Another Science is Possible

Author: Isabelle Stengers
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509521844
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
Like fast food, fast science is quickly prepared, not particularly good, and it clogs up the system. Efforts to tackle our most pressing issues have been stymied by conflict within the scientific community and mixed messages symptomatic of a rushed approach. What is more, scientific research is being shaped by the bubbles and crashes associated with economic speculation and the market. A focus on conformism, competitiveness, opportunism and flexibility has made it extremely difficult to present cases of failure to the public, for fear that it will lose confidence in science altogether. In this bold new book, distinguished philosopher Isabelle Stengers shows that research is deeply intertwined with broader social interests, which means that science cannot race ahead in isolation but must learn instead to slow down. Stengers offers a path to an alternative science, arguing that researchers should stop seeing themselves as the 'thinking, rational brain of humanity' and refuse to allow their expertise to be used to shut down the concerns of the public, or to spread the belief that scientific progress is inevitable and will resolve all of society's problems. Rather, science must engage openly and honestly with an intelligent public and be clear about the kind of knowledge it is capable of producing. This timely and accessible book will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers in a wide range of fields, as well anyone concerned with the role of science and its future.

The Invention of Modern Science

Author: Isabelle Stengers
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816630554
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
"The Invention of Modern Science proposes a fruitful way of going beyond the apparently irreconcilable positions, that science is either "objective" or "socially constructed." Instead, suggests Isabelle Stengers, one of the most important and influential philosophers of science in Europe, we might understand the tension between scientific objectivity and belief as a necessary part of science, central to the practices invented and reinvented by scientists."--pub. desc.

The Metrics Manifesto

Author: Richard Seiersen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111951536X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Book Description
Security professionals are trained skeptics. They poke and prod at other people’s digital creations, expecting them to fail in unexpected ways. Shouldn’t that same skeptical power be turned inward? Shouldn’t practitioners ask: “How do I know that my enterprise security capabilities work? Are they scaling, accelerating, or slowing as the business exposes more value to more people and through more channels at higher velocities?” This is the start of the modern measurement mindset—the mindset that seeks to confront security with data. The Metrics Manifesto: Confronting Security with Data delivers an examination of security metrics with R, the popular open-source programming language and software development environment for statistical computing. This insightful and up-to-date guide offers readers a practical focus on applied measurement that can prove or disprove the efficacy of information security measures taken by a firm. The book’s detailed chapters combine topics like security, predictive analytics, and R programming to present an authoritative and innovative approach to security metrics. The author and security professional examines historical and modern methods of measurement with a particular emphasis on Bayesian Data Analysis to shed light on measuring security operations. Readers will learn how processing data with R can help measure security improvements and changes as well as help technology security teams identify and fix gaps in security. The book also includes downloadable code for people who are new to the R programming language. Perfect for security engineers, risk engineers, IT security managers, CISOs, and data scientists comfortable with a bit of code, The Metrics Manifesto offers readers an invaluable collection of information to help professionals prove the efficacy of security measures within their company.

Reimagining Science Education in the Anthropocene

Author: Maria F. G. Wallace
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030796221
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Book Description
This open access edited volume invites transdisciplinary scholars to re-vision science education in the era of the Anthropocene. The collection assembles the works of educators from many walks of life and areas of practice together to help reorient science education toward the problems and peculiarities associated with the geologic times many call the Anthropocene. It has become evident that science education—the way it is currently institutionalized in various forms of school science, government policy, classroom practice, educational research, and public/private research laboratories—is ill-equipped and ill-conceived to deal with the expansive and urgent contexts of the Anthropocene. Paying homage to myopic knowledge systems, rigid state education directives, and academic-professional communities intent on reproducing the same practices, knowledges, and relationships that have endangered our shared world and shared presents/presence is misdirected. This volume brings together diverse scholars to reimagine the field in times of precarity.

The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography

Author: Rebecca Lave
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319714619
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 607

Book Description
This handbook is recognition of the need to better integrate physical and human geography. It combines a collection of work and research within the new field of Critical Physical Geography, which gives critical attention to relations of social power with deep knowledge of a particular field of biophysical science. Critical Physical Geography research accords careful attention to biophysical landscapes and the power relations that have increasingly come to shape them, and to the politics of environmental science and the role of biophysical inquiry in promoting social and environmental justice. The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography lays out the scope and guiding principles of Critical Physical Geography research. It presents a carefully selected set of empirical work, demonstrating the range and intellectual strength of existing integrative work in geography research. This handbook is the first of its kind to cover this emerging discipline and will be of significant interest to students and academics across the fields of geography, the environment and sustainability.

Slow Professor

Author: Maggie Berg
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442645563
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 126

Book Description
In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter the erosion of humanistic education.

The Secret Life of Science

Author: Jeremy J. Baumberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691174350
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
A revealing and provocative look at the current state of global science We take the advance of science as given. But how does science really work? Is it truly as healthy as we tend to think? How does the system itself shape what scientists do? The Secret Life of Science takes a clear-eyed and provocative look at the current state of global science, shedding light on a cutthroat and tightly tensioned enterprise that even scientists themselves often don't fully understand. The Secret Life of Science is a dispatch from the front lines of modern science. It paints a startling picture of a complex scientific ecosystem that has become the most competitive free-market environment on the planet. It reveals how big this ecosystem really is, what motivates its participants, and who reaps the rewards. Are there too few scientists in the world or too many? Are some fields expanding at the expense of others? What science is shared or published, and who determines what the public gets to hear about? What is the future of science? Answering these and other questions, this controversial book explains why globalization is not necessarily good for science, nor is the continued growth in the number of scientists. It portrays a scientific community engaged in a race for limited resources that determines whether careers are lost or won, whose research visions become the mainstream, and whose vested interests end up in control. The Secret Life of Science explains why this hypercompetitive environment is stifling the diversity of research and the resiliency of science itself, and why new ideas are needed to ensure that the scientific enterprise remains healthy and vibrant.

An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

Author: Sergio Sismondo
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 144435888X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, Second Edition reflects the latest advances in the field while continuing to provide students with a road map to the complex interdisciplinary terrain of science and technology studies. Distinctive in its attention to both the underlying philosophical and sociological aspects of science and technology Explores core topics such as realism and social construction, discourse and rhetoric, objectivity, and the public understanding of science Includes numerous empirical studies and illustrative examples to elucidate the topics discussed Now includes new material on political economies of scientific and technological knowledge, and democratizing technical decisions Other features of the new edition include improved readability, updated references, chapter reorganization, and more material on medicine and technology

Complexity

Author: M. Mitchell Waldrop
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 150405914X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492

Book Description
“If you liked Chaos, you’ll love Complexity. Waldrop creates the most exciting intellectual adventure story of the year” (The Washington Post). In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell—and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today. This book is their story—the story of how they have tried to forge what they like to call the science of the twenty-first century. “Lucidly shows physicists, biologists, computer scientists and economists swapping metaphors and reveling in the sense that epochal discoveries are just around the corner . . . [Waldrop] has a special talent for relaying the exhilaration of moments of intellectual insight.” —The New York Times Book Review “Where I enjoyed the book was when it dove into the actual question of complexity, talking about complex systems in economics, biology, genetics, computer modeling, and so on. Snippets of rare beauty here and there almost took your breath away.” —Medium “[Waldrop] provides a good grounding of what may indeed be the first flowering of a new science.” —Publishers Weekly

Opening Science

Author: Sönke Bartling
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319000268
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
Modern information and communication technologies, together with a cultural upheaval within the research community, have profoundly changed research in nearly every aspect. Ranging from sharing and discussing ideas in social networks for scientists to new collaborative environments and novel publication formats, knowledge creation and dissemination as we know it is experiencing a vigorous shift towards increased transparency, collaboration and accessibility. Many assume that research workflows will change more in the next 20 years than they have in the last 200. This book provides researchers, decision makers, and other scientific stakeholders with a snapshot of the basics, the tools, and the underlying visions that drive the current scientific (r)evolution, often called ‘Open Science.’