Adams, Jon (2007) Contesting democracy: scientific popularisation and popular choice. Working papers on the nature of evidence: how well do 'facts' travel? (20/07). Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
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Abstract
During the same period in which political decisions became increasingly indistinguishable from decisions about science and technology, science and technology became increasingly incomprehensible to all but a few specialists. Maintaining a healthy participatory democracy under such conditions meant keeping the voting public involved – and science popularisation presented itself a means of doing just that. Science popularisation was to enable voters to make sensible decisions about policies relevant to science and technology. But could popularisations really supply sufficient information to validate those decisions? And what if the voters didn’t agree with the experts? The formation of Science Service in the 1920s is taken as an exemplary case where the unproblematic dissemination of scientific facts is revealed to be inextricably bound up with more problematic issues about regulating the scope of public choice.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Working Paper) |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/economicHistory/ |
| Additional Information: | © 2007 The Author |
| Divisions: | Economic History |
| Subjects: | Q Science > Q Science (General) D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Feb 2009 17:09 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Dec 2024 18:48 |
| Projects: | Large-Scale Technological Change |
| Funders: | http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/, Economic and Social Research Council |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/22516 |
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