Sheila Jasanoff argues for a broader debate on science

Much of the talk around science policy these days focuses on the value of science for society. This is understandable. More public money is flowing into R&D globally now than at any time in history. To justify that surge in investment, policymakers wave aloft the banners of wealth and job creation, competitiveness, health and longevity, and consumer satisfaction. The problems are obvious and we can solve them with science.
But what if we cast our expectations of science differently? What if we ask how effectively the values of society are being incorporated into the products of science and technology? In principle, there is wide agreement that publics should have something to say about the direction of science and technology. It is, after all, the public’s business how governments spend public money. There is a great deal of talk focusing on the bland buzzword of public engagement.
How well are we implementing the principle of engagement in practice? The debate around nanotechnology suggests too narrowly. Given the transformative potential of building a nanoscale world, we are only scratching the surface when we worry about such things as whether nanoparticles in sunscreen cream will penetrate the skin and cause injury.
 
Five pointers for a more substantial debate
• We should ask people what worries them most about modern life. The answers might be issues like vulnerability, inequality, surveillance, war and ungovernability. Next, we should ask how science and technology are alleviating or adding to those concerns. 
Let us take for example nuclear power. In a broader debate, we would ask how nuclear energy advances or weakens the values of sustainability, equality and peace. We would think seriously about who is responsible for the linked yet discrete elements that constitute the nuclear world: high-level radioactive wastes, loose nukes, suitcase bombs, and power plant safety. We would engage holistically with the societal project of staying nuclear.
• We should bring to light hidden tensions behind the seemingly benign concept of public engagement. Who, after all, is ‘the public’? Is it, as decisionmakers often think, an irrational force whipped up by the media? Is it best to constitute publics from on high, by expert consulting firms that think they can adequately profile populations for particular purposes? Or is it better done from below, by real people who band together to make their concerns visible? And should we give voice to members of the public on the intensity of their convictions, or on an epidemiological approach that recognises only statistical representation as valid?
• We should foster transgressive imaginations that open up our view of the technological world. In January 2001, the New York and New Jersey Port Authority produced a promotional video that celebrated the ability of the Twin Towers to withstand the impact from a fully loaded Boeing 707. They did not think about the fuel contained in the plane that would instantly catch fire. In developing new sciences and technologies, we need more complete imaginations of disorder as well as order. Ironically, such imaginations may be better at serving our military ambitions today than at advancing the agendas of peace and security.
• We should debate which measures of productivity best reflect our core values. Should we, for example, equate the success of science with big ticket technological applications, like sequencing the human genome, or judge how far we have come by simple increases in life expectancy? We should recall perhaps that in J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, happiness lay more with the Hobbits than the Elves, and the supreme gift of life granted to the Numenorean, Aragorn, was the choice of when to leave his.
• When we talk about ‘evidence-based’ policy, we should remember that evidence is socially constructed and value-laden. Evidence is information that supports particular causal stories about problems we see in the world. To accept evidence is to buy into underlying constructions of what really matters and what should concern us most. We need to keep asking, ‘But is that the right problem?’

Reorienting ourselves

It will require much effort to reorient ourselves in these directions. 
First, the discourse of public engagement should be transformed into the discourse of public debate, so that questions of value can be more explicitly foregrounded. Second, pedagogical institutions, most of all universities, need to foster not just scientific research but concurrent reflection on the aims of society. Finally, we have to promote science and technology not as mere problem-solvers for the world but as instruments through which we realise the most enduring aspirations of our societies.

Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.