|
|
| Invitee Comments: Professor Dan Sarewitz | ||
| (Return to Comment Selection) Thanks for your invitation to comment on the world after the Carnegie Commission. Let me quickly touch on three areas that I think have become much more significant over the past decade or so, and thus were not as central to the Commission's work as they might be today. Also, I will not mention a fourth obvious issue--the implications of 9-11 for S&T--since I'm sure that many others more knowledgeable than myself will visit this problem. 1. Democratization of Science Policy. While the Commission was, for its time, admirably adventurous in recommending a national forum for discussion of public R&D goals, much has happened since then to justify a significantly greater concern about a) the connections between S&T agendas and the public good and b) the impacts of public opinion on S&T and its uses. A short list would include: debates over GMOs, cloning, stem cells, etc; general recognition of the unequal benefits conferred by S&T (digital divide; health care disparities; etc.); rise of disease groups and demands for representation in agency decision processes. These and related issues reflect growing problems with the old ways of setting priorites; but successful new institutional models have yet to be developed and implemented. I utterly reject the idea that any of these or related issues can be resolved by improving "science literacy," whatever that is. Rather, they reflect the inherent tension between a force that transforms people's lives on a daily basis, and the desire of people to have some say over how that force is expressed. We need some courageous institutional experimentation here. 2. Science for Decision Making. Again, the Commission recognized the importance of this issue. I think in the intervening decade we have learned that a big problem has to do with how to design research agendas that actually meet the information needs of decision makers. The ongoing climate change fiasco is, in my view, the prime exemplar of the challenge. Institutions need to take account of the demand function in developing research priorities. This can be framed as a research problem (mapping the demand side for information; understanding the decision context) and a cultural problem (bringing producers and users of information together to understand one another's needs and capabilities). The issue is much more complex than simply asking decision makers what information they need ("perfect climate predictions, please"). Ag extension, community public health, industrial research labs, natural hazards research are areas where scientists and users have worked closely together, so there are institutional models. 3. Intellectual Property. IP has raised its head in a number of guises: the AIDS-drug fiasco (and its ironic counterpart, the Cipro scare); privatization of the plant-genetic commons; IP rights over human genetic material; implications of IP regimes for international development; Bayh-Dole and other aspects of the changing academic-private sector interface. Most, if not all, of these issues have to do with benefits-sharing and public-goods science. The problem of developing appropriate IP policies is extraordinarly complex and given to much posturing on both sides. IP can be both an inducement and a barrier to innovation, depending on the situation. Ditto for IP and economic growth. Part of the problem is analytical--we don't entirely understand what is going on. But I suspect that a larger part of the problem is the absence of a level playing field for making governance decisions. (Return to Top) Posted 10/04/02 |
|
Hosted by
The Program for the Human Environment |