Contributions of Scientists and Engineers to Defining Article 15 Margaret Weigers Vitullo, PhD American Sociological Association
Overview of next 25 minutes Methods. Three core questions and concerns. What are the benefits of science? What is the role of disciplines? Whose right is this? Three additional issues moving forward. Discussion.
Methods How to create a bridge between the ways we talk about science and the ways we talk about human rights?
Data collection process Focus groups: Discipline-specific. 2 hours, including 20 minute presentation on history of Article 15. 10 question protocol. Comment sheets for each participant. Audio taped and verbatim transcribed.
Data 16 focus groups (145 participants). 32 documents (transcripts and comment sheets). 700 pages of textual data.
Data Analysis Systematic qualitative coding. 148 codes – inductively produced, deductively applied. 3,770 excerpts. 11,800 code applications. Special thanks to AAAS Interns: Elizabeth Ingianni, Celestine Warren, Kate Saylor, Kristina Thorsell, and Michael Bueno.
Disciplines Represented Social and Biological Physical Engineering History and Behavioral and and and Philosophy Sciences Medical Chemical Technology of Science Sciences Sciences Geography Ecology Acoustics Mechanical History engineering Linguistics Forensics Astronomy Statistics Philosophy* Psychology Tropical Chemistry medicine and hygiene Social Geology psychology Sociology Physics *Data from the focus group with philosophers is not included in this analysis
Demographics of Participants Percent Gender Female 39 Male 61 Age 20-39 years 24 40-59 years 44 60-79 years 32 Race* White 86 Racial/ethnic minority 16 Employment sector* Education 56 Government 21 Non-profit 15 Private 7 Independent practice 8 * Percents total to more than 100% because respondents could choose more than one category
Limitations Only 16 disciplines represented. All participants were U.S.-based scientists. Goal - theory generation, not testing.
Core Question # 1 How do scientists define the benefits of science?
Ten Most Frequently Mentioned Benefits of Science Excerpts in Excerpts in Rank Code comment sheets comment sheets and transcripts 1 Health (including 110 257 treatment/applications/diagnosis) 2 Advancing knowledge 58 138 3 Ecological, environmental, wildlife 37 151 4 Education and training 31 476 5 Empirical basis for laws/policy/programs 29 149 6 Technological/infrastructure applications 27 163 7 Understanding of personal behaviors (not health) 26 73 8 Advancing methods and technology for science 25 84 9 Influence on/of culture 24 95 10 Economic impact 18 93 Total excerpts analyzed 1,679
Ten Most Frequently Mentioned Benefits of Science Excerpts in Excerpts in Excerpts in Excerpts in Rank Code comment sheets comment sheets Rank Code comment sheets comment sheets and transcripts and transcripts 1 Health (including 110 257 1 Health (including 110 257 treatment/applications/diagnosis) treatment/applications/diagnosis) 2 Advancing knowledge 58 138 2 Advancing knowledge 58 138 3 Ecological, environmental, wildlife 37 151 3 Ecological, environmental, wildlife 37 151 4 Education and training 31 476 4 Education and training 31 476 5 Empirical basis for laws/policy/programs 29 149 5 Empirical basis for laws/policy/programs 29 149 6 Technological/infrastructure applications 27 163 6 Technological/infrastructure applications 27 163 7 Understanding of personal behaviors (not health) 26 73 7 Understanding of personal behaviors (not health) 26 73 8 Advancing methods and technology for science 25 84 8 Advancing methods and technology for science 25 84 9 Influence on/of culture 24 95 9 Influence on/of culture 24 95 10 Economic impact 18 93 10 Economic impact 18 93 Total excerpts analyzed 1,679 Total excerpts analyzed 1,679
Health Including treatment/application/diagnosis Tropical Health & Hygiene So obviously scientific progress is… vaccines and drugs …
Health Including treatment/application/diagnosis Social Psychology So for instance… you can have someone who knows how to come up with a vaccine and it could work and be the best thing ever but if people don’t adopt it… then you lose [the benefit]
Health Including treatment/application/diagnosis Chemistry First thing that comes to mind is health… understanding disease. I don’t think we would have the genome project if there weren’t chemists involved in trying to figure out how to do the rapid analysis.
Health Including treatment/application/diagnosis Geography Mapping disease outbreaks to understand sources and solutions
Health Including treatment/application/diagnosis Psychology Defining psychopathology as a disease… not a personality issue or a moral issue.
Health Including treatment/application/diagnosis Acoustics An understanding of the mechanisms underlying hearing loss, both from aging and from noise.
Health Including treatment/application/diagnosis Mechanical Engineering …mechanical engineers have created simple, inexpensive variations on medical technologies which have been implemented successfully in the developing world.
Ten Most Frequently Mentioned Benefits of Science Excerpts in Excerpts in Rank Code comment sheets comment sheets and transcripts 1 Health (including 110 257 treatment/applications/diagnosis) 2 Advancing knowledge 58 138 3 Ecological, environmental, wildlife 37 151 4 Education and training 31 476 5 Empirical basis for laws/policy/programs 29 149 6 Technological/infrastructure applications 27 163 7 Understanding of personal behaviors (not health) 26 73 8 Advancing methods and technology for science 25 84 9 Influence on/of culture 24 95 10 Economic impact 18 93 Total excerpts analyzed 1,679
Advancing Knowledge Astronomy Astronomy has at its core the explanation of those things which give rise to fear of the night. Ultimately, finding patterns and meaning in overwhelming universal feelings gives rise to societal well being by giving assurance that the unknown can be known…
Advancing Knowledge Sociology The discipline of sociology helps us to think more clearly through understanding the power and complexity of social influences… taking into account gender, generations, age, race, ethnicity/tribe and social class…
Advancing Knowledge to support effective citizenship What I consider even more important… is the process of science and the process of thinking so that you can produce citizens who know to question, and to ask questions, and to look for evidence rather than just political statements. (chemistry) Understanding facts and studies in order to be a more informed citizen. (statistics )
Ten Most Frequently Mentioned Benefits of Science Excerpts in Excerpts in Rank Code comment sheets comment sheets and transcripts 1 Health (including 110 257 treatment/applications/diagnosis) 2 Advancing knowledge 58 138 3 Ecological, environmental, wildlife 37 151 4 Education and training 31 476 5 Empirical basis for laws/policy/programs 29 149 6 Technological/infrastructure applications 27 163 7 Understanding of personal behaviors (not health) 26 73 8 Advancing methods and technology for science 25 84 9 Influence on/of culture 24 95 10 Economic impact 18 93 Total excerpts analyzed 1,679
Empirical Basis for Policy Including laws/programs/policies [The] production of trustworthy reliable and unbiased official statistics to inform government policy… inform citizens of things like employment and poverty rates. (statistics) Promote rational, objective thinking on political, social and economic policies (physics) Putting in place regulations based on sound science that protect the environment (air, water, land) but recognize humans need for minerals and energy” ( geology)
What have we learned about the ways these scientists viewed benefits? • Appears that a shared set of identifiable benefits of scientific progress and its application can be articulated. • The scientists moved fluidly between discussing scientific progress and scientific applications – the distinction seems to have had limited salience. • The benefits of scientific progress were described as including material, methodological and cultural elements.
Core Question # 2 “The twenty-first century is the century of From which science and engineering for the average citizen of the world. Not for the scientist. fields of science Not for the engineer. But for the average and engineering human being on the planet. That means how a non-scientist, average citizen, are the benefits engages with science and engineering is going to determine how we, as inhabitants derived? of the planet, are going to achieve or fail at the end of the century. It is crucial that 21 st century scientists and engineers understand the life of the average citizen of the world. Subra Suresh, former This invariably calls for a seamless Director of NSF. Speaking integration of discoveries and approaches at the Annual Meeting of between the natural sciences and social COSSA, 2012 sciences . “
Core Question # 3 Whose right is this?
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