My mother, who was born in Colorado and lived to the age of 105, was 10 years old when the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk, a flight that could have taken place inside the Space Shuttle’s fuel tank were it placed on its side. In her lifetime, she met friends of mine who had walked on the moon. She was 3 years old when Henry Ford built his first automobile. Life expectancy at birth in America was then 47 years, and telephone service had just opened between New York and Chicago. There were no X-ray machines because Röntgen had not yet discovered X-rays, and it would be 2 more years before the first radio signal was sent. More than 20 million horses provided much of America’s transportation and motive power.

Of course, there were no MRIs, televisions, GPS, iPods, artificial joints, digital computers, laser eye surgery, stents, or even knowledge of such things as the Higgs particle.

Each new scientific and technological advance seemed to find its way into America’s homes more rapidly than its predecessor, taking, for example, about 50 years for half the nation’s homes to have electricity, 15 years for television, and 12 years for the smart phone. But such advances, fundamentally made possible by achievements in science, have created major dilemmas for the nation’s policy-making enterprise—not to mention glacial legal system—as they try to keep pace with the societal issues posed.

Consider the implications for what some would characterize as a rather mundane matter: patent policy, with the first patent having been signed by George Washington for a process used in the production of fertilizer. Today, one of the driving factors in the high cost of biopharmaceuticals—some of which are indispensable to people’s lives—is that years ago Congress provided the creators of certain new products protection from competition in the marketplace for a specified period of time. Critics often refer to this practice as a “legalized monopoly,” in which consumer prices are generally set by whatever the market will bear. On the other hand, what motivation might a pharmaceutical company have to fund research and to develop new products if the results of its work can immediately, and legally, be copied by competitors who furthermore, did not have to bear the cost of discovery?

Policy debates over science and technology matter. Many of the most fundamental challenges facing our nation today are likely to find much of their solution in achievements in the fields of science and technology. This is the case for such matters as producing energy that does not harm the planet’s environment, providing health care, rebuilding infrastructure, providing national security, and sustaining a globally competitive economy that will underpin a quality standard of living.

But establishing policies governing matters of science and technology has often proven to be agonizingly complex, in large part because scientific breakthroughs and their technological applications can be accompanied by both negative and positive consequences.

For example, how does one balance the benefits of research on clean commercial nuclear energy with concerns over proliferation of nuclear weaponry? How does one balance the enormous promise of medical developments derived from ever-expanding knowledge of the human genome with the difficult ethical issues surrounding such eventualities as designer babies? How does one address the impact of advancements in robotics that free humans from many onerous aspects of physical labor in comparison with the destructive effects these same devices can have on people’s jobs? Or the substantial benefits of artificial intelligence wherein machines are increasingly able to outperform humans in some tasks, but can also destroy the jobs of people whose livelihood depends upon mental prowess? Or GPS, which is treasured by much of the public, yet can also be used by terrorists or to invade one’s privacy? Or hydraulic fracking, which is freeing America of its long dependence on foreign nations to supply much of its energy, yet is outlawed in some states because of deeply held environmental concerns?

Looking to the future, issues accompanying scientific and technological breakthroughs are likely to become still more complicated. For example, widespread use of all-electric vehicles is not far down the road, based on advances in energy storage and related fields. Such research offers great promise for a much cleaner environment, but the implications for those whose jobs involve extracting, processing, and distributing traditional fuels are ominous. And what is going to replace the revenue derived from taxes on gasoline that underpin much of the nation’s highway construction if no gasoline is sold?

A bit further down the road are self-driving cars and trucks. While offering the possibility of saving many lives—over 90% of fatalities in vehicular accidents in America during the past year are attributable to driver error—what might be the implications for establishing legal liability in the case of accidents, as well as replacing the livelihoods of the nation’s nearly four million truck drivers? And what of the great medical breakthroughs now being achieved? Is it better to extend an elderly person’s life by 6 months or to devote the requisite funds to enabling his or her grandchild to attend college? As if such conundrums were not difficult enough in their own right, the results of science and technology have a way of introducing unpredictability, as when a tree fell in Ohio and shut off electric power to much of New England and part of Canada.

One thing seems certain, and that is, the nation will need a cadre of individuals highly proficient in science and technology as well as public policy. A shortage of such talent is likely to lead to such outcomes as occurred a number of years ago when the legislature in one state proclaimed, for the convenience of commerce, that the figure π would forever after in that state be deemed to be precisely 3.2—so much for 3.1415926…—displaying a lack of understanding of rounding that matches a lack of understanding of mathematics.

The attitude evidenced by most scientists and some engineers is that “science is science and policy is policy, and never the twain shall meet.” That principle has only one problem: it is demonstrably wrong. The argument favoring the proposition is that science is founded upon the irrevocable laws of nature, whereas “policy” is based on highly revocable laws of fallible humans. While that is true, the world does not operate in such a convenient manner. Consider the collision of science and technology with policy formulation as it affected the superconducting supercollider, stem cell research, fusion energy research, the supersonic transport, and applications of artificial intelligence and genomic research in arenas affecting individual privacy. To many scientists, the sanctity of their role would be contaminated were they to enter the politicized world of policy. The result of that position arguably has served neither science nor the nation well. We find ourselves denied the views of the very individuals who have much to contribute to debates over science and technology policy. As an example of the consequences, in one recent year, fully half the physicists in the 435-member Congress retired…leaving us with one physicist.

Further adding complexity to the promulgation of sound science and technology policy, science and technology encompass a broad spectrum of disciplines, and advances are increasingly being made at the intersection of the two. For example, one survey found that when practicing physicians were asked what recent advances had been most significant in enhancing their ability to serve their patients, three of the top five responses were from the field of engineering—not from traditional biomedical research.

The search for individuals possessing broad scientific or technological credentials accompanied by an understanding of policy formation is clearly influenced by the public’s not uncommon characterization of such individuals as “nerd geeks!” (Confession: I am one of them, having spent a decade in government policy positions, several decades in industrial research and management, and a few years in academia.)

Fortunately, in this book Michael S. Lubell has provided a remarkably insightful and extraordinarily well-written treatise tying together policy and science—from the time of the founding fathers to the age of genomics, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. It is a book that should be read by anyone with an interest in science and technology, or public policy, or both; and especially by those with an interest in neither, but whose lives are being profoundly affected by both.

In addition to a fascinating tour de force of real-world science policy issues, the author—himself a scientist with deep roots in policy-making—occasionally provides a first-hand perspective. Not everyone will, of course, agree with every word of these perspectives; but, then, not everyone will disagree either. That is the essence of science policy-making.