Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
Weekly Overview of Social Science News
Social Science in the National interest, U.S. Congress cuts Social Science out of NSF Funding, and more in this Weekly Overview of Social Science News
Will Social Science Research Cuts Affect the Human Rights Situation in the U.S.?
On social science, the sequester, and the need for a Human Rights Culture.
The Politics of Attacking Political Science
As a political scientist, I find it curious that my discipline has been singled out as being particularly wasteful of federal research dollars. How did we join welfare queens and spotted owls as convenient punching bags, things that must not be aided by taxpayer money during lean times?
Why Study Social Science
We study social science because social phenomena affect people’s lives in profound ways. If you want to start with Cantor’s focus—physical illness and death—then social phenomena are tremendously important.
SAGE opposes the Flake Amendment
Recently, the US House of Representatives passed off an amendment offered by Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) that would prohibit funding for the Political Science Program with the National Science Foundation. If enacted into law, this amendment would set an extraordinary and disturbing precedent in which Congress chooses which scientific disciplines should be funded and not funded within the NSF’s research portfolio.
A Response to Recent Attacks on Social Science
Across the world in the media, in policy, government discussions, and in our daily lives, there is evidence of social science at work. Whether it’s analysis of a cultural phenomenon like crime, or a major international concern such how climate change leads to changing lifestyles or inequality, social scientists help us understand cultures and behaviours.
“Are social and behavioral sciences worth supporting?”
Stephen McKeever, vice president for research and technology transfer at Oklahoma State University, writes that the National Science Foundation’s Social, Behavioral and […]
