Previous Fora / 2003

• Permanent update
• Invitation
• Programme
• Participants
• Credits
• News & Views
• Budapest & Hungary
• Contact
• FAQ
• Satellite events
• Video archive

• Plenary Session
• Plenary Session II.
• Knowledge, environment, development
• Knowledge-based economy
• Closing Plenary Session

Speakers

Knowledge and science

Science: Does it matter?

Prof. Dr. Pieter J.D.Drenth
President, All European Academies, The Netherlands

Abstract

1. Introduction

According to Dixy Lee Ray the general public has long been divided into two parts: those who think science can do anything, and those who are afraid it will. Apart from the totally diverging appreciation of its effects, this statement suggests that in fact all of us react affirmatively to the question: does science matter?

In a more serious vein, affirmative answers to this question can also be heard from responsible official sources: 'Relevant science' is one of the corner stones of European Commissioner Busquin's successful plea for a European Research Area. The UK's Prime Minister Blair acknowledged the importance of science for the future of his country in a speech at the Royal Society last year (23-5-02). On 20 January this year, the Irish Deputy Prime Minister Harney stated: "In today's economy, neither natural resources, cheap labour, nor capital stock are as important to the national compettive advantage as innovation built on new ideas and new knowledge." Recently one of the governors of the French CNRS, Henri Audier, warned in Le Monde (08-04-03) that if Europe wants to preserve its role in the world of tomorrow "il est grand temps de fixer comme priorité l'education, la formation, la culture et la recherche". The power of a nation, wrote the Nobel laureate Francois Jacob in the same issue of Le Monde, was long measured by that of its army. To-day, he continued, "elle s'évalue plutôt a son potentiel scientifique." These and many other officials all stressed the importance of science for our economic and social future; in other words, they stressed the relevance of science.

Of course, the discussion on the relevance of (natural, social and human) sciences is not new. It has been the subject of extensive discussions in the Western world during past decades, especially since the neo-Marxist ideologists in the 70s propagated that relevance was equal to the extent to which sciences contributed to the emancipation of the lower classes and to the general ideals of equality and a free and democratic society. Much of the more recent political debate on the appropriateness of scientific research is rooted in a quite different, and equally narrow, definition of relevance, namely as the contribution to industrial and economic growth and development. There is also relevance as seen through the eye of the technologist who sees the relevance of science in simple instrumental terms: the extent to which it furthers the availability of valid and useful instruments for practical application. Clearly, the relevance and usefulness of science refer to diverging goals and contexts, and will be defined differently by various users.

 

2. Types of relevance

It may be appropriate to elaborate on this concept of relevance. I propose a distinction between four types of relevance:

In the first place there is intrinsic relevance, which goes beyond economic value and practical applicability. Research, be it in the natural sciences, in the humanities or in the social sciences, leads to an augmentation of the body of knowledge, an intrinsically valuable and precious quality of civilisation. Raising questions on the nature and determinants of observed phenomena is a fundamental and unique characteristic of the human species and a motor for its development.

It is clear that the continuity of this scientific discourse appears to its full advantage in a dialogue with the next generation. In other words, intrinsic relevance is strongly related to the educational mission of science: the transmission, revalidation and further development of scientific knowledge in training and education, and in the enrichment of the next generation with knowledge and insight.

It can be argued that this educational function has an even broader dimension: intolerance, enmity, discrimination, xenophobia, and ethnic conflicts are often products of ignorance. Therefore the educational function also pertains to the broader community; the scientific enlightenment of the general public can be regarded as an important instrument with which to develop and strengthen the intellectual defensibility and democratic foundation of a society.

Secondly there is instrumental relevance, the immediate or indirect application of research through the transformation of its findings into practical tools and instruments. It cannot be denied that science has had and still has a tremendous instrumental relevance. There is no sphere or dimension in our personal and social life that is not fundamentally affected by technology resulting from scientific research.

In the third place there is innovative relevance. This type of relevance refers to the contribution which scientific research can make to the creation of new knowledge and insights, which may lead to important breakthroughs in the development of industrial products, health measures, transport, communication, entertainment, and many other applications.

It should be emphasised that, while instrumental relevance is often a product of what is called applied or problem-driven research, this does not always have to be the case with respect to innovative relevance. Also pure, 'curiosity driven' research may turn out - sometimes unexpectedly and unintentionally, and even many years later - to be highly applicable. The application of polymer chemistry in plastics manufacture occurred more than 30 years after its formulation, the time lag between the development of Marconi's telegraph and Maxwell's groundwork on the transmission of electronic waves was more than 25 years. Many present day cardio-vascular surgical or pharmaceutical interventions result from the fundamental research of decades ago. Whatever the case, this observation justifies the importance of both applied and pure research.

The fourth form of relevance can be called contributive relevance. Here the aim is not instrument development or technological innovation, but rather to support or to contribute to decision-making and policy development. This can take place in the various phases of decision-making: problem definition, search for alternatives, finalisation, and implementation. The role of science is more explicit if scientific insights or research results clearly contribute to a change or continuation in policy, or if the research results are used as ammunition in a discussion or debate, either to defend or to attack a certain position or to create positive or negative attitudes with respect to a certain stance or view. The role of the scientist is rather disguised in cases where (s)he is actually one of the partners in the decision-making or policy-formation process (the interactive model). The question of which role scientific insights play in the complicated and sometimes chaotic interplay of rational and irrational forces is difficult to answer. Often these insights are used for what is called conceptualisation: redefinition of the agenda, sensitisation of decision-makers with respect to certain problems, the (re)definition of problems, or the transformation of problems into non-problems.

If relevance, as is expounded in the above, is seen as a complex and multidimensional concept, any attempt to develop unidimensional measures for this relevance is doomed to failure. The European Commission's task to assess the socio-economic relevance and impact of the research it sponsors is not only unenviable (Research Europe, 06-03-03), but will also inevitably lead to restricted results. Monitoring tools for assessing the socio-economic effects of science, or for measuring concrete results (submitted or granted patents, spin-offs in the form of new companies, industrial growth etc.), however useful, will only reveal part of the tale. It is important to keep this restriction in mind.

 

3. Two types of knowledge

As has become apparent in the discussion above, the roles of the scientist and the decision-maker are not always clearly distinguishable. Nevertheless, it may be wise to keep the ideal division of roles in mind. Researchers may generate information on feasibilities and impossibilities, chances and risks, direct and indirect repercussions, they can denounce stereotypes and prejudices, they can show that certain fears have no scientific or statistical justification, but they can never bear responsibility for the actual decision. They can provide evidence for the relationship between performance-related remuneration and work motivation, but they are not responsible for the level and nature of collective agreements. They can point to the evident negative relationship between smoking and health, but they are not responsible for anti-smoking legislation and rules.  They can analyse the positive and negative effects of nuclear energy, but they are not held responsible for a decision to close nuclear power stations. Their trade, in short, is science and that is what they should stick to. They should not become another pressure group or seize the responsibility of politicians, employers, doctors, legislators, and educators. It would give power to a group who is neither trained nor competent to exert it.

But there is another complicating factor. And this has to do with the nature of knowledge and the soundness of the research on which the scientist's input is based. A distinction can be made between two sorts of contributions, depending on two disparate types of scientific knowledge:

In the first place there is solid knowledge, which is often the product of long and painstaking experimental or empirical research, and which is hardly ever the subject of disagreement and debate among scientists. We know of the effects of ultraviolet radiation on health and environment. We know of the damage which chlorofluorocarbons and carbon dioxide effluxes cause to the ozone layer. We know of the causal relationship between smoking and cardiovascular diseases and cancer. We know of the interaction between anxiety and motivation, of the negative effects of group thinking - all examples of solid relevant knowledge. Many more examples can be given. I am not saying that utilisation is a simple matter, but the knowledge is available and only needs political transformation for use in policy decisions.

A second type of knowledge is probabilistic; it is less solid, uncertain and incomplete, and direct extrapolations are risky. Think of the prediction of a successful career, of expected returns on investments on the stock market, of the effects of atmospheric changes on the biosphere, of the long-term effects of genetic modification of plants and animals, of the strength of cultural resistance against fertility control. Numerous other examples can be given. With respect to many and often pressing questions and problems in society, our knowledge is of such nature: probabilistic, uncertain and contingent, due to either ontic (really existing in the world out there) or epistemic (insufficient and lacking knowledge) uncertainties or both. And it would be a serious mistake to communicate this 'probabilistic' knowledge to the public and to policy makers as if we were certain of the insights and conclusions. We see the negative effects if we do: confusion and suspicion at the expense of scientific research's credibility.

There is one aspect, however, that is shared by all types of knowledge and that is also a precondition for its usefulness for policy and decision-making, and that is its independent nature. The emperor Justinian did not realise that he had cut off a vital source of political life when he closed Plato's Akademeia a millennium after its founding , because its views were not in line with his own. George Bush's administration (in line with successive US administrations) does not realise how much it wrongs itself by packing advisory committees with scientists and other experts who share the administration's political outlook and have become 'all the President's yes-men'. The current US administration has so politicised the provision of scientific advice that it could permanently undermine public trust (Nature, 30-01-03). We are dealing here with an essential prerequisite for the relevance of science. Without this independence and freedom, science will sooner or later become irrelevant and useless.

 

4. Non-use

One of the major frustrations of the scientists is that his/her research results are not given proper attention. RTD info (October 2002, no. 35) sounds a note of disappointment regarding the relative sidelining of science during the Earth Summit in Johannesburg last year. "The scientists may have been heard but they were not really listened to. Some of the political speeches ignored or even contradicted the 'facts' now supported by an accumulating mass of evidence". The UK National Audit Office recently concluded "much of the ?1.4 billion that the government spends on research each year is wasted". The chairman of the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee pours oil on the fire by responding to the report with "research is no use at all if the policy makers do not know about it, do not understand it or need something else".

Why is scientific knowledge often ignored or neglected by politicians and decision-makers? Briefly the following reasons and motives can be brought to the fore:

- A first reason is that the research result is not believed or accepted because it is contra-intuitive or contradicts stereotypes or popular prejudices; the theoretical impossibility of the effects of homeopathy, the default of attempts to infer personality traits from handwriting, the failure to find empirical or experimental evidence for astrology, the inaccuracy of many ethnic, geographic or gender stereotypes.. all these research results find it hard to replace the contrary, but persistent, prejudices.

- Secondly, research repeatedly produces contradictory results: whether there is global warming or not, whether a certain drug or treatment helps or not, whether violence on television is harmful or not. research results are available in support of either point of view. Of course, we know that science in development generates inconclusive and even contradictory research results, and that the differences can often be explained in terms of different samples, circumstances, instruments or diverging research designs, the fact of the matter is that incompatible and inconclusive research results are often a motive for the public to ignore scientists.

- In the third place, no or insufficient scientific knowledge is or has been made available in respect of many decisions. Sometimes no research has been carried out with respect to the problem in question. The scientist should be clear about this in his communication with the decision-maker. More often the results are as yet insufficiently conclusive to allow for solid advice to practitioners and politicians. To 'sell' unwarranted certainty is dangerous and may have a boomerang effect. Then we deal with probabilistic, contingent knowledge as described in the previous section. Feckless claims and unjustified certainty with respect to this type of knowledge will backfire as well. But users find it difficult to appreciate this type of imperfect knowledge and do not like the uncertainties that it implies.

- A fourth and most alarming cause is the observation that the scientist does not provide answers to the policy maker's real questions. Too often his fragmented, detailed laboratory (type) studies are thought to contribute little to the understanding and handling of the complex and multifaceted reality which the decision-makers face. "Too often research and researchers seem to have little to offer on some of the key challenges we face in public policy", and "Typically research questions as defined by those outside academia are cross-cutting: rarely can any one discipline or practitioner address it successfully..", reported The Times Higher (28-03-03).

- A fifth motive is not a lack of understanding, but a lack of willingness. Unwillingness to accept the results of research, since these contradict one's own preferences, ideological views or convictions. In extreme cases, the research itself is attacked or prohibited (Gallileo, Spinoza), and/or the researcher is forced to comply or killed (Lysenko, More). More often attempts are made to influence the research results by suborning or threatening the researcher (a real danger with industrial or governmental contract research). But a simpler solution is, of course, to neglect the research evidence.

- A sixth reason stems from the irrefutable fact that political decision-making is more than the pure application of facts and knowledge. In a stable and comprehensive policy development and decision-making, values, norms, ethical and political considerations are important and legitimate elements in addition to the scientific and statistical facts and findings. This may assume an objectionable form if rationality is totally suppressed by power, negotiation, wheeling and dealing, personal ambitions and affinities, prospects of (re-)election, and the like. But it is, of course, perfectly justifiable to let normative, moral considerations determine an outcome that may deviate from 'scientific predictions'. Lowering the selection norms in schools for immigrants, desisting from a planned investment in a country with a repressive regime (Burma), quota systems for minorities..such decisions are acceptable to the scientific advisor if the scientific extrapolations and probabilities have been acknowledged but (with adequate arguments) 'overruled'.

 

5. A final word

Above it was argued that scientists who contribute evidence about the positive and/or negative effects of certain options should not bear the responsibility for the actual policy making and policy decisions. They are led by scientific criteria and veracity is their main touchstone. Freedom and independence are both an important sine qua non of scientific research.

This, however, does not mean that the scientist does not bear a moral and societal responsibility. Science must concede that it is embedded in a host of ethical, social and political issues and problems that cannot be dismissed as trivial or irrelevant. Scientific activities and results are subject to ethical and political norms which have a bearing on the choice of hypotheses, the gathering of data and the conducting of experiments, and on accountability for what is ultimately done with the research data. Scientists should be aware of the dangers involved in generating knowledge that may be used in applications over which society has little control. They should also take the apprehension of the public seriously. Nature (17-07-03), for instance, is right in arguing that we should not make the same mistake and dismiss people's fear of the harmful effects of nanoparticles as we made in respect of losing many countries' trust in genetically modified food. The challenge for science (and academies of science) is therefore not so much the choice between freedom and responsibility, but rather the attempt to find a balance between, or even to unite these two seemingly irreconcilable objectives. Freedom, therefore, is freedom in constraint. Or as Shaw observed: "freedom means responsibility, and that is why most men dread it".

Only the responsible scientist can restrain the earth from the "walk to the gallows" which Martin Rees macabrely depicts in his recent book "Our final century: will the human race survive the 21st century?" (Rees, 2003). And only the responsible scientist can denounce the cynical observation quoted in Weber (1982): The reason life is probably extinct on other planets is that their scientists were a little more advanced than ours. Let us assume this responsibility!

 

References

- Rees, M. (2003). Our final century: will the human race survive the twenty-first century? London: Basic Books.
- Weber, R.L. (1982). Random walks in science, More random walks in science. Bristol: Institute of Physics.

 

Science: Does it matter? (Power Point file)