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Library | Material Type | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Sugar Grove - Todd Library | Book | Q175.52 .U5 S285 2018 | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
This book explains why science and politics collide, why this is an especially critical problem at this precise time in U.S. history, and what should be done to ensure that science and politics coincide.
The United States is waging a political war against science, and the stakes are increasing. When it comes to areas in which science and politics must interact, such as genetics, climate, and energy, political interests are always pushing to spin the relevant science, but this becomes problematic when Americans abandon rationality for ideology or misinformation manufactured to confuse and persuade them.
In a series of five contemporary examples, When Science and Politics Collide: The Public Interest at Risk makes the case that none of the ways in which science and politics currently communicate serve the public interest and that some of them actually result in great harm. It explains that, whether about climate change, vaccines, pandemics, or fracking, experimentally proven and reproducible data and evidence can save lives-and poor, politically motivated policies can doom them. The book concludes with recommendations for creating a more perfect union between scientific facts and political agendas.
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
The collision between science and politics is rooted in the difference between scientists who have a reverence for evidence and policymakers or politicians, for whom scientific evidence is an afterthought in the pursuit of financial or political gain. Understanding science can be difficult, especially when competing explanations for phenomena derive from interest groups. Schneider (Managing the Climate Crisis, 2015) parses how differing values play out in five case studies: space exploration, climate change, hydraulic fracking, evolution, and pandemics. International military rivalries drove the race to send humans to the moon, but the other case studies demonstrate how a significant lack of social consensus gives rise to conflict in understanding issues involving Earth's resources, global health risks, and the origins of our planet and its inhabitants. Discussions of those cases cite scientific data, explain conflicting interpretations, and sum up the state of public debate. A concluding chapter pleads for better scientific-literacy education, calls upon scientists to improve their understanding of public sentiment, and concludes that the first step is to recognize the seriousness of the science-politics problem.--James Rettig Copyright 2018 Booklist
Choice Review
In the US as elsewhere, science and politics have had a long history of complicated interactions, but tensions between the two have increased in recent years. Schneider (public administration, Univ. of North Carolina, Pembroke) combines a history of this nuanced relationship with a thorough discussion of contemporary issues. The first chapter sets the stage, exploring the abstract questions "What is science?" and "What is politics?" Science, Schneider argues, values evidence over certainty; it is not an end but a process. Contrary to popular belief, it is also not political. American politics has been highlighted by individuality, and by often competing microsocial and macrosocial interests--bonds among small, cohesive groups as well as concerns for society as a whole. The book's succeeding chapters use five prominent scientific and political issues to illustrate five dynamics: necessity (the space race), conflict (climate change), fissures and splits (fracking), resistance (evolution versus creationism), and panic (reaction to pandemics ranging from the Spanish Flu to Ebola). The history and evolution of each of these dynamics is discussed in detail. The final chapter discusses paths forward in light of today's fraught political climate. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Robert Edward Buntrock, independent scholar
Table of Contents
| Chapter 1 Science and Politics | p. 1 |
| Chapter 2 The Space Race: A Marriage of Necessity | p. 25 |
| Chapter 3 Cliamte Change: A Classic Case of Conflict | p. 53 |
| Chapter 4 Hydraulic Fracturing: A Deepening Fissure | p. 87 |
| Chapter 5 Evolution and Creationism: A Classic Case of Resistance | p. 113 |
| Chapter 6 Panic Reflex: Pandemics, Science, and Politics | p. 141 |
| Chapter 7 Two Worlds-One Reality: A Path Forward? | p. 167 |
| Notes | p. 205 |
| Index | p. 221 |