The inaugural volume of The Rightful Place of Science book series gathers a collection of thinkers who insist there is much to gain from trying to comprehend the politics of technological change and, its close cousin, the practice of science and scientific research. The authors are part of an intellectual and ethical movement to view science and technology neither as objects of worship nor mere scholarly analysis. They wish to improve on the politics of science and to judge their reforms by a pragmatic measure: the quality of the outcomes of science and technology. To these authors, how we talk about technological change matters, because policies ultimately express deeper vernacular yearnings – for democracy, equity and of course utility. In these essays, hard questions get asked, new perspectives are presented, and contrarian understandings abound.

A crisis looms over the scientific enterprise. Not a day passes without news of retractions, failed replications, fraudulent peer reviews, or misinformed science-based policies. The social implications are enormous, yet this crisis has remained largely uncharted-until now. In Science on the Verge, luminaries in the field of post-normal science and scientific governance focus attention on worrying fault-lines in the use of science for policymaking, and the dramatic crisis within science itself. This provocative new volume in The Rightful Place of Science also explores the concepts that need to be unlearned, and the skills that must be relearned and enhanced, if we are to restore the legitimacy and integrity of science.

This volume in The Rightful Place of Science series explores citizen science, the movement to reshape the relationship between science and the public. By not only participating in scientific projects but actively helping to decide what research questions are asked and how that research is conducted, ordinary citizens are transforming how science benefits society. Through vivid chapters that describe the history and theory of citizen science, detailed examples of brilliant citizen science projects, and a look at the movement's future, The Rightful Place of Science: Citizen Science is the ideal guide for anyone interested in one of the most important trends in scientific practice.

Humans are at the dawn of major shifts in the relationships among society, the environment, and technology. This transformation has profound implications for the design and management of the critical infrastructure that serves as the backbone for virtually every activity and service. Policymakers and the public have been largely able to ignore these systems, assuming that they'll continue to function as they have in the past. This is no longer a reasonable assumption. It's time to come to grips with the reality that the complexity of infrastructure is exploding, emerging and disruptive technologies are accelerating, history is no longer a reliable guide to the future-and education on these issues is insufficient. Infrastructure in the Anthropocene is a "timely and critical" (Chris Hendrickson, National Academy of Engineering) guide by two of the country's leading scholars of sustainable engineering, adaptation, and innovation. This indispensable book provides "practical and implementable" (Emanuel Liban, American Society of Civil Engineers Committee on Sustainability Chair) insight into what modern infrastructure can and should do, and how it should function on a planet now dominated by humans.

The newest book in The Rightful Place of Science series from Arizona State University's Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Future Conflict & Emerging Technologies explores the cutting edge of conflict and warfighting. The rapidly evolving environment for conflict combines destabilizing geopolitical factors with fast-moving technologies in ways that make familiar institutions and behaviors questionable, if not obsolete.

Two hundred years after its publication, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein continues to speak to modern concerns about science, technology, and society. The story of Victor Frankenstein and his creature has become a cultural touchstone through myriad theatrical renditions, movies, and other adaptations and allusions. But Shelley's original tale is far richer and more relevant to contemporary issues than the common interpretation of Frankenstein as a warning against scientific hubris. The authors of the essays in The Rightful Place of Science: Frankenstein examine the roots and origins of Shelley's tragically flawed scientist and his benighted creature. They consider Frankenstein as a parable of creativity and responsibility that can help us better understand our current creative dilemmas. And they show how Shelley's text foreshadows future technological innovations, and the challenges we anticipate from emerging fields such as synthetic biology and artificial intelligence. The bicentennial of this story of a scientist who failed to care for his creation provides an opportunity to explore creativity and responsibility across literary, scientific, social, and cultural dimensions.

The role of science in policymaking has gained unprecedented stature in the United States, raising questions about the place of science and scientific expertise in the democratic process. Some scientists have been given considerable epistemic authority in shaping policy on issues of great moral and cultural significance, and the politicizing of these issues has become highly contentious. Since World War II, most philosophers of science have purported the concept that science should be "value-free." In Science, Policy and the Value-Free Ideal, Heather E. Douglas argues that such an ideal is neither adequate nor desirable for science. She contends that the moral responsibilities of scientists require the consideration of values even at the heart of science. She lobbies for a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, thus protecting the integrity and objectivity of science. In this vein, Douglas outlines a system for the application of values to guide scientists through points of uncertainty fraught with moral valence.Following a philosophical analysis of the historical background of science advising and the value-free ideal, Douglas defines how values should-and should not-function in science. She discusses the distinctive direct and indirect roles for values in reasoning, and outlines seven senses of objectivity, showing how each can be employed to determine the reliability of scientific claims. Douglas then uses these philosophical insights to clarify the distinction between junk science and sound science to be used in policymaking. In conclusion, she calls for greater openness on the values utilized in policymaking, and more public participation in the policymaking process, by suggesting various models for effective use of both the public and experts in key risk assessments.

To listen to most pundits and political writers, evolution, stem cells, and climate change are the only scientific issues worth mentioning -- and the only people who are anti-science are conservatives. Yet those on the left have numerous fallacies of their own. Aversion to clean energy programs, basic biological research, and even life-saving vaccines come naturally to many progressives. These are positions supported by little more than junk-science and paranoid thinking. Now for the first time, science writers Dr. Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell have drawn open the curtain on the left's fear of science. As Science Left Behind reveals, vague inclinations about the wholesomeness of all things natural, the unhealthiness of the unnatural, and many other seductive fallacies have led to an epidemic of misinformation. The results: public health crises, damaging and misguided policies, and worst of all, a new culture war over basic scientific facts -- in which the left is just as culpable as the right.

We are accustomed to thinking of science and its findings as universal. After all, one atom of carbon plus two of oxygen yields carbon dioxide in Amazonia as well as in Alaska; a scientist in Bombay can use the same materials and techniques to challenge the work of a scientist in New York; and of course the laws of gravity apply worldwide. Why, then, should the spaces where science is done matter at all? David N. Livingstone here puts that question to the test with his fascinating study of how science bears the marks of its place of production. Putting Science in Its Place establishes the fundamental importance of geography in both the generation and the consumption of scientific knowledge, using historical examples of the many places where science has been practiced. Livingstone first turns his attention to some of the specific sites where science has been made—the laboratory, museum, and botanical garden, to name some of the more conventional locales, but also places like the coffeehouse and cathedral, ship's deck and asylum, even the human body itself. In each case, he reveals just how the space of inquiry has conditioned the investigations carried out there. He then describes how, on a regional scale, provincial cultures have shaped scientific endeavor and how, in turn, scientific practices have been instrumental in forming local identities. Widening his inquiry, Livingstone points gently to the fundamental instability of scientific meaning, based on case studies of how scientific theories have been received in different locales. Putting Science in Its Place powerfully concludes by examining the remarkable mobility of science and the seemingly effortless way it moves around the globe. From the reception of Darwin in the land of the Maori to the giraffe that walked from Marseilles to Paris, Livingstone shows that place does matter, even in the world of science.

Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to maintain a 'line' to demarcate them. The view persists that there is a one-way communication flow from science to society - with scant attention given to the ways in which society communicates with science. The authors argue that changes in society now make such communications both more likely and more numerous, and that this is transforming science not only in its research practices and the institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological core. To explain these changes, Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons have developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science. The authors conclude that the line which formerly demarcated society from science is regularly transgressed and that the resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis on which a new social contract between science and society might be constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the elements that would comprise this new social contract.