Democratizing Science, Debating Values: New Approaches to 'Politicized' Science Under the Bush Administration
Kinchy, Abby J. & Kleinman, Daniel Lee
SCIENTISTS, POLITICIANS, and activists have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for "politicizing" science for the sake of its policy goals. Right-wing commentators, such as Steven...
...In most epidemiological studies, for example, social inequalities are considered only insofar as they can be seen as individual attributes...
...However, the concepts of objectivity and "impartiality" on which critics rely are themselves DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE problematic...
...Planned Parenthood, for example, insisted that the decision should be based solely on science and made without "political interference...
...This concern had previously been raised by W. David Hager, M.D., a 2002 appointee to the FDA's Reproductive Health Drug Advisory Committee and an anti-abortion activist who openly espouses right-wing Christian beliefs...
...Right-wing commentators, such as Steven Milloy, have responded to these accusations with attacks of their own, reminding the public of similar actions taken by President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore...
...The purpose of the course, as its instructor, Scott Gilbert, explains, is "to look critically at the 'stories' being told by biology (and biologists) and to see if they are the only stories that fit the data...
...Clearly, President Bush's position is driven by social and cultural priorities other than the desire to reduce teenage pregnancy and the spread of disease...
...54 n DISSENT / Summer 2005 In this essay we discuss some of the problems inherent in the argument against "politicizing" science...
...When there is uncertainty in science— and in controversial areas there almost always is—a decision about preferences must be made...
...their dominant research method is to observe whether a disease occurs more or less frequently among individuals who have a particular risk factor...
...The scientists advised the farmers on how to protect their animals, but the farmers knew much more about other sources of radiation and the different types of soil in the region...
...In many cases, their participation in domains typically reserved for "experts" has improved the quality of research and the legitimacy of policy de60 n DISSENT / Summer 2005 cisions...
...That is not the case...
...7. Phil Brown and Edwin J. Mikkelsen, No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action (University of California Press, 1997...
...Emily Martin, an anthropologist of science, points out that this metaphor of attack and defense is only one way to understand immune system processes...
...When proponents of deregulation and "freer" world markets call for "sound science," they are usually arguing that there should be no restrictions on industrial practices or new technologies unless there is indisputable proof that they cause a significant level of harm...
...What they see will depend on where they are looking...
...Clearly, the controversy about the Bush administration's selective use of science goes DISSENT / Summer 2005 n 57 DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE well beyond the question of whether a truly comprehensive view of the world is possible...
...Department of Agriculture under Bush has instituted tight controls over information potentially damaging to agricultural industries, requiring scientists in its Agricultural Research Service to seek approval to release findings on "sensitive" issues...
...As in the case of global warming, questions of when to act on relatively uncertain knowledge are at the core of a wide range of policy debates today...
...These are the kinds of questions that those on the left have neglected...
...The choice involves economic interests as well as values...
...Reprinted in the Science Studies Reader, Mario Biagioli, ed...
...The religious right doesn't argue its case in terms of scientific evidence...
...As some critical epidemiologists have begun to argue, this research typically does not lead scientists to ask what kinds of social relations would cause some individuals to be exposed while others are not...
...In another case, the EPA's senior management has been accused of instructing staff members to arrive at a predetermined conclusion on the efficacy of mercury pollution-control methods...
...Of course, we need to know whether those in power are lying to us...
...Reports by U.S...
...Advocates of the drug replied with their own demands for deregulation in the name of "sound science...
...Arguments for the Kyoto Protocol are essentially based on values: preventing possible future catastrophe is seen as more important than preserving current patterns of consumption...
...In other words, an individual's "race" can be identified as a risk factor, without recognizing racism as a cause of disease or increased mortality rates...
...In one oft-cited example, AIDS treatment activists successfully fought for changes in the way clinical trials for AIDS drugs were conducted...
...In the end, scienceand technology-related policies must be debated in terms of the values and interests at issue...
...Against Technocracy It is clear that existing critiques of the Bush administration's approach to science in policymaking can gain only so much leverage...
...3 As a result, the mainstream research method provides a limited picture...
...Science Many critics charge that the Bush administration and its allies simply ignore solid scientific evidence and make environmental and health policy based on "ideology...
...410-426...
...We suspect that many other critics of abstinence-only programs would agree with us, and we challenge them to speak out more forcefully about the values that underlie their positions...
...We should not forget that it was Newt Gingrich who popularized the "sound science" argument (learning, of course, from Philip Morris's rebuttals to studies of the effects of secondhand smoke...
...1. Donna J. Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: the Reinvention of Nature (Routledge, 1991), pp...
...Although EPA scientists first reported finding that a process used in oil and gas extraction produced benzene contamination in ground-water supplies at a level exceeding federal standards, after receiving "industry feedback," the EPA changed its data to indicate that benzene levels were safe...
...Finally, to the charge that the administration has stacked scientific advisory committees and that more rigid standards for selecting experts are necessary, we suggest broadening, rather than narrowing, the definition of expertise to revitalize and democratize the political process...
...Scientific research is a social practice, shaped by values and pressures, both narrowly professional and broadly political, just like any other feature of the social world...
...Nevertheless, drug researchers, like many epidemiologists, tend not to look for these kinds of causes, because they are things a pill or injection cannot treat...
...4, No...
...This position assumes that science is separate from the value-laden worlds of politics and everyday life...
...Adding the input of laypeople to the advice process could make our understanding of science-related policy matters less partial than it might otherwise be...
...The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp...
...In a report available online, NARAL Pro-Choice America stated 56 n DISSENT / Summer 2005 that "scientific evidence proves not only that over-the-counter access is safe and effective for young women, but also that better access to EC is particularly important for this group...
...In this and many other examples, by either selecting or producing scientific studies that support their positions, Bush administration officials have "naturalized" their pro-industry policy positions, making it seem as though they are dictated by facts of nature...
...For example, in a case cited in the Waxman report, the U.S...
...Even in cases with high levels of certainty, science cannot direct policy without mediation...
...If one—an ecologist—is exploring the relationship between weather, flora, and fauna, and the other—a bacteriologist—is studying the interactions between bacteria in the soil and plants growing in the earth, they will see different things...
...Historian Londa Schiebinger has studied a good example of this...
...Consider the many times in which environmental or health regulations have been forestalled because of the need for "more evidence...
...In more general ways, the orientations of scientific disciplines reflect specific value positions...
...The goal of EPA officials, according to a report in the New York Times on February 4, 2005, was to support their contention that it is unnecessary for the owners of coalfired power plants to install costly new equipment...
...A wide array of examples of "popular epidemiology" provides a strong counter-argument to those who insist that scientific advisory panels be closed to all but the most qualified (read, formally educated) people...
...Steve Wing, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, notes that "any questions of context, such as where the exposures have come from [or] why some individuals but not others were exposed . . . have been eliminated from the realm of scientific interest...
...The challenge is great, but there have been some efforts to meet it among scientists...
...In a context where the president and his appointees appear to have no qualms about deDISSENT / Summer 2005 .61 DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE ceiving the public on a whole range of issues (the nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, for example), more than ever, political progressives must demand democratic participation in policymaking and openness in government...
...Science education must teach not only how experiments are done, what a cell is, and the elements that make up water, but also how the phenomena scientists study, the way they study them, and what they accept as competent experimental designs all reflect social and political processes...
...What is puzzling, however, is why Bush's critics think that insisting on an even greater distinction between science and politics will somehow end these deceptive practices...
...Impartiality reflects a comprehensiveness that is unachievable...
...Under pressure from groups like the UCS, in April 2004, the U.S...
...Rather than pursuing the endless and misguided debate about "sound science," Democrats and the left should take advantage of recent attention to the issue of science in politics to push for a more democratic science and technology policy-making process...
...These positions are particularly evident in the debate about genetically modified (GM) foods...
...Although sections of the scientific community may find it in their interest to provide information useful to political actors, they may also work to maintain a strict separation between advice and activism...
...Objectivity, as the term is used, assumes knowledge is independent of the position of the knower...
...It seems unwise for critics to focus on the fact that the Bush administration "disregards" scientific advice or exaggerates uncertainty— above all because the same argument will be (and has been) used against the left...
...The idea that science can provide a way out of contentious ideological debates by providing neutral, universally accepted guidance, is not only fantasy, it is dangerous for democracy...
...Limited experiments in which laypeople have been included in science and technology policymaking have been tried, but we must go further...
...In a case studied by the sociologist Brian Wynne, scientists failed to establish an effective collaboration with British sheep farmers whose lands were contaminated with radiation after the Chernobyl catastrophe...
...This kind of education will change what it means to make science-related policies...
...Activists are likely to face a great deal of resistance to their participation in scientific debates because it threatens the boundary between science and politics...
...In fact, these recommendations advance what we believe to be a very antidemocratic model of policymaking...
...Such measures are clearly needed...
...The authors thank Allen Hunter for his comments on an earlier version of this essay...
...How is the perspective of the researcher reflected in the knowledge claims that he or she is making...
...Even if (in some alternate universe) abstinence programs were successful at achieving these goals, we would still advocate comprehensive sex education because we believe that young people deserve access to a wide range of information about human sexuality...
...In a society that often uncritically views scientific evidence as justification for social policy, this is a dangerous conclusion to draw...
...However, simply calling for a thicker "wall" between science and politics does not resolve the fundamental problems...
...In a controversial example of this, the pharmaceutical company NitroMed is now producing a heart medication aimed specifically at black people and tested only on self-identified African American subjects...
...What about Stacked Committees...
...Abortion and contraceptive rights organizations have taken a strong stand in this regard...
...The preference to err on the side of caution (or not) is inextricably connected to political context...
...29-45...
...As advocates of comprehensive sex education for young people, we oppose abstinenceonly programs...
...In both cases, scientist colleagues might conclude that the research is "sound," but policies for prairie restoration might differ depending on whose research guides those decisions...
...8. Brian Wynne, "Misunderstood Misunderstandings: Social Identities and Public Uptake of Science," in Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne, eds., Misunderstanding Science...
...For example, in the Woburn case, regulatory agencies and professional scientists criticized the study that identified the leukemia cluster because it had been conducted by "nonscientific citizen volunteers" who were motivated by political goals and were therefore "biased...
...Imagine two researchers studying a prairie...
...This is not a call for relativism, but rather a recognition that certified experts are not the only ones whose knowledge is relevant to science-related policy decisions...
...Stem-cell research is another example that critics often use to illustrate the administration's disregard for science, but their arguments are faulty here, too...
...This essay was inspired, in part, by the plenary talk given by the late David Edge at the 2002 annual meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science...
...To the charge that the administration has manipulated science so that it is no longer impartial, we question the assumption that science is ever truly impartial...
...The history of science shows us that, regardless of intention, assumptions about human differences tend to be translated into scientific "facts," which in turn are used to justify existing social relations...
...We, and much of the world, share these values and believe they should guide policy...
...Clearly, their position is shaped primarily by economic and ideological interests...
...Rather than promoting sex education programs that have been shown to reduce unwanted pregnancy and the spread of disease, the Bush administration has favored abstinence-only programs, which have not been successful at achieving these goals...
...For example, since the late 1980s, the Department of Biology at Swarthmore College has offered a course to train young biologists to produce more accurate research by, for example, eliminating "gender bias...
...Scientific research may be a useful resource, but it is also a fickle friend...
...A paper trail of evidence indicates that the National Pork Producers Council, an industry group, directly influenced the USDA in the department's decision to keep Zahn's findings under wraps...
...But, as in the stem-cell debate, their opponents have been equally insincere in their insistence that their positions are purely scientific...
...The desire for value-free science seems to be one thing on which both right and left can agree...
...There is an important difference between the epistemological constraints on objectivity discussed above and the use of deception to accomplish political goals...
...Medical Anthropology Quarterly (Vol...
...Nor can science provide the social obligation to conduct those studies in the first place...
...This is the idea that we can see things from nowhere, unaffected by our own social or physical location...
...This may help eliminate overt conflicts of interest, but it does nothing to address the more troubling lack of democracy in the advisory process...
...Among other characteristics, these early illustrations emphasized the broadness of the female pelvis and indicated that the female skull most resembled that of a child or of a "primitive" person...
...However, while so much attention is focused on these examples, it would be wise to begin a discussion about the ways in which DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE science reifies or naturalizes political and cultural interests in less obvious or strategic ways...
...Scientists' perspectives are often partial in the sense that their disciplines lead them to ask only certain types of questions and observe only certain kinds of data...
...Think of how the biotechnology industry and its backers have repeatedly trumped economic, ethical, and environmental arguments against GM crops with demands for "sciencebased policy...
...The god trick is, by definition, impossible for finite human beings...
...4, 1990), pp...
...Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol criticize Bush for discounting the overwhelming evidence, exaggerating the degree of uncertainty about the causes of global warming, and relying on studies that clearly reflect the interests of the petroleum industry...
...AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge (University of California Press, 1996...
...The decision to do research and the kinds of questions to ask are fundamentally social and political choices...
...DEMOCRATIZING participation in science will also require a revised conception of scientific literacy...
...For example, in the field of immunology, the body is typically viewed as a nation under siege by hostile forces...
...Without malicious intention, medical researchers often make "racial" differences seem more real than they are, assuming that black and white bodies are different in medically significant ways...
...Community members were the first to notice an unusually high incidence of disease and organized to determine its source, ultimately suing two large corporations for dumping the toxic waste that was causing leukemia.' Scientific advisers should be made aware of the perils of ignoring the specialized knowledge of laypeople...
...However, she suggests that the "nation at war" model of the body is so taken for granted in immunology that many scientists find it hard to talk about the body in any other way.' Thus, while what scientists know about the body is not false, it is limited by the metaphors that constrain both observation and interpretation...
...And the numerous examples of the EPA's failure to report information that might negatively affect industry—such as the false assurances about air quality after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the suppression of studies of toxins in the water supply— show the lengths to which the administration will go to appease its corporate friends...
...Do researchers, policymakers, or potentially affected citizens prefer to err on the DISSENT / Summer 2005 55 DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE side of caution or to live with a higher degree of risk...
...Take the case of research in the field of epidemiology, a science regularly relied upon in policymaking...
...We should stand by our values, without hiding behind the myth of value-free science...
...Indeed, it is widely recognized from philosophy to cognitive sciences that how and what people observe is shaped by a wide array of prior assumptions, commitments, and worldviews...
...These kinds of arguments don't always follow consistent ideological lines...
...5. Quoted in Robin Marantz Henig, "The Genome in Black and White (and Gray)," New York Times Magazine, October 10, 2004...
...Finally, critics have accumulated evidence that the administration has used political criteria in selecting members of scientific advisory committees, even asking potential members whether they voted for Bush...
...In the mid-1700s, describing and drawing the female skeleton became a research priority for European scientists...
...Thus, policies based on traditional epidemiological research could not scientifically justify asking how social and economic inequality affects toxin exposure...
...Such a distinction not only misrepresents the nature of scientific knowledge but also stifles democratic debate...
...For example, although twentyfirst century scientists firmly reject nineteenthcentury theories about racial differences, some trends in medical research continue to reify racial categories...
...6. Steven Epstein, Impure Science...
...Prominent critics argue that this kind of "race-based" medicine exaggerates the (minimal to nonexistent) biological differences between people of different "races...
...For example, when studies can tell us with reasonable certainty that air and water are polluted, science offers us no guide to determine what level of pollution is acceptable or how governments should act in light of this knowledge...
...Scientists are not always willing to examine the ways that professional and social orientations shape the questions they ask and the observations they view as significant...
...Conceivably, broadly scientifically literate citizens could sit on advisory bodies to government agencies and even to Congress and the executive...
...What issues and whose interests are not addressed by the scientific evidence on which 58 • DISSENT / Summer 2005 policy is supposed to be based...
...Deception by elected officials is unacceptable...
...3. Steve Wing, "Limits of Epidemiology," in Steve KrollSmith, Phil Brown, and Valerie J. Gunter, eds., Illness and the Environment: A Reader in Contested Medicine (New York University Press, 2000), pp...
...Scientific literacy requires understanding how research patronage affects what science gets done and how social values and economic interests affect how findings are interpreted...
...Epidemiologists study health and disease in populations...
...4 Social values similarly affect scientific claims today...
...Another factor that shapes the kinds of questions and answers that different scientific disciplines produce is the kind of metaphors used to talk about and make sense of observations...
...General Accounting Office published a lengthy report (GAO-04-328) and several recommendations, such as seeking nominations from the public and publicizing information about how committee members are identified and screened...
...African American sociologist Troy Duster notes: "If you follow me around Nordstrom's, and put me in jail at nine times the rate of whites, and refuse to give me a bank loan, I might get hypertensive...
...Although these accusations are accurate, they reflect the problematic assumption that there is an obvious point at which uncertainty is so low that science requires no interpretation...
...With such omissions built into the practice of epidemiology, what does it mean to call it "sound," "objective," or "value-free" science...
...Critics have rightly called for an end to this practice, indicating the need for independent science advice and the protection of scientists who present data that counter the administration's desired policies...
...Such posturing is disingenuous, and it threatens our capacity for forthright debate...
...Far from "anything goes" relativism, this approach will lead us to the most accurate and least partial knowledge about important policy issues...
...We must ask in what ways knowledge claims are partial and what values and perspectives are represented in the data and their interpretation...
...Thus, black bodies are seen to bear a particular risk...
...More often than not, progressive causes are defeated by appeals to "sound science...
...By contrast, advocates of GM foods typically say that there is no conclusive evidence to support their opponents' position and demand that policies regulating GM foods be based on "sound science...
...Such bodies would need to reflect a broad array of perspectives, not just the views of those in power, and to involve themselves in recommending broad policies as well as setting research priorities and even judging grant proposals...
...Increasing such awareness should be a goal of all—left, right, and center—who would like our decisions to be guided by less partial science...
...We will need to develop forums where we can debate simultaneously the narrowly technical issues involved in a given policy and the broader matters inextricably linked to them...
...Critics often cite the need for caution and demand restrictions on GM products until they can be proven safe...
...19-46...
...For example, in the case of the Food and Drug Administration's failure to approve Plan B, the emergency contraceptive (EC) pill, for over-the-counter sale, the decision was justified on the basis of precaution...
...This does not mean that scientists do not produce important information about the world—they certainly do...
...Predetermined Findings One of the main critiques of the Bush administration's use of science is that officials have selected studies and data to fit a predetermined outcome, sometimes suppressing research that contradicts favored policies or the interests of industry...
...4. Londa Schiebinger, "Skeletons in the Closet: The First Illustrations of the Female Skeleton in Eighteenth-Century Anatomy" in Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laqueur, eds., The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century, (University of California Press, 1987), pp...
...Thinking from Women's Lives (Cornell University Press, 1991...
...They are inevitably incomplete...
...62 • DISSENT / Summer 2005...
...Bush and his administration have been less than honest in basing their rejection of Kyoto on "scientific uncertainty...
...NARAL Pro-Choice America's report on abstinence-only sex education programs, available on the organization's Web site (www.prochoiceamerica.org ), begins with the statement, "Ideology, not science, has been driving America's response to the devastating problem of teen pregnancy and STD/ HIV infection...
...Whose Knowledge...
...It might be possible to create institutions and rules that prevent the kind of overt manipulation of science attempted by the Bush administration, but it is less obvious how we can recognize, let alone eliminate, these more complicated reifications of social values...
...In one case, the Environmental Protection Agency "revised" its data as a result of pressure from the oil industry, in particular Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton...
...Unless there is proof that no harm will be done, they contend, governments should err on the side of caution...
...Both the right and the left have selectively used scientific arguments, depending on whether it is to their advantage to highlight uncertainty...
...But is this a clash between science and ideology or between two different sets of values...
...The resulting collaboration between medical researchers and activists led to what those involved agreed was a better method for testing drugs...
...Drawing an imaginary boundary around science to protect it from scrutiny contradicts these democratic aims, as does hiding behind scientific justifications for policy positions...
...The capacity of laypeople to appropriate expert knowledge and to become experts themselves is evident in the efforts of citizens of Woburn, Massachusetts, who traced the cause of a leukemia cluster to toxic waste dumped in their community...
...He chose instead to appoint five individuals known to oppose tightening the federal lead-poisoning rules, two of whom had ties to the lead industry...
...We are better off talking about the ways that scientific knowledge is in fact "partial" than claiming that a purely objective account of the world is possible...
...Although there is a difference between the deceptive practices of the Bush administration and the less intentional conservative tendencies of much scientific research, a commitment to progressive politics demands that we not limit our criticism to overt deception and manipulation...
...To justify their position, supporters of an aggressive stem-cell research agenda mix science, economic development, and human health needs, but assert that their position is based narrowly on "sound science...
...It also steers attention away from the social explanations for health disparities...
...We do not, and cannot, live in a technocracy where policy and practice are dictated by experts...
...The Union of DISSENT / Summer 2005 • 59 DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE Concerned Scientists (UCS) has documented at least nine incidents of committee stacking— an "unprecedented" and "wide-ranging effort to...
...This initiative demonstrated not only the capacity of laypeople to understand complex scientific information when it pertains directly to their lives, but also their ability to produce better research.' When it comes to environmental pollutants, ordinary citizens are often the first to be aware of health problems and may be the only people with sufficient interest to uncover the sources of these problems...
...Representative Henry A. Waxman (D.—Calif...
...As citizens, we must take our differences seriously and debate them publicly...
...Laypeople"—without academic certifications— have often engaged thoughtfully in scientific debates and produced reasoned evaluations of new technologies...
...Other metaphors—such as a food chain, in which macrophages ingest microorganisms— would direct researchers' attention toward different aspects of how the immune system works...
...Beyond democratizing the policymaking process, citizen participation, under certain circumstances, can improve scientific research DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE and contribute to producing better knowledge about the issues that affect our lives...
...There are no easy answers, but questions about the implicit values and orientations represented in scientific claims must be honestly considered if we expect science to be directed toward progressive ends...
...Despite criticism of the Bush administration's approach to science, deep questions about science, values, and democracy typically go unconsidered...
...WHAT DOES THIS mean in practice...
...In an article in the Nation on March 8, 2004, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., identifies several examples of such practices...
...Steven Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, overruled the recommendations of FDA staff and two independent scientific advisory panels, saying that there had not been enough research on the possible side effects of the drug among younger teenage girls (Galson's letter is available at http://www.fda.gov/ c der/drug/infopage/planB/plan B_ NALetter.pdf...
...Scientific evidence is unquestionably important in policymaking, but critical political decisions are almost always about values and interests...
...Although science always produces partial perspectives, it is possible to sort out those that are less partial and more accurate...
...Although we are strongly critical of Bush administration policies—and the use of scientific claims to justify those policies—we are equally concerned about the implications of the position that science should be sharply distinguished from politics and values...
...Collaboration would have produced a better outcome.' If we believe in enhancing democracy, we must be attentive to deep-rooted relations of power that constrain democratic participation in science...
...To the charge that the administration selects data to fit predetermined outcomes, we expand the critique to consider how science works in subtle ways to justify sexist and racist practices...
...But is this a realistic or even desirable goal...
...Ideology vs...
...As a result of this policy, microbiologist James Zahn was prohibited from sharing his discovery of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the air near large hog farms in Iowa and Missouri, a potentially serious public health risk...
...Eighteenth-century anatomists assumed that men's and women's bodies were different in socially significant ways...
...Ultimately, the decision about how America's youth will learn about sexuality will not come down to statistics about program success rates but rather to a political struggle over deeply held values...
...But neither should their work be exempt from critical examination...
...One way of approaching this is to consider what questions we can answer with the data provided and what kinds of questions cannot be answered with it...
...Science, like other social spheres, is a universe of divergent values and interests...
...42-82...
...2. Emily Martin, "Toward an Anthropology of Immunology: The Body as Nation State...
...A second accusation is that the Bush administration has manipulated information in ways that insert bias into an otherwise objective process...
...We should instead insist on democratic debate about values, rather than setting ourselves up to be trapped by our own critique...
...One result was that women were not allowed to practice science...
...Donna Haraway calls this the "god trick...
...Claims and counter-claims are made with little accountability, no effort at understanding, and certainly minimal concern for fairness...
...The borders of science are by no DEMOCRATIZING SCIENCE means static and impermeable, but incursions by outsiders are strongly resisted...
...If values and interests are at stake, a larger population of citizens must be involved in making our policies...
...The evidence that the Bush administration has stacked advisory committees, suppressed evidence, and disregarded scientific consensus is extremely troubling...
...The illustrations served, in a circular fashion, to produce "natural" explanations for social roles and cultural beliefs...
...Their opponents, advocates of the "precautionary principle," make the opposite argument...
...prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda...
...The notion of "sound science" obfuscates the array of issues at stake on science and technologyrelated policy matters...
...We do so not only because of the evidence that these programs fail to prevent pregnancy and disease...
...Advocates of abortion rights have rightly criticized the administration for using flawed and downright false information about the health effects of abortion in claiming that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer...
...And although this research is not intentionally misleading, it is partial or incomplete...
...IN A TRULY democratic system of governance, both values and knowledge would be up for widespread debate...
...Science is an important part of taking a stand, but environmentalists, reproductive rights activists, advocates of stem-cell research, opponents of GM foods, and others who reject the administration's policies must lay out their arguments in terms of the social, cultural, and economic values that make these debates so important and so difficult to resolve...
...Its reluctance to support this research is based on deeply held values, and the left's response is disingenuous and unfair...
...and the Union of Concerned Scientists point to a pervasive pattern of misleading the public by providing inadequate, selective, or false information...
...One could look at them, see obvious differences between women and men, and conclude that differences in status, occupations, and rights were scientifically justified...
...Once we move beyond blatant deception, though, the truth is complicated...
...What's generating my increased blood pressure are the social forces at play, not my DNA...
...183-201...
...Lay consumers of scientific information do not always have the skill or inclination to question the metaphors and values embedded in the results of a study...
...In one of the examples discussed, then-Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, rejected several nominees selected by the Centers for Disease Control to serve on the CDC Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention...
...DANIEL LEE KLEINMAN is a professor in the Department of Rural Sociology at UW-Madison...
...Dueling press releases, presidential debates, and even congressional hearings are not adequate forums for these discussions...
...Routledge, 19981...
...All claims about the natural (and social) world unavoidably reflect a perspective, an angle of vision...
...Although their purpose is to exclude people who advocate policy positions while pretending to provide objective information, they also implicitly exclude a whole range of people with legitimate interests in and knowledge about the matter at hand...
...Each will have a partially accurate but incomplete perspective...
...Our country is divided by divergent values on this matter, and as on so many issues, the debate should focus on the commitments that underlie the disagreement...
...To the charge that in the Bush administration ideology trumps science, we argue that there are a wide range of issues on which values, not science, provide the best justifications for progressive policy positions...
...Although the "god trick" is unattainable, it is surely possible and desirable to be more aware of the metaphors and assumptions of difference reflected in scientific depictions of nature...
...pARTICULARLY IRKSOME to the administration's opponents is its refusal to accept the scientific consensus on issues like global climate change...
...It took legal action to get government officials to take seriously the evidence collected by community members...
...ABBY J. KINCHY is a doctoral candidate in the departments of Sociology and Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison...
...The farmers became hostile and distrustful, undermining the scientists' efforts...
...Guided by this assumption, they selected examples from the great variation in women's skeletal shapes to produce illustrations that they believed best represented the "typical" female body...
...See also, Sandra Harding, Whose Science...
...The scientists' pronouncements repeatedly proved wrong...
...Although there are no easy solutions to the problems raised here, they must become part of the public debate...
...A more realistic approach to preventing deceptive scientific claims is to assume that all knowledge claims are partial in some way and attempt to determine which claims are most accurate...
...Is Science "Impartial...
Vol. 52 • July 2005 • No. 3
