ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the long and labored history of efforts to bring more rigorous research and dispassionate analysis into the conduct of public policy. Initial aspirations toward science-based public decisions can be traced to ancient times, such as Plato during the Greek golden age and Confucius in the early Chinese dynastic period. Continuous progress in scientific thinking generally is associated with the thinking of Francis Bacon in the early 17th century and with Sir Isaac Newton later in the same century, though James Lind is credited with conducting an early empirical study mid-century. Advances in modern medicine and the inexorable push of the Industrial Revolution brought the utility and importance of science to the public’s imagination. In America, President Abraham Lincoln created what was to become the National Academy of Sciences to help with technical problems during the Civil War. At the end of the war, the American Association for the Promotion of Social Science met in Boston, and other voluntary associations on emerging disciplines, such as psychology and sociology, cropped up in subsequent decades. Postsecondary education was strengthened by the creation of graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University and Clark University, and the Wisconsin Idea at the University of Wisconsin-Madison tied scholarship explicitly to public policy. The Progressive Era and the Great Depression saw bursts of scholarly participation to address social concerns, such as poverty. The 1960s and 1970s saw a high-water mark in the use of science to solve social issues. Recently, those hopes have faded, though the authors find much reason for continued hope.
