Science Readings
Midterm 1
Backgrounder 1
Two reasons for the persistence of public controversies over issues that involve science and technology:
1. Politicization of science and technology: Politicization = manipulation of science for political gain. Ex politicians outright deny basic facts to forward political agenda, social media spreads misinformation and disinformation. Proposed solution is providing people with accurate scientific knowledge, promoting scientific literacy, and enhancing critical thinking
Scientization of policy and decision making: Scientization = trend in advanced industrialized and democratic societies towards an increased reliance on technical experts and scientific findings to inform and resolve collective decision making. Can lead to the imposition of questionable assumptions and values on public issues under the guise of scientific objectivity
Critical Reflection:
Structured approach to learning that promotes critical thinking and enhances habits of democracy
Highlight the values, assumptions and interests that shape collective thinking about the world
Benefits: encourages open mindedness, enhances self directed lifelong learning, promotes inquiry about evidence and values before coming to an opinion or conclusion
Meta-cognitive ‘second order’ thinking (thinking about thinking)
Awareness of social, political, and cultural contexts developed through social interaction
Begins with a critical incident that challenges expectations (public controversies over issues that involve science and technology)
Description and analysis: taking stock of what we do and don’t know, involves information gathering
Values, assumptions, interests: Taking personal notes and discussing key insights with others
Articulate learning: What did you learn about your own thinking, your professional training, and your political environment
Importance of Doubt and The (Momentary) Suspension of Judgement:
Reflective thinking requires that we cultivate doubt in order to suspend the desire for immediate judgement
CR can counterbalance some of the reactive and reactionary impulses that contribute to ongoing conflict and division
Different Views of Science:
Conventional (received) understandings of science and society tend to present science as a static, unconstested, and uncontestable collection of facts/theories/methods. S&S are presented in a dichotomous and linear fashion where facts are separate from values and where science speaks truth to politics
Science is represented as sufficient, whereas society is assumed to be deficient and ultimately the source of problems
People who hold this view tend to idealize science as a stable product of truth that can provide definitive answers to political debates
Many argue it is outdated and needs replacing
Alternative (reflexive) approaches recognize strengths and limitations of science and technology. Science is viewed as a social endeavor and institution that is maltifaceted, ambivalent and ever-changing. Assumptions are not made in advance about what is true or right in a situation
Science and politics are not seen as separate, but in a relationship of co-production where values infuse both realms
Post-normal based science, responsible research and innovation
Public controversies are complex and often arise due to different understandings, values, and perspectives on what should be done
Different ways of thinking about science have a direct bearing on society and collective decision making
Logical Fallacies:
Recognize logical fallacies in your own and others’ thinking
LF = faulty assumptions and errors in reasoning that create the appearance of reasonable justification. Occur when claims are used in place of valid arguments in a leading or deceptive way
Ad hominem: attacking someone’s character rather than addressing their argument
Affirming the consequent: taking a true statement and then invalidly inferring its converse (what comes after the then in an if/then statement)
Anecdotal: Using personal experience or an isolated incident to make general claims
Appeal to authority: Using opinions of authority figures or institutions as justification rather than examining their arguments
Appeal to emotion: Making appeals to emotions, rather than good arguments as justification
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Backgrounder 2
Science is:
A type of knowledge: An organized body of knowledge on a particular subject that provides reliable and trustworthy accounts of the world, often although not exclusively derived through quantification
A process/method: The systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, hypothesis building and experiment. Provide the ability to examine different sources, to scrutinize findings, and to question interpretation of the data systematically and fairly. Useful to contextualize the data, understand what data are taken to represent, why are they taken to represent this way, and what are the implications of different uses of data for evidence. This can help people catch potential misuses of data and produce reliable knowledge
An institution: Science does not exist in a vacuum, but it is influenced by social, cultural and political factors
Demarcation:
The ways in which boundaries are created between entities
Attempts to demarcate science from non-science
The distinction between facts and values is impossible to uphold and fails the test of realism
Values (and biases) enter science at numerous levels - personal, institutional, cultural
Efforts to demarcate science and non-science is boundary work, where distinctions are made in order to retain authority and legitimacy
Science Definitions Changed Over Time:
Enlightenment Era: branch of philosophy called natural philosophy. Empirical observation and experimentation were emphasized as the core methods through which society could progress
Professionalization: Changed how science was defined and practiced, scientists increasingly came to understand their practice as operating apart from political and societal demands and concerns
Big Science: Style of science research that is characterized by large scale facilities, high tech instruments, high costs, and large teams of scientists and technicians. Contrasted with little science which means university-funded investigator driven research initiatives
Science for the Public Good: Scientists joined forces to reclaim science for the public good. Call for transformations in the ways in which science is funded and conducting, decolonize science to make it inclusive
Actionable Science: research conducted with a particular user in mind, such as a decision maker. Goal is to have science inform improvements and solutions so that it can move directly into decision making spaces
Indigenous Sciences: distinct and diverse ways of knowing, values, principles and concepts held by Indigenous peoples. Responsibility to care for, sustain and respect the rights of other living things and the place one lives
Citizen Science: Science conducted by non-credentialed scientists. Citizens are increasingly enrolled in the creation of science. Scientists can also act as citizens when they advocate for what they believe in and when they uphold the public interest and tie science to broader social issues
Science as Reason:
Deductive reasoning: top-down reasoning that develops from the general to the particular. Deduction relies on premises (or theories) to infer conclusions. The argument is only as good as it premises. If the initial premises are false, then the conclusion is false
Inductive reasoning: ‘bottom-up’ reasoning that proceeds from the particular to the general. The premise and conclusion are only as good as the observations and experiences
Limitation: It is impossible to make universal statements based on empirical observations because there is always the possibility of an anomaly
Science as Method:
Verifiability (seeing is believing): For logical positivists, the core of the scientific method is verification achieved through observation, experience and experiment
Falsifiability (Refutation): Means of distinguishing empirical (scientific) from non-empirical knowledge. To Popper, we cannot prove any scientific theory is true, only that it is false. He claimed that scientific claims are falsifiable whereas non-scientific claims are not. Helps address limitations of induction and deduction, but not all scientific data is falsifiable in practice
Social Dimensions of Science:
Norms abbreviated CUDOS
Communality = common ownership of results and the imperative to share these results freely, recognizes that science is collaborative. Counter is secrecy
Universalism = principle that the evaluation of scientific findings should be focused only on merit according to accepted standards of the field. Counter is particularism where new knowledge is assessed based on reputation/social location/past productivity of the research group
Disinterestedness = scientists must pursue the truth by avoiding influences that veer towards bias and self interest. Counter is interestedness where scientists pursue their own interests in research
Organized Skepticism = scrutiny of beliefs according to accepted logical and empirical criteria. They consider all new evidence even those that contradict their work. Counter is dogmatism when scientists promote their own most important findings even in the face of conflicting evidence
Normal Science:
Termed by Thomas Kuhn
Puzzle-solving where scientists work on problems from within relatively standard sets of assumptions
Teaches rules and standards that prepare students for membership in a scientific community
Scientific Consensus:
Instances in which scientists agree for the most part
Scientific Controversies as Proxy Politics
Gaps between the scientists and public beliefs
Scientific controversies aren’t about the science, but instead provide an arena in which we attempt to come to terms with much deeper issues: science serves as a proxy for these political and philosophical debates
By identifying the driving disagreements in a controversy, we may be in a better position to design policy compromises that address the concerns of both sides
GMOs: “food regimes”: political and economic ways of organizing food production. Disagreement is about deep philosophical disagreements over the way the food system relates to the cultural, economic and ecological systems that surround it
Vaccines: Much deeper controversy about how we understand risk and expertise
Climate change: Some conservatives and libertarians worry that environmental regulations are “socialist”. Disagreements over the relative importance of false positives (use of a model that is not actually accurate) and false negatives (reject a model that is accurate), which can be traced back to disagreements over the relative seriousness of the social impact of cap and trade and unmitigated climate change
Backgrounder: Evidence
Evidence: a body of information that is used to determine whether or not a claim is reliable and legit
“Information with a purpose”
What is accepted as legit evidence depends on conventions across different institutional contexts
Peer review serves a gatekeeper role, it means that other experts have endorsed its validity, significance and originality
PR is time consuming, costly and not good at detecting bias or fraud. Also subject to abuse, including theft of ideas and efforts to slow down publication of competitors
Error Correction:
Corrigendum: Correction published to appear alongside paper online
Expression of Concern: editors can publish an expression of concern if concerned about validity and investigation is underway
Retraction: If a paper is found to be fradulent, the journal will publish a retraction which means it is withdrawn - but typically not removed - from the scholary record. It is an admission of an editorial mistake
MMR-autism Controversy:
MMR vaccine was suggested to be a contributing factor in childhood autism in a renowed medical journal
Investigation into the study found that the study had been rigged
Evidence-Based Policy:
Refers to all policies (not just health) and covers a range of different activities in which science is called upon to inform collective decision making
Effort to address bias concerns and competing interests in medical decisions
Uses an evidence pyramid to assess the quality/validity/reliability of research findings: the bottom is the weakest evidence, and the top consists of randomized control trials/systematic reviews and those are less prone to bias and therefore more likely to lead to the truth
Randomized Control Trial: experments in which participants are randomly assigned to either receive an intervention or serve as a control, researchers than examine if there is a difference in outcome in each group. Considered the most stringent way of determining whether a cause-effect relation exists between intervention and outcome
Systematic reviews: structured reviews of published research literature that assess the quality of research studies. Goal is to minimize bias through a comprehensive and reproducible method
Limitations:
Not always fit for purpose: methodological quality does not necessarily mean the info is useful for the task at hand, may not be practical or relevant for urgent issues where decisions need to be quickly made
Dismissive: assumes that certain methods will provide the answer to all policy questions, can lead to discounting other forms of evidence which might be applicable or useful
Ethical limitations: in some cases it is not ethical to conduct a randomized trial because assigning some groups as control populations subjects them to unnecessary risks
Can stall important regulations and interventions: special interest groups often use the absence of RCT as an excuse to prevent interventions or regulations
Evidence-Informed (Systems-based) Decision Making:
Multiple forms of evidence are included, calls for critical reflection about the limitations of scientific methods
Flexible, adaptable, socially and situationally relevant, transferable finding
Decisions often made in conditions of incomplete and inconsistent evidence, best to act even if evidence is not perfect
Expertise:
Specialist who is asked to share advice and evidence to support a decision
Different types of expertise:
No expertise: a degree of expertise insufficient to engage in an even cursory discussion of the topic in question
Contributory expertise: enough expertise to contribute to the knowledge base of the field or topic in question. Can include abstract/generalizable or local/practical knowledge. Comes from formal professional training and credentials such as undergrad and postgrad education and work experience
Interactional expertise: peope who lack formal training but understand issues and have fluency in technical language. Enough knowledge to interact interestingly with those who possess contributory expertise of the other form
Public expertise: refers to people who have a sophisticated understanding of public sentiments and values. Can be attained by engaging with public individuals, or by virtue of a proxy who is accountable to the public
Peer Review
What is peer review for? Possible answers include:
Method to select the best grant applications for funding and the best papers to publish in a journal
Improve the quality of papers published or research proposals that are funded
Detecting errors or fraud, but when tested many papers had errors that were not caught. Works on trust, so fraud is not always caught
Little evidence on its effectiveness, but considerable evidence on its defects
Slow and expensive (1+ year): opportunity cost - the time spent reviewing could be spent doing something more productive
Inconsistent: Subjective, people take different views. Makes it something of a lottery
Bias: Bias against women in the process of awarding grants, bias against authors from less prestigious institutions (Mathew effect), strongly biased against ‘negative studies’ ex studies that find an intervention doesn’t work
Abuse: Steal ideas, produce an unjustly harsh review to block/slow down publication of the ideas of a competitor
How to improve PR?
Standardizing procedures, opening up the process, blinding reviewers to authors’ identity ex
These were not proven to be significantly helpful or causing different outcomes
Best response may be adopting a very quick and light form of peer review
Backgrounder: Uncertainty
Two categories:
Aleatory uncertainty: variability in the world
Largely uncontrollable and inevitable
Epistemic uncertainty: limitations of knowledge
Can be controlled and reduced
Most people experience uncertainty with discomfort, but in a positive sense it can be a stimulus for creativity, a site of inquiry, and excitement
Uncertainty:
Scientifically refers to the degree in which something is known or knowable
Precision: How consistent results are when measurements are repeated, decreased as repeatability or reproducibility
Accuracy: How close a measurement is to the true, accepted or anticipated value (validity)
Error types:
Random: unavoidable errors in data collection and analysis, managed through stats, affects precision
Systematic: avoidable errors in data collection and analysis, affects accurate
Bias:
Any deviation from the truth in data collection, analysis, interpretation, or publication
Can occur intentionally or unintentionally
Confirmation: tendency to seek and interpret information that confirms prior beliefs and practices
Overconfidence: tendency to have too much confidence in your own judgement
Hypothesis Testing and Common Stat Errors:
HT involves assuming a null hypothesis that assumes no difference due to an intervention, and an alternative hypothesis that is true when H0 is proven false
Type 1 error: False rejection of a null that is true (false positive)
Type 2 error: Failure to reject a null hypothesis that is false (false negative)
Type 3 error: Asking the wrong question or failing to ask the right question
Been described as ‘socially constructed ignorance’
Generally considered more important to avoid false positives (T1) than false negatives (T2)
Trans-scientific Questions:
Questions that are often asked of science but cannot be unambiguously answered by science
Can be asked of science but cannot be answered by science because the answers cannot be calculated
Questions that require expensive, lengthy or even impossible experiments: Cases in which existing records or monitoring systems are lacking, or where controlled experiments are impossible
Questions that refer to human behaviour: Impossible to answer with scientific methods because humans are adaptive, creative, innovative
Questions pertaining to the future: Fundamentally unanswerable because there is always uncertainty in extrapolating current knowledge to new and untried circumstances
Questions that involve value judgements: Science cannot answer questions that involve inherent value judgements, such as how much a human life is worth or when life begins
Uncertainty in Legal Contexts (Standards of Proof):
Standards of Proof: level of certainty and degree of evidence necessary to support a decision, can change depending on the decision making context
Higher standards of proof suggest higher levels of certainty
Communicating Scientific Uncertainty:
Guidelines were devised to improve uncertainty communication:
Most data will be flawed or incomplete, be honest about this
For some questions certainty may never be reached, consider carefully whether to wait for definitive evidence or act on the evidence you have
Make sense of complex situations by acknowledging the complexity, admitting ignorance, exporing paradoxes, reflecting collectively
Different people interpret data differently
Pragmatic interventions—carefully observed and compared in real world settings—can generate useful data to complement the findings of controlled trials and other forms of evidence
Can be communicated qualitative (ex with words), quantitatively (with numbers) or graphically (with images)
Qualitative:
Useful cause words can be widely understood
Words like chance, doubtful, exploratory, likely, might, possible, sometimes ex
Use cautious language (implies, if we assume..then…)
Quantitative:
Numbers are more specific and precise in communicating uncertainty
Uses probability distributions or confidence intervals
Require mathematical literacy
Numbers can be prone to overconfidence bias and can give the impression of certainty
Fixed Scales:
Often used to describe levels of uncertainty and to convey relationships
Qualitative or quantiative
Limited in that they do not convey context, tend to ignore the existence of deeper forms of uncertainty
Graphs:
Accessible way to communicate uncertainties that allow a lot of information to be summarized effectively
Managing Uncertainty:
Consensus
Statement of significant scientific agreement along qualified experts about the best available knowledge at a particular time
A way to consolidate scientific research so that it is useful for policy
Achieved through communication
Typically do not expose dissent and rarely provide a full understanding of a range of knowledge
Vulnerable to error and is not well suited for situations in which scientific knowledge is evolving
Risk
Assessment of the probability and magnitude of an unwanted, adverse event such as harm, illness or death
Trust strongly influences how people perceive risk
Precaution
Emphasizes the importance of early regulatory action in the absence of complete scientific evidence
Suggests that if there is a reason to be concerned about a proposed action, tech or policy then we are permitted to delay its introduction until more evidence emerges
Provides a framework to discuss uncertainty
Deep Uncertainties:
Semantic Uncertainty: uncertainties that arise through language
Vagueness: Concepts that represent indeterminate borderline cases, often contrasted with precision
Ambiguity: The existence of more than one meaning that makes sense in a particular context. Increase when diverse groups of people are involved, Ex is the word uncertainty
Ignorance:
Situations in which, we don’t know what we don’t know
Central, but often unacknowledged feature of scientific knowledge
Culturally constructed in ways that keep certain things and issues from being known by certain groups of people
Manufacturing Uncertainty:
Industries facing allegations that their products or practices might be harmful to human health - and hence the object of regulation - often dispute the science on which health or environmental concerns are based by highlighting uncertainties
Strategic and tactical approach to augment uncertainty in order to avoid regulation
Industries seeking to avoid regulation often claim we need absolute certainty for regulations to proceed. The following strategies are often used by industries to highlight uncertainty and avoid regulation:
Shift the focus of the debate away from health, safety and/or environmental damage caused by a product onto the economic contribution the product makes
Fund research showing the detrimental product is not dangerous or problematic, or is less dangerous/problematic than thought. Uses cherry picked and selective data
Discredit scientistics whose research challenges powerful interests with labels like ‘junk science’
Manufacturing Uncertainty: Contested Science and the Protection of the Public’s Health and Environment
Opponents of public health and environmental regulations often try to “manufacture uncertainty” by questioning the validity of scientific evidence on which the regulations are based
Ex Reye’s syndrome warnings on Aspirin bottles has widely decreased its occurence, although many suffered in the process before it became widely known Aspiring can cause Reye’s
Aspirin industry with assistance of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget was able to delay a major government public educational program for two years and mandatory labels for four years
Strategy is so common that it is unsual for the science behind a public health or environmental regulation proposed in the US to not be challenged by a corporation facing regulation
When new regulations are being considered, opponents raise the issue of scientific uncertainty no matter how powerful or conclusive the evidence
Manufactors of pollution and harmful products have promoted the “junk science” movement which attempts to influence public opinion by ridiculing scientists whose research threatens powerful interests, irrespective of the quality of those scientists’ research
By magnifying/exploiting uncertainties, polluters and harmful product manufactuers of dangerous products have been remarkably successful in delaying regulations or other measures designed to protect health and safety
Most used by tobacco industry
Goal was to promote scientific uncertainty
Lead Industry
Mislead decision makers and the public in order to protect their ability ro sell leaded paint and leaded gasoline
Rejected claims of harm and shifted the blame to poisoned children who “were subnormal to begin with”
Chemical Industry
Public had concerns about carcinogens in food
Congress might test chemicals that were added to or contaminated food, this did not pass due to efforts from the industry (although a lighter regulation did enabling the FDA to begin regulating chemicals in the food supply)
Asbestos Industry:
Potent cause of lung disease and cancer
Opponents of proposed regulation relied on a menu of themes about the underlying science, employers facting regulation often claimed that they had not documented an elevated rate of disease among their employees exposed to a particular substance therefore it did not need regulation
Bladder Carcinogens:
Emergency temporary standard was petitioned to prevent workers’ exposure to numerous carcinogens
Several of the carcinogens were aromatic amines which were identified as bladder carcinogens
Opponents of OSHA’s plan to regulate benzidine acknowledged that it caused bladder cancer but work conditions were good and did not pose a risk to workers
Dichlorobenzidine was also strongly opposed to regulation
MOCA regulation was strongly opposed asserting that OSHA’s decision to rely on data from animal studies was “illogical”
Vinyl Chloride:
Dozens of workers were found with a rare liver cancer in factories producing vinyl chloride monomer for production of polyvinyl chloride
Society for Plastics Industry hired a public relations form to help the industry prepare for OSHA’s public hearings and assist in convincing OSHA to accept a more relaxed stand
Junk Science:
Defined as faulty scientific data and analysis used to further a special agenda
Used more effectively in public forums
Consultants often reanalyze studies that had reported positive findings, with elevated risks of disease disappearing in the reanalysis
Has little relation to actual science
Daubert Decision:
Parlodel drug manufacturers were sued for causing illness in women but their cases were essentially thrown out of court for lack of scientific certainty
US Supreme Court issued a ruling in Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc requiring federal judges to serve as scientific gatekeepers, allowing into evidence only expert testimony that they deem relevant and reliable. Judges are requiring physicians who testify as experts to apply standards of causal inference that exceed those which physicians use to diagnose and treat their own patients
Applying the Daubert rule, the judges demanded a level of certainty that was virtually impossible to provide
Disconnect between legal proof and scientific evidence
Antiregulatory interests are promoting the application of Daubert principles in judicial review of federal regulation
Legal, economic and political obstacles faced by regulators will increase dramatically when Daubert like criteria are applied to each piece of scientific evidence used to support a regulation
Data Quality Act:
Guidelines were developed to “ensure and maximize data quality” and to establish procedures allowing formal challenges to information disseminated by federal agencies
If someone believes that information disseminated by an agency is not of sufficient quality, objectivity, utility, or integrity they may request a correction to it
These provisions may have been introduced at the request of Jim Tozzi, who boasts about the convergence of the junk science movement and the DQA, and he suggested that the law “will stop the junk science that can lead to useless and expensive regulations”
Backgrounder: Values
Values: Things that matter
Scientists learn about values through passive observation, by working with and learning from other scientists and watching how their behaviour is rewarded or punished
Can learn about them through making them an object of study
Epistemic (cognitive) values: relate to the norms that guide the development of scientific beliefs
Objectivity, precision, simplicity, replicability, and predictive accuracy
Merton’s norms of communism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism
Non-epistemic (social or contextual) values: pertain to the social dimensions of science
More broad ranging than epistemic values
Beneficence, justice, equality, equity
Value Free Ideal of Science:
Value-free ideal of science is central to a conventional (“received”) approach to science
Value-freedom is seen as a virtue and it is upheld that science should be impartial, universal, and not open to personal bias
Non-epistemic values corrupt the pursuit of truth by favoring the interests and beliefs of some groups over others
Critics argue that values are a key part of science, and in addition to epistemic values, social values form the background assumptions that guide scientific inquiry
Values in science can lead to more robust results
Values that inform science are dynamic and not static, values change as society changes
Concerns about justice are central to science
Justice: efforts to right past wrongs, and to ensure equality, equity, recognition, and participation for all people, not just the privileged few
Research Ethics:
Ethics: guidelines or codes that dictate proper and acceptable ways to act
How should we live and treat one another?
How should we behave?
Which values should guide our behaviour?
Ethical questions often come with tensions and trade-offs
The Nuremberg Code:
Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial prosecuted 20 people for torture conducted in Nazi concentration camps
Defendants claimed that the experiments they conducted including freezing people to death, injecting people with toxic gases, and examining the effects of forced starvation were done for the good of society
Judges made it very clear that acceptable science research on humans must satisfy certain moral (non-epistemic) principles including voluntary informed consent, research qualifications, the rights of research subjects to terminate, and the importance of weighing risk vs benefit
Foundation for subsequent ethical codes of research
Tuskagee Syphillis Study and Formation of Institutional Ethics Boards:
Investigated the effects of untreated syphilis in hundreds of rural, poor African American men from the Tuskagee area
Men were not aware they were subjects of research and were denied information about antibiotic treatments for syphilis
Belmont Report:
Respect of persons states that people should be treated as autonomous agents with free will. People with diminished autonomy are also entitled to extra protection
Beneficence means do no harm. Scientists should strive to maximize social benefits and minimize risks. Justice refers to equal and equitable distribution of burden and benefit. People should be treated according to individual need, effort, societal contribution and/or merit
Justice also means ensuring informed consent on the part of research participants
Institutional Review Boards:
Belmont Report led to the creation of ethics review committees in universities, called institutional review boards and research ethics boards
Review committees help researchers:
Identify possible harms that might come to participants
Assess the risks vs benefits of research
In Canada all university research on humans and animals requires institutional review and approval by a formal research ethics board
Research ethic boards are a result of serious ethical breaches in sciences in the past, that revealed gaps in self-governance among scientific researchers when it came to protecting the rights of research participants
Conflicts of Interest:
Occur when a researchers’ interests or loyalties compromise the ways in which they conduct and communicate research activities
Can include ties to industry groups, funding sources, other potential ties such as advocacy groups
Researcher’s personal beliefs or political ideology can be considered a conflict of interest in these beliefs prevent the acknowledgement or reporting of findings that are contrary to personal views
Ties to industry has the most significant concerns:
Industry has significant resources to generate policy-relevant research to serve their interests (much more than advocacy groups)
Industry funding has significant effects on research outcomes
Ethical Frameworks:
Professional ethics focus on the relationship between professionals and the community
Bioethics is a field of study and well-known professional ethical framework. Medical bioethics tends to focus on protecting individuals from harm and incorporates four principles:
Autonomy (respect for person): Includes respect for the independence, freedom, and right of choice. Also includes protection of vulnerable people
Beneficence: Refers to the promotion of well-being and maximization of the benefit to harm ratio for research
Non-maleficence: Do no harm. One should avoid exposing persons or populations to further risk or harm. This recognizes that intentionally or negligently causing harm is considered morally wrong
Justice: Refers to the fair, equitable, and appropriate treatment of persons. Justice in research focuses on the duty to assign the burden and benefits of research fairly, both to individuals and society
Drawn criticism for privileging individual values such as autonomy and freedom over community values such as solidarity and justice
Environmental Ethics
Considers the relationship between humans, other species, and the environment
Value of non-human life forms such as plants and animals
Public Health
Subfield of bioethics, includes and extends beyond medical bioethics and public health professionals focus on the health of the entire community, although individual health is a concern
Tensions can emerge between individual autonomy and community health
Includes four principles of bioethics along with:
Health maximization: Public health is or should be committed to the maximization of population health. Moves beyond simply delivering a health benefit and suggests that the goal should be to promote and facilitate the best health for all
Efficiency and effectiveness: Publicly paid health services require that resources are used widely. Public health has a moral obligation to produce the most health benefit for the most people and efficient interventions would presumably be those that are backed by scientific evidence and cost benefit analysis, and that are sustainable
Proportionality: The intervention needs to be proportional to the threat or disease. That is, the intervention should be the least infringing of all alternatives. Proportionality also considers if costs are proportional to benefits
Transparency: Transparency is important for public health. Research, data, and justifications for actions should be open to scrutiny
Also takes into consideration environmental ethics, including the connectedness of the health of humans with the health of animals and the environment
Ethics for Animal Research:
Researchers have an ethical responsibility to ensure that animals in their care are treated humanely and with animal welfare in mind
Replacement refers to the priority to use animals only if a non-animal alternative cannot be found and requires that the least number of animals and most humane methods and conditions should be utilized
Reduction refers to methods that limit the number of animals needed to provide sufficient data to answer the research question, and maximizing the information obtained per animal
Absolute - simulators or computer programs
Relative - replacing more sentient animals with animals of lower potential for pain reception (invertebrates)
Refinement indicates the need for modifications to living conditions or research methods that minimize pain and distress for animals used in science and/or enhance their welfare over the entire life course
Douglas Science, Values and Democracy
Democracies encompass many different forms, but the central characteristic is an institutional check on those who govern by those who are governed
Science and democratic governance must interact in areas of science funding, the use of science in policy, and the influence of science on society generally
Arguments about what we should do rely upon descriptions of what we can do, what is feasible, what is readily achievable, what comes at higher costs and what those costs are
Improving the diversity of scientists, many argued, would improve the range of xplanations pursued and the kinds of phenomena examined
Value free ideal remained mostly unscathed partially because it was narrowly focused on when values need to be kept out
A scientist always needs to decide precisely at the point of inference crucial to the value-free ideal, whether the available evidence is enough for the claim at issue
This gap can never be filled but only stepped across, the scientist must decide whether this is acceptable
Epistemic values can help assess how strong the evidence is
Cognitive values can help assess where to place bets for future research
For the assessment of evidential sufficiency in the moment, we need to look beyond epistemic and cognitive values
Social and ethical values help with decision making by considering the consequences of getting it wrong and assessing what happens if it was a mistake to step across an inductive gap or if we fail to step across it
These values help weight risks and harms
Attempting to be value free in the assessment of evidential sufficiency is to ignore the broader society in which science functions
Science should be value responsive
Values direct role: values serve as a reason to do something and thus direct the decision
Values indirect role: serve to help assess whether the available evidence is sufficient for an inference or choice
No one ideal for values in science will suffice
Backgrounder: Governance
Governance: Formal and informal processes that shape priorities, values and practices
Determines who has power, whose knowledge matters, and who makes decisions
Values play a key role
Legitimation: who decides what is true or what is scientific
Authority: who has the power to make decisions
Decision-making: what are the processes by which decisions are made
Two noteable trends: an increasing reliance on non-state funding through partnership with industries and an increasing emphasis on public engagement, civic involvement and deliberation
Technocratic model:
Scientists provide objective knowledge to inform decision making —> Policy makers and publics use scientific evidence to guide and inform collective decisions
System of governance in which those with specialized knowledge have significant power to make decisions in dominant social institutions
Values: precision, empiricism, rational thought, control
Assumes science and tech can solve social problems, benefits of science and tech flow to society, facts/values/politics should remain separate of science, uncertainty can be fixed with more info and data, ethical questions typically are not raised until after research is conducted and tech develops, people must accept and adapt to technoscience innovations, progress through scientific rationality is natural and inevitable
Critiques: not necessarily aligned with collective well being, anti-democratic, exclusionary, unreflexive, biased
Democratic model: Collective decision making shaped by societal values, laws and policies
Facilitational decision making, where scientists share responsibility and accountability for research with stakeholders
Representative democracy: appointment of elected representatives, through processes such as elections and voting who make decisions on behalf of citizens
Participatory democracy: citizen participation and deliberation in collective decisions
Values: participation, inclusion, diversity, justice
Assumptions: reflective citizenry is necessary for democracy to thrive, citizens are capable and knowledgeable to participate in decision making about issues that involve science and tech, science and tech development take shape in cultural and political contexts that are shaped by societal laws/values/policies, different ways of knowing need to be legitimated and understood (epistemic), marginalized and excluded communities must participate in decisions in meaningful ways, rather than assume public ignorance recognize widely held knowledge and lived experiences, accountability and responsibility is required on the part of scientists and technologists
Critiques: citizens do not have enough knowledge, citizen participate is difficult to enact in practice, citizens tend to be precautionary and risk-adverse in approaching science in ways that might hinder innovation, in practice calls for participation often translate into more power given to special interest groups (particularly inudstry funded interest groups)
Science Communication:
Public understanding of science: Educate and inform people about the benefits of science and tech, top down communication model in which scientists inform public about the best ways to think about and inform decision making about issues that involve science and technology
Communication is a linear, one way process from scientists to everyone else
The public is unified and singular and has inadequate knowledge to inform collective decision making about issues that involve science and technology
Recommendations based on science are always correct
Public resistance to policy recommendations can be best countered by providing more info to the public
Communication involves only the transfer of content knowledge
Knowledge can be transferred without transformation and translation
Critics call it a public deficit approach because it assumes public lacks knowledge required to make informed decisions
Public engagement: Efforts to bring a range of stakeholders more centrally into science and tech processes, efforst to bring more perspectives into planning and policy processes that involve science and tech
Advocates call for more upstream engagement which means early and ongoing input by various publics into science tech and policy
Reflexive Governance:
Governance that scrutinizes itself, in terms of its achievements and unintended consequences
Replaces technocratic systems of governance and is inclusive of multiple stakeholders in decision making and embraces principles such as accountability, transparency, fairness, rule of law and ethics
Recognize that problems cannot be solved by singular solutions because new problems, trade offs, uncertainties, dilemmas and ambivalences are likely to appear after decisions are made
Anticipatory Governance: Developed in the context of nanotechnology, refers to efforts to help scientists become more aware of the social implications of the research they are conducting. Views scientists and engineers as making decisions that are consequential for the future, these actors have an important role to play in governance
Recommends more interdisciplinary engagement
Co-management: Common in environmental sectors, refers to the sharing of power and responsibility between the government and local resource users. Assumes that good governance means the direct involvement of people in the management of the resources that affect them. Many resources are too complex to be governed by a single agency
Postnormal science: New approaches to science are required in the face of controversial, high stake issues. Uncertainty is not banished but managed, and values are not presupposed but made explicit
Normal science has significant limitations when it tries to address highly contested social issues where uncertainties are high and values are in dispute, stakes are large, and decisions are urgent
Responsible Research and Innovation: Policy framework in the EU that seeks to align research and innovation with societal expectations, needs and implications. Seeks to impart a more robust sense of individual and collective responsibility to the actors involved in research and innovation cultures by incorporating values into discussions and decisions at an early stage in the innovation cycle
Key Considerations for Governance Decisions:
Commitment to Candour - Prioritizing truth and transparency builds trust between scientists, policy makers and publics
Recognition of Underlying Values and Assumptions - allows for different understandings of the question at hand to be explored directly
Involvement of a Broad Range of Knowledge Actors - allows for social and ethical concerns to be integrated into the decision making process
Consideration of a Range of Alternatives - Considering alternative strategies and solutions supports the development of wicked solutions that are capable of addressing multiple concerns at once
Preparedness to Respond - Having the ability to take accountability and adapt in the face of changing needs, information and technology
Manoomim Relations:
Honor Indigenous sovereignty and rights
Address past and present harm
Be on the path together with researchers and Indigenous partners
Recognize, respect, and value Indigenous participation and intellectual labour
Encourage robust exchange of ideas
Recognize that documents formalizing a relationship do not constitue the entire relationship
Identify and protect sensitive Indigenous data
Be prepared to navigate institutional obstacles
Seek, support and collaborate with diverse students
Actively listen and be open to different ways of engaging with the world
National-Level Governance:
Differ in the way they govern science and tech
Global Governance:
Must align action with values of social justice and democracy in ways that validate the legitimacy of diverse ways of knowing
Scientific Communication
Deficit model of scientific communication: The public fails to accept or believe science because it simply doesn’t know enough science
What drives disagreement seems to have more to do with ideological commitments or value frameworks than whether someone has a grasp of scientific facts
Important for the public to understand that science is a set of scientific facts, but its nature as an empirical, inductive, critical process
The public must understand that science is an ongoing practice of investigation
Midterm 2
Potential and risks of recent developments in biotechnology
We have reached the point where we can not only modify existing life with increasing precision but also create new life from scratch
Areas current developments in genetic technologies can be used:
Human health - editing ourselves
Editing vectors of disease
Gene drive: Use genetic recombination to ensure that a gene is copied across from one DNA strand to its paired DNA strand - forces a gene to spread through a sexually reproducing population much quicker than natural evolution
Malaria - use in mosquitoes
Food and nutrition security
Plants
Animals
Nature Conservation
Invasive species - gene drives
Synthetic materials - synthesis of useful materials, biological batteries
Risk:
Most discussed are potential catastrophic risks resulting from intended or unintended action
More realistic risk is the risk associated with gradual change - that through our choices we unintentionally arrive at a state we didn’t want and haven’t consented to
Need public debate and policy decisions to be informed by robust science
Regulatory systems for genetic techs need to address risks proportionately and apply lessons from responsible and safe innovation
Need to be adaptable and future-proof
People are generally more receptive to genetic technologies involving medicine compared to food
Advances in genetics challenge public notions of what is natural and unnatural
Why ‘safe enough’ is not good enough
Introducing genome-edited organisms appear to blur the boundary between natural and unnatural, NGTs have increasing pressures to deregulate a wide variety of applications
Some believe NGTs especially CRISPR can become instrumental in combating major threats to human health
Involve application of gene drives and self-disseminating genetic alteration agents
Others believe NGTs could help improve human and animal well being, increasing agricultural productivity, protect, conserve and restore biodiversity
Fear exists that strict legislation will lead to high cost approval processes that might hinder technological democratization processes and lead to a slowdown of scientific development
Efficiency and accessibility of NGTs also create fear among citizens, NGOs and scientific communities that the number of applications will increase and constitute new, cumulative and hitherto unknown threats to already stressed ecosystems
Many emphasize the need for potential legislative revisions to benefit local environments and society at large, rather than merely individual actors in large scale food production systems
Focus on what is scientifically ‘safe enough’, causes cultural and contextual conditions for what constitutes acceptable levels of risk to be ignored and it becomes easy to forget that GMOs below established threshold values are at all associated with risks
Influenced gene edited organisms may come to have on the well being of established cultural, socio-economic, and democratic systems is not covered by traditional risk assessments but belongs to the additional and voluntary assessment of broader criteria
Economic benefits to GM crop producers to be followed by economic as well as social costs to adjacent traditional and organic producers
The value of other already established social and bioeconomic systems is rarely assessed and their biological functioning generally is not the object of scientific enquiry
Public trust in NGTs are fraught with identifiable as well as possible unidentifiable risks, and public trust in them is reflexive/emotional/dependent on credibility of the actors involved in their use
Reflexive - depends upon rational arguments about the safety and value of NGTs and the empirical verification of such arguments
Credibility - public assessment of the credibility of research relies to a great extent on perceptions of basic research
Emotional - act of faith that cannot fully be rationalized, depends on whether they are perceived to belong in the society in which they operate
Much remains obscure about what does not work and why
EGE Report represents one among seven sources of expert knowledge providing the evidence on which the Commission will base its proposal for a revision of regulations for plants developed through the use of NGTs
Identifies issues associated with the use of these technologies that are either “particularly ethically problematic” or “new and distinctive to this technology”
Broad range of issues that ought to be considered in connection with the regulation and use of NGTs
Role of humans in relation to nature
Role of genes in defining humans and other species
Role of science in giving direction to development and shaping public policy
Safe enough framing causes distrust for one reason because it retains the assumption that the science of gene tech occurs in the lab and that the organisms produced will be contained within intended production sites
Reinforces the idea that gene tech is primarily a matter for molecular/genetic scientists
Has moved beyond contained use
Even though gene tech has evolved, ideas about the science of gene tech and how and where it is performed seem stuck in conceptualizations of ‘core’ science
SEF also seems less trustworthy in maintaining the assumption that science itself is value free, threatens to compromise the public’s trust in science
Sig feature of current debates on NGTs is that their proponents turn the ‘old’ question of whether the use of gene tech is morally defensible around to ask whether it can be ethically justified to not use this tech
‘Reversed ethics’ of current GMO and NGTs debates appears untrustworthy because it neither acknowledges nor discusses these conditions
It is necessary to balance hopeful visions with multi-actor, contextualized, and realistic accounts of the relative importance of NGTs and how they may come to influence existing ecological, socio-economic and cultural environments in both beneficial and harmful ways
Need for early and inclusive multi sector foresight analysis that may bring out complex, polarizing issues and previously unanticipated results
Public involvement in innovation and development processes may enhance the credibility of biotech developers, research institutions, and competent authorities and address issues important to emotional aspects
To satisfy reflexive elements of trust, the results of research on the application of old and new GMOs in different production systems and different regions should be registered in national and international databases of GMOs open to the public
Careful risk assessment needed to evaluate transgenic fish
Rationale for genetically engineering/transgenic animals for agricultural applications is to increase their productivity and yield, improve their resistance to diseases and parasites, and enhance the nutritional and processing qualities of foods derived from these transgenic animals
Aquatic organisms are the most likely group to present environmental concerns if accidentally released into the environment
Transgenic fish = fish that carry and transmit one or more copies of a recombinant DNA sequence
Defined by the tech used to create and transfer the DNA sequence, not the source species of the donor DNA
Only about 1/100 eggs microinjected will stably incorporate the recombinant DNA sequence into its genome and transmit the transgene to its progeny
Growth hormone gene is most popular target gene for transgenesis
Risks:
Release or escape
Concerns range from interbreeding with native fish populations to ecosystem effects resulting from heightened competition for food and prey species
Transgene confers enhanced mating success, but individuals with the transgene produce offspring with reduced juvenile viability
Environmental factors
Fast growing transgenic salmon were found to dominate feed acquisition and exhibit strong agonistic and cannibalistic behaviour toward their cohorts when there was inadequate food resources
Both risks may vary
Containment:
Pose little risk to native population if adequately contained
If they are ill suited to an environment or are physically unable to survive outside of containment
NRC recommended the simultaneous use of multiple containment strategies for transgenic fish
Critical control must be maintained at all times
Physical containment, biological containment (sterilization)
Currently no international standards regarding the confinement of transgenic fish to prevent their potential release or escape into the environment
GloFish not formally regulated
Less public support for agricultural biotech compared to medical applications of genetic engineering
Even if FDA approves transgenic fish, it will likely be activist, food retailer and consumer responses in the marketplace that ultimately decide whether transgenic food fish are accepted or not
Science and neoliberal globalization: a political sociological approach
Globalization: general changes that have occurred since WWII
Asymmetrical convergence
Under global neoliberalism standards for the production, storage and distribution of internationally traded goods are increasingly organized by international organizations that translate economic and social interests into scientific frameworks
Codex standardized the content of internationally traded foods and the processes by which foods were created and stored
Codex leaves food definitions in the hands of scientists and policymakers but also offers opportunities for input from NGOs, citizens in participating countries and scientists who can contribute independent reports
Products and distributors set new scientific standards to moderate unwanted or suspect social impacts
Scientism: a discourse or framework for discussion that excludes consideration of distributional and other social impact criteria in the determination by a regulatory agency that a product is/isn’t suitable for markets
In NL form it tends to restrict democratic participation and weaken the options for governments to regulate new tech in ways that protect citizens rather than corporations
Epistemic modernization is intended to capture the shifts in the governance of science that have involved escalating levels of scrutiny by civil society actors toward scientific research and tech regulation
Alternative industrial movements:
Certification movements: local and transnational social movement organizations work to change industry production standards and marketplace labelling. Work with the private sector to certify products as meeting certain social and environmental goals
Tech and product oriented movement: Support the development of alt pathways to industrial production through new products such as complementary meds, organic food or open source software
Social movements themselves have undergone a change in response to the relative tightening of political opportunities for government intervention in the economy
Activist groups have diversified their targets of social change to include direct engagements with industry
Movement groups have in some cases responded to the scientization of regulatory policy by becoming more actively involved in the construction of technical expertise
Social movement groups have become part of the new institutions of stakeholder governance, which themselves are subject to complex cross-currents
The tragedy of the commodity and the farce of AquAdvantage Salmon
AquAdvantage salmon have been genetically altered so that the fundamental traits and characteristics of an Atlantic salmon are now blended with an eel like species (ocean pout) and a salmon native to the Pacific Ocean (the chinook)
Result is a GM salmon that grows at twice the rate of an Atlantic salmon, allowing it to reach adult size in 18 months instead of three years
Commodification is a primary contributor to decline as well as an underlying cause for the failure of environmental policy prescriptions to adequately address the global fisheries crisis
Tragedy of the commodity: Ecological disorganization that results when competitive markets and complicit governments act to extend the influence of capital over nature
Two phases: initial environmental degradation, followed by failed efforts of conservation through state regulation
Mechanisms of capitalist markets and the role of the state in environmental degradation provide a crucial foundation for the tragedy of the commodity thesis in relation to food and fisheries
Depletion of wild stocks cannot be attributed solely to technological improvement - neither can accumulation
Changes came from the transformation of value of salmon, also due to habitat degradation imposed by large dams providing power to cities, irrigation
Salmon of hatchery origin are now dominant in most watersheds of the NW
Hatchery salmon had an unintended consequence of contributing to wild salmon decline rather than preserving the species
It is not possible to use hatcheries to replace wild salmon populations
Viewing salmon as a commodity is crucial to capitalist aquaculture
State is directly facilitating the needs of capital accumulation over ecological considerations
Concern AquAdvantage salmon would become an invasive species or may introduce exotic genes into the wild salmon genetic pool
Solutions consistently exacerbate the existing environmental conditions
Tragedy of the commons
Incommensurables cannot be compared theoretically, but in real life they are commensurable
The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed
Social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion of some sort
Mutual coercion should exist
As human population increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another
Fish of the Future
Decolonization in the PNW also requires addressing the catastrophic impact that settler colonialism has had on the land
Settler notion of nature as a passive, inanimate domain
Response to GE salmon among Indigenous peoples has been overwhelmingly negative
Indigneous practiced techniques like “streamscaping” or physically altering streams to enhance habitat and enable salmon passage, transplantation of salmon eggs and smolts between different streams to ease shortages and diversify fish populations and population control
Intensive Ind fishing increased salmon numbers by reducing the number of fish competing for spawning bed space
Decline in salmon runs was complex: logging, mining, farming, ranching and development of settler infrastructure all played a role
Boldt Decision: Tribes had a treaty reserved right to fish “in common” with the settlers so they were entitled to 50% of the ecologically sustainable catch
Problems with the rejections of GE salmon as unnatural:
Forces Ind communities to articulate their relationship with salmon and understanding of nature through settler terms
Positions GE salmon specifically as the unnatural excess of scientific ambition, not only reinforcing the nature/construction binary but normalizing the trajectory between the two
Dichotomy itself is false
Ind framework for rejecting GMOs
Moving beyond ontological supremacy
Indigenous kinship systems comprise relationships with the environment and more than human kin (animals, plants, spirits)
Ontology: reflection of our varied beliefs and assumptions regarding the true nature of reality and what exists and can exist
Failure to engage with Indigenous sciences as legit ways of known