A Year’s Worth of Thinking About Science Policy
Science Progress’s Contributions to a Core National Debate
SOURCE: SP
It’s entirely possible for research to thrive even as the influence and relevance of science, in policy and to the average citizen, decline. Reflections on a dramatic conversation to elevate science in America.
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Science, Cultured
Science Progress contributing editor Chris Mooney surveys the interactions between science, politics, and culture from Los Angeles, California. He is author of two previous books, The Republican War on Science and Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming. He blogs at The Intersection with Sheril Kirshenbaum. (Photo: flickr.com/sarahfelicity)
When I started writing for Science Progress a year ago, I wasn’t sure what kind of publication would materialize. True, I had some idea of the kinds of arguments I myself would contribute—being known, among other matters, for discussing political interference with science and the problem of science communication—but it wasn’t clear where the broader experiment would go.
At its one year anniversary, however, I can honestly say that in my opinion, this site—regularly featuring the work of Rick Weiss, Jonathan Moreno, and numerous other insightful contributors—ranks among the very best sources of timely, rigorous, and intellectually serious science policy thinking on the web.
To see that, let’s peruse some of the important threads that have been pursued here over the last year, to give a sense both of the extensive scope and of the quality of analysis. I want to talk about five themes in particular that have recurred at Science Progress: how to restore science advice to the next president and next administration, including revitalizing the role of science in the federal government; the parallel importance of science in Congress; the challenges facing young scientists in America today, especially in the context of concerns about preserving our scientific competitiveness; the knotty but crucial problem of science communication; and the future of the life sciences.
In the wake of an administration that failed to make science a priority, Science Progress writers have worked to outline a better, healthier course for next president to take. Ranging from my own parsing of the National Academies’ advice for the next administration—most notably, that it must quickly appoint a presidential science adviser who can restore the prominence of this role—to bioethicist Art Caplan’s attempt to put six pressing science policy concerns on the administration’s radar (hint: we have to do far more than simply resolve the stem cell issue), you might say Science Progress has provided a cheat sheet concerning what to do, and what to pay attention to, should you happen to be running a government that actually wants to heed the “reality-based community.” Of foremost importance to that government will be having scientists on hand and allowing them easy access to the president and other top policymakers, not only to advise on the issues of the moment but also to provide foresight—so that the issues of the future, like synthetic biology or geoengineering, won’t take anyone by surprise.
And as with the administration, so with Congress—the House and Senate haven’t exactly been science-friendly places of late, but that can and must change. First, there’s the needed but long-delayed solution of bringing back the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, discussed in this column by Darlene Cavalier. But there’s also the imperative to get more science-friendly members of Congress elected to begin with, so as to improve the scientific literacy of the body from within. We must pursue multiple strategies simultaneously to increase the resonance of science for the average legislator, so that he or she can see that science underlies many or even most important issues handled in Congress and, indeed, directly affects voters back home.
The advancement of scientific research isn’t the same as progress in scientific outreach and communication, and the science community has traditionally privileged the former and given short shrift to the latter.
Science Progress has also been an important outlet for analysis on what is arguably the most visible issue in science policy today: How to ensure ongoing U.S. competitiveness in the face of challenges from emerging science superpowers like India and China. But while authors writing here certainly wouldn’t argue that such competitiveness concerns should be ignored, they have brought out an important sub-theme that has all too frequently been neglected: Namely, that if we want to compete in the broadest sense of the term, simply producing more scientists isn’t enough. For after all, note Science Progress contributors Sheril Kirshenbaum and Beryl Lieff Benderly, we already have staggering numbers of talented young postdocs stuck in holding patterns, without nearly enough academic jobs awaiting them. There is a constriction of opportunity for the youngest scientists in America, and if we want to remain competitive, that’s just as serious an issue as the total number of scientists and engineers we’re producing.
Another important, related wrinkle has been the argument that international scientific competitiveness, alone, may not be enough. For while the United States must continue to excel in research (and let us not forget that our nation still leads the world in science), it’s entirely possible for laboratory science to thrive even as the influence and relevance of science, in policy and to the average citizen, decline. In other words, the advancement of scientific research isn’t the same as progress in scientific outreach and communication, and the science community has traditionally privileged the former and given short shrift to the latter. And so a recurring theme here has been that scientists must study the modern media, and engage in outreach to other important sectors of society. Moreover, such outreach must go beyond simply lecturing about the facts, and come to include broad public engagement on equal footing with non-scientists—as Rick Borchelt and Kathy Hudson argue—which is the only way to break down the walls between the experts and everybody else, rather than reinforcing them.
Such rapprochement will be particularly critical going forward as we watch science generate a deeper and deeper understanding of ourselves. Today genetic research is bringing us ever closer to a world in which being able to sample each individual’s DNA will trigger personalized medical solutions tailored to a given arrangement of base-pairs; even as burgeoning neuroscience work is explaining more and more about how we actually come to be the creatures we are, from the brain up. Ongoing, rapid progress in such fields will raise a host of new ethical concerns and has great potential to alarm the public by calling into question traditional concepts of identity, free will, morality, and obligations between generations. Once again, Science Progress has become a leader in analyzing the bioethical challenges implicit in these unstoppable new discoveries.
We live in a paradoxical time. One the one hand, it’s one in which science is changing our world more than ever before, and matters to policy and individual lives more than ever. Yet at the same time, it has become increasingly difficult to get science on the radar of politicians, the media, and the public, and to make it resonate. In this context, Science Progress plays a unique role as a connector between scientific research and the policy and public process—a task that’s now more vital than ever, and that will only grow more so in 2008 and beyond.
Chris Mooney is a contributing editor to Science Progress and the author of two books, The Republican War on Science and Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming. He blogs on The Intersection with Sheril Kirshenbaum.
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