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Pro: Scientists should be advocates

Scientists are faced with a dilemma when presenting information because they are challenged with being opinion based due to public policy advocacy.  I believe that scientists should advocate for policies that are affected by their studies or expertise. Scientists are responsible for being masters of their own field of study, and should be the most knowledgeable about why they are in their own perspective field. If scientists only present the facts without providing an opinionated suggestion for policy, they neglect to include a direction for where their studies plan on going and how to engage their audience. 

  

Because they know the material better than the general public, scientists should advocate for policies if they so choose. Scientists should be given a choice to advocate but should also include explanations to their reasoning so that the general public can fully understand how a particular scientist would respond to policy. The problem lies on the scientist’s reasoning because many believe that scientists who advocate have their studies skewed in order to curry favor. Advocating their position in public policies puts scientists at a higher threat for losing credibility, but I believe as long as a scientist is true to his/her work and the data has not been tampered, scientists can still advocate for public policy. 

Scientists are connected to numerous fields of study through the facts and data. The facts and data that scientists present need a direction in order for future studies or policies will be made. Scientists who have many opinions on their perspective field are more likely to be passionate about their work. If you take away a scientist’s opinions, you take away their passion and you are just left with data. Public policies are made from this data but the general public will not know what to do with it without it bearing any substance from the scientist.

Brazil and the Amazon

Since 2000, the global net forest loss increased greatly, especially in one of the most important biodiversity hotspots on our planet: the Amazon. Deforestation is causing significant

environmental damage; it is important to understand this damage because of rising concerns of climate change. This study will map the amount of forest loss in Brazil from 2000 to present day, and show the significance of public roads and cattle industry upon the Amazon. By mapping the location of major roads and the cattle industry, this study shows the effects of economic development upon the Amazon.This study will obtain data of forest cover loss from globalforestwatch.org and University of Maryland’s Global Forest watch map.

CON: Scientists should not be advocates:

The concept of scientists being advocates and the controversy that surrounds that has been around for decades. Many believe that scientists cannot be both advocates and still remain as scientists, because science is supposed to be an objective study. Scientists and advocates are two entirely separate roles, where one is conducting research and activities to gain knowledge, and the other is to push an agenda. There is not meant to be any bias in science that may affect the ending results, and scientists can lose professionalism if they become advocates and bias data or promote a certain itinerary.

Advocacy is defined by Merriam-Webster as a process by an individual or group that aims to influence public policy and support a cause or proposal decision within a social, political, or economic setting. This means that the person advocating something must take a strict side, and use research to sway the public and government official’s opinions about an issue. As a scientist, you no longer have an impartial point of view at this point. If a scientist was going into a research study knowing that their results would be brought before the government in hopes to change a cause, even if the scientist doesn’t want to actually bias the results, they might on accident and not even realize it. This may be resolved by using speakers to speak for the scientist’s research, so that that person can be an advocate while the scientist just found the set in stone data. This can remove the chance of bias if the scientist discovered something and then hired a representative speaker to advocate his or her results.

Scientists are held publically accountable for the work they do. Any research they publish can more and more be accessed now days from websites and other means on the Internet by common people in the public. Not only are resources such as this way more available tan they once were, but more people can easily access and read scientific data and articles and call a scientist out if they seem to be tampering with results or biasing a conclusion. This can be illustrated by the cigarette example in class. Scientists skewed and basically made up data that showed cigarettes made you prettier and weren’t bad for you at all. They were paid very generously by tobacco companies for these “findings”, and became advocates for smoking. With out the Internet, regular people in the public couldn’t access this data to disprove anything. At that time, there wasn’t much data out there on such things as smoking and the consequences such as lung cancer anyway, so every one believed the scientist’s findings for a long time. When the public learned they had been fooled, actions were taken to hold those said scientists publically accountable and they were fired.

Scientists  have also experienced being paid off to take a side or skew results, as shown in the Krimsky 2013 article. In the 1980s, social scientists compared the outcome measures of drug studies that were funded by government agencies and private companies. The scientists came under the “funding effect”, which is a situation were their results could be statically correlated with their funding resources in the drug studies. The scientists came under bias to receive a pay, and their chemical toxicity and tobacco research was skewed heavily. The scientists were thus driven by financial interests and did not compile real hard-fact data. They were trying to advocate something through biasing results in hopes to get a check.

Science is a neutral stance, while political systems and opinions alter and make everything opinionated and motives come into play. I don’t think scientists should be advocates because of the way science and advocacy is supposed to separately work, as it is in very different ways.

Krimsky, S. (2013). Do Financial Conflicts of Interest Bias Research?: An Inquiry into the “Funding Effect” Hypothesis. Science, Technology & Human Values, 38(4), pages 566-587.

Pro: Why Scientists Need a Voice in Policy Making

While science advocacy is not today's norm, I believe that it should grow into an accepted practice among policymakers. The biggest argument I heard in our class debate against scientists promoting advocacy is that they will let their biases and preconceptions cloud their judgment on the subject, end up corrupting results, and lead other policymakers that aren't scientifically gifted astray. A similar argument is presented in an article by Jake Price (2011), that science, and therefore scientists have to remain removed from the issue or their predispositions become a problem. While I can see that this is a worthy concern, it also seems like an ignorant one. 

All people are biased. And I know that by bringing that up, I sound like I shouldn't be supporting science advocacy, but here me out. All people are biased: politicians, teachers, janitors, policymakers, accountants, scientists. You can't ever escape bias, no matter hard you try, because it's what makes you unique. We learn bias from our families, friends, and environments; they are impossible to avoid. Since everyone is biased, wouldn't it be better to have someone involved who knows the science behind the policy, like a scientist, rather than just policymakers, who might not take the time or have the capacity to completely understand the results of any testing that was involved.

Additionally, it would be hard for a scientist to present corrupt results in a paper. Papers are reviewed multiple times in a double-blind edit by the scientist's peers. If their experiment, results, or conclusions don't make sense, the reviewer recommends that the scientist conduct more research and that the journal not publish the article. While scientists can be biased, science itself cannot. Results don't lie, and if science is done properly, the experiment leads to a logical conclusion. If a scientist tried to present something to their peers that wasn't completely supported by the results of their research, then the conclusions they made in that paper wouldn't be accepted. So rather than barring a scientist from policy making, perhaps policymakers should consider their own biases before more carefully before the scientists they work with. 

Rice, J. C. (2011). Advocacy science and fisheries decision-making. ICES Journal Of Marine Science / Journal Du Conseil, 68(10), 2007-2012.

Pro: Scientists as Educators and Citizens

Conservation biologists can be advocates. The word conservation means to preserve something for the future. That means the goal is to keep things like they are now. Therefore, the word conservation has a value connotation. If the word conservation itself contains a value judgment, then how could conservation biology not contain an inherent value judgment? A science having a value judgment is not as problematic as Kai Chan makes it out to be. If a science itself has a value bias, then the scientists working in that field naturally, will also hold that value. It should be easy to acknowledge that while people generally consider science unbiased or objective, all science holds at least one value in common—knowledge. Science and scientists strive to better understand the universe, that behavior represents a value. If we can acknowledge that physics has an inherent value system, we should also respect that conservation biology holds certain values, as labeled by the adjective conservation. Therefore we should regard conservation biologists as experts in the field of preserving the Earth’s natural resources and on the value of conservation.

As experts on conservation, conservation biologists have a duty to be advocates. Their role in the world is to study the world and better understand it. Knowledge must be shared, otherwise it would be lost. If we didn’t have scholarly journals scientific progress would almost never be made. Information informs our scientific processes and allows us to progress. Knowledge fuels progress, so if we want our society to make progress on conservation we should give society knowledge of conservation. With the extinction death clock ticking, it is vital that society make rapid conservation progress. In order to speed this progress along conservation biologists should be advocates, dutifully spreading information to the people and the powerful so that personal choices and policy can be informed by science.

It is dangerous to make uninformed decision about conservation. Public health can be endangered if the public is not informed about toxicology from oil spills and other pollution, disease outbreak in potential vector species and, in the long term, the collapse of our ecosystem would mean an end to ecosystem functions we rely on for food, clean water, breathable air and a hospitable climate. The policies that control how the government regulates corporations and individuals are written by elected officials who respond to the public’s demands. A public that is well informed about conservation issues will choose candidates who represent their views more accurately. Conservation biologists should help educate the public through free lectures and by helping journalists accurately represent science. If educating the public about current issues is considered advocacy, then, yes, scientists should be advocates.  

However, scientists should not be advocates that help write legislation. Scientists are not law experts and should not write laws. However, part of a scientist’s job is to spread knowledge. A scientist can come and give presentations to the legislators, state their scientific opinion, and encourage a discussion of the science where the representatives can ask questions or make their own points.

Scientists should also be able to act as advocates through social media, organizations or street protests. In all of these settings a conservation biologist could help spread accurate information to more people. Then people could make more informed judgments. If everyone has the right to free speech, congregation, and peaceful protest, then that “everyone” includes scientists. Uninformed opinions can be shared openly on the internet. To counteract that misinformation it should be important to have informed opinions of scientists shared too. Scientists don’t have to engage in any of these activities, but they can if they want to.

A key claim against advocacy is that it will make scientists biased, and that their political opinion will impact their work. Scientists are already trained not to be biased, but some scientists do go bad and try to spread misinformation, sometimes because their funding comes from a certain organization and they have a conflict of interests. However, scientists must state any conflict of interests at the end of their papers. 

Pro: If scientists don't advocate, who will?

Scientists need to advocate for their science. To put it simply, if the people who understand the situation best don't bring attention to it, who will? It could be argued that scientists do publish their findings, technically sharing it with the world that has the responsibility to do what they will. However, in reality these articles are published in scientific journals that the average citizen would have to pay an exorbitant amount to access. Citizens not trained in the jargon and specificity of certain scientific fields probably would not have the time and energy to decipher it anyways.

"With society moving toward a collapse, the idea that scientists, especially ecologists, should just do their work, present their data and not do any interpretation leads to the kind of imbecility we have in Washington today, where you have an entire Congress that is utterly clueless about how the natural world works," Paul Ehrlich said in a Stanford article.

Considering how many scientific journals there are, a pertinent piece of information could sit for years without being noticed by anyone outside of the scientific community. Even if it is noticed, the person or group discovering it most likely wants the information for their personal use and will pick quotes that support their own statements as opposed to sharing the scientists’ statements.

In a way, scientists who advocate for causes they discovered within their results are protecting the validity of the science itself by sharing the actual significance. This directly contrasts with the common opposition that advocacy compromises the credibility of the science.

“[Paul Ehrlich also] said that scientists, before they embark on a research project, should ask themselves, 'How, if my research yields all the results I'd hoped for, will it make any difference to the world?'" If an ecologist doesn’t speak up the object of their study may disappear. Their research may be used to save a species and with this type of problem, time is essential.

Bergeron, L. (2011, 8 11). Scientists must leave the ivory tower and become advocates, or civilization is endangered, says stanford biologist paul ehrlich.Stanford Report