APS News Vol. 6, p. 7 (Jan. 1997), and
Physics and Society 25, p. 9-10 (October, 1996)

May 28, 1996
 
In Search of an IMPROVED Science and Public-Policy Process
 
David Hafemeister
Physics Department
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, CA  93407
 
 
Taking the lead from the play Cabaret, I assert that it is "both 
substance and process that makes the world go 'round."  Usually, it is 
preferable to write about substance, but this brief paper will attempt to 
deal with the unglamorous issues of "process."  Historians tell us that 
there are many driving forces of history:  The forces of great persons, 
such as Napoleon, who make indelible and unique marks on our 
civilization.  Or, forces that cause the formation of nation states, such 
as pan-hellenism and manifest-destiny.  Or, the forces that divide 
peoples into ethnic conclaves, such as in today's Bosnia and the former 
Soviet Union.  Or, forces of conflict between competitive economic 
systems, such as capitalism vs. communism.
 
My personal conclusion is that science and technology is the foremost 
"driving force of history."  What we scientists and engineers discover, 
the industrialists will produce and society will consume.  Take away the 
modern agricultural, military, transportation and communication 
technologies and a very different society appears.  It is clear that 
society is not going to follow mythical Ned Ludd to destroy our looms, 
autos and CD players.  
 
Along with this primal role of creation, physicists have the concomitant 
responsibility to do our best to determine the impacts of 
implementation.  This is serious business.  There is no room for errors 
of omission or errors of commission.  Because the stakes are very high 
and because because science means knowledge, we scientists are obligated 
to be honest, objective and open.  Too often the analysis fails to 
mention major uncertainties and competing issues that are not directly 
comparable.  It is our job to lay out the all facts and ask the hard 
questions.  
 
In my talk at the APS spring meeting, I gave some examples in which I 
observed a less than stellar science/techology (S/T) policy process, such 
as: lurching towards a plutonium policy in the 1970s; trying to decide 
how much and what kind of nuclear deterrence was enough for the Cold 
War?; debating how much and how significant was Soviet cheating?: and 
considering a 2 mGauss standard for powerlines.  These and other examples 
have convinced me that the pivotal S/T decision process needs help.  As 
part of this, the anti-science movement has contributed to an environment 
in which the issues can be clouded and mishandled.  This movement is not 
new, for it has been with us before Galileo was put under house arrest.  
I would argue that today's general cynicism of rational thought undercuts 
S/T policy process.  Our main hope is the credibility of our scientific 
citizens who use an open, peer-reviewed process, to state our limitations 
and uncertainties.  Some ideas on improving the S/T public policy process 
are listed below:
 
1.  At the individual level.  The 1991 APS statement on "Guidelines for 
Professional Conduct" and the 1993 AAAS position paper on "Good Science 
and Responsible Scientists" are excellent statements -- as far as they go 
-- on nonfabrication of data, authorship, peer review and conflict of 
interests.  In my view, the importance of S/T issues demands a stricter, 
more pro-active code of ethics.  This demands a discussion of:
 
	-- uncertainties, ranges of estimates in numbers and opinions and 
lists of omissions,
 
	-- criteria, when applicable, such as Hill's on epidemiology, 
which require replicability, linearity for small effects, plausibility 
with basic laws, coherence of data, possible confounders, economics, etc.
 
	-- peer-review comments from a wide group of reviewers,
 
	-- condemnation of those who favor your conclusions, but who use 
data incorrectly or overstate the case,
 
	-- responses to questions from nonpartisan ombudsmen who 
represent truth-seeking as compared to advocacy.
 
2.  A non-adjudicatory process to determine areas of agreement and 
disagreement.  In the 1970s, there was a flurry of attention to Arthur 
Kantrowitz's concept1  of the Science Court in which scientific experts 
would be the judges [delete this phrase from the original: and "case 
managers."  These (add judges) individuals were 
to be unconnected to the dispute with the hope of removing hard-charging 
advocacy. [add, but the case managers were to be proponents]  The science 
court was not to be empowered to make judicial 
decisions, but only to recommend to the courts or decision makers.
 
For a variety of conflicting reasons, the Science Court did not survive, 
but from its byproduct, the Scientific Adversary Procedure, there 
appeared an excellent result.  In 1985, under the leadership of 
Kantrowitz, Edward Gerry (in favor of SDI) and Richard Garwin (in 
opposition) discussed under formal procedures and drew up a list of 
agreed statements that both could support.  If the fifteen agreed 
statements had been widely publicized [published in TECHNOLOGY AND 
POLITICS, ed. by M.E. Kraft and N.J. Vig, Duke Univ. Press, 1988, pages 
303-305] and ultimately accepted as honest 
output from two excellent scientists who fundamentally disagreed, the SDI 
debate could have been narrowed and made more rational.   For example, 
consider the agreed statement #9:  "In the continuing context of 
deterrence of nuclear war by threat of retaliation, technologies already 
exist to solve the problem of strategic force vulnerability sooner and at 
a lower cost than via layered defense with space components."  Acceptance 
of this statement would have clearly helped to narrow the many classified 
technical meetings on SDI which I attended during the 1980s.  At the 
time, it seemed that the government was locked into an unjustified kill 
probability of 0.9 in its discussions of the highly complex "preferential 
targeting" of reentry vehicles.   If the Garwin-Gerry results had been 
read in executive branch and congressional meetings, it would have 
considerably raised the level of discussion.
 
3.  Penetrating Questions for the record.  Sometimes the Congress has 
done a good job of handling controversial S/T issues, but often not.  The 
Congress has a unique opportunity to produce hearing records with 
follow-up penetrating questions from and to experts, but the members of 
Congress often feel that hearing records are of little importance and too 
late, often printed after the issue has been settled.  These decisions 
are often made by non-scientists who don't care about setting the record 
straight and don't worry about abrogating their opportunity to clarify 
issues.  For example, the concern that nuclear waste to be stored at 
Yucca Mountain might explode could have been rapidly clarified with some 
penetrating technical questions to those saying it would explode and 
those saying it wouldn't.  It would not have taken a great deal of effort 
to show what had and had not been calculated.  Of course the National 
Academy of Science can and does perform this task, but it often seems to 
take too long for the NAS to produce its product and the system often 
doesn't know how to absorb it.  And, of course, we can all think of an 
Academy study that we thought was wrong!
 
4.  Benevolent Ombudspersons.  Science must be honest, objective and 
open, and the same holds for S/T policy.  If two divergent groups of 
honest scientists could work together and prepare an annual report of 
errors and overstatements on the S/T issues, this would put pressure on 
scientists to pay attention to the code of ethics, discussed above.  The 
American Physical Society has the credible intellectual talent to do 
this, but I can't imagine the APS would want to get involved in all of 
the issues.  Perhaps two nongovernmental organization with differing 
constituents could develop panels of impeccable scientists to ask 
questions of the proponents and then conclude who went beyond the truth.  
This begins to sound like "Accuracy in the Media," but I am hopeful that 
our scientific training would make the difference to remove "lies, 
damn-lies and bad statistics."
 
5.  Other.  I am still searching for the perfect wave.  Paraphrasing A.E. 
Houseman's "A Shropshire Lad;"
 
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say
"Give me scientific facts and logical thought
and the society will choose wisely."
Now I am almost two-and-sixty,
And Oh, 'tis not always true, 'tis not always true.
_______________________________________
Footnote:
 
1.  A. Kantrowitz, American Scientist 63, 505-509 (1975).  Task Force of 
the Presidential Advisory Group on Anticipated Advances in Science and 
Technology, Science 193, 653-656 (1976).  P. Boffey, Science 194, 167-169 
(1976).  B. Casper, Science 194, 29-35 (1976).  S. Jasanoff and D. 
Nelkin, Science 214, 1211-1215 (1981).