Politics and Science: How Their Interplay Creates Public Policy
A Social Research Conference

The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street, February 9-10
Keynote Speaker: Neal Lane, Science Advisor to President Clinton

NEW YORK, NY, January 9—On February 9 and 10, Social Research, a prominent journal of opinion and social science based at The New School for Social Research, will host “Politics and Science: How Their Interplay Creates Public Policy,” a two day conference featuring leading figures from the political and scientific communities in dialogue about the future of public health, the environment, and energy. Participants will examine the increasing politicization of science in the United States and the nexus of interests currently determining our government policy.

In the New York Times Magazine, Jim Holt recently observed that “three of the nation’s most contentious political issues—global warming, stem-cell research, and the teaching of intelligent design—are scientific in character.” People across the ideological spectrum today are debating why certain new scientific information has become so politically contested.  As scientists search for objective truth about the world, policy makers determine how scientific findings matter for public affairs. But when scientists act as political advocates, they can compromise their position as truth-seekers and risk becoming yet another interest group with no privileged status or claim.

Clearly, there is a need for thoughtful, candid discussion between policy makers and scientists about what can be done to create new policies that reflect the best scientific research and the best interests of the public. In six sessions over the course of two days, conference participants will engage in exactly that discussion. They will raise and try to answer these pressing questions: Is there a change in the balance of power among the various interests that play a role in determining public policy? What roles do scientific, political, religious, and corporate interests play in the creation of health policy? What competing interests and power struggles shape environmental policy? If the influence of science on energy has shifted, is that because of trends in globalization?

Some of the policy specialists and political leaders participating include Neal Lane (Science Advisor to President Clinton; former Director of the National Science Foundation), Marcus Peacock (Deputy Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency), David Goldston (Chief of Staff of the House Committee on Science), William F. Martin (Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, Department of Energy), Michael Oppenheimer (Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University), Steven F. Hayward (F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research).

Some of the science and health specialists participating include Jocelyn Elders (Surgeon General under President Clinton), Henry Kelly (President of the Federation of American Scientists), Dawn Rittenhouse (Director of Sustainability at Dupont), Kurt Gottfried (co-founder and Chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists), Rita Colwell (Chairman, Canon US Life Science, Inc.), Allan Rosenfield (Dean of the School of Public Health, Columbia University), Daniel Kevles (Chair of the Program in the History of Medicine and Science, Yale University), William F. Martin (Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, Department of Energy).

 

Conference Program

*THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9*

Session 1, 10:30 a.m.-1:15 p.m.: Recent History: The Emerging Conflict between Politics and Science
Rita Colwell
, Chairman, Canon US Life Science, Inc.; Former Director, National Science Foundation
Henry Kelly, President, Federation of American Scientists
Daniel Kevles, Director of Graduate Studies, Program in History of Medicine, Yale University

Session 2, 2:15-5:00 p.m.: Health
Eric Cohen, Director, Biotechnology and American Democracy Program, Ethics and Public Policy Center
M. Joycelyn Elders M.D., former United States Surgeon General
Allan Rosenfield M.D., Dean and DeLamar Professor of Public Health, Columbia University

Session 3, 6:00-7:00 p.m.: Keynote Address
Neal Lane, Science Advisor to President Clinton; Former Director of the National Science Foundation
Q & A with Bob Kerrey, President of the New School

 

*FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10*

Session 4, 10:00 am-12:45 p.m.: The Environment
Paul Ehrlich, President, Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University
Marcus Peacock, Deputy Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency
Michael Oppenheimer, Director, Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, Princeton University
Steven F. Hayward, F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Session 5, 1:45-4:30 p.m.: Energy, Technology, and Sources of Power
Paul Gilman, Former Science Advisor, United States Environmental Protection Agency 
Kurt Gottfried, Co-founder and Chair, Union of Concerned Scientists
Martin Hoffert, Professor Emeritus of Physics, New York University
William F. Martin, Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, United States Department of Energy

Session 6, 5:00-7:00 p.m.: Roundtable Discussion
Robert P. George, Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University
Bernard Goldstein
, former Dean, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
David Goldston, Chief of Staff, House Committee on Science
Rick Piltz, former Senior Associate, US Climate Change Science Program
Ellis Rubinstein
, President and CEO, New York Academy of Sciences
Albert H. Teich, Director of Science & Policy Programs,  American Association for the Advancement of Science
Samuel Thernstrom,, Director, WH Brady Program on Culture and Freedom, American Enterprise Institute
Ruth Wooden, President, Public Agenda  
Philip M. Smith, Partner, McGeary & Smith; former Executive Officer, National Research Council

Registration Details

To register, visit www.socres.org/polsci/register.htm. The cost of attendance is $50, $12 for individual sessions. For students, full attendance is $15, $5 for individual sessions. For members of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the New York Academy of Sciences, full attendance is $35, $8 for a single session. For more information, email [email protected] or call (212) 229-5776 x3121. The conference will take place February 9 and 10 at The New School’s Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street, NY, NY.
About Social Research Journal and Conference Series

The first issue of Social Research was published by the New School for Social Research (NSSR) in 1934.  Since then, Social Research has appeared quarterly, providing an unparalleled international forum for the study of the social sciences. Over 2,000 authors from around the world have made Social Research truly international. Articles in the journal cover various fields of the social sciences and the humanities, promoting the interdisciplinary aims that have characterized NSSR since its inception. The Social Research conference series was founded in 1988 by Arien Mack, editor of the journal and Marrow Professor of Psychology at NSSR.  The series is dedicated to the maxim that “to forget history is to risk repeating it.”  For nearly twenty years, it has enhanced public understanding of critical and contested issues by exploring them in their broadest and most urgent historical contexts.  Recent conferences have addressed such issues as the political uses and abuses of fear; the role of fairness in our lives; the US record on international justice, war crimes, and terrorism; and the public and private spheres of Islam.  Next year’s conference will address the contemporary fate of punishment.     

 

About The New School for Social Research 

The New School for Social Research was founded in 1919 by a distinguished group of intellectuals, some of whom were teaching at Columbia University in New York City during the First World War. Fervent pacifists, they took a public stand against the war and were censured by the university's president. The outspoken professors responded by resigning from Columbia and later opening their own university for adults in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan as a place where people could exchange ideas freely with scholars and artists representing a wide range of intellectual, aesthetic, and political orientations. During the 1920s, Alvin Johnson, the school's first president, collaborated regularly with colleagues in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. They made him aware of the danger Hitler presented to democracy and the civilized world, alerting him to the seriousness of the threat before many in the United States had grasped it. With the financial support of enlightened philanthropists, Johnson responded immediately and, in 1933, created within The New School a University in Exile to provide a haven for scholars and artists whose lives were threatened by National Socialism. The University in Exile sponsored over 180 individuals and their families, providing them with visas and jobs. While some of these refugees remained at the New School for many years, many others went on to influence institutional life in the United States. Today The New School for Social Research remains a place where professors and students take risks to defend their intellectual commitments and political beliefs.

###