"Let's Investigate"
Yesterday I promoted
’s work towards citizens assemblies based on the idea that politicians are poorly incentivized to admit when they don’t know, consult the science, and take responsibility for separating facts from values in a reasonable way. A diverse group of citizens assembled especially for the purpose of advising on policy for controversial issues might do better than the politicians, because even though a complex mix of science, values, and politics are still at stake, there are better incentives for citizens themselves, working in person, to come up with more reasonable compromises. It’s remarkable when 75% can agree.Citizens assemblies, with access to scientific and technical resources, ideally can crowd source the collective wisdom of the people. A significant degree of trust could be restored to both science and to government — heck, maybe even to the People as well, who are so often maligned. And to democracy as such.
But not so fast.
One of the main drivers of difficulty for non-experts, whether pols or populace, is the complexity of the problems at hand. Non-experts are far more likely to find it easy to pronounce on moral and political views and then use the science to back up what they want in any case. Everyone’s agenda becomes how to strategically “tame” the complexity to their own ends. What if the science, theoretically neutral, isn’t used neutrally at all? What if it becomes a mere pawn in the political game?
has an illuminating recent post summarizing two case studies — one going on right now in my own backyard here in New Mexico — to show how scientization disrupts the policy-making process.Science itself can be polarizing.
Oceanographers vs Marine Biologists
The first case study involves two oceanographers back in the 1990s who wanted to measure ocean temperatures as a more accurate way to track global climate change. (Measuring atmospheric temperatures is notoriously difficult.) Their proposal was to use acoustic soundings. But this provoked the worry of marine biologists that the sound waves would affect marine mammals and other sea life. A major study was commissioned to resolve the question of possible harm.
As you might guess, scientific experts on either side of the debate were perfectly capable of using the science itself, non-neutrally, not to answer the worries of the biologists or to resolve the debate, but quite the opposite, to continue picking holes, raise further concerns, pronounce their opponents’ studies inconclusive, and polarize the debate even further. Science became a maneuverable pawn in an already entrenched political battle.
(Gee, that doesn’t sound familiar at all to us who have just lived through the COVID pandemic.)
The problem in the case of ATOC [the oceanographer’s proposed measurement system] was twofold. First, the question being addressed by the MMRP study [to determine possible harm to marine life] was very complicated. No study is going to be good enough to be definitive, especially to experts who have the scientific understanding to poke holes in it all day long. Such a study was therefore only ever going to increase uncertainty, not decrease it.
Second, the disagreement was not actually over facts, but over values. The oceanographers were concerned with getting accurate measurements of global temperature, while the marine biologists were concerned with the well being of ocean mammals. Both sides were simply concerned with very different problems.
Social scientist Daniel Sarewitz calls this phenomenon “scientization.” He argues that disagreement can get worse when we apply science to the problem because that disagreement is about divergent values rather than about missing facts. Inevitably all sides rally their own experts, point out the uncertainties in each others’ research, and the issue ends up at a worse impasse than when it began. (my emphasis)
Produced Water in New Mexico
The second case study concerns a new proposal by New Mexico’s governor to convert wastewater from oil and gas mining into produced water, which can be used for agricultural and industrial purposes in our water-starved state.
Again, there are numerous interest groups now mobilized, and debates over the science of possible impacts are sure to be brought by all parties, each according to their own purposes. Again, the likely outcome will be scientization, where the politics will actually come first and drive the science, rather than the other way around.
It’s clear that, like with nearly any policy, how New Mexico might use produced waters is open to disagreement. Those disagreements, in turn, are not going to be about the facts of the matter, but are instead going to be about the different values that various groups hold.
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There is no scientific way of resolving such a conflict. Each side could continually find experts to support their own conclusions until there are no more experts to be had. Much like with ATOC, studies don’t help because they can only address those issues which are easily quantifiable.
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Creating a strategic supply of produced water is hardly as contentious as issues like abortion or immigration. And yet we ignore the risk of scientization leading to polarization at our own risk. It can be tempting to issue some studies on environmental safety and health and call it a day. But at the end of that day even an issue as technical as this one is still a political issue, and its going to require political processes to navigate it successfully.
Citizens to the Rescue?
Case studies like these illustrate vividly the reality on the ground. Science, moral and community values, and politics intertwine with causal impacts flowing both directions. One doesn’t always start neatly with facts and then move reasonably on to values. Rather there can be the call to, “Okay, let’s investigate! Let’s have the science decide!” Unfortunately, that quickly becomes a strategically loaded appeal, however reasonable it might look on the surface.
Using science to untangle complexity, keeping facts and values neatly separated, shifting policy deliberation to a properly incentivized “new democratic architecture” like citizens assemblies — all this sounds great in theory. But how does it actually work in practice?
Luckily, there is an emerging set of case studies describing the successes and limitations of citizens assemblies themselves to address complex policy problems.
and other organizations track these cases.Probably we couldn’t know if a citizens assembly might help deal with the produced water proposal in New Mexico until we tried. Should we try?! @
One difference between the New Mexico water case and the oceanographers vs marine biologists in the 1990s is that in the present case there aren’t scientists squaring off against other scientists, that I know of — yet.
Does that help? Or hinder?
Scientists are citizens, too, and highly invested humans.
Realistic and constructive and thinking and action! I love this, especially the chance to hear from local officials with experience and expertise and from citizens in order to *make the proposed policy better from the get-go*. Yes! The goal isn't just to "win" a PR or political battle and then probably have it undone down the line with regime change, or end up involving the courts, or just making everybody angry. Water in NM surely is a huge thing. Tying up a new source of supply with the oil and gas issue to boot? wow. Thanks for engaging. I'd like to stay in the loop. I'm here in NM so let me know if I can help in any way. :)
Gad you liked the piece, and putting it into conversation with Democracy Next brings up some very interesting points! We are actually submitting a response to NMs call for information about the SWS. In it, among other things, we focus on what we called "organized disagreement." That is, how engaging with diverse sets of publics who both agree and disagree, rather than just try to convince people through public relations, can actually make the project more politically viable, not less. Can citizen assemblies aid in that? Probably. One surprising feature can be the disagreement that arises, and thus the chance to alter policy proposals early, before they become difficult to change, in response to that disagreement. We also shouldn't discount city and state officials who, through hard won experience, have the expertise to anticipate who might oppose new policies. Thus giving agencies the chance to engage those communities actively in policy setting rather than just trying to beat them.