Science interacts with its context in two modes: First, as the context affects science; second, as science affects its context. The two modes overlap and interact.
Because many scientists determine their own research paths, they might first be affected by the budget. Scientists are heard to complain that not all good science is being funded; for example, new PhDs have difficulty getting their first grants and mainstream research is funded in preference to risky, really creative proposals. This can sound like an entitlement argument; eligibility equals funding. In order to control the U.S. budget deficit, all spending will be limited, there may be little or no growth. In a zero-sum budget situation if science funding is increased, something else must be cut.
Goodstein [1993] shows that historically science has grown exponentially, and that such growth will reach limits, will impinge on context. The growth of funding may have already stopped. Science will have to change its mode of operation, i.e., stop training so many research professors (who each train more research professors, thus exponentiating) and learn how to educate citizens. Henk Tennekes of the Royal Meteorological Institute gives another perspective of science in context: ``I worry about the eagerness with which we [scientists] tend to prostitute ourselves in order to please politicians who might be seduced into financing our craving for expansion. I worry that our claims will rebound on us'' [1990].
Tennekes is that rare person who can see himself in context. He sees how growth threatens our Earth support system and wonders how his climate research relates to it:
``Why are scientists so eager? I find it rather embarrassing and more than a little inconsistent to ask for a rapid expansion of climate research funding at a time that the unbridled expansion of human activities is the ultimate cause of our planet's distress. The clamour for funding is a symptom, however indirect, of mankind's aggressiveness... . Expansion of research tends to support the illusion that science and technology can solve nearly every problem, given enough resources. Research supports the progress myth that pervades modern society, but that very myth seduces us into ignoring the consequences of what we have wrought.''
Besides issues of funding levels, there are issues of distribution and accountability. To many in Congress it appears that rich research institutions get richer. Congress would prefer a more uniform geographical distribution of scientific excellence, achieved through geographic distribution of funds. Tighter budgets may also lead to more emphasis on accountability, more ``bang for the buck,'' e.g., submission of progress reports detailing applications of science to practical problems. General social trends will continue to affect the conduct of science in areas such as the treatment of women and minorities, with even the conduct of experiments regulated, e.g., to ensure the welfare of laboratory animals. Congress is convinced that science is too important to be left unsupervised, and should meet general societal standards.
Mesthene makes the point that ``science---through its associated technologies---changes the physical world,'' creates new policy options, and thus affects its own context [1967 p 97]. For example, science created nuclear weapons which dominated international politics for years. It also created Star Wars which to some degree impacted the USSR because they could not compete, perhaps eventually hastening Fukuyama's ``end of history.'' But science also changes the policy world without the intervening amplification of technology. For example, science created what has become the ``ozone hole'' issue: Since the effects of ozone depletion are only now emerging, the public policy issue as originally presented in 1975 was a creation of science. That is, if science had not developed a theory, made laboratory measurements, and eventually found a depleted area, there would be no policy issue today. Of course science creates options, and also some problems: The development of herbicide-resistant crops by genetic engineering will allow more herbicides to be used, possibly causing degradation of the broader environment. The herbicide-resistant gene may also find its way into weeds. Nevertheless, we tend to believe science can create technical fixes to the technical problems it creates, a belief reflected in U.S. science policy.
Science policy issues are often divided into two categories: Policy for the conduct of science (policy for science) and application of science to issues arising in society (science for policy). Often these two kinds of issues overlap, especially in large science programs. For example, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) affects its context by presenting decision makers with new issues. If the program, acting in the science-for-policy mode, successfully convinces decision makers of the seriousness of global change, then these decision makers may ask the program to emphasize applied (vs. basic) research, i.e., they begin to make policy for the conduct of science. This is already happening, Congress has begun to ask about benefits from the program [Pielke, Jr., 1994]. Something similar may be happening for AIDS research. A news story, recalling that an AIDS vaccine was promised by 1986, raised questions as to whether the research is on the right track, specifically whether the research is pursuing its own ends rather than focussing on the disease: ``AIDS has been wonderful for molecular biologists, but have molecular biologists done anything for AIDS yet?'' [Altman, 1994].
Scientists sometimes ask why policy makers don't pay more attention to scientific results. The answer is that compared to politics science is seen as slow, uncertain and unreliable, esoteric, and unresponsive to policy issues, especially with respect to values involved. Typically, as soon as an issue comes to a policy maker's attention there is pressure for a solution, indeed pressure is often what brings it to attention. Thus issues immediately become political and involve values and interests affected by proposed solutions.
Writing elsewhere on global change policy making I have articulated three principles which might be generalized to apply broadly to science-for-policy [Byerly, 1989]. The first is that ``No one is in charge of policy related to global change.'' Other than the Presidency there is no single agency to give guidance as to what research is needed or to receive the research results. Of course some agencies may feel responsible for part of the global change problem, but action based on a narrow view of the issues may exacerbate the broader problem. A more general form might be ``No one is in charge of science-for-policy.''
The second principle is that ``Officials are saturated with information.'' They are also saturated with demands for action, and sometimes they are paralyzed by demands for conflicting actions. This principle belies an assumption which seems to underlie much scientific planning, i.e., that officials are sitting with clean desks waiting for scientific data which will allow them to spring into action. Rather, officials use information such as ``Texas and Louisiana want oil prices high while New England wants them low.'' Or, ``Climate warming will help North Dakota but shut down Arizona.'' With such political information one can count votes and assemble coalitions, which then may allow action. Politics is bargaining, negotiation, and compromise. To be useful scientific facts must be transformed into political facts [Meyer-Abich, 1980; Clark and Majone, 1985].
The third principal is that ``Policy makers don't want more problems.'' The corollary is that they want solutions to problems which they cannot avoid, preferably solutions with no side effects and no costs, called ``silver bullets.'' The danger, of course, is that for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, straightforward, popular---and unlikely to work. Pursuant to the Vannevar Bush paradigm, scientists seem to like to promise such solutions (e.g. a global model to predict climate change and allow preventative policy to be made).
An example of the use of a silver bullet occurred during World War II when the U.S. was faced with invading Japan, a large, difficult, and apparently unavoidable problem. We instead used the atomic bomb, which at the time seemed like a silver bullet. It turned out to have many unanticipated costs. Another example, the Green Revolution, boosted food production but may have had unanticipated costs which make it less beneficial, costs such as environmental degradation from fertilizers and pesticides, increased population, decreased genetic diversity of crops, and elimination of many small farms.