Science and Policymaking, Part III:

What We All Need to Know about the Public

The astute reader of the last two blogposts (on policymakers and on scientists) will notice that the missing link in this story is the public.  Sure enough, there is a 3rd article on what both scientists and policymakers need to know about the public.  This one has only 12 points.  Again, I offer the headings for the 12 points and leave the interested read to pursue the explanations in the original article:

1. There is no such thing as ‘the public’

2. People are perfectly capable of understanding complex issues and technologies

3. People want to be able to participate in decisions around policy involving science and technology

4. People are not ‘anti-science’ or ‘anti-technology’

5. People can be experts too

6. People may ask questions which do not occur to experts

7. People are not necessarily interested in science and technology per se

8. People know that policy-makers and scientists are human

9. It is important for policy-makers and scientists to be clear about when they are telling and when they are listening

10. Public deliberation can help reduce the risks that proposed policy will fail

11. Re 10 above, public deliberation can also help give confidence to policy-makers

12. There are many different and valid ways of engaging people

As I read through this last group, I was struck by one point that made me shake my head and say, "Well, I know some people who are anti-science."  (Actually, I don't think I know of anyone in my immediate circle, but I do know they exist.)  This made me realize that the whole set of points in all three articles lumps people together too much.  We can all identify people who are anti-science as well as people who are pro-science, so perhaps a lot of these should read "Not all people are anti-science," etc.  The first of these lists, on what scientists need to know about policymakers, did say that policymakers are not a homogeneous group, but they didn't carry over this caveat into the other lists.  So, yes, I could tweak all of these, and I offer this to you with the caveat that none of these 3 groups are homogeneous, but I still think there is a lot of food for thought for all of us in these lists.

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Science and Policymaking, Part II:

What Policymakers Need to Know about Scientists

In my previous post, I excerpted 20 points from an article in The Guardian that tried to give scientists advice on what they needed to know about policy-making in order to be more effective in working with policymakers.  That article was actually inspired by an earlier article in The Guardian that tried to explain scientists to policymakers.  So, although I know most of this audience consists of scientists and engineers, I thought you might find it interesting to see how others explain our work.  Once again, I present only the bullet points (complete with the original spelling) and urge the reader to go to the original article for further explanations.

With that, here are the recommended 20 things policymakers should know about scientists:

1. Differences and chance cause variation

2. No measurement is exact

3. Bias is rife

4. Bigger is usually better for sample size

5. Correlation does not imply causation

6. Regression to the mean can mislead

7. Extrapolating beyond the data is risky

8. Beware the base-rate fallacy

9. Controls are important

10. Randomisation avoids bias

11. Seek replication, not pseudoreplication

12. Scientists are human

13. Significance is significant

14. Separate no effect from non-significance

15. Effect size matters

16. Data can be dredged or cherry picked

17. Extreme measurements may mislead

18. Study relevance limits generalisations

19. Feelings influence risk perception

20. Dependencies change the risks 

Once again, the comments provide some different perspectives, and perhaps my own list would be a little different.  But overall, I think most of the points are valid, and they should provide food for thought for all of us.

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Science and Policymaking, Part I:

What Scientists Need to Know about Policymakers

I was just pointed to a rich mother lode today--a trio of articles on what the various actors in science and technology policy need to know about each other.  Since I am a scientist and engineer who has worked in the policy area for a long time, the articles struck a chord and I wanted to share them here.  I suspect my audience is mostly other scientists and engineers, so I'll start with an article on what scientists should know about policy-making. 

Note that these articles were published by a British publication, The Guardian, so a few of the particulars pertain to the British government system.  However, the points the author makes are largely valid for any democratic government.  A few details may need to be changed, but the overall points apply.  Also, I'm sure we can all quibble about the details, and some of the commenters to the original article have taken issue with the relative importance of different issues, the order, whether some duplicate or contradict others, etc.  You can read the comments and draw your own conclusions.  I personally found that most of the points resonated, and perhaps will provide food for thought to others as we all continue to struggle with the interface between science and policy.  I perhaps thought the 20 points enunciated in The Guardian article could have been boiled down to a smaller set of points, but that is a small quibble.

I will highlight here the 20 points the original article in The Guardian makes about what scientists need to know about policy-making.  For the detailed discussion of each of the points, as well as for the comments, please see the original article.  In subsequent blogs, I will highlight the other Guardian articles, which provide similar thoughts on the other participants in policy-making.

1. Making policy is really difficult

2. No policy will ever be perfect

3. Policy makers can be expert too

4. Policy makers are not a homogenous group

5. Policy makers are people too

6. Policy decisions are subject to extensive scrutiny

7. Starting policies from scratch is very rarely an option

8. There is more to policy than scientific evidence

9. Economics and law are top dogs in policy advice

10. Public opinion matters

11. Policy makers do understand uncertainty

12. Parliament and government are different

13. Policy and politics are not the same thing

14. The UK has a brilliant science advisory system

15. Policy and science operate on different timescales

16. There is no such thing as a policy cycle

17. The art of making policy is a developing science

18. 'Science policy' isn't a thing

19. Policy makers aren't interested in science per se

20. 'We need more research' is the wrong answer

I will be interested in how the experience of others supports or contradicts these points, either in the US or elsewhere, but overall, I think most of these points are useful to keep in mind for those of us who engage with policy-makers.

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