[Coral-List] Science and advocacy
Eugene Shinn
eshinn at marine.usf.edu
Thu Aug 2 16:07:19 EDT 2012
There has been much discussion on the subject
of "agenda-driven/advocacy" science. Doug Fenner
pretty much led the discussion with an excellent
essay revealing its complexities (Vol 47, Issue
18). It is indeed difficult to see clear
distinctions between agenda-driven and
non-agenda-driven science. It seems every subject
has an agenda and an advocate. Everyone,
including business or government agencies, has an
agenda that may be obvious or disguised. The only
clear distinctions are between basic unfunded
science (which in itself usually has its own
agendas) and applied science, which by its very
nature must have an agenda. We often hide our
agendas by calling them "hypothesis testing," but
of course the hypothesis can be considered
someone's personal agenda.
Applied science is usually aimed at solving
a problem for a client. It's my observation that
if the problem is environmental, the client
usually gets what he or she pays for. Interpret
that anyway you like. But it's usually a clean
bill of health. In most cases, laws and
regulations mandated by Federal, State, or County
agencies require such studies. They are required
before a person, business, or agency can proceed
with a proposed project that is perceived to have
environmental impact. Examples include nourishing
beaches, building bridges, or drilling wells,
etc. Who conducts the study usually has to be
either a state or federally certified operator or
be employed by a university. The researcher
conducting the study may also legally do the
study if employed by a Federal, State, or County
agency. When the researcher is a government
employee (whether Federal or State), it is
usually required that he or she be employed by an
agency different from the one requiring the work,
a good way to spread the blame or praise.
It is generally considered a conflict of
interest if the researcher is an employee of the
same agency for which the research is being
conducted. Unfortunately, such conflicts of
interest are not uncommon. But the situation can
become even more convoluted. Even if the
researcher is not employed by the agency
requiring the work, the agency can still
influence research results. For example, suppose
Agency "A" puts out a request for research (RFP).
The researcher at Agency "B" (or university) will
have a pretty good feeling for what will be
funded and what will not be funded. The way the
RFP is written usually spells out the needs. The
agency putting up the money further influences
what they get by selecting the proposals that
best suit their needs and rejecting those that do
not. A committee usually makes the
determinations. This is simple human nature, but
the results can still be considered
"agenda-driven" because Agency "A" still gets the
results it wants. The results are often used to
support a perceived problem and/or a resulting
regulation. For example, if a regulatory agency
wants to conserve or regulate the taking of a
fish or bird, it is clearly an agenda. After all,
regulatory agencies were created to carry out
such agendas, some of which have popular support
and some of which do not. Such agencies are
therefore most likely to support research that
coincides with their law-given agenda. Legalities
also come into play. Don't forget that the
lawyers need their share. No matter how obvious
it may be that corals are dying, for legal
reasons a scientific study to prove they are
dying has to be conducted because there may be a
lawsuit and the case goes to court. Also for
public-relations reasons, an agency will look
better if it can say they use the best science to
guide their regulatory decisions. The scientists
often have to pick and choose between being used
as a pawn or doing something else. Those with
strong feelings about a particular organism
(advocating or striving for research funds) may
willingly do the required science. Others may
choose to stay clear of such agenda-driven
science. A person's decision to avoid
agenda-driven science is simply expressing
his/her own personal agenda. It is becoming an
increasingly more complicated situation for
environmental science as more and more people
enter the field.
There is a wonderful old story about how
science can be manipulated that is repeated
below. Remember that it was Leo Szilard that
convinced Albert Einstein to write the letter to
President Franklin Roosevelt that led to creation
of the Manhattan Project and thus the Atomic
Bomb. Now here is the story:
In the April 8, 2002 Chemistry and
Engineering News (vol. 80, no. 4, p. 42), there
is a story titled, Politics, Culture, and
Science: The Golden Age Revisited, by Allen J.
Bard. The story is his acceptance speech for
receiving the Priestley Medal for chemistry. As
the title suggests, he devotes a lot of the
article to how-it-used-to-be, when kids could
have Gilbert Chemistry sets and other toys now
banned for being considered unsafe. Further in
his acceptance speech he says, and I quote, "The
situation is approaching that envisioned by Leo
Szilard in 1948 in his amusing story, The Mark
Gable Foundation, where the hero, sometime in the
future, is asked by a wealthy entrepreneur, who
believes that science has progressed too quickly,
"what could he do to retard this progress." The
hero answers:
"You could set up a foundation, with an
annual endowment of thirty million dollars.
Researchers in need of funds could apply for
grants, if they could make a convincing case.
Have ten committees, each composed of twelve
scientists, appointed to pass on these
applications. Take the most active scientists out
of the laboratory and make them members of these
committees. First of all, the best scientists
would be removed from their laboratories and kept
busy on committees passing on applications for
funds. Secondly the scientific worker in need of
funds would concentrate on problems that were
considered promising and were pretty certain to
lead to publishable results By going after the
obvious, pretty soon science would dry out.
Science would become something like a parlor
game There would be fashions. Those who followed
the fashions would get grants. Those who wouldn't
would not."
That story was written 64 years ago, just 2
years before creation of the National Science
Foundation in 1950. NSF currently receives 40,000
grant applications each year and has an annual
budget of $7.03 billion.
One can easily come to the conclusion that
all science is in some way advocating and or
agenda-driven. I used to think that social and
medical research was pure and aimed only at
curing human ills, but now we often read of
scandals involving bogus data while lurking in
the background is Big Pharma. Nevertheless, I
think we all look up to medical science as an
honorable profession.
I conclude that pure non-agenda science is
generally a myth. Agendas simply come in various
degrees of social acceptance. Gene
--
No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
College of Marine Science Room 221A
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
Tel 727
553-1158----------------------------------
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