ABSTRACT
As that archdeconstructionist Jacques Derrida might say, science policy is captive to the “metaphysics of presence.” In other words, science policy is treated as something that occurs only when traces of intervention are left (e.g. added funding or regulation), but not when such traces are lacking (e.g. allowing science to continue as is). Yet policy is always being made even when nothing is changed (Bachrach and Baratz 1962). Refusing to steer the course of science policy is a very potent form of science policy. One reason why this axiom of policy science is rarely given its due in science policy is that both the public and its policymaking representatives regard science as something that proceeds in a relatively autonomous fashion. Science policy is, therefore, something that intrudes, for better or worse, on this ongoing enterprise. In much of my earlier work (Fuller 1989: esp. Chap. 1, Coda), directed at the internal history of science, I wanted to deconstruct a bad pun that had been masquerading as a sound argument, to wit: If the trajectory of scientific research is subject to inertial motion, then the trajectory of science policy should be subject to institutional inertia. Even if the antecedent of this conditional were true, which it is not, only an inductivist of the naivest sort (or, in political terms, a traditionalist of the most conservative cast) would accept its consequent.
