Science, Politics, and Environmental Policy
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this course on how science shapes and is shaped by US environmental policy. It covers the methods scientists use to investigate the natural world, how scientific knowledge accumulates and gets contested, and how advocates and the media handle scientific claims in public debate. It examines the role of science in legislative, administrative, and judicial decision making, and compares the US approach to how other political systems incorporate scientific input into policy. Materials include the syllabus, readings, and assignments as published on MIT OpenCourseWare, free to access under MIT's open license. The course suits students interested in environmental policy, science and technology studies, or the politics of expertise, and it draws on case studies of real regulatory and legal disputes to ground the theoretical material in concrete institutional practice.