Thanks for the clarification. I guess we are roughly talking about the same anyhow. There is

a) the question how to establish that a scientific question (natural sciences + humanistics) has a broad acceptance in the scientific community (since I don’t think consensus is realistic in most cases, for this the communities are too large, and scientists are often ‘proud’ to be outsiders (how can one be an outsider in a group of outsiders?)). In my experience most scientists are reasonable people and if one leaves out the very frontiers of research, there is in most cases a well founded basis that little scientists sensible disagree with (in contrast to how it is unfortunately often presented in the media). I the case of climate change I agree with your sense that ‘scientifically’ there was already an agreement in the 80ies, that is also my impression (a fact though that many people in the US don’t seem to be aware of, they talk about reusing plastic bags and switching off lights when leaving the room as if they’d just invented the wheel – sorry if that sounds arrogant, but I guess you know what I mean.). This however holds also true in other cases, one that I personally find upsetting is the myth of how the ‘invisible hand’ will allegedly direct our society towards the best possible state (which was known not to be the case at least 100 years ago, has been proved wrong repeatedly, isn’t doubted by any serious scientists, but still politicians distribute that nonsense). But then there is

b) the question how one includes this knowledge into the political system. That was the question I was mostly concerned with in my ‘On the Edge’ post (and some others). I don’t think this should be done because politicians maybe sometimes are so nice as to listen to some scientists, or because some scientists (usually very mildly mannered I’d say) get concerned or upset enough to make themselves heard. It should be built into the very basis of the political system that decisions ought to be made according to the best scientific information and understanding available. And then there is

c) the question what are actually political ‘decisions’ that people ought to vote on according to their personal opinions and values. I think one should disentangle these political decisions about where we want to go (e.g. safe energy) from the questions that fall into the realm of the scientific method, e.g. how do we get best where we want to go. In Canada one can interestingly see some pre-versions of what I mean: i.e. there is a political decision made on what is to be achieved (CO2 goals). When it comes to the question how to achieve that they export several proposals on how to direct people’s behaviour (e.g. taxes, laws, combinations of both etc) to an organization which ‘tests’ the outcome and they get an experts opinion. This I believe can be done much more efficiently if there was more support for such research. Also, I think it is essential that one sets up the whole system such that it can be readjusted if things don’t turn out as expected (feedback control).

Sadly nothing of what I’ve just said is actually new – it’s been subject of research for at least some decades… (see keywords adaptive management, organizational development etc). It’s about time we incorporate this knowledge into the organization of our societies.

Have a nice weekend,

B.

PS: MS IE cuts off the header, so one can’t read the title of your blog, and the top link bar (home about …) hangs in front of the text while scrolling. I vaguely suspect some elements of the site might just be missing but it’s hard to tell.

Hi Bee

thanks for posting a comment to this post. may be I havent expressed myself
clearly enough, but I never wanted to claim that science should work by a majority
vote. You are right – science doesnt work by majority vote, moreover the question of HOW to vote is also not easy (see my remarks and also my comment regarding the sensitivity towards voting systems).

It is clear that on issues, where there is a common agreement, it is
not necessary to vote. (On the other hand IF people would vote on lets say wether
1*1=1 and if one reduces the experts round to mathematicians then lets say at
least 70% would vote for true due to their inherent loyality towards mathematics. (Huh?))

But joking aside – there are scientifc issues where this is not so clear. Look at the climate change debate. The whole debate took basically already place in the eighties. However at that time it was mostly seen as an ideological issue…and as a matter of fact some political leaders still think it is.

The fact that most of the world has now accepted (?) that climate change is a scientific fact is mostly due to the massive number of scientists, who contributed to the scientific statements of the IPCC – I call this a majority vote.

In problematic issues politicians and the public are often bombarded with a multitude of scientific opinions. OF COURSE this is part of the scientific debate, but often they are mistaken as eternal truths or worse: as a sign that scientists may not know what they are saying. In particular within these bombardement by lobbiists and media it is often just not clear how many scientists think one way or the other. But the politicians have to make a desicion.

So concluding – with my suggestion above I was definitely not meaning that the truth should be found via majority voting. May be instead of “vote” I should have better used the word “poll”. The poll or voting on the platform is intended to display – in a transparent way – how strong the INTERMEDIATE scientific consensus about an issue is. It doesnt imply that it is eternal truth (on the contrary with the poll one could fix a road map on when to vote again and on how to prepare for changes). It is intended as a guideline by experts.

Hope that makes things clearer. ?

nad

p.s. thanks for the comment about the MS explorer I will try to find someone who uses it in order to check what is awkward about the template. Is it very bad? It may be due to the fact that MS explorer has problems with transparent images?

Thanks for the pointer. This is a very interesting post, and I share many of your views. Incidentally, I am about to write a post on a very related subject. I agree with you that the choice of consultants is a potential threat for democracy and opens a door to lobbyism. I am not sure though I like your suggestion that experts vote on scientific questions. Science doesn’t work by majority vote, it never has, and I don’t think it every will. In cases where experts haven’t reached a sufficient agreement, I’d say make the system foolproof enough to be prepared for different possible outcomes, and include the possibility to incorporate further knowledge. That however is not presently realized in our systems, in fact, they have way too much inertia. I personally strongly believe in the power of the scientific method, I am reasonably sure it would prove very useful also in political and social aspects, and people would come to realize that once it was tried. Why do people take aspirin instead of transferring their pain via voodoo ritual into small dolls? Because aspirin works. Why should they listen to scientists who have an education in organizational design, politics or sociology? Because it works. Best,

B