Time Schedule:
Howard E. Mccurdy
PB AF 585
Seattle Campus
Examines relationship between advancement of technical knowledge and pace of technological change, and public policies to induce or respond to these trends. Generic issues of government research, development, and personnel training programs are addressed. Applications of policy issues involving biomedical, communications, energy, environmental, transportation, and weapons technologies.
Class description
TOPIC: POLICY FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION - This course examines the manner in which scientific discoveries and technological developments affect the formulation of public policy, along with the ways in which government officials use public policy to encourage advances in science and technology and regulate its effects. Special attention will be paid to the influence of imagination and ideology, visions of the future, factors that encourage the use of good (and bad) science in policy decisions, government organization for science and technology, paradigm shifts and unconventional ideas that alter public policy, government support for the diffusion of new technologies, and the principles that can be derived from the study of specific policies selected from topics such as robotics, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, biotechnology, energy policy, climate change, nuclear energy, missiles and rockets, aeronautics, and space exploration.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
