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"The central theme in the work of F.A. Hayek was the problem of order in society, and his focus was epistemological: he was concerned with the constraints on knowledge, the problems associated with its distribution, the structures in which it inheres, and the implications of these issues for the understanding of social phenomena generally. But while his work has greatly improved our understanding of market processes, application to more complex social arrangements was not an unambiguous success. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Hayek, Austrian economics, social theory, and the history of economic thought more broadly"--

"The central theme in the work of F.A. Hayek was the problem of order in society, and his focus was epistemological: he was concerned with the constraints on knowledge, the problems associated with its distribution, the structures in which it inheres, and the implications of these issues for the understanding of social phenomena generally. But while his work has greatly improved our understanding of market processes, application to more complex social arrangements was not an unambiguous success. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Hayek, Austrian economics, social theory, and the history of economic thought more broadly"--

The benefits of the liaison between government & science are questioned in terms of the politicization of science to refute the public goods argument as inadequate to assess the impacts of funding on the knowledge that is generated. A brief historical narrative traces government funding of science since the Lewis & Clark expedition, Vannevar Bush's call for "basic research" in Science-the Endless Frontier(1945), & increased government funding throughout WWII. A discussion of rationales for government funding refutes the "market failure" argument of Nelson & Arrows, Dasgupta & David with Kealey, Martino counterarguments. Analysis of science interventionism critiques the assumption of benign, decentralized support in terms of the effects of incentives, the "Big Player" phenomena, risks to quality of output, & Hayek's "knowledge problem". Further politicization of science, although well intentioned, is concluded to have significant implications on the questions asked, & for the plausibility of the kinds of knowledge generated. Tables, Figures, References. J. Harwell

We begin with an economic model of science according to which signals concerning scientific reputation both serve to coordinate the plans of individuals in the scientific domain and ensure that the knowledge that emerges from interactions between scientists and the environment is reliable (McQuade and Butos 2003). Under normal circumstances, scientific order emerges from the publication-citation-reputation (PCR) processes of science (Butos and McQuade 2012). We adopt and extend F.A. Hayek's "non-standard" epistemology according to which knowledge affords successful plan-based action (Scheall 2016). We develop an epistemic theory of social order (Scheall 2015). We discuss the distorting effects on scientific knowledge and, thus, on scientific and social order more broadly, of government interference with the PCR processes of science. Finally, we use the history of the United States federal government's development of standardized dietary guidelines for American consumers and its concomitant interference in the PCR processes of nutritional science as an illustration of our synthesized theory of social order. We conclude that this interference contributed to social disorder in dietary science and beyond.