Science for Public Policy

282 Pages·1987·4.109 MB·English

by  H. Brooks and C.L. Cooper (Eds.)

SCIENCE
for
PUBLIC POLICY
Edited by
HARVEY BROOKS
and
CHESTER L. COOPER
PERGAMON PRESS
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First edition 1987
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Science for public policy.
Includes bibliographies.
I. Science and state. I. Brooks, Harvey.
II. Cooper, Chester L.
Q125.S434314 1986 338.9'26 86-22654
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Science for public policy.
1. Scientists in government
I. Brooks, Harvey II. Cooper, Chester L.
351.007'25 Q125
ISBN 0-08-034770-3
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter
Preface
Since the turn of the century, and particularly since World War II, national
and international policymakers have been confronted by a growing number
of complex problems whose resolution hangs, to a significant degree, on
scientific knowledge or technological insights. Yet, most policymakers have
little or no background in science and technology. This puts a considerable
premium on the quality and clarity of scientific/technical advice they seek
and receive. And this, in turn, requires a high degree of mutual sensitivity
and understanding between the policy and science communities. It is no
wonder, then, that many national governments and international institutions
have recently come to rely on "Science Advisors" to provide a bridge between
the two communities in order to increase the effectiveness of Science for
Public Policy.
In this volume, a score of authors from several countries, both East and
West, and many backgrounds and "disciplines" examine Science for Public
Policy. Environmental problems and policy provide much of the focus of the
discussion.
From their vantage points as scientists, or policymakers, or science
advisors, the authors examine the issue and explore ways to improve the
quality and timeliness of scientific advice to decision makers.
Preliminary versions of many of the essays included here were presented at
an international forum on Science for Public Policy held at the International
Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in January 1984. Most of these
were subsequently considerably edited and much new material was added.
IIASA is a non-governmental, international research institute located in
Laxenburg, Austria.
This publication was made possible by a grant from the German Marshall
Fund to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the United States
member organization of IIASA. The views expressed here are those of the
authors, and are not necessarily endorsed by IIASA, the American Academy
or the German Marshall Fund.
HARVEY BROOKS, Cambridge, Mass.
CHESTER L. COOPER, Washington, D.C.
í
Acknowledgements
The editors are indebted to Mr. Michael Dowling and Mrs. Roberta Yared,
who edited the original proceedings of the Science for Public Policy Forum
held at IIASA in January 1984.
They are also grateful to members of IIASA's publications division, who
prepared and processed various versions of the manuscript.
Finally, they owe thanks to Professor C. S. Holling, Director of IIASA at
the time of the Science for Public Policy Forum.
vi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction and Overview
HARVEY BROOKS
The primary purpose of this Forum on Science for Public Policy was to
review and synthesize our present understanding of the actual and possible
modes of interaction between scientific findings and public policy decisions
by both national and international decision makers. A hoped-for outcome
was to be able to use the insights gained from this Forum to increase the
relevance and usefulness of the research undertaken at IIASA to policy-
makers in all the countries of its National Member Organizations and in
International Organizations.
The Forum concerned itself with a quite restricted domain of the field
known as "science policy". The agenda excluded decisions about the
financing of research projects, or the methods of determination of priorities
among various fields of science. Instead, it focused on the use of scientific
evidence, data, and insights to illuminate public policy issues that are not
primarily scientific, but that are strongly dependent on scientific and
technological information. It also considered the use of science in the actual
implementation of decisions about such public policy issues. As a result the
discussion was not about areas of science or research, but about policy
problems of human concern, such as food, energy, environmental regulation,
health maintenance and improvement, hazardous waste management and
disposal, arms control, methods of dispute resolution between institutions,
social groups, and nations.
Although scientific and technological information may be quite crucial to
the making of public policy decisions in such areas, it is still only one among
many factors that have to be taken into account, something that is not always
fully appreciated by scientists. One of the major challenges, therefore, is how
to blend technical and nontechnical considerations in the final decision—how
to act, for example, when scientific information is uncertain or there are large
areas of scientific ignorance or wide disagreements among apparently equally
respectable experts both as to the characterization of the technical problem
and the implications of the data for political or other societal action.
We chose the problems of acid rain and carbon dioxide build-up as two
concrete, illustrative issues—one relatively immediate, and the other of a
1
2 Science for Public Policy
much longer time range—to exemplify the more general process and
communication questions that we anticipated would be the main topics of
discussion. The discussions in the Forum were not restricted to these
examples, nor did the participants attempt to reach a consensus, either
scientific or policy-oriented, on these two issues. The participants were
encouraged by the organizers of the Forum to keep in mind the value of being
as concrete as possible, so that generalizations would always be supported by
examples of actual decisions, whether historical or prospective.
Some of the questions we hoped the Forum would throw light on were the
following: How should knowledge be packaged in a form that is most useful
to those faced with the task of using this knowledge in the making and
implementation of policy decisions? What guidance should scientists
reasonably expect from policymakers as they try to establish their research
agendas in such a way as to be relevant to policy? What kind of guidance
would scientists prefer and what kind would they consider inappropriate as,
for example, compromising their independence as scientists? What is the
advantage of international research institutions in comparison with their
national counterparts working in similar fields? From what sources should
international research institutions expect guidance on their research agendas?
Similarly, what kinds of answers can policymakers reasonably expect from
scientists without attempting to push them to conclusions that simply cannot
be extracted from existing data, given the current state of knowledge in the
relevant technical fields? How do the findings of research get onto the agenda
of policymakers, and what role should science and research play in
establishing priorities among policy issues that should command the
attention of the public and decision makers? What is the dividing line
between keeping research relevant to policy and distorting the scientific
process through excessive responsiveness to current policy needs or
institutional and power structures?
IIASA provides an almost unique institutional setting for integrating
experiences with the interface between science and policy in widely different
political and economic systems. There is nothing as valuable as the
opportunity to view a policy issue important to one society through the lens
of an entirely different political and economic set-up; such a situation exists
between the socialist countries and the market economies. One of the hopes is
that problems which appear intractable when viewed from the habitual
perspective of one society will reveal themselves as amenable to new, hitherto
unconsidered, approaches when viewed from the standpoint of an entirely
different social setting. The depoliticization of contentious social issues,
which can occur in an institution such as IIASA, is certainly one of the most
important benefits, to both Eastern and Western societies, of this type of
research institution. We live in a world where more and more of the most
important problems are either common to many societies differing widely in
Introduction and Overview 3
their political and social systems or stages of industrialization, or transcend
the usual political boundaries and jurisdictions, so that they can be solved
only by mutual agreement based on negotiation from a more or less agreed
knowledge base.
A New Science?
A constantly recurring theme in the discussions was whether science for
public policy should be regarded as a new and different kind of science, with
its own rules and paradigms distinct from traditional academic science, and
ultimately demanding a new kind of scientific education or apprenticeship.
Nowotny referred to this new science as "managerial science", while Ravetz
envisaged it as "a new sort of science, working in partnership with
policymaking for the control of uncertainty and the management of
ignorance". Brickman referred to policy science as "an effective tool of
consensus", suggesting that consensus was the indispensable tool of effective
social action, and that consensus on policy often made science unnecessary or
irrelevant. In other words science for public policy should be looked upon as
only one of the many kits of tools available to the policymaker or the policy
"entrepreneur" for forging a political consensus on the appropriate direction
for social action. Brickman pointed out that there were many cases where
"compelling scientific evidence can reduce political controversy", and the
search for such opportunities should be one of the principal goals for a
research institution aimed at developing knowledge for policy. Nevertheless,
one should be careful not to expect that scientific consensus should be a
necessary condition for policy consensus, an expectation to which scientists
tend to be too prone.
Others pointed to the hazards of "scientific relativism" inherent in the
notion of a distinctive kind of science as a tool of public policy. Brian Wynne,
for example, called attention to the large element of "craft judgment"
inherent in the normal processes of science. He argued that the "temporary
setting aside, on a judgmental basis, of many inconsistencies and anomalies"
is essential to the progress of scientific research. Insistence in practice on the
"tidy objectivity" and procedural rigor supposed to be the dominant
characteristic of scientific work would, in fact, lead to stagnation in science.
At the same time, these informal tacit understandings within the social
system of science open science to attack by critics who are unhappy with the
policy conclusions drawn from scientific knowledge. It is, indeed, true that
the discretionary judgment accorded to scientists within the social system of
science can be the vehicle by which, in the opinion of Charvat, "science as a
social phenomenon absorbs to an increasing extent the features of the
surrounding society and culture".
4 Science for Public Policy
Generally speaking, the more centrally planned and managed the policy
system, the more legitimate politically is the informal, discretionary
evaluation of technical evidence and uncertainties by experts likely to be. In
the American system, which lies at one extreme, with multiple channels of
access to the policy process by diverse groups, any informal discretion in the
exercise of technical judgment on scientific issues with policy implications
tends to be hunted down and rooted out as an abuse, as emphasized by Brian
Wynne. In defence against this attack, regulatory legislation and administra-
tive rules, strongly reinforced by the judiciary, tend to be more and more
surrounded with inflexibly specified inference rules, which narrow the scope
of expert judgment and, indeed, supersede the customary social processes of
science as pursued outside the policy context. Nowotny suggests that, as
other political systems gradually become more open to public scrutiny, and
more open and forthright in admitting uncertainty and tentativeness in
scientific conclusions, the public may become increasingly doubtful of the
legitimacy of science and adopt a sort of scientific "relativism" in which all
scientific assertions can be considered equally legitimate, and the political
system should be free to select whatever version of the truth best conforms to
the political preferences of the democratic majority or of particular élites in a
position advantageous to registering their views in the political system.
In short, the more the results of science are explicitly designed to function
as tools in the policy process, the more knowledge is shaped by its intended
function—which Ravetz suggests should be the criterion for policy science as
compared to academic science—the greater the danger that not only the form,
but also the substance of scientific truth will be distorted to fit policy
preferences, not just policy needs. Thus, as suggested by Wynne, it is
important that the "procedural ideals of science"—that is, of traditional
academic science—be permitted to exercise a real quality-control effect over
the science used to justify policy.
In summary, it is my own conclusion that, however much the agenda of
research or the packaging of its results are modified to meet the requirements
of policymaking, there remains, in the words of a well-known report of the
US National Science Board, "only one science, only one set of standards for
evaluating evidence".
On the other hand, there is bound to remain an inherent tension between
the dynamic, provisional, and tentative nature of scientific knowledge in the
midst of its processes of generation, and the need for some sort of stability
and predictability in the policymaking process. Regulation cannot respond to
each new piece of scientific information, let alone to public perceptions of
that information, often dictated by the more or less random occurrence of the
low-probability events that redirect regulatory or policy priorities.
Introduction and Overview 5
Uncertainty and Ignorance
Another theme that dominated the discussion, closely related to the
preceding one, was that of technical uncertainty. Indeed, it is frequently
technical uncertainty that makes policy problems, as contrasted with policy
decisions prompted by "compelling scientific evidence". Unfortunately, the
latter are the exception rather than the rule in science for public policy.
Although uncertainty or ignorance exists only at the "margins" of science
(Ravetz), it is at these margins that most public policy problems involving
science occur. One reason for this is that the consequences of the application
of technology frequently carry us into domains where there exists no
systematic or codified body of knowledge on which policy can be based. The
present controversy over the management of hazardous wastes is a prime
example (Ravetz). In the US there has been a whole series of new
environmental laws, passed mostly in the 1970s, the implementation of
which, in effect, presumes the existence of such a body of systematic
knowledge, when all that we have, in fact, is scattered facts and empirical
data with more gaps than information. Yet the possible consequences of what
we do not know often do not allow us the luxury of suspending judgment
pending the acquisition of more data and better theory, as would be the case
in ordinary science.
Ravetz makes a distinction between ignorance and uncertainty, which is
highly important for policy purposes. Uncertainty is an absence of knowledge
that exists within "a completely articulated structure", a definite intellectual
framework. It is simply a recognized gap in a systematic body of knowledge.
In general, uncertainty in the policy context can be handled by well-
developed analytic tools, such as decision theory, and various modes of
statistical inference. In other words, it can be incorporated within the normal
paradigms of science.
Ignorance, on the other hand, involves knowledge whose very existence
may be unsuspected. Not only do we not know the numbers; we may not
even know they exist or that there is something to measure. There may be
clues lurking somewhere in the background, which, we would recognize
later, should have alerted us to something important, but these clues are
usually only significant in retrospect, after they can be fitted into an
"articulated framework".
Actually, it is important to recognize gradations of ignorance. There is
knowledge that, for all practical purposes, nobody knows exists, not even to
look for it, never mind knowing where to look for it. There is also ignorance
that is contextual: the knowledge actually exists, but the people—
policymakers and experts—who are in a position to apply the knowledge are
unaware of its existence and the few people who may have mastered the
knowledge are not aware of its policy significance. In general, I think it is this
6 Science for Public Policy
second type of ignorance that is the more important in practice. For example,
a few people were aware of the potential health hazards of asbestos as much as
50 years ago, but it was much more recently that this knowledge began to
force itself into the general consciousness of the industrial hygiene
community. One of the major aims of policy research institutions should be
to insure that this type of ignorance does not persist too long, that "clouds no
bigger than a man's hand" are spotted early and improbable clues are
followed up. In many cases, those who should be aware of such knowledge
are subconsciously reluctant to hear about it and tend to remain inordinately
skeptical until cumulative evidence becomes overwhelming.
Wetstone has pointed out in his chapter how national studies on the
environmental effects of long-range atmospheric transport and deposition of
sulphur compounds were given little credence outside their own boundaries,
as long as the main sources and victims were in different countries. Only
when Ulrich put forward evidence that sulphur emissions might be affecting
German forests was the "acid rain" issue taken seriously in the Federal
Republic. This experience suggests the importance of key actors or events in
bringing new knowledge into the everyday consciousness of policymakers, a
topic to which the Forum devoted a good deal of attention, discussed below.
Although it has many disadvantages the system of adversarial science
prevalent in the US has considerable advantages in bringing to light
knowledge that might not otherwise come to policy attention because of
"contextual ignorance", as discussed above. Such adversarial groups often
overstate their case and present evidence selectively to bolster a particular
policy position while ignoring other evidence, but the result is that new
information is brought forward and debated as part of the mainstream agenda
of policy. In more consensual systems, in which politicians and the electorate
are more inclined to defer to recognized experts, contextual ignorance is more
likely to persist for longer.
Differences in the social and cultural context of science for public policy in
different national systems, when confronted with each other in the setting of
an international policy research institution, may also accelerate the bringing
to light of areas of contextual ignorance.
Although ignorance giving rise to surprise is a more frequent problem and
more difficult to deal with than uncertainty, the latter also leaves large scope
for the exercise of political or cultural bias in the interpretation of scientific
evidence. This is particularly true with reference to decisions as to where the
burden of proof should lie in whether or not to permit the introduction of
new technologies. A useful device in this connection may be to force the
proponents of various positions to identify what evidence or what narrowing
of uncertainty would cause them to change their policy preferences.