Groups on the political fringes like to quarrel with science. Some of my fellow travelers on the political right regularly reject evolution and certain findings of climate science. A portion of the political Left, likewise, insists on fighting effective pesticides and vaccination -- often with deadly results. In short, neither party can honestly say it has exiled the anti-science crowd and no party can claim to have the "scientific" answers. And that's just as well. Scientific truth must inform public but simply being right about science doesn't -- and shouldn't -- always provide as much evidence as one might want as to the solutions to complex public policy problems.
Indeed, the problems most easily solved through mere understanding of science aren't all that important. It's certainly desirable that citizens be informed about scientific facts and a rudimentary understanding of the facts of evolution should be part of every high school curriculum. That said, the problem -- understanding evolution -- isn't all that important. Nobody has ever died because they were ignorant about evolution and, unless one wants to work as a biologist, it probably isn't necessary to living a good life. A free society, obviously, must let parents and private schools choose to teach "creation science" even though it obviously isn't science at all.
As things get more consequential, however, the public policy solutions become more difficult. Vaccinating all children against deadly infectious diseases prior to school is certainly a good public health policy. But respect for individual and parental autonomy has long allowed parents to opt out of medical treatments for religious reasons. And this is as it should be particularly when it comes to preventative rather than curative therapies. And some vaccinations -- against chicken pox and conditions that may lead to late-in-life cervical cancer -- do seem to have cost/benefit calculations that ought to render them less-than-mandatory in any case.
And, when the science -- as in the case of climate change -- reflects on future events with potentially vast but unknown consequences, the calculus becomes even harder to work out. While it's easy to show that climate change is real, human caused to a significant degree, and likely to have a number of negative future consequences, the public policy solutions aren't answerable by scientific means alone. For example, there's no scientific answer to questions about the likely progress of future technologies, the way adaptation measures would (or wouldn't) work, the level future of economic growth, and the most desirable tradeoffs between growth and environmental protection. And all of these are major concerns.
Putting scientists alone in charge of public policy on complex issues, then, is counterproductive. Being able to explain how radiative forcing works provides only very limited insights into the overall costs and benefits of, say, a cap and trade scheme. Scientific training per se gives no insight into economics, public opinion, proper social policy anything else. In the end, the United States is a small-l liberal democracy, not a technocracy. Suggesting that scientists alone should make decisions is a rejection of democracy.
Science has a major and important place in public policy. But a correct understanding of science doesn't necessarily shed as much light as some might wish on complex public policy issues.
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That program is located in the Technocracy Study Course.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2FTechnocracyStudyCourseUnabridged&ei=9pwpUMzDCei9ywHVnoHABA&usg=AFQjCNHGsd8yUcEvYdwWtESQLNV-zJgrCw
http://archive.org/details/TechnocracyStudyCourseUnabridged
Technocracy is advancing the frontier of science to this last stronghold of the past. Technocracy uses the same analytic and synthetic processes on the world of today as the scientist uses in his laboratory. Technocracy uses these methods not on a beaker of chemicals or a cage of white mice, but upon an entire Continent, and upon those aspects of the rest of the world which affect this Continent. Some of the findings of Technocracy aren't particularly well-liked, even by Technocrats; but what we like and what we don't like about the world around us doesn't change the fact of its existence. Technocrats have learned to face the facts and follow the facts, regardless of whether their previous conditioning causes them to like or dislike these facts."
Huh? Eli, I know you know better. Your own example of the role played by vaccines contradicts this ignorant statement. Eradicating polio and small pox weren't "all that important"???? And what about things like pasteurization, sterilization of surgical equipment, and antibiotics? Contrary to the ideological pablum you're spewing here, "mere understanding of science" has solved countless public health "problems," not to mention generated technological innovations like the Internet that have made the world what it is today and given the U.S. the preeminence it has.
If you want people on the left to engage with you on policy issues (and I know you do), educate yourself. Otherwise, as these comments show, you will achieve nothing but rightly deserved derision. The fact is, science has always informred policymaking in the U.S., going all the way back to the Founding Fathers. Washington and Jefferson both saw it as integral to the progress of the new nation. And even relatively recent Republican presidents have recognized how much policies driven by "mere understanding of science" contribute to the health and wealth of the nation.
As previous commenters have stated, most scientists aren't interested in being in charge of public policy. They're interested in doing science and in communicating what they learn from their research to the people who are making policy decisions so that those people can make rational, informed decisions.
When you make statements like: "vaccinations -- against chicken pox and conditions that may lead to late-in-life cervical cancer " you become one of the dangerous fools spreading false information, just because it supports your conformation biases and ignorance. Try putting a solid science backup on that statement -- you can't. Quoting some other fool doesn't make it true any more that quoting the bible makes evolution of humans not true. Not getting vaccinated can cause shingles later in life and that isn't fun.
Apparently you have no concept of how you have fooled yourself about reality.
Biologists, for example, seem to think, all too often, that everything there is to find has already been discovered, regardless of the fact that less than 25% of the planet's surface, including but not limited to ocean, has been fully explored. So it is with climate scientists on either side of the divide.
Make up one's mind early and ignore any evidence not in line with one's own interpretation seems the order of the day in most scientific fields.
I would advise you to read Deadly Monopolies by H. Washington
This is a choice that we must make? Why don't we just agree as long as we must breath air and drink water our need for clean air and water are not to be traded? Necessity is the mother of all invention my friend, not how much money the Koch brothers can hoard. Change the rules and let technology adapt. It's really that simple.
By the way, far more people refuse to get their children vaccinated due to religious concerns and self righteous concerns for their liberty than anything else. These are not typical left side arguments, far from it.
The last time I checked, people get really upset when you insist on the right of peeing in their pool. Your free market mentality infers you are entitled to do so.
That is why, if you want to solve a problem like too much CO2 production, you just add a revenue neutral carbon or oil tax while decreasing taxes on something that you know damages the economy more than the carbon tax will -- like payroll taxes. You don't need a detailed analysis of the economic impact and details of externalities, you just need to know that the carbon/oil taxes will shove CO2 production down and the payroll tax decrease will tend to increase employment. It is just a relative game.
Have you ever tried to institute a fee or tax on carbon? The polluting industry is going to fight that initiative with its last petrodollar, slightly charred and bloody around the edges.