Evaluating Obama’s Science Policy

March 10th, 2009

Posted by: admin

[Update: The article discussed below is now available here]

Roger and I have both written on Obama’s scientific integrity memo over the last couple of days (here and here), pointing out the (misguided) persistence of many commentators in asserting that science should supersede politics and values in the policy making process. So far, it seems that Obama’s administration has avoided conflating scientific integrity with technocracy.

But all this talk about scientific integrity is really just a reaction against a few controversial, and highly visible incidents associated with the Bush Administration. It’s campaign politics. Now that we’ve had a cathartic and symbolic restoration of scientific integrity, how should we think about actually governing science policy going forward? In an article in the forthcoming edition of Issues in Science and Technology (PDF), ASU President Michael Crow offers one take on how we should judge Obama’s science policy (my emphasis):

So even as we applaud our new national science policy leaders, we should also encourage the Obama administration to make the necessary transition from a campaign posture focused on countering political interference in science to a governing posture that connects the $150 billion U.S. public investment in S&T to our most urgent problems.

One key obstacle to strengthening this connection is a culture that values “pure” research above other types, as if some invisible hand will steer scientists’ curiosity toward socially useful inquiries. There is no such hand. … Overall, we act as if the intellectual goals of scientists are automatically and inevitably aligned with our most important goals as a society. They are not.

As Crow points out, scientific integrity is not the major problem facing our R&D enterprise; its the governance of science. We don’t just need innovative scientists; we need innovative institutions that manage our research investments creatively, effectively, and with the goal of aligning science with the needs of society:

The success of President Obama’s new science team should be measured by its ability to break down the historical disconnect between science and policy. Our scientific enterprise excels at creating knowledge, but it continues to embrace the myth that new knowledge, emerging from the stubbornly disciplinary channels of today’s scientific programs, automatically and serendipitously turns into social benefit. A new administration facing a host of enormous challenges to human welfare can best unleash the power of S&T by rejecting this myth and building a government-wide knowledge creating enterprise that strengthens the linkages between research and social need.

It’s worth reading the whole article, as he provides examples of this kind of institutional innovation, as well as a brief discussion of how these ideas interact with the university setting.

3 Responses to “Evaluating Obama’s Science Policy”

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  1. Maurice Garoutte Says:

    It would be bad science to use the words of a research grant application to make policy recommendations to government. No one would to that.

    It is equally bad science to use the words from political speeches to judge how the administration will deal with science.

    Just as the value of a scientist’s work has to wait for a review of a final report; the value that a politician places on science will be shown by legislation proposed and passed.

    Or more simply: Trust but verify.

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  3. stan Says:

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/using_embryoswithout_limit.html

    re: Obama’s ‘ostentatious issuance of a memorandum on “restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making” .

    Restoring? The implication, of course, is that while Obama is guided solely by science, Bush was driven by dogma, ideology and politics.

    What an outrage. George Bush’s nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.

    Obama’s address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the “false choice between sound science and moral values.” Yet, exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds later he went on to declare that he would never open the door to the “use of cloning for human reproduction.”

    Does he not think that a cloned human would be of extraordinary scientific interest? And yet he banned it.

    Is he so obtuse not to see that he had just made a choice of ethics over science? Yet, unlike President Bush, who painstakingly explained the balance of ethical and scientific goods he was trying to achieve, Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and others not.

    This is not just intellectual laziness. It is the moral arrogance of a man who continuously dismisses his critics as ideological while he is guided exclusively by pragmatism (in economics, social policy, foreign policy) and science in medical ethics.

    Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible. Obama’s pretense that he will “restore science to its rightful place” and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand — this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically “scientific.”

    What he said.

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  5. cspawn » Blog Archive » Has the Transition Affected Your Research? Says:

    [...] I’ll point to some stuff I wrote earlier this month for the Prometheus blog (here and here) on the general relationship between science and politics under the Obama Administration. Much of [...]