{"id":405,"date":"2008-08-02T12:35:48","date_gmt":"2008-08-02T12:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etherwave.wordpress.com\/?p=405"},"modified":"2008-08-02T12:35:48","modified_gmt":"2008-08-02T12:35:48","slug":"history-in-perspective-isis-pt-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2008\/08\/02\/history-in-perspective-isis-pt-6\/","title":{"rendered":"History in Perspective (Isis Pt. 6)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What I enjoyed most about Zuoyue Wang and Naomi Oreskes’ “History of Science and American Science Policy” is its sense of perspective and frankness about the place of history in science policy-making.\u00a0 They begin with a well-chosen 1986 quote from Richard Neustadt and Ernest R. May from a study on the “uses of history”: “…despite themselves Washington decision-makers actually used history in their decisions … whether they knew it or not.”\u00a0 I think this is true: action is based on tradition and our understanding of decisions made in the past.\u00a0 Therefore, a proper understanding of past events is helpful in making decisions.\u00a0 So, the historian should be actively involved, yes?\u00a0 Wang and Oreskes go on to quote John Heilbron, also from 1986: absolutely, we should “build the channels through which relevant and relevantly packaged research results of historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science and technology may flow to policy makers.\u00a0…\u00a0 Let us come to the aid of our perplexed bretheren in the sciences.”<\/p>\n

Not so fast.\u00a0 While Wang and Oreskes remain upbeat, they urge caution: “opportunities for direct involvement in science policy have remained scarce.\u00a0 Experience further suggests that historians who have taken up the demand have struggled to balance subtlety with clarity, nuanced appraisal with straight talk.\u00a0 Authentic policy-relevant history is not an oxymoron, but it is a challenge.”\u00a0 While it is true that historical lessons are frequently mis-interpreted (Wang presents evidence from his research on scientists who advised the President), the idea of historians of science themselves intervening is not so straight-forward as providing more informed interpretations.<\/p>\n

Typically, Wang shows us, whenever historians have intervened in the political process, they have tried to strike an independent stance from both scientists and policymakers, but their testimony is usually called upon to\u00a0take\u00a0a side\u00a0on pre-determined but clashing points of view.\u00a0 For example, when A. Hunter Dupree testified before Congress about whether it was necessary to create a Department of Science and Technology,\u00a0he spoke against some scientists who argued that it was, but his view was accordant with others, including the prevailing view in the Eisenhower administration.\u00a0 Thus it is difficult to gauge the importance of his testimony.\u00a0 Others: Thomas Kuhn, Thomas Haskell, and Dan Kevles have had similar experiences.<\/p>\n

Naomi Oreskes has faced down the political and media process as much as anyone.\u00a0 (Again, I should point out that I’m working on a project that she and physicist\/policy researcher\u00a0Michael Oppenheimer<\/a>\u00a0are directing on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet<\/a>–in fact, I’m leaving on an oral history interview trip for this tomorrow, so I might be incommunicado until late next week).\u00a0 Having studied the history of climate change science as well as<\/em> the depth and structure of the current contentious debates surrounding the issue, she’s had an opportunity to see how the process of informing other peoples’ thoughts works up close.\u00a0 Al Gore, obviously a receptive audience,\u00a0made use of some of her research on climate change consensus in his An Inconvenient Truth<\/em>; and she testified before Congress on the issue in 2006.\u00a0 She reports being a little amazed at the degree to which Congressional hearings are places of posturing rather than information-seeking.\u00a0 And, she has also\u00a0been targeted by\u00a0the\u00a0Disinformation\/Slime Machine (see physicist Lubo\u0161 Motl ‘s blog<\/a>, back from when he was at Harvard; as well as the comments on this YouTube video<\/a>, for a sample of what life is like on the\u00a0low road).<\/p>\n

So, how to define the “challenge” of historians’ participation?\u00a0 If decision-making is inevitably historical in character, and if advising on major decisions basically relates to testifying for or against pre-defined choices, the best bet seems to be in our ability to define the concepts underlying those choices.\u00a0 But we need to remember that our perspective isn’t privileged.\u00a0 Natural and social scientists, economists, administrators, and journalists also take part in the task of concept definition.\u00a0 History is <\/em>inevitably used, but more as a source of raw materials for concepts.\u00a0 Whether or not this or that historical event or trend is interpreted properly is less important than whether or not the concepts we refine out of history and experience are robust approaches to acting in the world we live in.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, venues already exist where we can–and do–participate in the behind-the-scenes process.\u00a0 As Wang and Oreskes point out, one of the most important is the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Congressional Fellows\u00a0Program<\/a>, in which such historians as Jane Maienschein, Jeffrey Stine, and James Fleming have participated.<\/p>\n

To imagine that historians can enlighten on the basis of our everyday work is as naive as imagining that scientists have unique access to a special process that produces “truth” (or imagining that they have imagined they do).\u00a0 If we really want to be relevant we have to study up on areas and serious arguments that do not fall within the usual history of science literature.\u00a0 Wang and Oreskes do us a service by discussing historians who have participated in this way, both historically and recently, and a greater service by telling us not to get our hopes up too high.<\/p>\n

The photo of Naomi is from the UCSD web site.\u00a0 Click on it to be taken to the web site it’s taken from, where there is also a link to video of her testimony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I enjoyed most about Zuoyue Wang and Naomi Oreskes’ “History of Science and American Science Policy” is its sense of perspective and frankness about the place of history in science policy-making.\u00a0 They begin with a well-chosen 1986 quote from Richard Neustadt and Ernest R. May from a study on the “uses of history”: “…despite<\/p>\n

Continue Reading… History in Perspective (Isis Pt. 6)<\/span>Continue Reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,815,1104,1561],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-hunter-dupree","tag-john-heilbron","tag-naomi-oreskes","tag-zuoyue-wang"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}