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

自1989年成立以来，加州大学圣地亚哥分校的科学研究计划培养了一些学者，他们在知识和文化的全部层面上促进了对科学如何运作的理解。通过各种方式，教师和学生研究了如何裁决科学争议；如何将证据与理论联系起来；如何分发、共享和囤积信息；以及可信度、权威和信任问题如何最终成为政治和文化以及事实的问题。在NSF先前的支持下，该项目已发展成为北美主要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。在过去的五年里，八名新的教员加入了这个项目，增加了新的活力、热情和视角，我们的研究生申请者队伍的质量和数量都有所增加。现在是重申对教学和培训任务的承诺的好时机。看到教师专业知识、学生兴趣和社会需求的一致性，这项提案寻求在接下来的三年里致力于“证明、说服和政策”的纲领性主题。鉴于科学对公共决策的突出但往往模棱两可的贡献，社会需要培养知道如何研究科学共识过程的专家：科学家如何证明事物的本来面目，并说服其他人他们有证据这样做。考虑到当今涉及科学共识问题的无数问题--全球变暖的现实、新药的批准、供给侧经济的有效性--更努力和更深入地思考证据、说服和政策之间的相互关系是很重要的。这项建议旨在为研究生和博士后研究员的培养制定具体的教学计划，将“证明、说服和政策”的关系作为试金石问题，所有关键项目活动都将在整个授权期内进行。博士后研究员的研究与这一主题有关，将围绕这一主题组织主要的教学和座谈。该提案还将通过两个第一年奖学金和一个学位论文奖学金来增加对研究生的支持。该倡议将侧重于三个主题领域：a)模型和预测，b)社会科学，c)疾病和健康。其中每个领域都与当今美国面临的重要问题有关，每个领域都是教职员工和学生已经在努力的领域。该倡议将帮助该计划突出重点，加强其跨学科联系，并与大学内外的相关社区进行接触。该提案的主要学术价值在于，它将有助于更深入地理解科学知识如何以及为什么影响(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的、甚至是要求它发挥的作用。更广泛的影响将是研究生和博士后在开始自己的职业生涯时随身携带的洞察力和知识，以及该倡议将为教职员工和学生提供的刺激，让他们更敏锐地思考科学研究的抽象问题与公共政策的有形问题之间的联系。该倡议将加强北美首屈一指的科学研究研究中心之一，并将有助于向外接触加州大学圣迭戈分校周围产生、使用甚至在某些情况下挑战科学知识的社区。

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.