The Received Wisdom

Episode 19: Climate Change, Vaccines, AI, and the Lure of Technochauvinism featuring Meredith BroussardThis month, Jack and Shobita discuss the recent IPCC report on climate change and the politics of vaccine "hesitancy", and puzzle over the lure of technological fixes to solve complex problems. And Jack speaks with Meredith Broussard, Associate Professor of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University and Research Director, NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology, who has developed a new approach to understanding this puzzle: technochauvinism.- Jack Stilgoe (2013). "Why has geoengineering been legitimised by the IPCC?" The Guardian. September 27.- Meredith Broussard (2018). Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. MIT Press.- Meredith Broussard (2019). "When Binary Code Won't Accommodate Nonbinary People." Slate. October 23.- Meredith Broussard (2019). "Letting Go of Technochauvinism." Public Books. June 17.- Meredith Broussard (forthcoming, 2023). More Than a Glitch: What Everyone Needs to Know About Making Technology Anti-Racist, Accessible, and Otherwise Useful to All. MIT Press.Study questions:1. Why are policymakers and publics so attracted to seemingly simple technological fixes?2. What are the costs of framing vaccine "hesitancy" or climate change as individual, moral problems?3. What is technochauvinism, and what's wrong with it?4. How might we approach artificial intelligence in a more socially responsible way?5. Should facial recognition technology be banned? Why or why not?

Jack and Shobita talk about her recent experiences giving Congressional testimony about equity in energy innovation, question the meaning of Freedom Day in the UK, puzzle over the FDA's recent approval of a new Alzheimer's drug, and interview Ben Tarnoff, co-founder of Logic Magazine, about tech worker organizing.- House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Energy, "Fostering Equity in Energy Innovation", July 16, 2021. Written testimony here.- Sheila Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers. Harvard University Press, 1998.- Ben Tarnoff and Moira Weigel, editors, Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What they Do and Why they Do It. FSG Originals, 2020.- Ben Tarnoff and Moira Weigel, "Silicon Valley Workers Have Had Enough," The New York Times, January 26, 2021.- Aaron Petcoff and Ben Tarnoff, "Tech Workers at Every Level Can Organize to Build Power." Jacobin Magazine. February 6, 2021.- Ben Tarnoff, "The Making of the Tech Worker Movement." Logic Magazine. May 4, 2020.

Shobita and Jack discuss the Innovation and Competition Act making its way through the US Congress as well as the most up-to-date geopolitics of COVID, including the TRIPS waiver and the "lab leak" theory. And we interview Kate Crawford, a leading scholar on the social and political implications of artificial intelligence.- Kate Crawford (2021). Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence, Yale University Press.Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (2018). Anatomy of an AI System.- Alex Campolo and Kate Crawford (2020). "Enchanted Determinism: Power without Responsibility in Artificial Intelligence". Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. 6: 1-19.Transcript and study questions available at www.thereceivedwisdom.org.

In this episode, Jack and Shobita talk about the controversy over making COVID-19 vaccines globally available by waiving the patents, and the recent crash of one of Tesla's "self-driving" cars. And they chat with science journalist Angela Saini about her recent book Superior: The Return of Race Science. They discuss why assumptions about the biology of race seem so persistent even in the context of understanding COVID-19, and how George Floyd's murder may have changed global discussions about race and science.- Shobita Parthasarathy (2021). "Ensuring Global Access to COVID-19 Vaccines." Notes for a New Administration.- Angela Saini (2020). "Stereotype Threat." The Lancet. May 23.- Angela Saini (2019). Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press.- Angela Saini (2019). The Disturbing Return of Scientific Racism. WIRED. December 6.- Angela Saini (2018). Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research that's Rewriting the Story. Beacon Press.Study Questions:1) What is the problem with saying that race is biological?2) Why do scientists, and societies, struggle with rejecting the biological basis of race? What are the consequences of continuing to assume that race is biological?3) How should we understand racial disparities in health without resorting to biological explanations?4) How might discussions about race in science, and race and science, be changing in light of the 2020 protests over George Floyd's death?

Episode 15--Innovation Imaginaries and the Politics of Evidence-Based Policymaking ft. David GoldstonThis month, Jack and Shobita talk about the role of government in both funding and regulating innovation, as well as the politics of vaccine approval as European governments suspended distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine. And we speak with David Goldston, currently director of MIT's Washington office, who has extensive experience in science and technology policy including on Capitol Hill and at the National Resources Defense Council. He was also a former columnist at Nature.James Wilsdon (2021, March 16). "Aria is an oldie, but there’s no sign it will be a hit." ResearchProfessional News.- Karen Hao (2021, March 11). "How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation." Technology Review.- Shobita Parthasarathy (2021, March 17). "The AstraZeneca Vaccine Crisis in Europe Isn’t About Science at All." Slate.David Goldston (2009, November 4). "In which we say goodbye." Nature.- David Goldston (2009, August 5). "Improving the Use of Science in Regulatory Policy." Bipartisan Policy Center.Study questions:1. How does "evidence-based policymaking" work in practice?2. Is it possible for science and technology policymaking to be apolitical?3. Why is "evidence-based policymaking" insufficient?4. If scientists are still so trusted in our societies, why is there a perception that there isn't?Transcript available at thereceivedwisdom.org

In this episode, Shobita and Jack talk about President Biden's plans for science and technology policy and his appointment of Alondra Nelson as Deputy Director for Science and Society in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the United States and United Kingdom. And they chat with Maya Goldenberg, philosophy professor at the University of Guelph, about vaccine hesitancy and how it can be addressed.- Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to Dr. Eric Lander, “In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt….” Letter. January 15, 2021.- Maya Goldenberg, Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021.- Maya Goldenberg, "The Coronavirus Vaccines are Here. Now What?" Impact Ethics. December 18, 2020.- Maya Goldenberg. “Vaccines, Values and Science.” Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2019 April 8;191: E397-8.Maya Goldenberg, "A lack of trust, not of science, behind vaccine resistance." Toronto Star. November 9, 2017.- Maya Goldenberg, "Public Misunderstanding of Science?" Reframing the Problem of Vaccine Hesitancy." Perspectives on Science. 24:5 (2016): 552-581.- Maya Goldenberg, "Scientific Illiteracy is not the Tragedy of our Times." Impact Ethics. September 3, 2015. Study Questions:1. How is President Biden trying to re-imagine the US science and technology policy strategy?2. Why might marginalized communities of color be hesitant to take a COVID-19 vaccine?3. Why are the "war on science" and ignorance framings insufficient for understanding vaccine hesitancy?4. What are the best ways to respond to vaccine hesitancy, according to Goldenberg?Transcript available at threreceivedwisdom.org

It's a New Year, and may soon be a new world! Shobita and Jack discuss the big changes brewing in the US and UK, from the new president to Brexit, and consider what it all means for science and technology policy. And we chat with Lina Dencik, Professor and Director of the Data Justice Lab at Cardiff University.Lina Dencik (2019). "Social Justice in an Age of Datafication." Talk at the Alan Turing Institute. May 28.Lina Dencik,Arne Hintz, Joanna Redden & Emiliano Treré (2019). "Exploring Data Justice: Conceptions, Applications and Directions." Information, Communication, and Society. 22(7): 873-881.Javier Sánchez-Monedero and Lina Dencik (2020). "The politics of deceptive borders: ‘biomarkers of deceit’ and the case of iBorderCtrl." Information, Communication, and Society. 1-18.Javier Sánchez-Monedero, Lina Dencik, and Lilian Edwards (2020). "What does it mean to 'solve' the problem of discrimination in hiring?: social, technical and legal perspectives from the UK on automated hiring systems." FAT* '20: Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. pp. 458–468.

Shobita and Jack reflect on the US election and the future of conservatism and exciting vaccine news, and speak with philosopher and STS forefather Langdon Winner about the politics of technology today. Winner recently released a new edition of his groundbreaking book, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology.- Langdon Winner (2020). The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. University of Chicago Press.- Langdon Winner (2020). "The virus is a catalyst, society itself the disease."- Langdon Winner (2020). The Democratic Shaping of Technology: Its Rise, Fall, and Possible Rebirth.- Alfred Nordmann and Langdon Winner (2020). "Interview with Langdon Winner: Autonomous Technology: Then and Still Now."- Shoshana Zuboff (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Public Affairs.- Langdon Winner (2017) The Cult of Innovation: Its Colorful Myths and Rituals.- Langdon Winner (2010). "The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart: Rolling Stone’s 1970 Cover Story." Rolling Stone.- Tim Wu (2010). The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Oxford University Press.Transcript available at thereceivedwisdom.org

Episode 11--Patent Activism, Access to Medicines, and The Social Dilemma featuring Priti KrishtelIn this episode, Jack and Shobita discuss the growing politicization of COVID-19 science and at listeners' request, review the Netflix movie The Social DIlemma. And Shobita speaks with Priti Krishtel, co-executive director of the i-MAK, the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge about how we can reform the patent system to make pharmaceuticals more affordable and accessible.Priti Krishtel (2020). Why are Drug Prices So High? Investigating the Outdated US Patent System. TED Talk.Interview with Angela Glover Blackwell (2020). "From Patients to Patents: A Focus on Health Equity." The Radical Imagination Podcast.- Priti Krishtel (2019). The Solution to America's Drug Pricing Crisis. NEXUS USA.- Priti Krishtel (2019). "Public Participation in the Patent System Will Lower Drug Costs." Morning Consult. January 4.- Priti Krishtel (2018). "How High-Priced Drugs Cripple Prison Health Care—and Reform." The Crime Report. December 18.- Priti Krishtel (2018). "Women Are Being Hurt the Most by the Drug Pricing Crisis." Ms. Magazine. October 30.- Priti Krishtel (2018). "A Supreme Court victory for lowering drug prices." The Hill. April 28.Transcript and more at thereceivedwisdom.org

In this episode, Shobita and Jack talk about how patents might shape access to a COVID-19 vaccine. And, in light of a recent report by the US and UK national scientific academies, we talk about heritable human genome editing (using CRISPR-Cas9) and the role that the world's citizens might play in deciding whether and how it might proceed, with Ben Hurlbut, Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University.Links relevant to the episode:- J. Benjamin Hurlbut (2020). "Imperatives of Governance: Human Genome Editing and the Problem of Progress."Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 63(1): 177-194.- Krishanu Saha, J. Benjamin Hurlbut, Sheila Jasanoff (2020). "Should We Alter the Human Genome? Let Democracy Decide" Scientific American. January 15.- J. Benjamin Hurlbut (2019). "Human genome editing: ask whether, not how." Nature. 565: 135.- Sheila Jasanoff and J. Benjamin Hurlbut (2018). "A global observatory for gene editing." Nature. 555: 435-437.- J. Benjamin Hurlbut (2019). "Human Genome Editing: Great Power, Great Responsibility." MIT Technology Review. Video lecture.- National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (2020). "Heritable Genome Editing Not Yet Ready to Be Tried Safely and Effectively in Humans; Initial Clinical Uses, If Permitted, Should Be Limited to Serious Single-Gene Diseases." Press Release.- Bhaven Sampat (2020). "Whose Drugs Are These?" Issues in Science and Technology. 36(4): 42-48.- Ken Shadlen (2020). "To Speed New COVID Drugs and Vaccines, Look to Patenting.” Issues in Science and Technology. August 11.Transcript available at thereceivedwisdom.com