The Paradox of Scientific Authority: The Role of Scientific Advice in Democracies (Inside Technology)
Wiebe E. Bijker
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 0262026589
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Today, scientific advice is asked for (and given) on questions ranging from stem-cell research to genetically modified food. And yet it often seems that the more urgently scientific advice is solicited, the more vigorously scientific authority is questioned by policy makers, stakeholders, and citizens. This book examines a paradox: how scientific advice can be influential in society even when the status of science and scientists seems to be at a low ebb. The authors do this by means of an ethnographic study of the creation of scientific authority at one of the key sites for the interaction of science, policy, and society: the scientific advisory committee. The Paradox of Scientific Authority offers a detailed analysis of the inner workings of the influential Health Council of the Netherlands (the equivalent of the National Academy of Science in the United States), examining its societal role as well as its internal functioning, and using the findings to build a theory of scientific advising. The question of scientific authority has political as well as scholarly relevance. Democratic political institutions, largely developed in the nineteenth century, lack the institutional means to address the twenty-first century's pervasively scientific and technological culture; and science and technology studies (STS) grapples with the central question of how to understand the authority of science while recognizing its socially constructed nature.
Gezondheidsraad, is there to provide independent scientific advice.”14 The WHO, however, does not always have sufficient funds to get good and independent experts on its committees,15 which in part explains why it is harder for the WHO than for the Gezondheidsraad to stay out of political waters when choosing committee members.16 The most important difference between the WHO and the Gezondheidsraad is, of course, that the WHO is explicitly a political organization. This implies that reaching
Gezondheidsraad should start paying its committee members, Sangster responded with great reserve: “Once you have financial interests in joining a committee, other, false motives may start playing a role. I feel that for committee members it is a very difficult question. You should rather look for other kinds of rewards, I believe, such as access to information.”61 Committee members are selected for their scientific knowledge, insight, and problem-solving skills, but their participation may also
It granted me the opportunity, on the basis of these insights, to prevent my political bosses from taking positions that later on would be contradicted by a Gezondheidsraad advice.32 The committee was aware of these contacts and their political weight, as its confidential minutes reveal: There has been contact between Bosman and the Ministry of Agriculture on the committee’s position concerning the discussion in the EU. Bosman elucidated that discussion for the committee. For the time being that
involve cost-benefit analyses in its assessments.82 Depending on the issue at hand, the aspect of cost may be one of the elements to be considered in the advisory process. But not every subject lends itself to such analysis. When the Gezondheidsraad—in the advisory request on hereditary diagnostics and gene therapy—was asked to address the cost efficiency of the application of hereditary diagnostics, the Heredity: Science and Society Committee denounced it sharply: The most essential goal of
Gezondheidsraad’s positioning as a player in the health care and policy domain, but also in internal discussions—between ad hoc committee, Council president, and standing committee—on the boundaries of advising (on dioxins). Regarding the need for a careful approach of the media, we next discussed the reactions that followed the publication of the report Medical Treatment at Crossroads. The timing and tone of the press presentation revealed that also others, Health Ministry officials in