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POLICY AND SCIENCE IN NATURAL RESOURCE AGENCIES: SEARCHING FOR APPROPRIATE ROLES
Citation:
Lackey, R T. POLICY AND SCIENCE IN NATURAL RESOURCE AGENCIES: SEARCHING FOR APPROPRIATE ROLES. Presented at US Fish and Wildlife Service Leadership Conference, Anchorage, AK, October 28-30, 2002.
Description:
Effectively resolving natural resource, ecological, and environmental policy problems often requires substantial input from scientists. The value of scientific information for informing policy deliberations is reduced when what is offered as "science" is inculcated with policy preferences. Such science is "normative" in that it contains tacit policy values and thus, by extension, policy preferences. Many notions of ecosystem health are examples of normative science. Ecosystem health is often heralded as a concept that will help clarify, evaluate, and implement 21st century ecological policy and improve management of natural resources. It is the asserted cornerstone of many public natural resource and environmental management programs. As the concept matures beyond vague explanations, it is increasingly contentious, principally because it embodies subtle, but inherent policy preferences. At the core of most debate over the utility of ecosystem health is a struggle over which societal values and preferences will take precedence. Despite its worth in illustrating complex and important ecological policy issues, it is criticized correctly as being excessively prone to improper use by allowing, even beckoning, scientists and others of the "technocratic elite" to select which societal preferences will be sanctioned. Normative science, with its tacitly derived value and preference character, provides little substantive help in reconciling the most divisive elements of natural resource, ecological, and environmental policy. Even though scientific information is important for developing wise public policy, involvement with ecological policy can be the professional undoing of a scientist unless the proper role of both science and policy is understood. To be most helpful to society in resolving public policy issues, I propose several rules for scientist's to follow when conveying scientific information to policy analysts and policy makers: (1) be honest; (2) focus on science; (3) accept that politicians covet legitimacy; (4) recognize that framing the policy question largely defines the analytical outcome; (5) avoid the allure of junk science; (6) concede that societal priorities evolve; and (7) avoid technical and scientific hubris.