Scientists and Policymakers

Increasingly, I’m getting more and more frustrated by the way scientific circles and government policy people operate. Mind you, it’s a good thing that government seeks the advice of experts on scientific matters. However, there are problems left, right and centre with this.

Often, the government (and by government, I don’t mean PNP or JLP or Republicans or Democrats – just whoever’s in power) seeks advice just for the sake of asking it; to say that they at least asked. Many times, they may simply not understand the scientists. Many times, they don’t know how to weave their advice into public policy. Many times, the complexities of academic rigour fly right over the government people’s heads, and too often scientific advice is mis-represented and/or over-simplified when integrated into public policy. It may be that government employees don’t have the scientific minds in and of themselves to comprehend the advice they seek, or it may be that they don’t like what is being said, and have to find ways to mold the advice into whatever they need to suit their objecitves.

Or it may be that the scientists themselves who provide the advice don’t understand the purpose for which the advice is intended. This is the heart of my issue. Ivory tower scientists often have no clue about the complexities of the real world, that there are economic, cultural, and, yes, political realities that have to be considered. But surprisingly, they don’t seem to understand issues of scale – a very distinct and obvious scientific concept. Too often, scientists require the most detailed this, and the highest resolution that. What they don’t understand is that everything is relative. You don’t need super-high-resolution data to study a wide region, certainly not when there’s no need to go much deeper, either due to time, budgetary, resource, or terms of reference constraints.

Too often we have scientific workshops and conferences which preach to the choir and end with broad statements like what we should do and must do from a policy standpoint. Funny how there are often very few scientists who are themselves aware of policy matters, no differently that the policymakers who no nothing of science. For those who know both, what’s stopping them from bridging the two?