Public Policy

Nico Calavita’s Incremental Advance to Scholarly Activism
Announcements
April 20, 2016

Nico Calavita’s Incremental Advance to Scholarly Activism

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D.C. Event Helps Policymakers See Past the Abstract
Academic Funding
April 5, 2016

D.C. Event Helps Policymakers See Past the Abstract

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Measuring the Damage Surveillance Does to Democracy
International Debate
March 31, 2016

Measuring the Damage Surveillance Does to Democracy

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Social Science’s Mythbusters Look at Diversity
Impact
March 10, 2016

Social Science’s Mythbusters Look at Diversity

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Scared Straight: Evidence Makes for Better Biosecurity Rules

Scared Straight: Evidence Makes for Better Biosecurity Rules

After a breakthough at a poster session for a discipline not her own, a senior academic offered the evidence that led President Obama to loosen up the regulatory yoke that was scaring researchers into the scariest life forms on Earth.

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Behavioral Science May Hold Some Keys to Climate Change

Behavioral Science May Hold Some Keys to Climate Change

As we are often reminded, we urgently and drastically need to limit our use of one shared resource – fossil fuels – and its effect on another – the climate. But how realistic is this goal, both for national leaders and for us? Well, psychology may hold some answers.

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What Britain’s A-Level Psych Exam Tells Us About Current Behavioral Science

What Britain’s A-Level Psych Exam Tells Us About Current Behavioral Science

The current A-Level exams in psychology taken by British teens reflect a curriculum focusing on ‘problems’ within individuals, argue two UK psychologists, rather than taking into account the influence of society on people’s actions and behavior.

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Zika – What Are the Real Lessons from Ebola?

Zika – What Are the Real Lessons from Ebola?

Another disease in the tropics has the World Health Organisation in a lather, and again biomedicine’s response will not be all that useful in the short term. Social science can help now to address the underlying problems that help the Zika virus to spread — if policymakers will listen.

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What Social Science Tells Us About the Inevitability of the Filthy Rich

What Social Science Tells Us About the Inevitability of the Filthy Rich

A new report from Oxfam about the astounding concentration of wealth among tiny subset of the 1 percent raises the question, ‘Is inequality inevitable in human society?’

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Timeline of US Government and Social/Behavioral Science

Timeline of US Government and Social/Behavioral Science

Vannevar Bush’s post-war review of American science priorities set the tone for the federal funding of social and behavioral science ever since.

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In the Rush to Metrics, Don’t Ignore Human Intuition

In the Rush to Metrics, Don’t Ignore Human Intuition

Sociologist Eric Giannella argues the uncertainty of science makes intuition and judgement essential, and yet the effect of metrics is to reduce the role of judgment. 

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Common Rule Revision – The Ethics Police Fight Back

Common Rule Revision – The Ethics Police Fight Back

Revisions to the U.S. government’s regulations on ethical treatment of human research subjects that would exempt some experiments from direct oversight by institutional review boards are facing pushback from paternalistic guardians, says our Robert Dingwall, who don’t seem to believe subjects are competent to make decisions on their own.

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