Innovation in America: Debate between Kakaes and Sarewitz

As I mentioned earlier this week, Slate is hosting a conversation between Konstantin Kakaes and Dan Sarewitz on science and innovation. While I should be doing about 10 other things for school right now, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to commentate.

Kakaes, who is a journalist and a fellow at the New America Foundation, begins by questioning the pace of current innovation; claims that innovation is happening faster than ever and that the need for innovation is greater than ever. Second, he deconstructs the idea of measuring innovation, through patents and publications, as both of these metrics can't actually tell us the usefulness of their affiliated innovations. Finally, he ties this into an argument that because we can't measure innovation, we can't guide scientists to work towards positive societal outcomes. Kakaes refers to some of Sarewitz's previous popular publications, calling him out on perceived inconsistencies on his call for innovation for social goods.

Sarewitz, a professor of science and society at Arizona State University and co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes [full disclosure: he is also on my PhD committee], responds to Kakaes by summarizing his argument and pointing out that Kakaes is following the "serendipitous discovery" rhetoric. A closer examination of the history of technology shows that this narrative only plays well in political advocacy, as the strength of industry innovation during the 19th and 20th centuries show. Sarewitz argues that while allowing scientists a space for intellectual curiosity is important, the institutional structure of innovation can help shape the outcomes. Just giving money to brilliant scientists isn't enough. His favorite comparison is the Department of Defense, which invests in high-risk high-payout projects but also procures from multiple contractors and is ultimately the end-user of the technologies, and the NIH (or Department of Energy), which  invests in incremental basic research in biomedicine and has largely disappointed the advocates of diseases such as cancer.

Kakaes next responds stating that, "Talking about the 'pace of technological change' is only the tip of the spear of MBA-speak that is stabbing the academy." He argues that the attempt to quantify technological outcomes buries deeper truths about their social context. He argues that the constant need to justify science to politicians actually causes the rat-race of incremental advances. Kakaes dwells on the gap between scientific research and social prescriptions for this research, from biomedicine to cigarettes to climate change, citing that Francis Collins' "Translational Medicine" concept for the NIH also falls short of reconciling this gap. He ultimately argues that politics, rather than science is the "limiting factor" in delivering public goods.

Sarewitz carefully takes down every point Kakaes brought up, both turning the examples of the DoD, earthquake research, the NIH, and mouse models against each other. He again argues that the institutional context of research matters; that scientists aren't pursuing mouse models because of political pressure, but because that is the way field of biomedicine has institutionalized.

I'm looking forward to subsequent posts, and it's difficult for me to take an unbiased view on this, but I mostly agree with Sarewitz. Kakaes is championing a "Republic of Science" vision of unfettered scientific research; i.e. the golden age of physics. In response, Sarewitz writes, "the lessons of real-world, everyday science are quite clear: scientific creativity and real-world problem-solving are both at their best when they can feed off of each other." This is a statement I thoroughly support.

Energy Innovation and the Department of Defense

Last spring I spent a lot of time learning about military history. Not really by choice, but rather in an effort to better understand technological innovation. In my classes with Dan Sarewitz and ASU's president Michael Crow, we constantly discussed how many of the core innovations of the 20th century had military origins. In other words, "Steve Jobs didn't just invent the computer in his garage" (paraphrasing my professors). Both computers and the internet have a distinct military heritage. 

The military often plays a role in technological innovation because most technologies need an "incubation" stage before they are commercialized. Since private firms are sometimes unwilling to take on this risk, the federal government often plays a role in incubating technologies (many of which will turn out to be failures) through research and development contracts (called procurement). Because of this connection between military spending and technological innovation, Sarewitz describes the possible backlash if defense budgets get cut in a NYT article yesterday. The article states, 

As the Pentagon confronts the prospect of cutting its budget by about 10 percent over the next decade, even some people who do not count themselves among its traditional allies warn that the potential impact on scientific innovation is being overlooked. Spending less on military research, they say, could reduce the economy’s long-term growth.

This is not good news, but Sarewitz and others are not calling for more weaponry, but rather more public-good oriented investments, such as in renewable energy. Because the military is a key user of technology, it has a stake in developing commercial technologies from airplanes to computers to renewable energy, which we reap the benefits of. And this shows the difference between the military’s capacity to promote technological innovation and, say, the Department of Energy’s (DoE). The DoE is ultimately not the end user, and is driven by different scientific and public policy motivations. This, plus relatively declining investments in renewable energy through the DoE, result in a stagnant pool of innovation. Yet soldiers’ lives depend on fuel efficiency, sources, and transportation for military aircraft and vehicles, prompting the Department of Defense to pay very close attention to energy issues and even climate change. 

There is an ongoing question throughout the history of science policy on the relationships between the military, industry, and universities. Eisenhower famously warned about the “military-industrial complex” in 1961. Yet regardless of the military applications of alternative energy technologies, this presents an interesting strategy for commercializing technologies on a national, if not global, scale. Many environmental advocates envision the government supporting an Apollo of Manhattan Project for clean energy. The Department of Defense can take on projects with a high risk of failure that other agencies and companies can't, because of their access to research and development funding.

We can relate energy systems back to Freeman and Louca’s work on Kondratian waves and core inputs in our sociotechnical system. They discuss how coal and iron became integral to England’s national industrial infrastructure only after railways brought down prices. Even so, there was political and cultural resistance to steam engines in some places (just like now, there's resistance to windmills, and other NIMBY issues with alternative energy). Energy is one of the most essential core inputs, and a change in this could fundamentally alter our society in ways that we cannot imagine (like how two-hundred years ago, it would seem preposterous that we could get fertilizer from the air). The military could play a role in incubating new alternative energy technologies that are not yet technologically possible or commercially viable. I agree with Sarewitz that I don't necessarily want to see more guns, but I also don't want to see energy security fall by the wayside.

Further reading: 

Chris Freeman and Francisco Louca,
As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution.

David Mowrey, Paths of Innovation: Technological Change in 20th-Century America.

Vernon Ruttan,
Is War Necessary for Economic Growth?: Military Procurement and Technology Development.

Pika politics and climate change

Look at the cute little pika! So cute! So... controversial??? One of my professors at Arizona State University studies pikas, little critters that are found in both North America and Central Asia, and is entrenched in an unusual debate between environmentalists and the government. I'm going to paraphrase a bit from a presentation he gave to our lab group and then discuss the science policy behind it.

North American pikas are a focal point of the climate change agenda among conservationists in the American west. This is because pikas live in the mountains, and with rising temperatures due to climate change, it is feared that they will soon run out of habitat at high enough altitudes to stay cool. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Not so, according to my professor. While the conservationists are lobbying for pikas to be listed as endangered, he believes they are using shaky science.

In the advocates' claim for [endangered species] listing, Andrew Smith of Arizona State University sees a case of going overboard, and extending implications from limited studies. 

In his own work in Bodie, Calif., begun in 1969, Smith said he found pika capable of adapting to temperature swings by haying at night, instead of during the day, if it is too warm. He also has found the animals at low elevations, where they were not documented previously, complicating the theory that pikas are being chased relentlessly upslope. 

"We really think pikas are at risk, and we should learn more about them, and be monitoring them at lower elevations," Smith said. "They should tell us an incredible amount about climate change. But they are not endangered." (Seattle Times, 2009)

He thinks that environmental groups have picked the pika as a poster child for climate change based on values (such as conservation ethics) over scientific fact, and that they repeatedly cherry-pick data that supports their cause rather than the broader scientific consensus. While the lobby groups claim that pikas are disappearing before our eyes, others note that the western mountains are literally crawling with pikas. Scientists are working to take censuses of pika populations, but this is arduous and can reflect changes other than climate. So the question is, what will happen if the pikas don't disappear? Will we give up on climate change mitigation policy? Will science lose credibility? These are familiar questions to anyone who studies scientific controversies.

Environmentalists have long held a tenuous relationship with science- they both distrust it, and use it to their advantage in legal battles. Science has the power of legitimacy, and making visible the invisible. The case of agricultural biotechnology (GMOs), and how environmental advocates use science, is strikingly similar to the pika controversy. Small degrees of scientific uncertainty become major points of contention, and unfortunately the environmentalists and scientists seem to be speaking directly past each other. I will refer you to my past post to highlight this point. Roger Pielke Jr. would call this a politicized scientific debate. As he argues in The Honest Broker, we should use science to highlight a range of possible policy options, rather than a narrowly defined, predetermined political position. Implicit in the entire pika debate, as with the polar bears, is that in order to save the pikas, we must limit our carbon emissions.

Should scientists speak up and advocate against the environmental lobbyists? Or aim to provide a more robust understanding of the science and policy implications of climate change on animal populations? Can conservationists promote their own agenda without using dubious science?

Until next time, check out this new blog by some of my former MSU professors.

Science and public policy: The Social Animal

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This summer my colleagues at Michigan State University recommended that I read David Brooks' The Social Animal. Brooks' book merges a narrative of love, life, and career with research about what drives us as humans (the social animals, of course). This relates to our work with climate change, because much of Brooks' research is about how we form values and make decisions. Unlike the economics model of rational behavior, Brooks argues that humans are much more complex and driven by unconscious motivations (not necessarily "animalistic" motives, but rather neurological pathways that have been shaped by both evolution and social/environmental factors). So while public policy tends to rely on economic models of rationality, instead we should look at how people actually work to improve public good. This sort of social science-based analysis is useful for anything from political to public health campaigns. For example, something I've been hearing lately (including in this book) is that to be a good parent, you don't have to be perfect. Social scientists have shown that being "good enough" is really "good enough" to raise a child. So instead of a hypothetical public safety campaign to track your child's every movement with a GPS tracker, a Brooks style campaign might be something like "You can't teach them everything: equip your child with the tools to decide for themselves" (uh-oh, have I been watching too much Mad Men?).

There are downsides to Brooks' approach. One, as pointed out by biologist H. Allen Orr, is that Brooks actually relies too much on over-simplified scientific explanations. Boil it down even further, and it sounds like Brooks might be advocating for policy based on science (in this case, social science), which we know is problematic! Orr writes,

There can, of course, be no doubt that a decent grasp of human nature is a prerequisite for decent public policy. (A policy that assumes, for example, that people mostly want to give away their possessions would not be the most promising.) And there can also be no doubt that a decent grasp of science can help us figure out a thing or two about human nature. (So that’s how people trade goods in a behavioral economic experiment.) But there’s a serious question of whether a scientific understanding of human nature is the main thing that matters. It seems peculiar to believe that a more sophisticated understanding of, say, the genetics or biochemistry or evolutionary basis of human nature will provide special insight into the human condition and thereby allow us to—finally—shape successful public policy. Why, to put it differently, is it so easy to imagine a society that knows very little if anything of the new sciences of humanity but that is exceedingly happy and another that knows all about these sciences but that is thoroughly miserable?

It is exceedingly difficult to broadly characterize populations of people, even with top-notch social science research. A blog post that sums this up well questions whether people (using the example of climate change deniers and scientists) are even inhabiting the same social reality anymore:

What many techno-scientists fail to understand - and thus find most frustrating - about dealing with climate change deniers is that the denier has no real interest in engaging at the scientist’s level of reality.

Others offer solutions to complex problems through deliberative decision-making, which we are finding very useful at MSU Extension. Consider this description of so-called "wicked problems" like climate change, and how to approach them:

Luckily, social scientists have been studying this sort of mess since, well, since 1970. Techniques exist that will allow moderately-sized groups with widely divergent agendas and points of view to work together to solve highly complex problems. (The U.S. Congress apparently doesn't use them.) Structured Dialogic Design is one such methodology. Scaling SDD sessions to groups larger than 50 to 70 people at a time has proven difficult--but the fact that it and similar methods exist at all should give us hope. 

Here's my take on things: our biggest challenges are no longer technological. They are issues of communication, coordination, and cooperation. These are, for the most part, well-studied problems that are not wicked. The methodologies that solve them need to be scaled up from the small-group settings where they currently work well, and injected into the DNA of our society--or, at least, built into our default modes of using the internet. They then can be used to tackle the wicked problems.

As I've touched on before, what all of these "new models" of science and society show is that the Enlightenment vision of rationality is no longer applicable to today's public policy problems. So maybe Brooks has it wrong that "more science" can solve our problems, but I believe he's onto something, which is that we need more than economics, cost-benefit analyses, and risk assessments to create policy.

5) Science communication and climate change

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A topic that frequently comes up between me and my colleagues at Michigan State University this summer is of science communication. At the Science and Democracy Network meeting that I attended last week, one of the most contentious topics was over climate change science and communication, and what is our role as scholars to clarify (or "complexify," as is usually the case) the discourse.

So I thought I'd put together a resource list of blogs and papers on the subject of science communication, from an STS perspective (and particularly about climate change). First, Alice Rose Bell has a great blog on science communication, and even already has a helpful resource list! My other favorite climate change communication blogs are Dot Earth by Andy Revkin, Age of Engagement by Matthew Nisbet, Open the Echo Chamber by Edward Carr, and The Intersection by Chris Mooney. While I don't always agree with the partisan positions of many of these bloggers, I find myself enraptured by their interesting reflections on the latest research and controversies in climate change science and communication.

One of the contributions of STS research to science communication studies is of reshaping the "deficit model" of science communication into more nuanced views of public understanding of and participation in science. The deficit model is similar to both the "loading dock" and "linear model" of science and policy, in that it upholds scientists as disconnected experts, and that the public is an "empty vessel" to fill with objective knowledge. Some great papers on new models of science communication are "Do Scientists Understand the Public?" by Mooney (2010) and "What's next for science communication?" by Nisbet and Scheufele (2010).

So why did I open this post with a political picture? Because there is solid evidence that despite levels of scientific knowledge, political affiliation is the biggest determinant of whether U.S. citizens believe in climate change (summary here, full article by McCright and Dunlap (2011) here). I was lucky to take a class with Aaron McCright during my undergrad at MSU, and this really sparked my interest in the science politics of climate change. Since I took that class two years ago, I've been following the climate change communication literature. To start off, a classic article you need to read is "Making climate hot" by Susanne Moser and Lisa Dilling (2004). Communicating climate change is inherently difficult because of the high-level science as well as framing of risks and uncertainties, but Pidgeon and Fischhoff (2011) have some advice on framing climate uncertainty here.

And if you're interested in the whole "climate skeptics" debate, you need to read Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway's book, Merchants of Doubt. Also, my new favorite blog resource is "Skeptical Science," which does a really good job at clearly communicating the science behind climate change, and addressing skeptical claims. Finally, Chris Mooney once again comes through with some commentary and a list of resources. Interestingly, even in the case of climate skeptics, the deficit model proves false. More scientific knowledge does not automatically make people "believe" in climate change. People's political orientations have a strong impact on what information we will use to support our own values. And overwhelmingly, even in the face of "Climategate" and uncertainty, the majority of Americans trust scientists and believe in climate change and support energy policy.

I want to conclude by saying that none of this is simple. Sometimes when I'm telling people about my research, I avoid the topic of climate change because I don't want to get into a debate. But while working at MSU this summer and last, we've noticed that when you sit with people face to face, and don't impose your own views but rather ask about their own thoughts and experiences, it leads to a more productive conversation. And having worked in a lab during my undergrad, I know how hard it is to "get out there" and communicate science- but there are a few easy ways, from working with student groups of all ages, to writing an effective op-ed, to learning how to present your research in a way that's accessible to non-scientists. An insightful comment on Alice Rose Bell's blog states, "if you want to reach young audiences, stop thinking of them as audiences and don’t merely involve them: work out what’s central about your project and invite them to do that."

Risk, uncertainty, and value judgements in science policy

Yesterday my colleagues and I at Michigan State University and Kellogg Biological Station had a reading group to discuss Pielke's The Honest Broker. We read chapters 4-6 for today, which are titled, "4) Values; 5) Uncertainty; and 6) How science policy shapes science in policy and politics."

We talked about whether science is a good tool in making decisions. Certainly it can be good for informing decisions, such as if there's a tornado coming and you need to know whether you should evacuate. Unfortunately, as we saw in one of my previous posts, sometimes scientific assessments of risk and uncertainty do NOT translate well into action. Pielke agrees with this perspective. He thinks that science just adds smoke and mirrors to debates that are really about core values. So unless the situation under debate is one with low uncertainty and highly shared values (a tornado is coming, we should evacuate), we need more recognition of the underlying values of a debate (see: the climate change debate).

Pielke repeatedly refers to two works by Dan Sarewitz, who is one of my professors at Arizona State and regarded by many as a science policy guru. The first article is "How science makes environmental controversies worse" (2004). The second is "Science and Environmental Policy: An Excess of Objectivity" (2000). Both are worth a thorough reading: one thing I've discovered in grad school is that I sometimes read the same article months, or a year, apart, and find revelatory new nuggets of knowledge each time I read it.

The "Excess of Objectivity" book chapter is an insightful commentary on how science can actually impede the political process, by focusing on always disputable and uncertain facts while ignoring underlying value conflicts in highly politicized environmental issues. The “excess of objectivity” refers to the incompatibility of multiple fields of science, and how while each field claims objectivity, they drive controversy and muddy the political waters.

"How science makes environmental controversies worse" makes the same core argument, using a set of different examples from the 2000 election results, to climate change, to genetically modified food (another good case study is the debate over nuclear waste: see this editorial). This discussion reminded me of an article I read during my first weeks of grad school, "Value Judgments and Risk Comparisons. The Case of Genetically Engineered Crops" (2003) by Paul Thompson, who is an environmental and agricultural philosopher at MSU.

I wrote up an analysis of it that I think highlights the issues of value, risk, and uncertainty in environmental controversies pretty well: Thompson focuses on the inherent value judgments that scientists make about genetically engineered (GE) crops and environmental risk. He aims to identify the values behind the GE debate, rather than taking a philosophical or scientific position in the debate. He focuses on a relatively small aspect of this debate, which are claims for and against a comparative evaluation of the environmental risk of GE vs. traditional (non-GE) crops. This is the standard metric used by scientists and federal agencies to assess the risk of GE crops. Thompson’s argument is that risk assessments are inherently based on value-based judgments; the science itself cannot settle a claim about environmental risks.

He shows that the current regulatory system ironically puts the burden of proof on anti-GE activists, who are “in the position of needing to justify special treatment for this class of plants” (emphasize added, Thompson, 2003, p. 11). This gap charges the largely non-scientific public with demonstrating the scientific credibility of their value system, against the grain of the values held by the scientific community, which of course causes further problems on multiple levels. Thompson identifies several other challenges in the regulation of GE crops based on the current framework.

Risk assessments, especially environmental risk assessments, depend on value-based judgments of how much and what types of risk are “acceptable,” despite attempts to scientifically quantify this risk. The definitions of risk by the scientists and activists are essentially incompatible for comparing the risks of GM vs. non-GM crops, or even defining the concept of environmental risk. This highlights very clearly that science, rather than aiding the decision-making process, can complicate and add uncertainty to political debates.

On a related note, I'm headed to Boston today to attend the Science and Democracy Network conference! I'm really excited to talk to like-minded scholars about our work, and make some great connections.

4) Science and Public Value

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A friend of mine asked about my last post on the "co-production" of knowledge, "who then 'owns' the research or is it always a public resource after co-production?”

Great question, and one that scholars have been struggling with especially in light of patents on genes and other biotechnology, such as genetically modified foods. This is generally referred to as "intellectual property" or "intellectual property rights" (IPR). Patents are supposed to protect the inventor and fuel innovation, but the case lately has been an increasingly convoluted fight over patent law, with "patent sharks" prowling for unclaimed discoveries that they can later sue companies for using. The figure below demonstrates some of the craziness in just smart phones:

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But what happens when a drug company asks an indigenous tribe about their medicinal plants, and then goes on to patent and produce the medicinal compound? Or when patients donate their DNA to a study, only to be charged later for a test or treatment because a biotech company has patented the blueprint of the gene that causes cancer? Who should "own" that knowledge?

These are questions that modern governments are dealing with for the first time due to technological advances. Public research organizations are dealing with them as well: for example, the public agricultural research system that is largely responsible for last century's "Green Revolution" now must be more cautious about what agricultural technologies they can use, because of all the patents. Richard Jefferson is someone who understands this problem and is creating innovative solutions that benefit poor countries. He started a company that promotes "open source biology" by patenting discoveries in agricultural science, but then making those discoveries public. Some excerpts from this paper:

Most critically, we must democratize these abilities, both to measure and to respond, in order to diversify agro-ecosystems and environments and decentralize the problem-solving capability. We will achieve this by fostering scientific method and harnessing local knowledge and commitment in communities that have previously been ignored or treated as passive recipients of help. (p. 38)

At the start of the twenty-first century, science is at a critical juncture. Four centuries of inquiry, discovery, and invention have created a base of knowledge that has the potential to provide people everywhere, in all circumstances, with nourishment, improved health, and longer life. But the institutional mechanisms that ostensibly exist to encourage the application of science to practical problems are today hindering that very process. The norms that have evolved around gate-keeping have created new clergy, new impediments and new inefficiencies. Without a systemic change, science’s promise will not be available for those who most need it, and the promise of a truly diverse, robust and fair innovation culture may elude us. (p. 40)

This all boils down to a question of science and the public good. The "social contract of science" is an unspoken agreement that science, in the end, will produce public good. As the environmental movement often points out, science sometimes produces public bads. Or it doesn't produce the hoped-for goods. For example, “there are 6000 patents that invoke ‘plant breeding’ and ‘drought resistance’ yet none of them has yet resulted in an improved commercial variety” (Clark et al., p. 10). Agricultural extension programs do unique boundary work that is affected by both private and public interests. The private sector is crucial to developing new, useful technologies for farmers. Agricultural research institutions must increasingly embrace their role as a mediator between the private realm of gene patents and their goal of developing agricultural technologies for the public good.

More broadly, many of my colleagues at ASU's Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes are working on this issue of science and public value. A recent issue of the journal Minerva featured their work, and a short review is available here. Also, this very-readable report by a British think-tank called Demos takes a Science & Technology Studies perspective on this topic. They tackle head-on provocative questions that I've been exploring throughout this blog:

Science has major social benefits and thus ‘public value’. Yet crucially, as recent controversies have underlined, this value cannot be assumed and taken as automatic, no matter what scientific research is done, or under what conditions. We need therefore to shift from noun to adjective, by asking not only: what is the public value of science? But also, what would public value science look like? (p. 29)