Science, scientists, and policy advocacy
Science, scientists, and policy advocacy
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00639.x
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发表时间：
2007-02-01
影响因子：
6.3
通讯作者：
Lackey, Robert T.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Lackey, Robert T.
我担心的是，我们这些从事保护生物学、生态学、自然资源、环境科学和类似学科的科学家正集体陷入一种困境，这种困境有可能使科学对公共政策的贡献边缘化。在生态政策问题上倡导个人立场已被广泛接受为可接受的职业行为，甚至受到科学界相当一部分人的鼓励（Marris 2006; Scott et al. 2007）。科学家是唯一有资格参与公共政策审议的人，他们应该这样做，但为他们的政策偏好辩护是不合适的。尽管在文献中对科学和科学家在政策审议中的适当作用进行了广泛的辩论，但由于关键词或概念的定义不一致而造成语义混乱，通常会失去普遍共识和具体差异（Trudgill 2001）。表1提供了我在本文中使用的精确定义。我们这些向决策者和公众提供科学信息的人应该努力更加警惕，准确，苛刻和严格地区分政策中立和政策灌输的科学信息。科学只是在民主国家中对重大生态政策问题进行复杂审议的一个要素，但科学是至关重要的，科学家可以而且确实发挥着重要作用（Sarewitz 2004;雷基2006）。
I am concerned that we scientists in conservation biology, ecology, natural resources, environmental science, and similar disciplines are collectively slipping into a morass that risks marginalizing the contribution of science to public policy. Advocating personal positions on ecological policy issues has become widely tolerated as acceptable professional behavior and is even encouraged by a substantial fraction of the scientific community (Marris 2006; Scott et al. 2007). Scientists are uniquely qualified to participate in public policy deliberations and they should, but advocating for their policy preferences is not appropriate.Despite an extensive debate in the literature on the proper role of science and scientists in policy deliberations, points of general agreement and specific differences often get lost amid the semantic confusion caused by inconsistent definitions for key words or concepts (Trudgill 2001). Table 1 provides the precise definitions I have used throughout this essay. Those of us who provide scientific information to decision makers and the public should strive to be more vigilant, precise, demanding, and rigorous in distinguishing between policy-neutral and policy-inculcated scientific in-formation. Science is only one element of the complex deliberations over major ecological policy questions that take place in a democracy, but science is critical, and scientists can and do play an important role (Sarewitz 2004; Lackey 2006).