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What is scientific consensus for policy? Heartlands and hinterlands of physics

什么是政策的科学共识？

基本信息

批准号：
ES/K006401/1
负责人：
Harry Collins
金额：
$ 28.26万
依托单位：
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2014
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2014 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FK006401%2F1
关键词：
What scientific consensus policy Heartlands

项目摘要

Policy-makers should rely on generating decisions in the light of mainstream scientific opinion - what is often called 'the scientific consensus'. This project is aimed at understanding how this consensus is formed. If we want to understand what is going on when policy-makers gauge the extent of consensus and non-consensus in the scientific and technological community, we need to understand these processes. Yet science is often controversial. A healthy science needs disagreement and discussion as much as it needs consensus in order to test conclusions to the maximum. The public and policy-makers often encounter scientific disagreement when faced with crucial decisions. Therefore the nature of agreement and disagreement in science needs to be understood.Science is knowledge based on communal agreement, yet individuals can and do sometimes disagree with the mainstream. Using science's rhetorical power as an element of public discourse, one can create an atmosphere of controversy where there is possibly none (e.g. writing scientific papers that suggest the existence of disagreement where there is none in the scientific mainstream). For example, the tobacco lobby is known for having done this and it could be that the oil industry has helped to create an appearance of disagreement in the matter of the science of climate change.To increase our understanding of these issues we will look at consensus formation in physics. The project will begin by looking at the place where many physicists initially reveal their work to their fellows: the dominant electronic preprint server known as 'arXiv'. Physicists can upload their draft papers to arXiv where they may be read by the wider community. Currently around 6,000 papers a month are uploaded to arXiv. An ordinary member of the public cannot upload a paper to arXiv because it is technically complex, but also because, nowadays, the submission must be sponsored by an existing professional physicist. However it has not always been like this. At one time anyone who understood the technicalities could upload. The new restrictions have been put in place because too many unorthodox submissions were being made. In sociological language, a border has been established which now defines what has potential to contribute to the consensus on a topic and what does not. If we want to understand the nature of scientific consensus, arXiv is a good place to start.Physicists admit they read very few of the papers uploaded to arXiv, concentrating on those that have a direct bearing on their research topics. But arXiv has another way of dealing with papers without simply excluding them: it puts them into a category called 'general physics'. We do not know how physicists choose what is interesting and what is not, what they know about the meaning of the general physics category and, therefore, how the notions of 'good' and 'bad' science are created in physicists' minds. We also do not know what the excluded physicists, or redirected physicists, make of what happens to them, something else we will examine. We will look further into the territory of qualified scientists who publish in so called 'fringe journals' and further out still into the world of what are sometimes called 'cranks'. All this fits into and understanding of the creation of consensus and those outside it.The results of looking at all these boundaries will then be re-conceptualised to understand what this means for the formation of consensus in science that has policy implications. The ultimate aim is to illuminate policy-related discussions of how to identify the boundaries of legitimate science and the consensus that exists within them. The research should then help policymakers and publics interested in scientific affairs to distinguish when a science is or is not controversial. Our deep, careful study of the way these things unfold in arXiv will give us a sound scientific understanding that can be applied to other areas.

决策者应根据主流科学意见-通常称为"科学共识“-作出决定。本项目旨在了解这种共识是如何形成的。如果我们想了解决策者在衡量科技界共识和非共识的程度时发生了什么，我们就需要了解这些过程。科学往往是有争议的。一个健康的科学需要分歧和讨论，就像它需要共识一样，以便最大限度地检验结论。公众和政策制定者在面临关键决策时经常遇到科学分歧。因此，需要理解科学中的一致和分歧的本质。科学是建立在共同一致基础上的知识，然而，个人有时可以而且确实不同意主流。利用科学的修辞力量作为公共话语的一个要素，人们可以创造一种可能没有争议的气氛（例如，撰写科学论文，表明存在分歧，而科学主流中没有）。例如，众所周知，烟草业游说团体就是这样做的，而石油工业可能有助于在气候变化科学问题上制造分歧的表象。为了增加我们对这些问题的理解，我们将研究物理学中的共识形成。该项目将开始看的地方，许多物理学家最初透露他们的工作，他们的同事：占主导地位的电子预印本服务器被称为“arXiv”。物理学家可以将他们的论文草稿上传到arXiv，在那里他们可以被更广泛的社区阅读。目前，每月约有6,000篇论文上传到arXiv。一个普通的公众成员不能上传论文到arXiv，因为它在技术上是复杂的，而且，现在，提交必须由现有的专业物理学家赞助。然而，事情并不总是这样。有一段时间，任何了解技术细节的人都可以上传。新的限制已经到位，因为太多的非正统的意见书被提出。用社会学的语言来说，已经确定了一个边界，现在界定了什么有可能促进就一个专题达成共识，什么没有。如果我们想了解科学共识的本质，arXiv是一个很好的起点。物理学家们承认，他们很少阅读上传到arXiv的论文，而是专注于那些与他们的研究主题有直接关系的论文。但arXiv有另一种处理论文的方法，而不是简单地将它们排除在外：它将它们放入一个名为“普通物理”的类别。我们不知道物理学家如何选择什么是有趣的，什么是不有趣的，他们对普通物理学范畴的意义知道多少，因此，“好”和“坏”科学的概念是如何在物理学家的头脑中产生的。我们也不知道被排除在外的物理学家或被重新引导的物理学家如何看待发生在他们身上的事情，我们将研究其他东西。我们将进一步研究那些在所谓的“边缘期刊”上发表文章的合格科学家的领域，并进一步深入到有时被称为“曲柄”的世界。所有这一切都符合和理解共识的创造和那些在它之外的。然后，对所有这些边界的研究结果将被重新概念化，以理解这对具有政策影响的科学共识的形成意味着什么。最终目的是阐明如何确定合法科学的边界和存在于其中的共识的政策相关的讨论。然后，这项研究应该帮助决策者和对科学事务感兴趣的公众区分一门科学何时是有争议的，何时是没有争议的。我们对这些事情在arXiv中展开的方式进行深入细致的研究，将给我们一个合理的科学理解，可以应用于其他领域。