The battles that began in the 1970s produced “institutional innovations” across the landscape of academic science and industrial research. These innovations were not limited to top-down actors, but also infused bottom-up activism – and state and local experimentation – that…

Technological and policy elites are often exceptionally good at seeing two dimensions of change: how fast and in which direction. What they too often flatten is the third dimension: public value. Something about the current debate over artificial intelligence felt…

The OSTP report presents itself as a fundamental rethinking of the linear model of innovation, ignoring that the system has been adapting to the inadequacies of that model for over half a century. Don E. Kash was about the age I…

Cracks in the Wall, Bridges Over Troubled Waters A recent LinkedIn post from the Democracy R&D Network made me think about an old problem—the dilemma of a science policy boundary spanner. The post referenced our recent Nature Commentary, which argued that “deliberation is…

Science needs democratic accountability, not political vetoes In 2004, David Guston wrote an essay in Issues in Science and Technology with a title that still feels bracing: “Forget Politicizing Science. Let’s Democratize Science!” His point was not that science should…

Perhaps, but it shouldn’t aim to bypass the public and become corporations by another name Three recent observations have made me rethink the role of philanthropy in science. The first was a short exchange on X involving Jane Flegal. Jane’s…

My science policy friends seem convinced that invoking Vannevar Bush and showcasing a bipartisan parade of former presidents’ support for science will restore public consensus. I doubt it. Last Friday night, June 12th, I attended the Washington premiere of The…

RCP8.5 and the Politics of Plausible Catastrophe I have been thinking about the recent RCP8.5-related conversation not as a climate denial story or an argument against climate action, but as a case study in how science can sometimes get lost.…