A smiling older man with short gray hair and a mustache, wearing a navy blazer and a checkered shirt, outdoors with a blurred green background.

James Lawrence Powell

Geologist, Science Policy Scholar, and Author

Book cover titled 'The Rise and Fall of Federal Science' by James Lawrence Powell, featuring a stylized image of the U.S. Capitol building with a crack running through it, against a dark background.

The Rise and Fall of Federal Science

Over more than two centuries, the United States built a partnership between government and science that helped make the nation a world leader in discovery. The Rise and Fall of Federal Science tells how that system was built—and how, in just 18 months, its survival has been jeopardized.

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Current Project

Science Corrects Itself: How Evidence Overcomes Error and Resistance

A completed manuscript examining major scientific revolutions and controversies—from Copernicus and Semmelweis to plate tectonics and the dinosaur extinction—to ask how science corrects error and overcomes resistance to new evidence.