This essay describes the value and validity of public dialogue on science?related issues. We define what is meant by ?dialogue?, the context within which dialogue takes place in relation to science, and the purposes of dialogue. We introduce a model to describe and analyse the practice of dialogue, at different stages in the development of science, its applications and their consequences. Finally, we place the practice of dialogue on science?related issues in relation to the wider political process and draw out (...) implications for scientists in particular. (shrink)

Should governments accept the principle of devoting a proportion of their resources to funding basic research? From the standpoint of economics, science should be considered as a public good and for that reason it should be protected from market forces. This article tries to show that this result can only be maintained at the price of abandoning arguments traditionally deployed by economists themselves. It entails a complete reversal of our habitual ways of thinking about public goods. In order to bring (...) this reversal about, this article draws on the central results obtained by the anthropology and sociology of science and technology over the past several years. Science is a public good, not because of its intrinsic properties but because it is a source of diversity and flexibility. (shrink)

In this article we argue that nanotechnology represents an extraordinary opportunity to build in a robust role for the social sciences in a technology that remains at an early, and hence undetermined, stage of development. We examine policy dynamics in both the United States and United Kingdom aimed at both opening up, and closing down, the role of the social sciences in nanotechnologies. We then set out a prospective agenda for the social sciences and its potential in the future shaping (...) of nanotechnology research and innovation processes. The emergent, undetermined nature of nanotechnologies calls for an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary model of social science research. (shrink)