In the March-April issue of American Scientist, Robert Cook-Deegan reviews the memoir of Harold Varmus, The Art and Politics of Science (H/T Powells.com Review-a-Day).  Cook-Deegan runs the Center for Genome Ethics, Law and Policy at Duke University, and has written a wonderful review.  I recommended the book earlier this year based on an excerpt. Anyone still not persuaded of the need to read the book, or to follow Varmus as he serves as co-chair of President Obama’s PCAST (President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology), will be after reading Cook-Deegan’s review.

(more…)

The plethora of press reports on Dr. John Holdren’s recent interviews focus (including our coverage), If not obsess over, climate issues and Holdren’s thoughts on same.  While that’s fair game, it’s worth noting that Dr. Holdren’s portfolio at the Office of Science and Technology Policy is much broader than climate change, and he is not the only administration official that will weigh in on those policies.

The soup to nuts of Dr. Holdren’s recent press tour can be captured by his interviews in Nature and ScienceInsider (Science Progress has a roundup of recent Holdren interviews).  The Nature interview is relatively well-organized, while the ScienceInsider interview is a much more rambling affair.  In both, Dr. Holdren provides his thoughts on research dollars and the stimulus, the future of the Space Shuttle, nuclear non-proliferation, and some of the day-to-day details about his job.  While it’s nice to see Dr. Holdren make himself available, I think he could use some additional message discipline to sound more like he does in the Nature interview than in the ScienceInsider interview.  I’d rather he not make a habit of speculation that lends itself well to headlines (geoengineering in one case, and riding Chinese spacecraft to the International Space Station in another).  The fewer clarification emails OSTP spokesperson Rick Weiss sends to the press, the better.

Science Progress gave two historians a few column inches to remind us that not all science and technology narratives reflect the history of their disciplines.  Folks focused on nanotechnology will find the article of interest, but the main points are more broadly applicable than to just the really, really small.  The lessons, if you want to boil them down (which is a lousy thing to do with history, but expected in blogging) resemble some obvious statements, but statements that aren’t effectively applied and rarely considered when dealing with science and technology.  The Whig history mentioned here and in the Science Progress piece refers to historical treatments that treat current conditions as another step along a steady path of progress.

There is a history.  Nearly every person engaged with science and technology policy in the United States seems to think their field started and ended with Vannevar Bush in the late 1940s.  This ignores over 150 years of prior activity in the United States.  The Lewis and Clark Expedition and the U.S. Census are two ventures in the field that date back nearly to the founding of the republic.   The Forest Service and Geological Survey are also good pre-World War II examples of federal science and technology at work.

(more…)

Wired’s Danger Room blog has the latest installment of the Army’s effort to embed social scientists with the troops serving in combat.  The Human Terrain Team participants have recently been told they will be shifted from contractors to government employees.  If they choose not to, they can leave the program.  The blog writer is expecting a mass exodus, and may well be right.  But the program has had a big list of problems, not the least of which are the casualties.  This paragraph has a nice summary, and you can search the Danger Room blog for Human Terrain to see the rest of the coverage of Human Terrain.

Three of the program’s social scientists have been killed on duty. One former employee has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, for a revenge slaying in Afghanistan. Another is awaiting trial on espionage charges. Most recently, a sexual harrassment investigation found that one of the Human Terrain groups in Afghanistan had become a “hostile environment” to female employees.

Now, there has been general criticism of this program, just like there has of the wars in which it has been deployed.  Those are all valid questions, but somewhat separate from the broader issue of what scientists can provide in terms of boots on the ground support.  Like their military counterparts – the Civil Affairs/Foreign Area Officers – the advisory role these scientists can play has value in working with the populations where military personnel are deployed.  It would behoove someone within the Department of Defense to do some kind of analysis of the Human Terrain program to try and see how the problems of that program can be avoided in the future.

In a sort-of related followup to yesterday’s post, there’s another recent item in Wired Science about how a computer program derived laws of motion in over a day without any knowledge of physics.  It’s an example of how computing capacity is reaching a point where large amounts of data can be crunched to determine underlying principles or rules.  In a reversal of traditional scientific practice, these rules would then require analysis and explanation.  While yesterday’s robot example has some significant human resource implications in terms of possibly putting bench scientists out of work, such displacement doesn’t seem to be the case here.  The influence of this development is more on the how of science than the who of science.  However, reaching consensus over why a particular phenomena follows specific rules could easily be as contentious as reaching consensus over whether specific observations prove certain rules are operative.

The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee of the U.K. Parliament recently released a report calling for a Chief Engineer (H/T Times Higher Education).  That is just one of the recommendations in the report Engineering: Turning Ideas into Reality, which is the output of a yearlong examination of engineering in the U.K. and how U.K. engineering is considered around the world.  The methodology:

We decided to take a case study approach, exploring key themes through the lenses of nuclear engineering, plastic electronics engineering, geo-engineering and engineering in Government.

The last case study grabbed my attention, as it is another opportunity to learn more about the scientific advisory structure in the U.K. government, which has more differences with the U.S. than the contrast of parliamentary and presidential systems.  The key conclusion in this area:

Our final case study went further and demonstrated that engineering advice and scientific advice offer different things, and that this should be recognised in the policy process.

(more…)

Harold Varmus, one of the co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (though you couldn’t tell by looking at their website), recently appeared before the Royal Society (H/T The Great Beyond) as part of the promotional tour for his recent memoir, The Art and Politics of Science.  As part of a panel discussion both Varmus and John Beddington, U.K. science adviser, downplayed the likelihood of significant boosts for science spending in either the U.S. or U.K. budgets.  Varmus recommended that researchers think creatively about the opportunities possible with stimulus funding, as he does not expect baseline budget amounts to increase, or at least increase significantly, in the near term.

I have yet to find any transcript of Varmus’ remarks, or of the discussion in general.  There’s also no mention of the address in other press reports.  An interview Varmus gave with the Times of London focused primarily on global issues.  According to The Great Beyond, he did give an address to the society, in which two interesting, if wildly optimistic, remarks were made.  In response to a question about teaching evolution, Varmus noted that President Obama was considering addressing science in a future address.  He also said that the Office of Technology Assessment would likely be brought back.  I’m skeptical for a couple of reasons.  President Obama addressed scientific integrity concerns with his remarks earlier this month.  Having the executive branch create an office for the legislative branch is not the easiest of tasks, and Congress has trouble passing much of anything.  So either Varmus has high expectations, or any new OTA will likely look very different from its predecessor.  Personally, I’d wait for the administration to finish its appointments to OSTP and ramp up that office and the new PCAST before throwing a new ball into the mix.

(UPDATE: A comment below from a reader who was at the event suggests the account overplayed the OTA comments)

A proposal for a Research for America found in Olivia Judson’s blog this week essentially asks this question, just not in so many words.  The idea is to have a corp of undergraduate degree holders available to serve a year or two in labs, before going on to graduate study or other endeavors.  For me this gets to a number of related assumptions behind science and engineering graduate education in the U.S. that need some exploring.

The Profzi Scheme This cartoon from PHD Comics describes the pyramid scheme behind graduate education.  There are two few faculty positions for all of the cheap laborers (graduate students) to rise up in this system.  Combine this with the prevailing myth that asexual reproduction is the only post-degree model for graduate education and you have an odd combination – an underproduction of scientists and engineers, but an overproduction of Ph.Ds.  If bachelors degree holders can function in a lab, then the need for bunches of Ph.D. students is in question.

(more…)

Nearly two months after their official nominations, over one month since their confirmation hearing, and almost three months after John Holdren’s name was announced, both Dr. Holdren and Dr. Jane Lubchenco have been confirmed to their positions.  While Dr. Holdren has functioned as the President’s Science Adviser while waiting for confirmation as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. Lubchenco has been in limbo.

While Senator Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) has issued a press release on the confirmation, the Senate website does not have the official record of the vote.  As it took place earlier this evening, it should be available tomorrow.  Congressional Quarterly reports that the confirmations passed by a voice vote, indicating little or no opposition, and no record of individual votes.  So I will not be able to see if my prediction was accurate that Senator Vitter would oppose the nominations.

Professor John Beddington, The U.K. Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, recommended in remarks with BBC News (H/T Nature News) that the European Union needs stronger scientific advice.  He specifically recommended following the American model, oddly enough, pointing to President Obama’s “dream team” as a good example for Europe to follow.  Professor Beddington was positive about the research support provided to the Commission, but feels that more “brutal” policy advice was needed.

Perhaps he didn’t want to appear self-serving, but it appears to me that the American model is not nearly as well suited to what Professor Beddington wants as the U.K. model is.  Throughout the BBC News piece you’ll note descriptions of the British system (which includes scientific advisers in 17 different departments) as independent, proactive and sometimes irritating.  While that certainly describes science policy advocates in this country, American science advisers are not set up to be independent or proactive.  At least not those advisers with formal government positions.  So I am a bit perplexed as why the less independent system would be advanced as the example to follow.