From loka@amherst.eduThu Dec 18 14:25:14 1997 Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 15:54:04 -0400 (EDT) From: LOKA INSTITUTE To: LOKA-L@lists.amherst.edu Subject: Help Change U.S. Science Policy!! (Loka Alert 4:5) (fwd) Loka Alert 4:5 (Oct. 31, 1997) Please Repost Widely HELP CONGRESS RETHINK U.S. SCIENCE POLICY!! Friends and Colleagues: This is one in an occasional series of electronic postings on democratic politics of science and technology, issued by the nonprofit Loka Institute. If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Loka Institute's E-mail list, please send a message to: . PLEASE INVITE INTERESTED FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES TO SUBSCRIBE TOO. Thanks! --Dick Sclove Executive Director, The Loka Institute, P.O. Box 355, Amherst, MA 01004, USA E-mail: resclove@amherst.edu World Wide Web http://www.amherst.edu/~loka Tel. +1-413-582-5860; Fax +1-413-582-5811 ***************************************************************** HELP CONGRESS RETHINK U.S. SCIENCE POLICY!! Newt Gingrich, the leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, has recently asked the House Science Committee to develop a new, post-Cold War, national science policy. Congressman Vern Ehlers (a Republican from Michigan and also Vice Chairman of the House Science Committee) is leading the effort. House insiders report that there may be opportunities here to inject some new, more progressive thinking into U.S. science and technology policy . . . provided that people like you and me make some effort now to ensure that the process is opened up to a diversity of views. THE CURRENT STATE OF PLAY On Oct. 23 Vice Chairman Ehlers kicked off his science- policy-revisioning process by convening a group of experts to help him frame the task. Those invited read like an elite Who's Who of conventional science-and-technology policy leaders: the Presidents of the National Academies of Science and Engineering; the President, Vice-President, Chairman, plus a Senior Fellow from the Council on Competitiveness; leaders of the Sandia and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories; the retired President of Hewlett Packard Corporation; the President of MIT, and so on. Altogether there were 23 men and only 8 women, no people of color, and almost no one under 50 years old. These are people who made their careers within the existing Cold-War-driven institutional order for science and technology. Thus their principal concern is to secure the resources needed to keep the current science-and-technology system going. Not included were . . . any representatives of the public- interest, grassroots, or labor communities concerned with science and technology policy or, for that matter, anyone at all likely to bring fresh, far-sighted thinking to the task of adapting U.S. science policy to the real social needs of the 21st century. To his credit, however, Vice Chairman Ehlers has set up a Web site that will provide up-to-date information on his projected year-long effort to rethink U.S. science policy: http://www.house.gov/science/science_policy_study.htm WHAT YOU CAN DO: If you log onto that Web site, you will find a link where you can E-mail your comments back to Ehler's science policy staff. My suggestion: (1) Visit the Web site and leave a short comment. (If you are at a loss for words, you might simply thank Rep. Ehlers for setting up the Web page, and then ask to be included more actively in the process and/or politely encourage him to open his process up to a much wider group of societal representatives.) This is *not* a demanding task: a short note that you can write in only 2 or 3 minutes will suffice. (2) Please pass this Loka Alert around widely, and urge as many friends and colleagues as you can to make the small effort to log onto Ehler's site and leave a brief message of their own. It is the total *number of messages* that will really make a difference in encouraging the Congress to open this process up to fresh, more socially representative thinking. (If you do not have Web access, you can send your comments to the Hon. Vern Ehlers, Vice Chairman, House Committee on Science, 2320 RHOB, Washington, D.C. 20515 USA; E-mail: ; Tel. +1-202-225-6371. Mention that you are contacting him in reference to the "Science Policy Study" that he is leading.) (3) If you want to discuss and strategize concerning Ehler's science policy study--now or anytime in the future--subscribe to the Loka Institute's FASTnet (Federation of Activists on Science & Technology Network) listserv. To subscribe, just send an E-mail message to with a blank subject line and "subscribe FASTnet" as the message text. (FASTnet is a moderated discussion list, which protects you from receiving posts inappropriate to the list's purpose.) A FEW MORE DETAILS Congressman Ehlers' current plan for his science policy study is to post a mission/challenge statement on his science policy Web site (see above), and receive comments through January 1998. He envisions taking those comments into account in fashioning a draft science policy statement. He will then hold Congressional hearings on this draft through early summer 1998, at last issuing a final science policy document that he will seek to have adopted as a concurrent resolution of the Congress (i.e., as a statement that will need to pass both the House and the Senate, but that--unlike a law--will not need a presidential signature). Our task is to make sure that this process is opened up to include a much broader range of perspectives and fresh ideas! Thanks for contributing to this effort! --Dick Sclove The Loka Institute http://www.amherst.edu/~loka ***************************************************************** ABOUT THE LOKA INSTITUTE The Loka Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making science and technology responsive to democratically decided social and environmental concerns. TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE LOKA INSTITUTE, to participate in our on-line discussion groups or to help, please visit our Web page or contact us via E-mail at . LOKA INSTITUTE INTERNSHIPS: The Loka Institute has openings for both paid and volunteer interns and paid work-study students in 1998 (and beyond). We are a small nonprofit organization, and the activities in which interns are involved vary from research assistance and writing to assisting in organizing conferences, project development and management, fundraising, managing our Internet lists, Web page updates, helping with clerical and other office work, etc. If you are interested in working with us to promote a democratic politics of science and technology, please send a hard copy resume along with a succinct letter explaining your interest to: The Loka Institute, P.O. Box 355, Amherst, MA 01004, USA. TO LEARN MORE about the Loka Institute's concerns and vision, see Loka founder Richard Sclove's book, _DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY_--recipient of the 1996 Don K. Price Award of the American Political Science Association as "the best book of the year on science, technology and politics". For a paperback copy, contact your local bookseller or Guilford Press (in the U.S. telephone toll free 1-800-365-7006; or, from anywhere, fax Guilford Press in the U.S. at +1-212-966-6708; visit Guilford's Web page ; or E-mail: .) "Mr. Sclove is refreshing in the way he rejects ideas so nearly universally held that most people have never thought to question them." -- _New York Times Book Review_ RECENT PUBLICATIONS BY OR ABOUT THE LOKA INSTITUTE: Hackman, Sandra. 1997. "First Line: And Now a Word From Your Neighbors." _Technology Review_, Aug./Sept. 1997, p. 5. [This is the Editor's Introduction, devoted entirely to the Loka Institute's April 1997 pilot Citizen's Panel on "Telecommunications & the Future of Democracy."] Scammell, Madeleine, Will Snyder, and Phil Shepard. 1997. _Building a Community Research Network: Report of the 1996 Community Research Network Conference_. Amherst, Massachusetts: The Loka Institute and UMass Extension. Sclove, Richard E. 1997. "Citizen Policy Wonks." _YES! A Journal of Positive Futures_, No. 3 (Fall), pp. 52-54. ________. 1997. "Research By the People, For the People." _Futures_, Vol. 29, No. 6 (August), pp. 541-549. ________. 1997. "Research by the People: Building a Worldwide Community Research network(CRN)." In _A World That Works: Building Blocks for a Just and Sustainable Society_. Ed. Trent Schroyer. New York: Bootstrap Press. Pp. 278-290. ________. 1997. "Technological Politics as if Democracy Really Mattered." In _Technology and the Future_. Ed. Albert Teich. 7th ed., New York: St. Martin's Press. Pp. 223-245. ________. 1997. "Cybersociety: Democracy and Technology." _Initiative_, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Summer), pp. 1-3. ________. 1997. "Myten Om Den Apatiske Amerikaner." [The Myth of the Apathetic American.] _TeknologiDebat_ No. 4 (Sept.), Back Page Feature (p. 32). [Published by the Danish Parliament's Board of Technology.] Cohn, Steven. 1997. "Book Review of _Democracy and Technology_ by Richard Sclove." _The Ecological Economics Bulletin_, Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 12. Rosenkrands, Jacob. 1997. "Put Ekstra Skat Pa Cybershopping." _Politken_, 4 Sept., Sect. 3, p. 6. [Interview in a major Danish daily newspaper with Loka Institute Executive Director, Richard Sclove] ###