Science, Technology and Culpability: Some Hypotheses about Why the Disadvantaged Benefit Less from D

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Science, Technology and Culpability Some
Hypotheses about Why the Disadvantaged Benefit
Less from Discovery and Innovation

• Barry Bozeman
• School of Public Policy
• Georgia Tech
• Presentation prepared for the Annual Research
  Conference of the Association for Public Policy
  Analysis and Management, Washington, D.C.,
  November, 2003

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Acknowledgements

• Funding Georgia Institute of Technology
  Sub-Contact for W.K. Kellogg Foundation Grant No.
  P0099263 entitled, ST Policy and Social Capital
  Project Proposal for W.K. Kellogg Foundation
• People Paul Hirsch, Georgia Tech Dan Sarewitz,
  Columbia University

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From the Kellogg Proposal

• Statement of Purpose
• Access to scientific knowledge and technological
  tools enhances social capital, but such access is
  unequal. The purpose of the research is to
  develop useful knowledge about the factors
  affecting the distributional impacts of ST. The
  focus is on factors internal to science and
  technology knowledge production processes rather
  than the social factors that mitigate
  distributional impacts (e.g., income inequities
  lack of universal health care).

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The Conundrum

• Chief intellectual challenge to the CSPO
  enterprise
• If we set aside the structural inequalities that
  flow from the U.S. economy, are there any reasons
  why poor people would be disadvantaged by ST

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The Meta-Explanation 1 ST as the Engine of the
Economy

• The notion of science as engine of economic
  growth gained an overwhelming grip on the public
  imagination in the U.S in the postwar era
  (Poggi, 1978).
• power of science demonstrated through the atomic
  bomb and the Manhattan Project and pursuit of
  applications
• the new-found confidence in managing the economy
  through Keynesian ideas
• the establishment in the U.S. large corporate
  science in industry and government
• the eager assumption of the mantel of world
  leadership thrust on the U.S.
• Econometric evidence formidable (e.g. Griliches,
  1995 Jones, 1995 Denison, 1962 Solow, 1957
  BLS, 1989- Contribution of ST 30 (depending
  upon the particular combination of unrealistic
  assumptions one wishes to embrace)

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Governing Tools

• Market Failure
• Linear Model of Innovation
• Production Function Logic
• Emphasis on Property Rights
• Theory of the Firm and, generally, Economic
  Individualism

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The Meta-Explanation 2 Science as the Free
Market of Ideas

• Bush, not Kilgore and control by scientific
  elites
• Polanyis Republic of Science institutionalized
• Proposal pressure at NSF
• Rotators in science bureaucracy
• Anti-planning, management ideology
• Elevation of peer review
• Clientele capture, scientists governing scientists

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Maldistribution and the Internal Structure of
ST (Science as the Free Market of Ideas)
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Science as the Free Market of Ideas in the
Context of ST as the Engine of Economic Growth
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Table 1.1. Propositions Related to ST Norms and
Recruitment
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Sample 434 faculty researchers in university
research centers (ERCs and STCs)
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Capacity- Impact
Heart Valve
Internet
Individual Impact
Personal Computer
Social Impact
MP3 Player
Cinema
Hedonic Impact
Fig. One ST Social Impact Model
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Biological
Capacity- Impact
Political
Opportunity -
Individual Impact
Basic Needs -
Social Impact
Basic Needs
Consumption Impact
Opportunity
Political -
Fig. Two Expanded ST Social Impact Model
Biological -
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More Information

• www.rvm.gatech.edu
• B. Bozeman and Sarewitz, Public Values and
  Public Failure in U.S. Science Policy
• B. Bozeman and P. Hirsch, Science, Technology
  and the Distribution of Outcomes Alternative
  Theories of the Handicapper General