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10 - Science and politics II

Science for policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2012

Adam Briggle
Affiliation:
University of North Texas
Carl Mitcham
Affiliation:
Colorado School of Mines
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Summary

The previous chapter explored the ethical dimensions of policies that guide the conduct of science and raised questions about scientists’ responsibilities for the broader outcomes of their work. This chapter continues to focus on science in its social context, with emphasis shifted to the role of science and scientists in informing public policy. Considering how scientists ought to contribute to political decision-making and policy formation raises ethical issues about relationships scientists have with the military, courts of law, and the media. This in turn prompts further questions about science and culture, which will be explored in the next chapter.

Setting the stage: climate change and an inconvenient heretic

No policy issue has been more dependent on input from science and more contested than that of global climate change. Global climate change refers to the ways average planetary weather patterns alter over time. For example, evidence of ancient climates shows that in the last 800,000 years the planet has seen a series of oscillations between ice ages and warmer interglacial periods. Because of the long timescales involved, climate change is not subject to direct individual experience; humans experience weather, not climate. Science is needed to identify climate change. The scientific study of climate or climatology depends in turn on interdisciplinary analysis of the atmosphere, including circulation patterns and interactions with ocean and land masses; the global monitoring of weather patterns along with human historical records; measurements of ancient atmospheric compositions from small samples of air trapped for thousands of years in glacial ice cores and dendrochronological reconstructions of changes in plant growth; and more. This scientific dependence has encouraged the assumption that defining and responding to climate change are scientific and technological in nature.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ethics and Science
An Introduction
, pp. 237 - 267
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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References

Allen, C.R. 1976 Responsibilities in Earthquake PredictionBulletin of the Seismological Society of America 66 20692074Google Scholar
Dawidoff, Nicholas 2009
Dessler, AndrewParson, Edward 2010 The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the DebateCambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, StephenCaney, SimonJamieson, DaleShue, Henry 2010 Climate Ethics: Essential ReadingsOxford University Press
Hough, Susan 2009 Predicting the Unpredictable: The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake PredictionPrinceton University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Offit, Paul 2010 Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a CureNew YorkColumbia University PressGoogle Scholar
Wakefield, Andrew 2010 Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines: The Truth Behind a TragedyNew YorkSkyhorseGoogle Scholar

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