Science policy: policy, politics and perspective

Collaboration and engagement with decision-makers are needed to reduce evidence complacency in wildlife management

There exists an extensive, diverse, and robust evidence base to support complex decisions that address the planetary biodiversity crisis. However, it is generally not sought or used by environmental decision-makers, who instead draw on intuition, experience, or opinion to inform important decisions. Thus, there is a need to examine evidence exchange processes in wildlife management to understand the multiple inputs to decisions. Here, we adopt a novel approach, fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM), to examine perceptions of individuals from Indigenous and Western governments on the reliability of evidence which may influence freshwater fisheries management decisions in British Columbia, Canada. We facilitated four FCM workshops participants representing Indigenous or Western regulatory/governance groups of fisheries managers. Our results show that flows of evidence to decision-makers occur within a relatively closed governance network, constrained to the few well-connected decision-making organizations (i.e., wildlife management agencies) and their close partners. This implies that increased collaboration (i.e., knowledge co-production) and engagement (i.e., knowledge brokerage) with wildlife managers and decision-makers are needed to produce actionable evidence and increase evidence exchange.

Feyerabend, funding, and the freedom of science: the case of traditional Chinese medicine

From the 1970s onwards, Feyerabend argues against the freedom of science. This will seem strange to some, as his epistemological anarchism is often taken to suggest that scientists should be free of even the most basic and obvious norms of science. His argument against the freedom of science is heavily influenced by his case study of the interference of Chinese communists in mainland China during the 1950s wherein the government forced local universities to continue researching traditional Chinese medicine rather than Western medicine. Feyerabend claims this move was justifiable and, eventually, vindicated by the resulting research which was beneficial for locals and the West at large. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis on Feyerabend's views on the freedom of science and his social commentary on US science funding policy that follows therefrom. This proves to be exceedingly difficult because Feyerabend's writings on the subject are filled with gaps, unnoticed tensions, and cognitive dissonance. Still, I think Feyerabend's scattered insights and the contradictions that emerge lead to an interesting microcosm of the issues contained in the freedom of science debate.

Industrial Safety and Utopia: Insights from the Fukushima Daiichi Accident

Feedback from industrial accidents is provided by various state or even international, institutions, and lessons learned can be controversial. However, there has been little research into organizational learning at the international level. This article helps to fill the gap through an in-depth review of official reports of the Fukushima Daiichi accident published shortly after the event. We present a new method to analyze the arguments contained in these voluminous documents. Taking an intertextual perspective, the method focuses on the accident narratives, their rationale, and links between "facts," "causes," and "recommendations." The aim is to evaluate how the findings of the various reports are consistent with (or contradict) "institutionalized knowledge," and identify the social representations that underpin them. We find that although the scientific controversy surrounding the results of the various inquiries reflects different ethical perspectives, they are integrated into the same utopian ideal. The involvement of multiple actors in this controversy raises questions about the public construction of epistemic authority, and we highlight the special status given to the International Atomic Energy Agency in this regard.

Inadvertent advocacy

Policy advocacy is an issue regularly debated among conservation scientists. These debates have focused on intentional policy advocacy by scientists, but advocacy can also be unintentional. I define inadvertent policy advocacy as the act of unintentionally expressing personal policy preferences or ethical judgments in a way that is nearly indistinguishable from scientific judgments. A scientist may be well intentioned and intellectually honest but still inadvertently engage in policy advocacy. There are two ways to inadvertently engage in policy advocacy. First, a scientist expresses an opinion that she or he believes is a scientific judgment but it is actually an ethical judgment or personal policy preference. Second, a scientist expresses an opinion that he or she knows is an ethical judgment or personal policy preference but inadvertently fails to effectively communicate the nature of the opinion to policy makers or the public. I illustrate inadvertent advocacy with three examples: recovery criteria in recovery plans for species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, a scientific peer review of a recovery plan for the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature's definition of threatened. In each example, scientists expressed ethical judgments or policy preferences, but their value judgments were not identified as such, and, hence, their value judgments were opaque to policy makers and the public. Circumstances suggest their advocacy was inadvertent. I believe conservation scientists must become acutely aware of the line between science and policy and avoid inadvertent policy advocacy because it is professional negligence, erodes trust in scientists and science, and perpetuates an ethical vacuum that undermines the rational political discourse necessary for the evolution of society's values. The principal remedy for inadvertent advocacy is education of conservation scientists in an effort to help them understand how science and values interact to fulfill the mission of conservation science.

Progress in Governance of Converging Technologies Integrated from the Nanoscale

It is expected that convergence of nanotechnology, modern biology, the digital revolution, and cognitive sciences will bring about tremendous improvements in transformative tools, generate new products and services, enable human personal abilities and social achievements, and in time reshape societal relationships. This article focuses on the progress made in governance of such converging, emerging technologies that are integrated with more traditional technologies. The proposed framework for governance calls for several key functions: supporting the transformative impact; advancing responsible development that includes health, safety, and ethical concerns; encouraging national and global partnerships; and commitment to long-term planning with effects on human development. Principles of good governance include participation of all those involved or affected by the new technologies, transparency, participant responsibility, and effective strategic planning. Introduction and management of converging technologies must be done with respect for immediate concerns (such as information technology privacy, access to medical advancements, and addressing toxicity of new nanomaterials) and longer-term concerns (such as human development and concern for human integrity, dignity, and welfare). Four levels of governance of converging technologies have been identified: (a) adapting existing regulations and organizations; (b) establishing new programs, regulations, and organizations specifically to handle converging technologies; (c) national policies and institutional capacity building; and (d) international agreements and partnerships.

The risk assessment-policy gap: an example from the UK contaminated land regime

Risk-based regulation assumes that risk assessment can evaluate risks against policy objectives. However, policy goals are often ambiguous and require risk assessors to interpret them for use in risk assessment. This risk assessment-policy gap stems partly from normative and imprecise policy language but is rooted more fundamentally in society's uncertain expectations for the environment. Until this uncertainty is resolved, the democratic and regulatory effectiveness of risk regulation will be undermined by ad hoc policy decisions abdicated to risk assessors.