Doctoral Dissertation Research in Science of Science and Innovation Policy: From Cycles to Spirals: Structural Analysis of Scientific Consensus Formation

该项目开发了一种新的战略来解释和衡量科学共识的形成。它基于对科学引文网络结构的分析，开发了一种科学共识的量化衡量标准。这一措施是通过利用关于几个科学命题的不断变化的共识水平来验证的，如“吸烟导致癌症”、“人类活动导致气候变化”等。分析揭示了20世纪70年代(在对该问题的科学共识被认为是事实之前)在一个案例中形成共识的令人惊讶的动态--吸烟的致癌性。这项工作通过对科学家的定性和深入采访得到验证，这些科学家通过开发更安全的香烟的工作产生了这些高争议水平。智力价值：该项目在三个方面推进了文献。首先，本研究建立了科学共识形成过程的模型。其次，该项目开发了一种新的度量标准，用于衡量科学文献中的共识/争议程度。最后，这项研究开发了一种新的方法来解释科学辩论中的时间性。这个项目为科学史做出了贡献，解释了为什么像咖啡(不会致癌)这样的主张没有争议地被接受，而气候变化的主张遇到了社会争论和次要的科学争论，吸烟的致癌性遇到了社会争论和令人惊讶的科学争论。更广泛的影响：该项目为科学政策的比较研究提供了一个新的性质，提供了一种衡量科学共识水平的方法，可以在包括时间、空间和社会组织在内的多个维度上加以利用。该项目提供了一种就重要的科学问题向公众和政策制定者提供信息的方法；目前，科学主张经常被认为“过早”或“没有定论”，而推动这些主张的专家可能被认为是在推动政治议程。拟议的方法完全依赖于科学文献的结构，在没有专家解释的情况下评估共识，从而推翻了这种说法。

The project develops a new strategy to explain and measure scientific consensus formation. It develops a quantitative measure of scientific consensus, based on an analysis of the structure of scientific citation networks. The measure is validated by exploiting changing consensus levels across time regarding several scientific propositions, such as "smoking causes cancer", "Human activity causes a climate change", etc. The analysis reveals a surprising dynamic of consensus formation in one case - the carcinogenicity of smoking - during the 1970s (before scientific consensus on the issue was consider a fact). The work is validated by qualitative, in depth interviews with the scientists who produced these high contestation levels through their work on developing a safer cigarette.Intellectual Merit: The project advances the literature in three ways. First, the research develops a model for the process of consensus formation in science. Second, the project develops a new metric that measures consensus/contestation degree in scientific literatures. Finally, the research develops a new approach to account for temporality in scientific debates.This project contributes to the history of science by explaining why claims such as "Coffee (does not) cause cancer" are accepted with no contestation, while the climate change claim met social contestation coupled with minor scientific contestation, and the carcinogenicity of smoking met social contestation coupled with surprising scientific contestation. Broader impact: This project offers a new property for comparative research into science policy, supplying a measure of scientific consensus levels that may be utilized over multiple dimensions, including time, space and social organization. The project offers a way of informing the public and policy makers on important scientific issues; currently, scientific claims are often discarded as "premature" or "inconclusive", while the experts promoting them may be considered to be promoting a political agenda. The proposed approach overrides such claims by evaluating consensus without expert interpretation, relying solely on the structure of scientific literature.