Theory of science policy proposed by Texas professor

A curious feature of science policy today is its lack of a theory. Even though it is about 40 years old, the field still has no conceptual framework of how the scientific revolution has changed governmental structures and the way governments are run. And lacking such a theory, it has no real agenda for its own development as a scholarly field. "Every policy should be based on some underlying theory," declares Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D.-Calif.), who has been ruminating on science policy issues for years. "It's no different in the policy sciences than in the natural sciences. But I see no one working on it." There is at least one such person, however. He is Jurgen Schmandt, a political science professor at the University of Texas, where he has been piecing together such a theory. It is based on his assessment of how the knowledge generated by science and technology has penetrated the ...