Small Research and Training Grant: Proof, Persuasion, and Policy

加州大学圣地亚哥分校的科学研究项目自 1989 年成立以来，一直致力于培养学者，帮助他们更好地理解科学在知识和文化层面的运作方式。 教师和学生以各种方式研究了如何裁决科学争议；证据与理论有何关系；信息如何分发、共享和储存；以及信誉、权威和信任问题最终如何成为政治、文化以及事实问题。 在美国国家科学基金会的先前支持下，该项目已发展成为北美首屈一指的科学研究项目之一，并培养了一批研究生，目前在美国和其他几个国家担任终身教职。 五年来，已有8名新教师加入，增添了新的活力、热情和视野，研究生申请者的质量和数量都有所提高。 现在是重申对教学和培训使命的承诺的好时机。 考虑到教师专业知识、学生兴趣和社会需求的一致性，该提案力求在未来三年致力于“证明、说服和政策”的纲领主题。 鉴于科学对公共决策的显着但往往模糊的贡献，社会需要训练有素的专家，他们知道如何研究科学共识的过程：科学家如何证明事物本来就是如此，并说服其他人他们有证据这样做。 鉴于当今无数涉及科学共识的问题——全球变暖的现实、新药的批准、供给侧经济的有效性——更深入地思考证据、说服力和政策之间的相互关系非常重要。 该提案旨在通过使用“证明、说服和政策”的联系作为所有关键项目活动将在资助期内涉及的试金石问题，为研究生和博士后研究员的培训制定具体的教学计划。博士后研究员的研究与该主题有关，将围绕该主题组织大部分教学和座谈会。 该提案还将通过两项第一年奖学金和一项论文年奖学金来增加对研究生的支持。 该倡议将重点关注三个主题领域：a）模型和预测，b）社会科学，以及c）疾病与健康。 其中每一个领域都与美国当今面临的重要问题相关，并且每一个领域都是教师和学生已经在研究的领域。 该倡议将帮助该计划明确重点，加强跨学科联系，并接触大学内外的相关社区。 该提案的主要智力价值在于，它将有助于更深入地理解科学知识如何以及为何影响（或不）影响公共政策，特别是为什么科学目前似乎未能发挥人们通常期望甚至要求的作用。 更广泛的影响将是研究生和博士后在开启自己的职业生涯时所获得的见解和知识，以及该计划将激励教师和学生更敏锐地思考科学研究的抽象问题与公共政策的具体问题之间的联系。 该倡议将加强北美最重要的科学研究中心之一，并将有助于向外接触加州大学圣地亚哥分校周围的社区，这些社区生成、使用科学知识，在某些情况下挑战科学知识。

From its inception in 1989, the Science Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego, has trained scholars who advance understanding of how science works in its full intellectual and cultural dimensions. In various ways, faculty and students have studied how scientific controversies are adjudicated; how evidence relates to theory; how information is distributed, shared, and hoarded; and how matters of credibility, authority, and trust are ultimately issues of politics and culture as well as of fact. With the prior support of NSF, the Program has developed into one of the premier science studies programs in North America, and has produced a cohort of graduate students now teaching in tenure-track positions in the United States and several other countries. Over the past five years, eight new faculty members have joined the program, adding new vigor, enthusiasm, and perspectives, and both the quality and quantity of our graduate applicant pool has increased. This is an opportune time to renew the commitment to the teaching and training mission. Seeing an alignment of faculty expertise, student interest, and societal need, this proposal seeks to dedicate the next three years to a programmatic theme of "Proof, Persuasion, and Policy." Given the salient but often ambiguous contribution of science to public decision-making, society needs to have trained experts who know how to study the process of scientific consensus: how scientists prove that things are as they are and persuade others that they have proof to do so. Given the myriad issues today that involve questions of scientific consensus--the reality of global warming, the approval of new pharmaceuticals, the efficacy of supply-side economic--it is important to think harder and deeper about the inter-relations between proof, persuasion, and policy. This proposal seeks to develop a concrete pedagogical plan for graduate student and post-doctoral fellow training by using the nexus of "Proof, Persuasion, and Policy" as a touchstone issue that all key program activities will engage with over the grant period.The post-doctoral fellow, whose research bears on the theme, will organize a major portion of the teaching and colloquia around the theme. The proposal will also increase support for graduate students through two first-year fellowships and one dissertation-year fellowship. The initiative will focus on three thematic areas: a) models and prediction, b) the social sciences, and c) disease and health. Each of these is an area that relates to important issues facing the United States today, and each is an area in which faculty and students are already working. The initiative will assist the Program to sharpen its focus, to strengthen its interdisciplinary connections, and to reach out to relevant communities at the university and beyond. The primary intellectual merit of the proposal is that it will facilitate a deeper understanding of how and why scientific knowledge does (or does not) impact public policy, and particularly why science at present seems to be failing to play the role that is often expected, or even demanded, of it. The broader impact will be the insights and knowledge that graduate students and post-docs take with them as they launch their own professional careers, as well as the stimulus the initiative will provide to both faculty and students to think more sharply about the connections between the abstract questions of science studies and tangible questions of public policy. The initiative will strengthen one of the premier centers for science studies research in North America, and will help reach outward towards the communities around UCSD that generate, use, and in some cases challenge scientific knowledge.