Pluralism

  • Mitchell, Sanda D., 2009. Unsimple Truths: Science, Complexity, and Policy. University of Chicago Press.

How models shape our knowledge and policy

  • Winsberg, Eric, 2010. Science in the age of computer simulation. In Science in the Age of Computer Simulation. University of Chicago Press.

    • One of the first books on the philosophy of modeling

  • Sarewitz, D., R. A. Pielke, Jr., and R. Byerly, (editors) (2000), Prediction: Science, Decision Making and the Future of Nature., Washington, DC: Island Press

    • Looking across multiple case studies in disparate fields, they provide policy and modeling advice, questioning the emphasis that many organizations place on prediction.

Miscellaneous

  • Polanyi, M., 1962. The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory. Minerva, pp.54-73.

    • An article that I think is wrong and unduly influential, it offers a viewpoint that science is best governed autonomously by scientists, with little outside interference.