[Coral-List] Science and advocacy

Steve S wpbdiver at bellsouth.net
Tue Jul 10 21:47:57 EDT 2012


I agree with the intro to the Lackey paper. However, as a member of the
media, I must also add that I've never once, in 25 years, had a scientist
speak their mind on record when it comes to governmental policy decisions.
The things I hear off the record are incredible and should be told and
reported, but nobody wants to go on record lest they make a black eye for
the institution they represent.

How do you convince/educate the public if nobody wants to go on record and
talk about it? Sure it's nice to publish in peer-reviewed journals. But
what does that accomplish in the end?



On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Christopher Hawkins <chwkins at yahoo.com>wrote:

> All-
>
> I find the article by Bob Lackey entiteled "Science, Scientists, and
> Policy Advocacy" (Conservation Biology Volume 21, No. 1, 12–17) to be a
> good read on this topic.
>
> The first paragraph of the Introduction:
>
> "I am concerned thatwe 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."
>
> Best,
> Chris
>
>
>
> --- On Mon, 7/9/12, Pedro H. Rodríguez <phernanrod at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> From: Pedro H. Rodríguez <phernanrod at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [Coral-List] Science and advocacy
> To: "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Date: Monday, July 9, 2012, 3:25 PM
>
> For those interested in the interphase of science vs. advocacy, the
> following reading about research on this topic may be of interest:
> http://www.eenews.net/gw ("Scientists struggle with limits- and risks- of
> advocacy")..
>
> Pedro
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