First and Second Drafts of History: The Case of Trump, Foucault and Pre-Modern Governance

How do we, as scholars – social scientists and historians – respond to momentous contemporary events? Our instincts urge caution, but the events demand action. While blogs and other media offer some paths, they can veer too much towards the snap judgments associated with bad journalism and simplistic representation. This paper consists of two essays, one embedded in the other, that challenge us to think differently about news, social science, and history. The impetus comes from an attempt to make sense of the first, muddled weeks of the new Trump administration in Washington. With reference to Foucault’s concept of governmentality, it reflects on how the CEO-in-Chief at the White House seemed to invoke a form of pre-modern governance, reminiscent of the divine right of kings and echoing a case in the not-too-distant past of a lapse in corporate governance. The main essay then resumes to consider what this means about academic writing and publishing, and what it might mean in terms of new forms of scholarly communication and impact about current affairs, as the first, rough draft of history passes into and through a second. [This paper is is available open access as a SHERPA/RoMEO publication by the publishers, Addleton Academic Publishers.

Exploring the Relationship Between Scientists’ Perspectives on Learning and Engagement in Outreach

Over the last several decades, there has been a marked increase in the amount of science outreach to the public with little attention paid to how scientists who conduct outreach perceive learning and how that applies to their outreach activities. This increase in outreach efforts is linked to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) increased push for publicly funded research to have more robust broader impacts on society. The science communication literature has examined how scientists communicate, objectives of communications, and more. However, to date, scientists’ understanding of learning has not been examined. A survey tool with closed- and open-ended questions was used to answer the following research questions: 1) How do scientists who engage in outreach think about learning? (What do scientists think learning is and under what circumstances do scientists think learning best occurs?); and 2) How do scientists’ underlying understandings/perceptions of the learning process influence the strategies they employ during outreach to foster their audience’s learning? Two hundred and eleven surveys were completed and analyzed from participants representing emerging, mid-career, and senior professionals from a range of scientific disciplines, and varied experience in conducting outreach and participating in outreach professional learning experiences. The Communities of Practice framework (Lave & Wenger, 1991) was utilized as an analytical lens for a portion of the analysis. Findings showed most scientists in this study had a complex understanding of learning (constructivist, socioculturalist and cognitivist theories of learning); only a small portion strongly endorse the less complex behaviorist learning theory views, though a larger portion support strategies associated with behavioral views on learning. The data also suggest that distinguishing between different learning theories showed the complex ways in which scientists in this study thought about learning. Data suggest that scientists who are more experienced in science outreach may use more sophisticated strategies in preparing and implementing their outreach efforts. Findings also showed that those who had participated in professional learning experiences on science outreach found those helpful and would be interested in participating in similar programs in the future. The connections between how scientists conceive learning, the strategies they employ to operationalize their notions of learning when conducting outreach, and their outreach experience are extremely complex and deserve further study. Keywords: science outreach, science engagement, public understanding of science, public engagement in science, science communication, learning theories, cognitivism, behaviorism, constructivism, socioculturalism, pedagogy, scientists’ views on learning, schema, online survey, snowball sampling, evidence-based learning, communities of practice, strategies, best practices, facilitating, professional development, professional learning, outreach modalities, learner-centered, active learning, assessment, jargon, action-reflection cycle, backwards design, gender, outreach professionals, broader impact

Cheating in Management Science (with Comments by M. K. Starr and M. J. Mahoney)

Honesty is vital to scientific work and, clearly, most scientists are honest. However, recent publicity about cases involving cheating, including cases of falsification of data and plagiarism, raises some questions: Is cheating a problem? Does it affect management science? Should anything be done

Qualitative conditions of scientometrics: the new challenges'

While scientometrics is now an established field, there are challenges. A closer look at how scientometricians aggregate building blocks into artfully made products, and point-represent these (e.g. as the map of field X) allows one to overcome the dependence on judgements of scientists for validation, and replace or complement these with intrinsic validation, based on quality checks of the several steps. Such quality checks require qualitative analysis of the domains being studied. Qualitative analysis is also necessary when noninstitutionalized domains and/or domains which do not emphasize texts are to be studied. A further challenge is to reflect on the effects of scientometrics on the development of science; indicators could lead to `induced¿ aggregation. The availability of scientometric tools and insights might allow scientists and science to become more reflexive

Skepticism Motivated: On the Skeptical Import of Motivated Reasoning

Empirical work on motivated reasoning suggests that our judgments are influenced to a surprising extent by our wants, desires and preferences (Kahan 2016; Lord, Ross, and Lepper 1979; Molden and Higgins 2012; Taber and Lodge 2006). How should we evaluate the epistemic status of beliefs formed through motivated reasoning? For example, are such beliefs epistemically justified? Are they candidates for knowledge? In liberal democracies, these questions are increasingly controversial as well as politically timely (Beebe et al. 2018; Lynch forthcoming, 2018; Slothuus and de Vreese 2010). And yet, the epistemological significance of motivated reasoning has been almost entirely ignored by those working in mainstream epistemology. We aim to rectify this oversight. Using politically motivated reasoning as a case study, we show how motivated reasoning gives rise to three distinct kinds of skeptical challenges. We conclude by showing how the skeptical import of motivated reasoning has some important ramifications for how we should think about the demands of intellectual humility

Reflections from Participants

The Road Ahead: Public Dialogue on Science and Technology brings together some of the UK’s leading thinkers and practitioners in science and society to ask where we have got to, how we have got here, why we are doing what we are doing and what we should do next. The collection of essays aims to provide policy makers and dialogue deliverers with insights into how dialogue could be used in the future to strengthen the links between science and society. It is introduced by Professor Kathy Sykes, one of the UK’s best known science communicators, who is also the head of the Sciencewise-ERC Steering Group, and Jack Stilgoe, a DEMOS associate, who compiled the collection

Case study report The perception of the EU cultural and science diplomacy in Turkey. EL-CSID Working Paper Issue 2018/14 • April 2018

The study is undertaken in the framework of the European Leadership in Cultural, Science and Innovation Diplomacy (EL-CSID) project. This project has the ambition to codify and articulate the relevance of cultural, science and innovation diplomacy for EU external relations as part of a systematic and strategic approach. It aims to identify how the Union and its member states might collectively and individually develop a good institutional and strategic policy environment for extraregional culture and science diplomacy. The overarching objectives of this project are threefold: 1. To detail and analyse the manner in which the EU operates in the domains of cultural and science diplomacy in the current era; comparing its bilateral and multilateral cultural and science ties with other states, regions, and public and private international organisations. 2. To examine the degree to which cultural, science and innovation diplomacy can enhance the interests of the EU in the contemporary world order and specifically, to identify: a) How cultural and science diplomacy can contribute to Europe’s standing as an international actor; b) Opportunities offered by enhanced coordination and collaboration amongst the EU, its members and their extra-European partners; c) Constraints, both existing and evolving, posed by economic and socio-political factors affecting the operating environments of both science and cultural diplomacy. 3. To identify a series of mechanisms/platforms to raise awareness among relevant stakeholders of the importance of science and culture as vehicles for enhancing the EU's external relations. The research generates both scholarly work and policy-oriented output, which is disseminated through an extensive and targeted dissemination programme

Collaborative yet independent: Information practices in the physical sciences

In many ways, the physical sciences are at the forefront of using digital tools and methods to work with information and data. However, the fields and disciplines that make up the physical sciences are by no means uniform, and physical scientists find, use, and disseminate information in a variety of ways. This report examines information practices in the physical sciences across seven cases, and demonstrates the richly varied ways in which physical scientists work, collaborate, and share information and data. This report details seven case studies in the physical sciences. For each case, qualitative interviews and focus groups were used to understand the domain. Quantitative data gathered from a survey of participants highlights different information strategies employed across the cases, and identifies important software used for research. Finally, conclusions from across the cases are drawn, and recommendations are made. This report is the third in a series commissioned by the Research Information Network (RIN), each looking at information practices in a specific domain (life sciences, humanities, and physical sciences). The aim is to understand how researchers within a range of disciplines find and use information, and in particular how that has changed with the introduction of new technologies