Democratizing Science

David H. Guston (“Forget Politicizing Science. Let’s Democratize Science!” (Issues, Fall 2004) rightly argues that public discussion should move beyond bickering over the politicization of science and consider how science can be made more compatible with democracy. But that may be difficult without some discussion of what politicization is. One useful concept says that politics is the intersection of power and conflict. So if conflicts of opinion on a science advisory committee are resolved through fair discussion, they are not political. Voting on advisory committees, however, amounts to the political resolution of conflicts through the equal distribution of power. Similarly, even though good advice may enhance the power of public officials, it would be odd to call appointing the best scientists to an advisory committee political. But such appointments may become political, if they become matters of conflict or if power is used to keep latent conflicts from emerging. Science is thus rarely entirely political, but usually in part; and it always has the potential to become more political.

This view of politics suggests that the Bush administration and its critics are each only half right when accusing the other of politicizing science: The administration has apparently used its power to dominate selected advisory processes, and its critics have publicly contested that use of power. From this perspective, the politicization of science might be compared to the politicization of other social institutions once deemed essentially private. The workplace and the family, for example, have been politicized to a certain extent as part of efforts to fight discrimination and domestic violence, respectively. In each case, politicization was a necessary part of alleviating injustices, and coping with politics proved better than trying to suppress it.

The best way of coping with politics is democracy, and Guston’s suggestions promise a more just distribution of the costs and benefits of science. Pursuing these suggestions effectively will require careful consideration of what democratization means. Guston refers to ideals of accessibility, transparency, accountability, representation, deliberation, participation, and the public interest. These ideals are not always compatible. Creating spaces for public deliberation on science policy, for example, may require limits on transparency and participation, since media scrutiny or too many participants may hinder productive deliberation. And although interest groups are usually not representative of all citizens, they can often enhance participation more effectively than deliberative forums. Democratizing science thus requires a wide variety of institutions, each focused on a limited set of ideals.

More generally, some modes of democratizing science distribute power far more equally than others. If “democratic” means open to public view, accountable to professional associations, and representative of public interests, science has been democratic for much of its history. But if scientists are to be held accountable to elected officials or lay citizens, and if representing the public interest depends on public input, then democratizing science becomes both more controversial and more difficult. Democratizing science thus requires a willingness to politicize not only science but also democracy.

MARK B. BROWN

Assistant Professor

Department of Government

California State University

Sacramento, California

mbrown@csus.edu

David H. Guston is correct to assert that science is political, and his proposals for increasing accessibility, transparency, and accountability in science point us in a positive direction. However, the success of Guston’s proposals will depend on two fundamental reforms. First, comprehensive scientific literacy initiatives must emphasize not just the “facts” of science but should also teach citizens to think critically about science. Second, scientists need to be offered incentives to collaborate with lay citizens in the scientific enterprise.

We need to understand-and teach-that science is not just political in the sense that elected officials engage in the process of setting science policies and funding priorities. The ways in which scientists understand the phenomena they study also reflect an array of social and political factors. Thus, for example, the use of the techniques of the physical sciences in biology beginning in the early 193Os did not come about because nature called on scientists to think about biological phenomena in physical terms, but because the Rockefeller Foundation had the resources to push biologists in this direction. Likewise, nature doesn’t tell scientists to prefer false negalives to false positives in their research. This is a well- established social norm with political implications. Today, a scientist who claims that a phenomenon is real when it is not (a false positive) may hurt her or his professional reputation. By contrast, lay citizens who are concerned about carcinogen exposure in their local environment would probably prefer to be incorrectly informed that they were exposed (a false positive) than that they were not (a false negative). In short, science is thoroughly political, reflecting the interplay of actors with varying degrees of power and diverse interests.

To give citizens the sense that science is political in its everyday practice demands that we rethink what it means to be scientifically literate. We must not only teach our children how experiments are done, what a cell is, and the elements that make up water, but also that the phenomena scientists study, the way they study them, and what scientists accept as competent experimental designs all reflect social and political processes. This kind of scientific literacy is the necessary bedrock of a truly democratic science.

Democratizing science also demands that we alter the incentive structure for scientists. Guston points to the virtues of organizations that offer lay citizens the chance to shape research agendas. What motivation do academic scientists have to work with citizens to craft research agendas in such arenas? Will doing so improve the prospect that a junior faculty member will get tenure? Will the results of the citizen-prompted research be publishable in scholarly journals? To successfully democratize science demands that universities broaden their criteria for tenure so that scientists get credit from their colleagues for working with citizens.

I fully endorse Guston’s proposals, but to thoroughly democratize science, we will need to broaden what it means to be scientifically literate and work to alter the structure of incentives scientists have for doing their work.

DANIEL LEE KLEINMAN

Associate Professor of Rural Sociology

University of Wisconsin-Madison

dlkleinman@wisc.edu

Copyright Issues in Science and Technology Winter 2005