Category: Public Engagement

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…

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…

They were not the headliners. I expected the familiar: arrive, deliver remarks, affirm institutional commitments, depart. They did all the familiar, but then they stayed. Three times, in three different settings, I found university presidents not just staying but listening.…

For nearly eighty years, American science policy has lived under the shadow of a single idea: that scientific progress depends on insulating scientists from politics. In 1945, Vannevar Bush’s report Science, the Endless Frontier argued that if government funded basic…