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Switch to: References
Citations of:
Technologies of humility: citizen participation in governing science
Minerva 41 (3):223--244 (2003)
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This paper introduces the concept of ‘hyper-ambition’ in academia as a contributing factor to what has been termed a ‘replication crisis’ across some sciences. The replication crisis is an umbrella term that covers a range of ‘questionable research practices’, from sloppy reporting to fraud. There are already many proposals to address questionable research practices, some of which focus on the values, norms, and motivations of researchers and institutes, and suggest measures to promote research integrity. Yet it is not easy to (...) |
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¿Qué ocurre con la continuidad del tratamiento de los sujetos de investigación después de que realizan la última visita del ensayo en el que participan? En algunos casos, la falta de continuidad de atención de la salud apropiada podría poner en peligro la salud de estas personas. Por lo tanto, es probable que los sujetos de investigación que al terminar su participación en un ensayo todavía se encuentran enfermos, necesiten continuar con el tratamiento en estudio u otra atención de la (...) |
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Looking back on the many prophets who tried to predict the future as if it were predetermined, at first sight any forward-looking activity is reminiscent of making predictions with a crystal ball. In contrast to fortune tellers, today’s exercises do not predict, but try to show different paths that an open future could take. A key motivation to undertake forward-looking activities is broadening the information basis for decision-makers to help them actively shape the future in a desired way. Experts, laypeople, (...) |
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The concept of life plays a crucial role in the debate on synthetic biology. The first part of this chapter outlines the controversial debate on the status of the concept of life in current science and philosophy. Against this background, synthetic biology and the discourse on its scientific and societal consequences is revealed as an exception. Here, the concept of life is not only used as buzzword but also discussed theoretically and links the ethical aspects with the epistemological prerequisites and (...) |
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This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the law circumscribing the social role of Health Technology Assessment and gain insight into the reasons challenging the inclusion of ethics into HTA. We focused on a debate at the core of the perceived role of regulatory law in health technology development, namely: Environment, Health and Safety Issues vs Ethical, Legal and Social Issues that arose in technology governance. Data collection was based on a literature review and a case study analysis. (...) No categories |
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Promising new solutions or risking unprecedented harms, science and its technological affordances are increasingly portrayed as matters of global concern, requiring in-kind responses. In a wide range of recent discourses and global initiatives, from the International Summits on Human Gene Editing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, experts and policymakers routinely invoke cosmopolitan aims. The common rhetoric of a shared human future or of one humanity, however, does not always correspond to practice. Global inequality and a lack of accountability (...) |
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To be successful, policy must anticipate a broad range of constituents. Yet, all too often, technology policy is written with primarily mainstream populations in mind. In this article, drawing on Value Sensitive Design and discount evaluation methods, we introduce a new method—Diverse Voices—for strengthening pre-publication technology policy documents from the perspective of underrepresented groups. Cost effective and high impact, the Diverse Voices method intervenes by soliciting input from “experiential” expert panels. We first describe the method. Then we report on two (...) No categories |
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Deliberative democracy is one of the best designs that could facilitate good public policy decision making and bring about epistemic good based on Mercier and Sperber's (M&S's) theory of reasoning. However, three conditions are necessary: (1) an ethic of individual epistemic humility, (2) a pragmatic deflationist definition of truth, and (3) a microscopic framing power analysis during group reasoning. |
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Researchers have explored questions concerning public participation and consent in geoengineering governance. Yet, the notion of consent has received little attention from researchers, and it is rarely discussed explicitly, despite being prescribed as a normative requirement for geoengineering research and being used in rejecting some geoengineering options. As it is noted in the leading geoengineering governance principles, i.e. the Oxford Principles, there are different conceptions of consent; the idea of consent ought to be unpacked more carefully if, and when, we (...) |
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Mercier & Sperber (M&S) argue for their argumentative theory in terms of communicative abilities. Insights can be gained by extending the discussion beyond human reasoning to rodent and robot navigation. The selection of arguments and conclusions that are mutually reinforcing can be cast as a form of abductive reasoning that I argue underlies the construction of cognitive maps in navigation tasks. |
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This paper examines how the Harper Government of Canada shut down both debate about threats and research into environmental risk, a strategy that Canadian scientists characterized as the “death of evidence.” Based on interviews with scientists who research risks to the marine environment, we explore the shifting relationship between science and the Canadian government by tracing the change in the mode of risk calculation supported by the Harper administration and the impact of this change. Five themes emerged from the interviews: (...) No categories |
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This article examines adaptive resource management as it has been applied to the US horseshoe crab fishery over the past decade. As a critical yet constructive exercise, I have three goals: to suggest how adaptive management, for all its promise, can still be improved; to add a nuanced case study to the literatures on the quantification of nature and environmental decision-making; and to use the example of ARM to make certain temporal aspects of contemporary natural resource management more salient to (...) No categories |
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This article discusses the relationship between a deconstructivist method in science and technology studies and the more recent moves towards a reconstructivist engagement with science and science policy making. Drawing on examples from the author's own research, the article identifies three forms of engagement and their relative utility and limitations. The article argues that these are typical of STS work that seeks direct engagement with science policy making and which could form the basis for a more "serviceable STS" that retains (...) No categories |
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Synthetic biologists are extremely concerned with responsible research and innovation. This paper critically assesses their culture of responsibility. Their notion of responsibility has been so far focused on the identification of risks, and in their prudential attitude synthetic biologists consider that the major risks can be prevented with technological solutions. Therefore they are globally opposed to public interference or political regulations and tend to self-regulate by bringing a few social scientists or ethicists on board. This article emphasizes that ethics lies (...) |
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Science in film, and usual equivalents such asscience on filmorscience on screen, refer to the cinematographic representation, staging, and enactment of actors, information, and processes involved in any aspect or dimension of science and its history. Of course, boundaries are blurry, and films shot as research tools or documentation also display science on screen. Nonetheless, they generally count asscientific film, andscience inandon filmorscreentend to designate productions whose purpose is entertainment and education. Moreover, these two purposes are often combined, and inherently (...) No categories |
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The flourishing of citizen science is an exciting phenomenon with the potential to contribute significantly to scientific progress. However, we lack a framework for addressing in a principled and effective manner the pressing ethical questions it raises. We argue that at the core of any such framework must be the human right to science. Moreover, we stress an almost entirely neglected dimension of this right—the entitlement it confers on all human beings to participate in the scientific process in all of (...) |
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This article examines how incidents are governed in a Belgian Nuclear Research Center by way of an incident reporting system named Retour d’Experiences. Drawing on a documentary analysis of incident reports, interviews, and focus groups with personnel, it illustrates how REX enacts a safety governmentality centered on identifying incident causes and culprits. As this governmentality mode obscures the epistemic and political character of incidents, it closes down important opportunities for collective learning about safety and safety governance. It is argued that (...) No categories |
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How are we to appraise new technological developments that may bring revolutionary social changes? Currently this is often done by trying to predict or anticipate social consequences and to use these as a basis for moral and regulatory appraisal. Such an approach can, however, not deal with the uncertainties and unknowns that are inherent in social changes induced by technological development. An alternative approach is proposed that conceives of the introduction of new technologies into society as a social experiment. An (...) |
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In anticipatory governance and responsible innovation, anticipation is a key theoretical and practical dimension for promoting a more responsible governance of new and emerging sciences and technologies. Yet, anticipation has been subjected to a range of criticisms, such that many now see it as unnecessary for AG and RI. According to Alfred Nordmann, practices engaging with ‘the future’, when performed under certain conditions, may reify the future, diminish our ability to see what is happening, and/or reproduce the illusion of control (...) |
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According to some technology enthusiasts our technological developments appear to be accelerating at an exponential rate. A common vision of such enthusiasts is that the accelerating pace of science and technology development will enable us to transform the world in more profound and significant ways than at any other time in our history. More importantly, some of these technology enthusiasts have gone beyond having technological-driven visions about the future to be actively engaged in a diverse set of activities aimed at (...) |
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In this paper we critically review recent developments in policies, practices and philosophies pertaining to the mediation between science and the public within the EU and the UK, focusing in particular on the current paradigm of Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PEST) which seeks to depart from the science information-transmission associated with previous paradigms, and enact a deliberative democracy model. We first outline the features of the current crisis in democracy and discuss deliberative democracy as a response to this (...) |
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This paper analyzes a European research project called ‘Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies’ with the abbreviation DEEPEN. The DEEPEN’s findings and conclusions on the narratives, public understandings and the lay ethics of nanotechnologies are examined in a critical manner. Through a criticism of the theoretical framings of what constitutes a narrative and the application of a different theoretical framing of narratives, the paper argues that the findings and conclusion of the DEEPEN should be approached with caution as (...) |
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El propósito del presente trabajo consiste en poner en valor un modelo de innovación abierto y responsable para el desarrollo tecnológico. Este modelo permite poner en tela de juicio la cultura científica que entiende el proceso de generación de conocimiento en términos de monopolios y oligopolios, privilegiando en enfoque de arriba hacia abajo. Este enfoque presenta un déficit comunicativo entre los expertos tecnólogos y los demás grupos de interés y afectados por la tecnología. En ese sentido, es importante promover una (...) No categories |
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In this topical section, we highlight the next step of research on modeling aiming to contribute to the emerging literature that radically refrains from approaching modeling as a scientific endeavor. Modeling surpasses “doing science” because it is frequently incorporated into decision-making processes in politics and management, i.e., areas which are not solely epistemically oriented. We do not refer to the production of models in academia for abstract or imaginary applications in practical fields, but instead highlight the real entwinement of science (...) |
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Mercier & Sperber (M&S) claim that the phenomenon of belief bias provides fundamental support for their argumentative theory and its basis in intuitive judgement. We propose that chronometric evidence necessitates a more nuanced account of belief bias that is not readily captured by argumentative theory. |
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Geoengineering is defined as the ‘deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming’. The technological proposals for doing this are highly speculative. Research is at an early stage, but there is a strong consensus that technologies would, if realisable, have profound and surprising ramifications. Geoengineering would seem to be an archetype of technology as social experiment, blurring lines that separate research from deployment and scientific knowledge from technological artefacts. Looking into the experimental (...) |
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Short abstract (98 words). Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given humans’ exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of (...) |
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Information security governance has become an elusive goal and a murky concept. This paper problematizes both information security governance and the broader concept of governance. What does it mean to govern information security, or for that matter, anything? Why have information technologies proven difficult to govern? And what assurances can governance provide for the billions of people who rely on information technologies every day? Drawing together several distinct bodies of literature—including multiple strands of governance theory, actor–network theory, and scholarship on (...) No categories |
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From the 1970s onwards, Feyerabend argues against the freedom of science. This will seem strange to some, as his epistemological anarchism is often taken to suggest that scientists should be free of even the most basic and obvious norms of science. His argument against the freedom of science is heavily influenced by his case study of the interference of Chinese communists in mainland China during the 1950s wherein the government forced local universities to continue researching traditional Chinese medicine rather than (...) |
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“Ethics” is used as a label for a new kind of expertise in the field of science and technology. At the same time, it is not clear what ethical expertise consists in and what its political status in modern democracies can be. Starting from the “participatory turn” in recent social research and policy, we will argue that bioethical reasoning has to include public views of and attitudes towards biomedicine. We will sketch the outlines of a bioethical conception of “public understanding (...) |
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In this paper, we explore and discuss the use of the concept of being affected in biomedical decision making processes in Germany. The corresponding German term ‘Betroffenheit’ characterizes on the one hand a relation between a state of affairs and a person and on the other an emotional reaction that involves feelings like concern and empathy with the suffering of others. An example for the increasing relevance of being affected is the postulation of the participation of people with disabilities and (...) |
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“Ethics” is used as a label for a new kind of expertise in the field of science and technology. At the same time, it is not clear what ethical expertise consists in and what its political status in modern democracies can be. Starting from the “participatory turn” in recent social research and policy, we will argue that bioethical reasoning has to include public views of and attitudes towards biomedicine. We will sketch the outlines of a bioethical conception of “public understanding (...) |
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During the last several decades, the concept of social innovation has been a subject of scientific and practical discourse. As an important paradigm for innovation policies, social innovation is also an object of criticism and debate. Despite a significant proliferation of literature, the rate at which social innovation is a catalyst for coping with challenges of modern societies remains unclear. The goal of the paper is to gain a better understanding of social innovation by integrating past and present views on (...) No categories |
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After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the Japanese government tried to democratize energy policy-making by introducing public participation. Over the course of its implementation, however, public participation came to be subordinated to expert committees as the primary mechanism of policy rationalization. The expert committees not only neutralized the results of public participation but also discounted the necessity of public participation itself. This trajectory of public participation, from its historic introduction to eventual collapse, can be fully explained only in reference to (...) No categories |
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Anticipation is one of the main goals of new governance models, such as Responsible Research and Innovation. However, there is not a single mode of anticipation in this model. Two approaches can be addressed within the RRI framework: a socio-empirical one, which tends to underline the role of the democratic processes, aimed at identifying values on which governance needs to be anchored ; and a normative one, which stresses the role of EU goals as ‘normative anchor points’ in governance. These (...) |
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Notwithstanding the EU endorsement, so far Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is discussed as regards its definition, its features and its conceptual core: innovation and responsibility. This conceptual indeterminacy is a source of disagreements at the political level, giving rise to a plurality of outcomes and versions upheld within the same model of governance. Following a Charles Taylor’s suggestion, this conceptual opening of the RRI model can be explained by the existence of plural, clashing moral frameworks: discourse ethics, Aristotelian ethics, (...) |
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Among the various experiments in ‘new governance’, the model of Responsible Research and Innovation is emerging in the European landscape as quite promising. Up to now, there have been two versions of RRI: a socio-empirical version which tends to underline the role of democratic processes aimed at identifying values on which governance needs to be anchored and a normative version which stresses the role of EU goals as ‘normative anchor points’ of both governance strategies and policy making. Both versions are (...) |
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The place of scientific expertise in democracy has become increasingly disputed, raising question who ought to have a say in decision-making about science and technology, with what authority, and for what reasons. Public engagement has become a common refrain in technoscientific discussions to address tensions in the rightful roles of experts and the public in democratic decision-making. However, precisely what public engagement entails, who it involves, how it is performed, and to what extent it is desirable for democratic societies remain (...) |
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In this paper I will briefly discuss the role and function of the ethical advisory committees and other ethics bodies that are supposed to take care of the ethical dimension of the biotechnology strategies. The expert ethical advice has created colourful discussion in many contexts, but here I aim to analyze the role and relevance of ethical expertise in the context of national and regional biotechnology strategies. I will argue that it may be quite unproblematic that the work of the (...) |
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The “social licence to operate” has been invoked in science policy discussions including the 2007 Universal Ethical Code for scientists issued by the UK Government Office for Science. Drawing from sociological research on social licence and STS interventions in science policy, the authors explore the relevance of expectations of a social licence for scientific research and scientific contributions to public decision-making, and what might be involved in seeking to create one. The process of seeking a social licence is not the (...) No categories |
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This article discusses the notion of emergent concerned groups and explores how these groups contribute to shaping the relations between technoscience, politics, and economic markets. The first part presents the case of the French Association of patients suffering from muscular dystrophies. This history suggests that under certain conditions, emergent concerned groups are able to impose a new form of articulation between scientific research and political identities by directly linking the issues of research content and results to that of their place (...) No categories |
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In 2005, seven European countries signed the so-called Prüm Treaty to increase transnational collaboration in combating international crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. Three years later, the Treaty was adopted into EU law. EU member countries were now obliged to have systems in place to allow authorities of other member states access to nationally held data on DNA, fingerprints, and vehicles by August 2011. In this paper, we discuss the conditions of possibility for the Prüm network to emerge, and argue that (...) |
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In this article, we explore the institutional negotiation of public engagement in matters of science and technology. We take the example of the Science in Society dialogue program initiated by the UK’s Royal Society, but set this case within the wider experience of the public engagement activities of a range of charities, corporations, governmental departments, and scientific institutions. The novelty of the analysis lies in the linking of an account of the dialogue event and its outcomes to the values, practices, (...) No categories |
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Long presented as a universal policy-recipe for social prosperity and economic growth, the promise of innovation seems to be increasingly in question, giving way to a new vision of progress in which society is advanced as a central enabler of technoeconomic development. Frameworks such as “Responsible” or “Mission-oriented” Innovation, for example, have become commonplace parlance and practice in the governance of the innovation–society nexus. In this paper, we study the dynamics by which this “social fix” to technoscience has gained legitimacy (...) |
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This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normative demands, its (...) |
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Emotions are often met with suspicion in political debates about risky technologies, because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. However, recent emotion research rejects such a dichotomous view of reason and emotion, by seeing emotions as an important source of moral insight. Moral emotions such as compassion and feelings of responsibility and justice can play an important role in judging ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness, and autonomy. This article discusses how this idea can (...) No categories |
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