The Received Wisdom Shobita Parthasarathy & Jack Stilgoe

Jack and Shobita talk to five experts in science, technology, policy, and society about their perspectives and experiences with COVID-19 around the world. Interviews include Monamie Bhadra (Singapore), Silvio Funtowicz (Italy), Roger Pielke (US), Poonam Pandey (India), and Michael Veale (UK).

Transcript available at thereceivedwisdom.org

Jack and Shobita compare the US and UK responses to the coronavirus outbreak, and consider the legacy of the US approach to research funding policy 75 years after publication of the famous report by Vannevar Bush, Science: The Endless Frontier. And we speak with Ben Pauli (@benjaminjpauli), professor at Kettering University, about his recent book on the politics of the Flint Water Crisis.

Shobita and Jack answer listener questions, discuss Jack's trip to the weird world of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and talk to Professor Alondra Nelson about the social life of ancestral DNA testing. Professor Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, and President of the Social Science Research Council.

Shobita and Jack discuss what responsibilities scientists and scientific institutions bear when research results--like DNA phenotyping or human germline gene editing--are used to morally dubious ends. And they consider whether the problem with Big Tech is actually just one of Big Business. Jack interviews tech journalist Nicholas Carr, author of numerous books including Utopia is Creepy and Other Provocations (2017).

Shobita and Jack talk about the price of technological optimism, and speak with Ruha Benjamin, Associate Professor of African American Studies and founder of the JUST DATA lab at Princeton University. She is the author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, published by Polity Books earlier this year. (Transcript available at thereceivedwisdom.org.)

Shobita and Jack talk about climate and tech activism, and interview Dan Sarewitz, Co-Director, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes and Professor of Science and Society, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Issues in Science and Technology and is a frequent contributor to Nature.
A transcript of this episode and links to Dan's writings are available at thereceivedwisdom.org.