Politics and science make strange bedfellows. In politics, perceptions are reality and facts are negotiable. The competing interests, conflicting objectives, and trade-offs of political negotiations often lend themselves to bending the truth and selectively interpreting facts to shape outcomes. In science, facts are reality. This collection examines the conflicts that arise when politics and science converge. In Politicizing Science: The Alchemy of Policymaking, eleven leading scientists describe the politicization - through misapplication or overemphasis of results that favor a political decision or through outright manipulation - of scientific findings and deliberations to advance policy agendas. They show how the consequences of politicization are inflicted on the public, including the diversion of money and research efforts from worthwhile scientific endeavors, the costs of unnecessary regulations, and the losses of useful products - while increased power and prestige flow to those who manipulate science. The authors of three essays describe government diversions of scientific research and the interpretation of scientific findings away from where the evidence leads and toward directions deemed politically desirable. Three more contributions analyze the expensive and extensive efforts devoted to altering images of risk in order to establish linkages in the public's mind between deleterious human health effects and various areas of scientific research. Two essays examine the workings and results of consensus advisory panels and conclude that their recommendations are often based on far-from-certain science and driven by social and political dynamics that substitute group cohesion in favor of independent, critical thinking. Authors of two essays describe the unfortunate results of application of the 'precautionary principle, ' which generally requires proof of no risk before a new product is introduced or an existing product can be continued in use. A concluding essay describes the personal costs of opposing the politicization of science.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Some skeptical reflections on research and development / Tibor R. Machan
• Arguments concerning government's investment in research / Oliver Mayo
• The limits of government-funded research: what should they be? / R. Paul Drake
• Federal support of research and development in science and engineering / Michael W. Blasgen
• Scientific research in a free society: some reflections / Eleftheria Maratos-Flier.

Since World War II, it has become generally accepted that most advanced scientific research will be funded by the federal government. But despite the usefulness of some of these expenditures, there remains the question of whether the funds were necessarily deployed in the best way. How would the money have been spent had it remained in private hands? Might some other projects have served more valuable purposes? And could these alternative projects have been pursued by government, or is the private sector better equipped to discern and to pursue such purposes? The contributors to this volume explore the implications of government funding of scientific research and offer alternatives to the heavy reliance on government support that research and development (R&D) currently enjoys. Not every author reaches the same conclusions, but each squarely confronts the problems arising from the idea that government funding of R&D is and ought to be the norm. Contributions include a balanced, in-depth look at the Australian government's investment in research, showing that there is a role for government that is not simply dependent on public good or market failure. The book also offers a discussion of what the limits of government-funded research should be - and why it is critical to separate research and government regulation. It presents an examination of federal research funding in the physical sciences and engineering, showing that it appears to work - but that there is no real principle to justify the spending or establish that the money is spent effectively. And it provides a thoughtful reflection on the role of scientific research in a free society, raising the question: Does state involvement in research lead to more or less freedom?
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Die TIMSS-Studie und ihre bildungspolitischen Konsequenzen für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland : eine Einführung / Juliane List
• TIMSS
• mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlicher Unterricht im internationalen Vergleich
• Anlage der Studie und ausgewählte Befunde / Jürgen Baumert
• Bildungspolitische Schlussfolgerungen aus der TIMSS-Studie Deutschland
• 15 Thesen / Josef Kraus
• Dritte internationale Mathematik- und Naturwissenschaftsstudie
• deskriptive Befunde / Heinz Durner
• Transparenz und Qualität der Schulleistungen erhöhen : "Kölner Erklärung" zu der Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) / Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände/Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Köln.

Contributions from a workshop organized by the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft, Köln and the Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände.

• Controversies prior to 1933-- after the Nazi seizure of power-- the ideological scism - 1936-1939-- physics at war - 1939-1945-- the legacy of National Socialism.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

An anthology of fully annotated translations of texts by physicists, written both before, during and after the Nazi period of rule in Germany. There is also an introductory section giving an overview of the impact of Nazi ideology on physics during this period.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents: pt.
• 1. a--zvukosignal
• pt.
• 2. zvukosignalʹnyĭ--opoganivatʹ
• pt.
• 3. opoganivatʹsi͡a--revmatologii͡a
• pt.
• 4. revmatologii͡a--i͡ashchyrnyĭ.

• Preface-- Part I. From wartime military intelligence to postwar commercial exploitation:
• 1. Wartime scientific and technical intelligence--
• 2. From wartime intelligence to postwar exploitation-- Part II. The Postwar Programs:
• 3. Project paperclip--
• 4. The documents program--
• 5. Consultants and missions--
• 6. Transferring the technical know-how-- Part III. Terminating FIAT and Evaluating the Take:
• 7. Governors versus exploiters--
• 8. Evaluating the take--
• 9. The Germans assess their loses-- Part IV. Conclusion:
• 10. Observations and reflections-- Appendix-- Notes-- Bibliographical notes-- Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Most people know something about Werner von Braun and the German rocket scientists and engineers whom the Americans brought to the United States after the Second World War. What virtually no one seems to know is that the plan under which they were brought - Project Paperclip - was but one aspect of a much more comprehensive and systematic program of 'intellectual reparations'. This program began in late 1944 with the limited aim of exploiting German scientific and technical know-how in order to shorten the war with Japan. As Allied armies swept across Western Germany, teams of dozens of American experts - drawn from government agencies, industrial and trade associations, and the universities - visited hundreds of targeted german research institutions, technical schools, and industrial firms. They interviewed personnel, examined processes and products, took photographs and samples, and demanded drawings, plans, blueprints, research reports, and documents of all kinds. But the limited, war-related aims they began with quickly yielded to the tempting opportunities for industrial and tempting opportunities for industrial and technological plunder in virtually every area of German expertise, including wind tunnels, tape recorders, synthetic fuels and rubber, color film, textiles, machine tools, heavy equipment, ceramics, optical glass, dyes, and electron microscopes. Ostensibly, the information gathered was to be made, in Secretary of State George C. Marshall's words, 'available to the rest of the world'. In practice, however, much of it was transferred by the scientific consultants and document-screeners directly to their own firms and for their own purposes. This story has never before been told, and the author's meticulous but highly readable account is based on over ten years of research in German and American public and private archives, many of them previously unused. One of the most striking revelations in the book is the vast scale of the 'intellectual reparations' program. At the Moscow meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers in 1947, V. M. M olotov, the Soviet Union's Minister of Foreign Affairs, charged that the United States and Great Britain had taken over c10 billion in reparations from germany in the form of patents and other technical knowledge. Secretary of State marshall angrily denied the charge, but no precise evaluation was ever issued by the US government. On the basis of his research, the author concludes that the $10 billion figure dismissed by State Department functionaries as 'fantastic' is probably not far from the mark. General Lucius D. Clay, the American Military Government, eventually succeeded in having the program shut down in the interests of German economic recovery, but he failed in his efforts to have an evaluation made in monetary terms to establish a credit to Germany's reparations account. nevertheless, the popular American belief that the United States took no reparations from Germany needs to be drastically modified. The exploitation program had a negative effect on the early resumption of postwar German research and economic recovery. I n the long run, however, the American exploitation program furthered an extensive network of American-German scientific, business, and industrial collaboration, and it contributed to the American climate of opinion that insured West germany's participation in the Marshall Plan. Throughout the book, the author has used case studies to illustrate the program - its nature, extent, and impact upon the Germans and Americans.<.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)