This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Never before have the scope and limits of scientific freedom been more important or more under attack. New science, from artificial intelligence to gene editing, creates unique opportunities for making the world a better place. It also presents unprecedented dangers. This book is about the opportunities and challenges – moral, regulatory and existential – that face both science and society. How are scientific developments impacting on human life and on the structure of societies? How is science regulated and how should it be regulated? Are there ethical boundaries to scientific developments in sensitive areas? Such are the questions that the book seeks to answer. Both the survival of humankind and the continued existence of our planet are at stake.

This book argues for two claims: firstly, determinism in science does not infringe upon human free will because it is descriptive, not prescriptive, and secondly, the very formulation, testing and justification of scientific theories presupposes human free will and thereby persons as ontologically primitive. The argument against predetermination is broadly Humean, or more precisely ‘Super-Humean’, whereas that against naturalist reduction is in large Kantian, drawing from Sellars on the scientific and the manifest image. Thus, whilst the book defends scientific realism against the confusion between fact and fake, it also reveals why scientific theories, laws and explanations cannot succeed in imposing norms for our actions upon us, neither on the level of the individual nor on that of society. Esfeld makes a strong case for an ontology of science that is minimally sufficient to explain our scientific and common sense knowledge, not only removing the concern that the laws of nature are incompatible with human freedom, but furthermore showing how our freedom is in fact a very presupposition for science.

Scientific Freedom outlines what needs to be done to restore the freedom that can transform scientific understanding. The author defines Transformative Research (Venture Research) and explains how an initiative might be designed and implemented; discusses the revolutionary concept of low-risk, high-reward research; explains the wider significance of instability, and introduces the formidable Damocles Zone; explores threats to the university as an institution; and describes how a Transformative Research initiative might work in practice.

The book begins with familiar designs found all around and inside us (such as the ‘trees’ of river basins, human lungs, blood and city traffic). It then shows how all flow systems are driven by power from natural engines everywhere, and how they are endlessly shaped because of freedom. Finally, Professor Bejan explains how people, like everything else that moves on earth, are driven by power derived from our “engines” that consume fuel and food, and that our movement dissipates the power completely and changes constantly for greater access, economies of scale, efficiency, innovation and life. Written for wide audiences of all ages, including readers interested in science, patterns in nature, similarity and non-uniformity, history and the future, and those just interested in having fun with ideas, the book shows how many “design change” concepts acquire a solid scientific footing and how they exist with the evolution of nature, society, technology and science.

The Cold War ended long ago, but the language of science and freedom continues to shape public debates over the relationship between science and politics in the United States. Scientists like to proclaim that science knows no borders. Scientific researchers follow the evidence where it leads, their conclusions free of prejudice or ideology. But is that really the case? In Freedom's Laboratory, Audra J. Wolfe shows how these ideas were tested to their limits in the high-stakes propaganda battles of the Cold War. Wolfe examines the role that scientists, in concert with administrators and policymakers, played in American cultural diplomacy after World War II. During this period, the engines of US propaganda promoted a vision of science that highlighted empiricism, objectivity, a commitment to pure research, and internationalism. Working (both overtly and covertly, wittingly and unwittingly) with governmental and private organizations, scientists attempted to decide what, exactly, they meant when they referred to "scientific freedom" or the "US ideology." More frequently, however, they defined American science merely as the opposite of Communist science. Uncovering many startling episodes of the close relationship between the US government and private scientific groups, Freedom's Laboratory is the first work to explore science's link to US propaganda and psychological warfare campaigns during the Cold War. Closing in the present day with a discussion of the 2017 March for Science and the prospects for science and science diplomacy in the Trump era, the book demonstrates the continued hold of Cold War thinking on ideas about science and politics in the United States.

"This book addresses the complex relationship between the values of liberal democracy and the values associated with scientific research. The chapters explore how these values mutually reinforce or conflict with one another, in both historical and contemporary contexts. The contributors utilize various approaches to address this timely subject, including historical studies, philosophical analysis, and sociological case studies. The chapters cover a range of topics including academic freedom and autonomy, public control of science, the relationship between scientific pluralism and deliberative democracy, lay-expert relations in a democracy, and the threat of populism and autocracy to scientific inquiry. Taken together the essays demonstrate how democratic values and the epistemic and non-epistemic values associated with science are interconnected. Science, Freedom, and Democracy will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in philosophy of science, history of philosophy, sociology of science, political philosophy, and epistemology"--

Determinism and freedom in the age of modern science

Honorable Mention, 2019 MLA Prize for a First Book Sole Finalist Mention for the 2018 Lora Romero First Book Prize, presented by the American Studies Association Exposes the influential work of a group of black artists to confront and refute scientific racism. Traversing the archives of early African American literature, performance, and visual culture, Britt Rusert uncovers the dynamic experiments of a group of black writers, artists, and performers. Fugitive Science chronicles a little-known story about race and science in America. While the history of scientific racism in the nineteenth century has been well-documented, there was also a counter-movement of African Americans who worked to refute its claims. Far from rejecting science, these figures were careful readers of antebellum science who linked diverse fields—from astronomy to physiology—to both on-the-ground activism and more speculative forms of knowledge creation. Routinely excluded from institutions of scientific learning and training, they transformed cultural spaces like the page, the stage, the parlor, and even the pulpit into laboratories of knowledge and experimentation. From the recovery of neglected figures like Robert Benjamin Lewis, Hosea Easton, and Sarah Mapps Douglass, to new accounts of Martin Delany, Henry Box Brown, and Frederick Douglass, Fugitive Science makes natural science central to how we understand the origins and development of African American literature and culture. This distinct and pioneering book will spark interest from anyone wishing to learn more on race and society.

The author, who pioneered this argument in 1961, here places it in the context of traditional discussions of the problem, and answers various criticisms that have been made.