Metascience 101 - EP7: “Science and Political Legitimacy"

IN THIS EPISODE: Journalist Dylan Matthews leads a conversation with Open Philanthropy CEO Alexander Berger, Professor Tyler Cowen, and IFP Co-CEO Caleb Watney. Together, they explore the relationship between effective, robust scientific institutions and notions of political legitimacy.

“Metascience 101” is a nine-episode set of interviews that doubles as a crash course in the debates, issues, and ideas driving the modern metascience movement. We investigate why building a genuine “science of science” matters, and how research in metascience is translating into real-world policy changes. 

Chapters

(00:00:00) Introduction

(00:01:24) Current science research funding

(00:10:13) Reason for bureaucratic restrictions

(00:14:50) Legibility of science policy to the public

(00:25:06) Legible science and curing disease

(00:29:07) NIH as vital part of funding infrastructure

(00:31:57) Immigration

(00:42:55) Scientific clusters and place-based policy

(00:46:08) Science powers and immigration

(00:49:33) Making science utopian and fun

(00:53:12) Science role models

(00:55:49) Science policy elsewhere

(00:58:17) Overrated / Underrated