Subject: Democratizing Science? (Loka Alert 2-3) Loka Alert 2-3 (15 March 1995) Friends and Colleagues: This is one in an occasional series of electronic postings on democratic politics of science and technology, issued by the Loka Institute. You are welcome to re-post it anywhere you feel is appropriate. If you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Loka list, please send an e-mail message to that effect to: loka@amherst.edu --Dick Sclove Executive Director, The Loka Institute, P.O. Box 355, Amherst, MA 01004-0355, USA Tel. 413 253-2828; Fax 413 253-4942 E-mail: loka@amherst.edu ***************************************************************** DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE? The "Letters" section of the current issue of _Technology Review_ (vol. 98, no. 3, April 1995, p. 6) opens with a letter I submitted entitled "Science and the People." The letter constructively criticizes, and elaborates on, an article written by my friends Dave Guston and Ken Keniston about the need to rewrite the "social contract" governing science-society relations in the U.S. The published letter is somewhat shorter and toned down compared to the one I originally submitted. Here is the original version. Cheers to all, Dick Sclove ________________________________________________________________ "Updating the Social Contract for Science" by Guston and Keniston (_Technology Review_, Nov./Dec. 1994) ably summarizes government-science relations over the past half-century. However, as a basis for negotiating a new contract, their analysis of science is oversimplified. The authors characterize university science as a closed and delicate social enterprise funded principally by government and necessary to technological progress and socioeconomic well being. On this basis, they conclude that government and an informed public have a right to participate in setting broad scientific research priorities but dare not intrude more deeply into the actual conduct of science. The reality of modern scientific practice and social relations is considerably more complex. Aside from an ongoing strong presence by the military, other nonscientific actors who significantly influence the conduct of science include university trustees, nonprofit foundations, corporate executives, planning and marketing professionals, financiers and stock holders, lawyers, accountants, insurers, journalists, and public-interest groups...as well as policy analysts such as Guston and Keniston. The authors also neglect to comment on the well established argument that the military and other government agencies, business, and academic scientists share an interest in obscuring the inextricable interdependence of facts and values within scientifically informed policy judgments, thereby enabling use of science for erecting barriers to broader democratic participation in policy making. Finally, the authors fail to note that scientists are often quite _inexpert_ in understanding science's broader cultural and political repercussions and thus should be encouraged to enter the public domain prepared not only to educate but also to learn. While some may point to Stalinist and Nazi distortions of science as examples of what can result from societal interference, it's important to remember that those experiences did not result from societal involvement per se but from the interventions of totalitarian states. Under different circumstances, one can find numerous examples of lay public involvement that have been constructive. Laypeople sit on medical ethics review boards, and research collaborations between grassroots groups and university scientists are responsible for a growing number of epidemiological insights. Pharmaceutical companies display enormous interest in indigenous peoples' botanical acumen, while cutting-edge agricultural biotechnology relies extensively on the selective breeding achievements of Third World farmers. In Sweden, laypeople are in the majority on the government's well-regarded Council for Planning and Coordination of Research; and Japan, Germany, and other European nations have pioneered processes for involving both workers and users in developing new technologies and consumer products. The Danish government appoints panels of everyday citizens to cross-examine a range of experts, deliberate among themselves, and then publish their own social assessments of scientific consequences and of alternative science and technology policies; this process is now being emulated in other countries, including the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, Dutch universities have created a network of 50 public "science shops" to respond to the concerns of community groups and public-interest organizations about social and technological issues. Each shop's paid staff and student interns screen questions and refer challenging problems to university volunteers, both students and faculty. This system has helped environmentalists analyze industrial pollutants, workers evaluate the health and employment consequences of new production processes, and social workers better understand the life circumstances of disaffected teenagers. Thus while also forging U.S.-style collaborations with government and industry, the Dutch university system has found a way to more directly serve society as well. As to science's uplifting cultural or spiritual role--a function stressed by U.S. physicists, for instance, in their unsuccessful defense of the Super Conducting Supercollider-- perhaps some circumspection and even humility is in order. Amateur athletes, poets and Buddhist monks, after all, profess a similar function while making vastly lesser claims on the public treasury and only rarely spawning toxic wastes or weapons of mass destruction as concomitant fruits of their labors. Finally, whereas Guston and Keniston insist that science is uniquely dedicated to truth, others might counter that a reinvigorated democracy--including a more open and culturally pluralistic organization of science--harbors the greatest promise of establishing truth and impartiality born of the full representation of competing viewpoints in social deliberations that are as open and egalitarian as possible. Some social scholars of science hypothesize that indeed a more democratic science would also advance the pace and breadth of scientific understanding, technical invention, and economic innovation. Surely, any new and fruitful social contract for science will have to draw on a more nuanced account of science-society relations than that advanced by the authors. RICHARD E. SCLOVE Executive Director The Loka Institute Amherst, Mass. Richard E. Sclove is the author of the forthcoming book _Democracy and Technology_ (New York: Guilford Press, Summer 1995). The book can be ordered in paperback for U.S. $18.95 from Guilford Publications, 72 Spring St., New York, NY 10012, USA; Tel. +(212) 431-9800; Tel. toll free (800) 365-7006; Fax +(212) 966-6708. ***************************************************************** Traffic on the Loka Institute e-mail list (Loka-L)--which distributes Loka Alerts as a one-way news-and-opinion distribution service--is intentionally kept low (an average of one message every 3 or 4 weeks), to protect overbusy people from unwanted clutter. To be added to, or removed from, the list, please send an e-mail message to that effect to: loka@amherst.edu To participate more actively in promoting a democratic politics of science and technology--or to communicate directly with others on the Loka list--please join the Federation of Activists on Science & Technology Network (FASTnet). Just send an e-mail message to: majordomo@igc.apc.org. Leave the subject line blank. The text of your message should read: subscribe FASTnet You will receive an automated reply giving more details. FASTnet is now a moderated discussion list, which protects subscribers from receiving posts inappropriate to the list's purpose. FASTnet and Loka Alerts are activities of the Loka Institute's Technology & Democracy Project, which promotes a strong grassroots, worker, and public-interest group voice in science and technology decisionmaking. The project is made possible through the generosity of individual donors as well as grants from nonprofit foundations, including the Foundation for Deep Ecology, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Menemsha Fund, and Rockefeller Family Associates. For information on contributing, please contact Dick Sclove at the address shown at the top of this alert. There are currently 944 people and organizations worldwide on the Loka e-mail list (plus others reading via the Institute for Global Communications' electronic conference loka.alerts, via repostings to other electronic lists, and via authorized republication in various newsletters and magazines). My apologies for the multiple copies of this post that you received if you are subscribed to more than one of the Loka Institute lists.