Is all of the relevant information available to assess the science policy? What barriers exist to the necessary information?
Although the field of nanoscience has existed for several decades, there has been limited action to oversee and regulate the field’s application despite relatively little being known about the long-term effects of nanoparticles on the health of the environment, society, and its infrastructure. Beyond limited exposure to the basics of nanoscience and nanomaterials, the efforts of policy makers is also impeded by their limited ability to peek into the practices of industry to ascertain what Nanomaterials are being produced and dispersed by industry and commercial products. Some countries have mandated nano-material registries, but just like wind and sea currents, nano-materials transcend geopolitics.
In a perfect world, sound science policies would be backed by scientific consensus, although very little has been said to define what exactly is meant by the term. In some respects, identifying scientific consensus can be a straight-forward quantitative matter of conducting a literature review on the subject and identifying trends in research. However, the means by which scientific findings are vetted and make their way to publication can, at times, be highly contentious. Determining what constitutes a valid consensus then can be much more difficult. Further, in areas where technology and society are rapidly evolving, the purposefully methodical and discerning pace of scientific study can be too slow to support policies for new and pressing challenges that need to be addressed.
Another complication within the domain of identifying scientific consensus are the myriad of extra-scientific interests that may benefit or lose out depending on whatever policies end up being created. Here, self-interested individuals or groups may attempt to bias the formation of consensus in their favor with junk science or unfounded skepticism (more on that later in section 3.6). For this reason, efforts to make scientific studies more rigorous and open to oversight helps mitigate these influences.
While on the following page we suggest that the existence of standards for inquiry within a scientific topic is a telling sign of the science’s maturity, there are a number of other indicators that may suggest whether any kind of scientific consensus can be found for a given topic.
One of the best indicators for consensus is the presence of a robust and active community of written scholarship for a topic of consideration. For instance, the myriad academic medical journals dedicated to the various systems and illnesses of the body connotes a firm foundation of research rigor and oversight that can lead to consensus on some facts while other nuances are investigated.
A challenge and significant caveat to the idea of consensus, however, is the number of factors influencing the formation of scientific consensus depicted in the table above. These factors, organized by Shwed & Bearman in 2010, reflect the non-scientific (at times) ways in which the progress of scientific understanding, consensus building, and progress can become stalled or sidetracked. Efforts such as blind-peer review and open science networks have mitigated some of these factors, but policymakers should nevertheless be vigilant of how consensus can become skewed.
Science and Standards
One means of determining the degree of scientific consensus for a given topic is the extent to which the topic’s inquiry has been standardized. By standardization, we mean the agreed upon methods, considerations, and resources used to create a baseline for creating a product or carrying out a process. Within the context of science, the general task is discovery or the creation of useful information. Beyond standard protocols that scientists may follow when performing experiments, there are a number of other kinds of critical standards that, when present, can further the degree of consensus for a given topic.
In the table above, we have provided a list of five kinds of standards and example effects on policy that can be created and implemented by any number of entities including academic communities, industry associations, and governments.
The nature in which standards can be implemented may also follow one of two or both kinds, through enforcement disincentives (Sticks) or through network incentives (Carrots).
Enforcement generally are costs incurred by an entity not following set standards while network incentives are benefits incurred by following set standards. As suggested, the presence or absence of any of these kinds of standards may indicate the degree of scientific consensus as well as a policy maker’s confidence in the available evidence.
References and Further Reading
- Shwed, U., & Bearman, P. S. (2010). The temporal structure of scientific consensus formation. American sociological review, 75(6), 817-840.
- Proctor, R. N., & Schiebinger, L. (2008). Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance.
- Oreskes, N. (2004). Science and public policy: what’s proof got to do with it?. Environmental Science & Policy, 7(5), 369-383.
- Ravetz, J. R. (1987). Usable knowledge, usable ignorance: incomplete science with policy Implications. Knowledge, 9(1), 87-116.
- Funtowicz, S. O., & Ravetz, J. R. (1990). Uncertainty and quality in science for policy (Vol. 15). Springer Science & Business Media.