As someone who attended the “science and advocacy” symposium at the Conservation Biology Annual Meeting, your book has great promise to inform such discussions – at least portions of the debate (if this blog is any indication of the ideas in your book). It is worth noting that of central focus at this symposium, while discussing science and advocacy more generally, was the appropriateness of advocating for a preferred policy options in the refereed literature.

While the perceived tension between science and advocacy is rife in many scientific communities, Conservation Biology is in many ways unique. There are at least two relevant factors worth discussing to understand the context of this discussion within the discipline.

1) The formation of Conservation Biology as a scientific disciple was an overt policy alternative developed in response to a perceived societal challenge. This is evident in the first issue of Conservation Biology where Michael Soulé (1987) stated that the discipline arose to solve “the biological diversity crisis…[of] the twenty-first century.” Certainly other scientific disciplines evolved in response to societal challenges. What makes the discipline of Conservation Biology unique is that the discipline explicitly embraces an overriding value preference as its foundation. Biodiversity = Good; Loss of Biodiversity = Bad. There is little attempt to hide this preference under the guise of objective science.

2) The identification of “Conservation Biology” is misleading to the lay public. Conservation Biology is not just about biology in a conservation setting. In recent years many political scientists, psychologists, anthropologists, policy scientists, etc–often with little biophysical science background–fully consider themselves to be conservation biologists. As such, the content of the journal has shifted to include a considerable amount of social science research. It may go without saying that the professional norms between traditional disciplines (particularly the biological and social) and specialized jargon are not always consistent. There is quite a bit of confusion among the diverse set of specialists who call themselves “conservation biologists” what constitutes policy research, what constitutes policy advocacy, and when, where, and what types of advocacy are appropriate.

In other words, the science/advocacy discussion that Nature reported on revolves around at least two different but related challenges. (1) A paradigm clash between scientific management (those who see the separation of science and values as necessary for effective policy) and a contextual paradigm (those who see the integration of science and values as necessary for honest policy inquiry/practice). (2) A field that is wrestling with how to integrate different disciplines in a cohesive fashion.