The first section of this special issue covers the recent history of the emerging conflict between politics and science in the United States. The questions to be explored include: Has the balance of power among the various interests that play a role in determining public policy changed? What are the consequences of these changes? What lessons can be learned from past successes and failures in public policy? The attempt to answer these questions comes at what may be a tipping point in the relation of politics and science. To understand better the relative radicalism of the present dilemma and its probable results, it will be useful to step back a bit and recall that from the beginning, and until very recently, science and technology were in mutually fruitful embrace of America's politics and policies. History assures us that is truly the tradition in America, an honorable tradition, the very opposite of the present, dark dilemmas the papers in this volume portray, with the aim of overcoming them.

Timely, unbiased scientific advice is essential for effective public policy, but the system now operating in the United States is in a state of dangerous disrepair. The danger takes two forms. First, we are missing critical benefits in health, education, economic productivity, national security, and many other areas that more effective management of science could deliver. Second, we risk being overtaken by dangers that could have been avoided or for which we could have been much better prepared, given stronger support for analysis. It is easy to say that all of these problems could be easily corrected with a few elections. But in fact the difficulties are deep and structural. It will not be easy to rebuild the apparatus of science and technical advice in a way that can serve the needs of twenty-first century America. The discussion that follows will review the history of science and technology policy advice and use the lessons learned to propose a practical path forward. Indeed, there are a number of practical paths forward that build on strategies that have proved to be effective in the past and structures already in place.

The interaction of humans, cholera bacteria, the zooplankton host of the bacterium (the copepod), and the environment in the case of cholera can be employed to make reasonable predictions about this climate-driven disease. The issues are truly international and represent those that comprise a global scientific enterprise and encompass many other infectious diseases.

Since the 1970s, a sea change has marked the politics of science in the United States. In the quarter century after World War II, a broad, bipartisan consensus prevailed on the promotion and uses of science in American society: first, that the federal government should support research and training in technically meritorious fields of likely long-term benefit to national defense, the economy, and health; second, that the benefits of this investment should be developed into useful products by the private sector; and that public policy in technically related areas should be shaped by drawing on highly qualified, non-partisan expertise. Since the 1970s, that bipartisan consensus has corroded, ushering in a New Politics of Science in the U.S. Ideological restrictions, largely from the political right, have prohibited or severely constricted federal support of research in areas such as human therapeutic cloning, human stem cells, in vitro fertilization, and human embryo research. The devotion to privatization and entrepreneurship in the name of high technology competitiveness has, in areas such as biotechnology, blurred the lines both intellectually and institutionally between academia and industry, with questionable consequences for the public interest. And nonpartisanship in the scientific advisory system has been succeeded by unashamed partisanship, fueled by the mobilization of expertise on the right in issues ranging from the teaching of evolution in the schools to global warming. The reasons for this sea change can be found in the larger rightward shift over the period on both the foreign and domestic fronts.

Health policy has always been informed by both scientific research and political will. The creation of the presidential science adviser position, the President's Science Advisory Committee, and the Office of Technology and Assessment were in response to an increasing need to better understand our nation's capabilities and shortcomings as they related to space research and national security. However, over the years, this position, and its related offices and committees, have been dismantled and resurrected to be more in line with each incoming administration's goals. As we move into the twenty-first century, government's role in the formation of health policy has begun to return to past practices that exclude community involvement, involve manipulation of scientific data, and lack ethical consistency. The essays in this section represent some of the fallout of such policies. Elders and Santelli, both leaders in adolescent health, walked away from government positions and continue to pursue their research goals in academia. Hurlbut and Cohen have moved in the other direction, becoming increasingly more involved in policymaking as it applies to stem cell research and in vitro fertilization techniques.

To understand the role of science in modern politics, we need to understand the moral and metaphysical limits of science on questions of value. The modern mastery of nature cannot guide us in knowing what to do with our new powersCwhether in war or in medicine, at the beginning of life or the end of life. This essay explores the relationship between science, ethics, and politics by looking at various controversies in health policy, especially end-of-life care and embryo research. It explores how scientists sometimes defend science in the most unscientific ways, looks for common ground on the most controversial areas of science policy, and invites us to reflect more deeply and philosophically on man's relationship to and place within the natural world.

Scientific progress in the areas of health and biological science is phenomenal. Still, current health policies limit optimal benefit for our peoples. Our present system costs too much, delivers too little, is not comprehensive, coherent, or cost-effective, does not allow choice, is not equitable, and is not universal. We must overcome many crises if we are to create a healthy people fro the twenty-first century in the US. We will need to use multiple strategies to achieve the nation's goals of Healthy People 2010, which are to: 1) increase the quality and years of healthy live; 2) eliminate health disparities; 3) provide access to primary preventive care for all citizens. We are the richest country in the world and the only industrialized country that does not provide health care for its entire people. Health care costs are escalating and insurance is out of reach for many. Public policy changes are necessary to provide universal access to basic health care. We have advances in sciences; now we need the science delivered to our people in an equitable way. Politicians will respond proportionately to the insistence of the people. Healthcare professionals and scientists should lead the way.

As America's debate over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research continues to deepen, it is increasingly characterized as a conflict between the objectivity of secular science and the cultural variability of traditional religion. Yet science alone, by the very limitations of its naturalistic methodology and domain of knowledge, is unable to draw its own moral boundaries. Through a careful consideration of the relationship between scientific knowledge and our most fundamental assumptions concerning the moral value of developing life, we may discern the terms of a possible resolution to our current conflict. In May 2005, the President's Council on Bioethics issued a report "Alternative Sources of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells," that discusses four proposals for a technological means of obtaining pluripotent stem cells (the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells) without the destruction of human embryos. Drawing on the principles laid out in this report we discuss one of these proposals, Altered Nuclear Transfer, as a way forward that can sustain social consensus while opening avenues for scientific advance.

This paper uses the controversy surrounding abstinence-only education to depict the current struggle between US government policy and science. The paper demonstrates the way in which this fight over science has become a communications battle and how the internet has become the vehicle through which ideology is able to masquerade as science. In addition, this paper identifies the damage to public health programs, and the ethical problems of providing selected information and misinformation to teenagers. Part of the resolution may be for scientists to become better communicators to the public about scientific principles and findings. If scientists (and citizens) are interested in improving sexuality education, we need to rely on science but may find it more advantageous to reframe our arguments around themes that perhaps have greater cultural salience.

In this paper, Neal Lane describes some lessons he learned about science and politics from his seven years in Washington, serving in the Clinton Administration, first as Director of the National Science Foundation and then as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology ("Science Advisor") and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Since environmental concerns first surfaced as a national issue in the late 1960s, there has been a running argument between one side focused on protecting the environment and the other side calling attention to the need to assure continued economic development. Today's environmental challenges are more complex and challenging. Previously we were dealing with local, point-source emissions that could generally be measured and regulated. Today's issues are broad and global in scope; their solutions will require actions from governments, the private sector, and individuals. The linkage of science to environmental policy is now critical, not only in the United States, but also internationally, as we deal with global issues like climate change and the far-reaching proposals for solutions. Roundtable discussants may not have the answer to the question of how science can play an instrumental role in environmental policy development, but their thoughts add context to the challenge of how to assure freedom-the freedom to research, and the freedom to discuss the results and challenge how testing was done in a way that moves our total understanding of the issues and the possible solutions forward.

Public debates on science as it intersects with environmental policy (such as regulation of the greenhouse gases) are distorted by interests with resources deployed to amplify aberrant points of view and government that too often misrepresents and dissembles. Strengthening the scientific capabilities of nongovernmental organizations would contribute to maintaining balance in the public debate. To improve the quality of participation by all interests, the scientific culture itself, which could provide a bulwark against misrepresentation, must become more inclusive.

Controversies over environmental science and public policy are not likely to be resolved for three main reasons. First, legitimate uncertainties in our scientific assessments will give pause, especially for large-scale, expensive policy regimes. Second, the bureaucratic nature of the policy process, along with conflicting external values, will confound scientific clarity. Third, past failures at synoptic environmental forecasting have generated a steep discount for current claims relating to global warming, resource depletion, population growth, and related issues.

This paper details many ways in which this input has been inadequate, especially during the Bush administration. It also recounts examples of successful use of scientific inputs, and discussed the reasons for both successes and failures. Then it proposes ways to accomplish the critical task of seeing to it that science is properly considered in the policy process.

The earth's temperature, with rapid global warming over the past 30 years, is now passing through a period of relatively stable climate that has existed for more than 10,000 years. Further warming of more than 1°C will make the earth warmer than it has been in a million years. "Business-as-usual" scenarios, with fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions continuing to increase approximately 2 percent annually for several more decades, yield additional warming of 2° to 3°C this century and imply changes that constitute practically a different planet. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the earth's climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences. The changes include not only loss of the Arctic as we know it, with all that implies for wildlife and indigenous peoples, but losses on a much vaster scale because of worldwide rising seas. Sea level will increase slowly at first, as losses at the fringes of Greenland and Antarctica due to accelerating ice streams are partly balanced by increased snowfall and ice sheet thickening in the ice sheet interiors. But as Greenland and West Antarctic ice is softened and lubricated by melt-water and as buttressing ice shelves disappear because of a warming ocean, the balance will tip to rapid ice loss, bringing multiple positive feedbacks into play and causing cataclysmic ice sheet disintegration. The earth's history suggests that with warming of 2° to 3°C, the new equilibrium sea level will include not only most of the ice from Greenland and West Antarctica, but a portion of East Antarctica, raising sea level of the order of 25 meters (80 feet).

Contrary to lethargic ice sheet models, real world data suggest substantial ice sheet and sea level change in centuries, not millennia. The century time scale offers little consolation to coastal dwellers, because they will be faced with irregular incursions associated with storms and with repeatedly rebuilding above a transient water level. This grim "business-as usual" climate change can be avoided through an "alternative" scenario in which growth of greenhouse gas emissions is slowed in the first quarter of this century, primarily with concerted improvements in energy efficiency, thus reducing the growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and a parallel reduction of human-made climate forcings that drive global warming, especially the air pollutants methane, carbon monoxide, and black soot. Before midcentury, advanced energy technologies will be needed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions faster. The required actions make practical sense and have other benefits, but they will not happen without strong policy leadership and international cooperation. Action must be prompt, otherwise carbon dioxide-producing infrastructure that may be built within a decade will make it impractical to keep further global warming under 1°C.

The papers in this section vividly describe the significance of the task before us: expanding the use of nuclear power and an accompanying expansion of nuclear-fuel-processing facilities and associated expertise, while simultaneously some providing ironclad guarantees that materials and know-how is not diverted to build weapons. This section also addresses the consequences of failure and the difficulty of finding practical solutions. It is obvious that no acceptable solution to world energy challenges can be achieved without close links between the scientific and engineering community and policymakers. Scientists must take great care ensuring that they separate their personal opinions from the facts they present, but it is essential to provide a forum for objective scientific research.

The reality of global warming from the buildup of fossil fuel carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is no longer in doubt. In retrospect, it was inevitable that the explosive growth (on a geological time scale) of human carbon dioxide emissions, driven by population growth, industrialization and, most of all, by fossil fuel energy use, made it inevitable that human-induced warming would overwhelm climate change from all the other factors at some point. And we are at that point. I believe we can solve the climate/energy problem, but it will not be easy. This problem will not solve itself through the invisible hand of the market. Relevant costs and values are not being captured. Particularly serious is that we are investing in the wrong infrastructures for a sustainable energy world. Exponential growth cannot be sustained indefinitely on a finite planet. We could, and I believe should, try to maintain 2 to 3 percent per year world GDP growth to the end of the century as carbon dioxide emissions are held constant, decreased, and eventually phased out by mid-century. This paper discusses some ideas that could work if we get serious. Colleagues and I propose as a goal that by mid-century renewable energy sources should supply roughly a third of the world's power; clean, safe and sustainable nukes another third; and coal gasification with CCS the final third. At the same time, we need to implement everything we have in our alternate energy arsenal immediately.

Scientific and technical information is only part of the calculus of policymaking. How voters view the importance of societal issues with significant science and engineering content will drive how policy-makers weigh scientific and technical information. In many cases, as issues become more embroiled in partisan politics, the use of scientific and technical information declines. The use of science and technical information and its weight in environmental and energy policy has differed because of differences in how voters perceive risk in these issue areas. Recently, the politicization of many issues with significant scientific and technical content has led to the politicization of the discussion of how science is used in policymaking.

The unmistakable onset of climate change has led many to advocate a major expansion of nuclear power. At best, however, nuclear power would only provide a small contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and it carries risks that other measures to the same end do not pose — especially that of nuclear weapons proliferation. It is argued that simple prudence favors a go-slow approach until the international community can establish robust proliferation constraints, and it is evident that other carbon-free technologies do not suffice to meet the climate challenge.

Scientists say that our consumption of fossil fuels has helped create a climatic shift. We have changed the very planet that has supported life as we know it for the past thousands of years. But what are we as a nation able to do about it? And do we have the political will to make the changes necessary to adjust? The federal government, including the Bush administration, has come under heavy criticism from scientists-some who work in and for the government itself-for denying the existence of global warming and the impact humans have had on helping to create it. Global warming will be with us for the next hundred or more years. Does our society have the ability to create public policy to address a problem that will outlast one presidential administration to another? Science and technology has always been the driving force behind progress; the basis of our economy. We are now seeing how the industrial revolution is colliding with the "law of unexpected consequences"- that is, the changing of our climate, the warming of the earth. The brief remarks that follow in this section, originally presented as a panel discussion, address these issues and help define what kind of future we can expect in the coming age of global climate change.

While we should acknowledge the blessings that genetic knowledge, and the biotechnologies it makes possible, have delivered or will deliver soon, there are urgent worries to consider. The first worry is that we may compromise, or further compromise, in both science and politics, the principle that every human being, irrespective of age, size, mental or physical condition, stage of development, or condition of dependency, possesses inherent worth and dignity and a right to life. The second worry, closely related, is that many people are coming to view procreation as akin to manufacture. They also regard children not as gifts to be cherished and loved even when "imperfect," but rather as products that may legitimately be subjected to standards of quality control and discarded or killed in the embryonic, fetal, and even infant stages if they do not measure up. The glory of our political tradition is its affirmation of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of all human beings. The history of our politics and social practice, our law and economics, and even our medicine is in significant measure the struggle to live up to the demands of this affirmation. What we need is fidelity to the principles of human equality and dignity that have always served us well when we have had the wisdom and fortitude to honor them.

Much of what has been written lately about politics and science suggests that the intersection of the two has become far more treacherous because of the actions and attitudes of the Bush administration. The interaction of politics and science is, however, being altered more by fundamental, systemic, and probably long-term political trends than by the policies of a single administration. In the political arena, "science" still has the air of objectivity, of offering up incontestable facts. Everyone in politics now tries to frame his or her position as the one and only view that is justified by "sound science." The most deleterious result of this embrace of science is that it obscures debates about values—debates that need to occur to make clear and coherent decisions. Scientists, policymakers, and concerned observers ought to be examining how science is employed in policy debates now, while science's reputation and funding are intact. And that means looking beyond charges and countercharges about the Bush administration to analyze how issues are being framed and how scientific certainty is being characterized more generally.

Our challenge begins with America's aversion to science. The problem is, of course, that nonscientists could understand scientific thinking, and would understand it, if they were encouraged and expected to do so. Though Members of Congress and their staff may avoid science, the institution itself cannot. Until the day comes when science is fully integrated into education for all, and even Members of Congress and congressional staff Members can deal with technical subjects, we will need special help for our legislation. Likewise, ensuring that good science informs and infuses good public policy requires scientists engage in the process of self-governance. Science should not only be a tool of public policy, it should be its foundation. With a scientifically literate society and public policy grounded in sound science, America can maintain its leadership in the emerging global knowledge economy. Without these, America will lose the very things that have fueled its greatness.

Scientists and science policy experts understandably wring their hands about the politicization of science and the failure of the general public to recognize good science from bad, good policy from bad. This concern is not new to the scientific community. But the frustration factor is exacerbated by the rising stakes of science illiteracy and politicization in a world in which science plays an increasingly integral part. That said, the usual reaction among the outraged is to scapegoat one or another societal institution: the politicians, of course, but also the religious right, ignorant and underpaid teachers, school boards, journalists and so on. Lost in the passion of the moment is a notion that the community most capable of making a profound difference is "our community" - not by issuing diatribes against "the other culture" but by working to become an integral part of that culture just as science is now - be it in health care, environmental challenges, the response to terrorism and so on - an integral part of society.