Book Review in Nature

March 11th, 2005

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

In the current issue of Nature I have a very positive review of Nature’s Experts: Science, Politics, and the Environment by Stephen Bocking (Rutgers University Press: 2004). In the review I write,

“In this excellent book on environmental science and politics, Stephen Bocking grapples with a problem that he characterizes as a riddle: “How can science be part of the political process yet separate?” Or more specifically: “How can we ensure that scientific research provides the information we need to pursue our environmental values and priorities (whether these relate to exploitation or to protection) without science itself becoming subject to the conflicts and controversies of environmental politics?” For decades, the riddle posed by Bocking was answered through a widely shared conceptual model about the role of science in society, presented most influentially in Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report to government, Science: The Endless Frontier.”

Read the whole review here.

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