Science

Science PDF Author: Steve Fuller
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816631254
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
SCIENCE features a report written in the persona of a Martian anthropologist who systematically compares religious and scientific institutions on Earth, only to find that science does not necessarily live up to its own ideals of rationality, thereby risking its purpose by the role it increasingly plays in the maintenance of social and economic order.

Science

Science PDF Author: Steve Fuller
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816631254
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
SCIENCE features a report written in the persona of a Martian anthropologist who systematically compares religious and scientific institutions on Earth, only to find that science does not necessarily live up to its own ideals of rationality, thereby risking its purpose by the role it increasingly plays in the maintenance of social and economic order.

Peerless Science

Peerless Science PDF Author: Daryl E. Chubin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791499103
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
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.

Science and the University

Science and the University PDF Author: Paula E. Stephan
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299224805
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Science and the University investigates the tremendous changes that have taken place in university research over the past several decades, gauging the current state of research in higher education and examining issues and challenges crucial to its future. Scientific research increasingly dominates the aims and agendas of many American universities, and this proliferation—and changes in the way research is conducted—has given rise to important questions about the interrelations of higher education, funding for scientific research, and government policy. The cost of doing science, the commercialization of university research, the changing composition and number of Ph.D. students, the effect of scientific research on other university programs—these are just a few of the many issues explored in this volume from the vantage points of scholars in such diverse fields as economics, biochemistry, genetics, and labor studies.

Evaluating Science and Scientists

Evaluating Science and Scientists PDF Author: Mark S. Frankel
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633865662
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
The shift to a market economy in post-communist Eastern Europe has had a profound impact on science and scientists across the region, leading to reforms in research management practices and to drastic cuts in funding levels everywhere. Many countries are moving to a system of competitive research grants awarded on the basis of peer review. The introduction of peer review is not simply a technical matter. It signifies a fundamental change in the social structure of science, enhancing profession-al autonomy and giving working scientists a voice in the allocation of resources. This book combines first-hand accounts of the reform process with analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of both peer review and quantitative indicators.

Making 20th Century Science

Making 20th Century Science PDF Author: Stephen G. Brush
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199978158
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
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.

Bending Science

Bending Science PDF Author: Thomas O. McGarity
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674251822
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
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.

The Internet Revolution in the Sciences and Humanities

The Internet Revolution in the Sciences and Humanities PDF Author: Alan G. Gross
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190465921
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The Internet Revolution in the Sciences and Humanities takes a new look at C.P. Snow's distinction between the two cultures, a distinction that provides the driving force for a book that contends that the Internet revolution has sown the seeds for transformative changes in both the sciences and the humanities. It is because of this common situation that the humanities can learn from the sciences, as well as the sciences from the humanities, in matters central to both: generating, evaluating, and communicating knowledge on the Internet. In a succession of chapters, the authors deal with the state of the art in web-based journal articles and books, web sites, peer review, and post-publication review. In the final chapter, they address the obstacles the academy and scientific organizations face in taking full advantage of the Internet: outmoded tenure and promotion procedures, the cost of open access, and restrictive patent and copyright law. They also argue that overcoming these obstacles does not require revolutionary institutional change. In their view, change must be incremental, making use of the powers and prerogatives scientific and academic organizations already have.

Science Under Siege?

Science Under Siege? PDF Author: Leon E. Trachtman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1461705495
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The combative metaphor of Oscience warsO has taken on a predominant position within the collective conscious, from being featured on the programs of scientific meetings to being splashed across the pages of leading national magazines and newspapers. Some in the scientific community perceive their profession to be under siege by members of the academic left, radical environmentalists, religious fundamentalists, eco-feminists, and others. This book, based on in-depth interviews with sixty members of groups with alleged Oanti-scienceO attitudes, examines how pervasive and uniform these critiques are. The research is designed to examine two conflicting hypotheses: 1) that anti-science attitudes reflect a general cynicism about all major social institutions, and 2) that anti-science views are not broadly based but are reflective, instead , of the particular interests of a given social grouping. In the final analysis, Perrucci and Trachtman dig at the root of the so-called Oscience warsO by presenting evidence that the wars are not the product of an overarching suspicion of the institutions at the core of our society, but are instead the product of organized interest groups, which shape the attitudes and beliefs of their respective members.

Making Science

Making Science PDF Author: Stephen Cole
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674543478
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
The sociology of science is dominated today by relativists who boldly argue that the content of science is not influenced by evidence from the empirical world but is instead socially constructed in the laboratory. Making Science is the first serious critique by a sociologist of the social constructivist position. Stephen Cole begins by making a distinction between two kinds of knowledge: the core, which consists of those contributions that have passed the test of evaluation and are universally accepted as true and important, and the research frontier, which is composed of all work in progress that is still under evaluation. Of the thousands of scientific contributions made each year, only a handful end up in the core. What distinguishes those that are successful? Agreeing with the constructivists, Cole argues that there exists no set of rules that enables scientists to certify the validity of frontier knowledge. This knowledge is "underdetermined" by the evidence, and therefore social factors--such as professional characteristics and intellectual authority--can and do play a crucial role in its evaluation. But Cole parts company with the constructivists when he asserts that it is impossible to understand which frontier knowledge wins a place in the core without first considering the cognitive characteristics of the contributions. He concludes that although the focus of scientific research, the rate of advance, and indeed the everyday making of science are influenced by social variables and processes, the content of the core of science is constrained by nature. In Making Science, Cole shows how social variables and cognitive variables interact in the evaluation of frontier knowledge.

Science, Technology, and Society

Science, Technology, and Society PDF Author: Sal P. Restivo
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195141938
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Book Description
Emphasizing an interdisciplinary and international coverage of the functions and effects of science and technology in society and culture, Science, Technology, and Society/B contains over 130 A to Z signed articles written by major scholars and experts from academic and scientific institutions and institutes worldwide. Each article is accompanied by a selected bibliography. Other features include extensive cross referencing throughout, a directory of contributors, and an extensive topical index.