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Climate scientists have warned that we need to change our behaviour in ways that may be inconvenient and threaten the commercial status quo. The result has been a polarising division in society and a sustained attack on their research. In The Knowledge Wars, Nobel prizewinner Peter Doherty makes a passionate case for citizens to become informed so they are able to evaluate the facts of any scientific debate. It provides practical advice on how to analyse research and take meaningful action. The Knowledge Wars challenges our assumptions and encourages us to take an evidence-based view of the world. There's something here to offend everybody!

Vorstellungen über die zukünftige Entwicklung von Technik und Gesellschaft kommt in gesellschaftlichen Technikdebatten und Entscheidungsprozessen eine zentrale Rolle zu. Die Technikzukünfte werden unter anderem in Gestalt wissenschaftlicher Expertisen kommuniziert. Als solche erfahren sie seitens politischer Entscheidungsträger, der Wirtschaft und in den Medien große Aufmerksamkeit. Gerade in der wissenschaftlichen Politikberatung stehen die Autoren von Technikzukünften damit in der Verantwortung, die Prämissen und Wertentscheidungen offenzulegen, die Grundlage dieser Technikzukünfte sind. Um eine offene Verständigung über die zukünftigen Lebensbedingungen in der Gesellschaft zu ermöglichen, müssen Technikzukünfte transparent gestaltet werden. Mit diesem Leitfaden bietet acatech all denjenigen eine Orientierung, die sich in Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft mit Technikzukünften befassen.

This is the most comprehensive and current reference resource on climate change available today. It features 49 individual chapters by some of the world's leading climate scientists. Its five sections address climate change in five dimensions: ecological impacts; policy analysis; international considerations; United States considerations; and mitigation options to reduce carbon emissions. In many ways, this volume supersedes the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Many important developments too recent to be treated by the 2007 IPCC documents are covered here. This book considers not only the IPCC report, but also results of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bali in December 2007, as well as even more recent research data. Overall, Climate Change Science and Policy paints a direr picture of the effects of climate change than do the IPCC reports. It reveals that climate change has progressed faster than the IPCC reports anticipated and that the outlook for the future is bleaker than the IPCC reported. In his prologue, John P. Holdren writes that the widely-used term “ global warming” is a misnomer. He suggests that a more accurate label would be “ global climatic disruption.” This volume, he states, will equip readers with all they need to know to rebut the misrepresentations being propagated by “ climate-change skeptics.” No one, he writes, will be a skeptic after reading this book.

La Science se voudrait indépendante du politique : illusion! A l'aube du monde moderne, des scientifiques, des philosophes, voire des théologiens, ont été les premiers confrontés à ce tournant de l'Histoire. L'un des buts de cet essai est de faire connaître et revivre ces personnages, Copernic, Galilée, Kepler, Giordano Bruno. C'est aussi de rappeler qu'ils illustrent curieusement les quatre, et seulement quatre, attitudes possibles des scientifiques face au pouvoir : taire ses découvertes, s'incliner devant lui, s'exiler ou se révolter.

The twentieth century was the era of'big science.'Driven by strategic rivalries and fierce economic competition, wealthy governments invested heavily in national science establishments. Direct funding for institutions like the National Science Foundation and high-visibility projects, such as the race to the moon, fueled innovation, growth, and national prestige. But the big science model left poorer countries out in the cold. Today the organization of science is undergoing a fundamental transformation. In T he New Invisible College, Caroline Wagner combines quantitative data and extensive interviews to map the emergence of global science networks and trace the dynamics driving their growth. She argues that the shift from big science to global networks creates unprecedented opportunities for developing countries to tap science's potential. Rather than squander resources in vain efforts to mimic the scientific establishments of the twentieth century, developing country governments can leverage networks by creating incentives for top-notch scientists to focus on research that addresses their concerns and by finding ways to tie knowledge to local problem solving. T he New Invisible College offers both a guidebook and a playbook for policymakers confronting these tasks.

So far the'Science Wars'have generated far more heat than light. Combatants from one or the other of what C. P. Snow famously called'the two cultures'(science versus the arts and humanities) have launched bitter attacks but have seldom engaged in constructive dialogue about the central issues. In The One Culture?, Jay A. Labinger and Harry Collins have gathered together some of the world's foremost scientists and sociologists of science to exchange opinions and ideas rather than insults. The contributors find surprising areas of broad agreement in a genuine conversation about science, its legitimacy and authority as a means of understanding the world, and whether science studies undermines the practice and findings of science and scientists. The One Culture? is organized into three parts. The first consists of position papers written by scientists and sociologists of science, which were distributed to all the participants. The second presents commentaries on these papers, drawing out and discussing their central themes and arguments. In the third section, participants respond to these critiques, offering defenses, clarifications, and modifications of their positions. Who can legitimately speak about science? What is the proper role of scientific knowledge? How should scientists interact with the rest of society in decision making? Because science occupies such a central position in the world today, such questions are vitally important. Although there are no simple solutions, The One Culture? does show the reader exactly what is at stake in the Science Wars, and provides a valuable framework for how to go about seeking the answers we so urgently need. Contributors include: Constance K. Barsky, Jean Bricmont, Harry Collins, Peter Dear, Jane Gregory, Jay A. Labinger, Michael Lynch, N. David Mermin, Steve Miller, Trevor Pinch, Peter R. Saulson, Steven Shapin, Alan Sokal, Steven Weinberg, Kenneth G. Wilson

What if something as seemingly academic as the so-called science wars were to determine how we live?This eye-opening book reveals how little we've understood about the ongoing pitched battles between the sciences and the humanities--and how much may be at stake. James Brown's starting point is C. P. Snow's famous book, Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, which set the terms for the current debates. But that little book did much more than identify two new, opposing cultures, Brown contends: It also claimed that scientists are better qualified than nonscientists to solve political and social problems. In short, the true significance of Snow's treatise was its focus on the question of who should rule--a question that remains vexing, pressing, and politically explosive today.In Who Rules in Science? Brown takes us through the various engagements in the science wars--from the infamous'Sokal affair'to angry confrontations over the nature of evidence, the possibility of objectivity, and the methods of science--to show how the contested terrain may be science, but the prize is political: Whoever wins the science wars will have an unprecedented influence on how we are governed.Brown provides the most comprehensive and balanced assessment yet of the science wars. He separates the good arguments from the bad, and exposes the underlying message: Science and social justice are inextricably linked. His book is essential reading if we are to understand the forces making and remaking our world.

In the wake of the highly fractious Culture Wars, conservatives in science have launched a backlash against feminist, multiculturalist, and social critics in science studies. Paul Gross and Norman Levitt's book Higher Superstition, presented as a wake-up call to scientists unaware of the dangers posed by the “science-bashers,” set the shrill tone of this reaction and led to the appearance of a growing number of scare stories about an “antiscience” movement in the op-ed sections of newspapers across the country. Unwilling to be political scapegoats for the decline in the public funding of science and the erosion of the public authority of scientists, many of these critics—natural scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and scholars in cultural studies and literary studies—have taken the opportunity to respond to the backlash in Science Wars.At a time when scientific knowledge is systematically whisked out of the domain of education and converted into private capital, the essays in this volume are sharply critical of the conservative defense of a value-free science. They suggest that in a world steeped in nuclear, biogenic, and chemical overdevelopment, those who are skeptical of technology are more than entitled to ask for evidence of rationality in those versions of scientific progress that respond only to the managerial needs of state, corporate, and military elites. Whether uncovering the gender-laden assumptions built into the Western scientific method, redefining the scientific claim to objectivity, showing the relationship between science's empirical worldview and that of mercantile capitalism, or showing how the powerful language of science exercises its daily cultural authority in our society, the essays in Science Wars announce their own powerful message. Analyzing the antidemocratic tendencies within science and its institutions, they insist on a more accountable relationship between scientists and the communities and environments affected by their research.Revised and expanded from a recent issue of Social Text, Science Wars will provoke thought and controversy among scholars and general readers interested in science studies and current cultural politics.Contributors. Stanley Aronowitz, Sarah Franklin, Steve Fuller, Sandra Harding, Roger Hart, N. Katherine Hayles, Ruth Hubbard, Joel Kovel, Les Levidow, George Levine, Richard Levins, Richard C. Lewontin, Michael Lynch, Emily Martin, Dorothy Nelkin, Hilary Rose, Andrew Ross, Sharon Traweek, Langdon Winner