What is science policy?

摘要

Irwin Feller and Susan Cozzens, both nationally recognized science policy scholars, have hit the nail on the head with their appropriately scathing critique of U.S. science policy entitled "It's About More Than Money" (Issues, Summer 2008). The only thing they didn't do was drive the nail in far enough to seal the fate of this critical area of national policy that remains wholly unsophisticated, unchanging, and inadequate to the task of providing our nation with the tools we need to make best use of our national R&D investment. Here it is 2008, when we have the ability to analyze and quantify even everyday things such as the impact of soft drink advertising during the Super Bowl, but we can't yet develop a national science and technology logic that goes beyond "we need more money." We live in an era when the production of science-based knowledge, at ever-increasing rates, is driving changes in economic competitiveness, culture, quality of life, foreign and military affairs, and sustainability on a global scale, and yet we have a science policy that is no more robust than most families apply to their family budgets: We have so many dollars this year and we would like more next year. Feller and Cozzens attack the central sophomoric argument of U.S. science policy, which has its roots in the original designs of Van-rnnevar Bush and his piece Science-The Endless Frontier, published in the wake of the total victory of the Allies and the unconditional surrender of their enemies in World War II. What they don't address is why we have been unable to grow up from our simple approach of largely unguided national science planning and budgeting.