The Crooked Links Between Knowing and Doing

Dolly Jorgensen has another interesting post drawn from her work on animal reintroductions, this time on how scientists explain peoples' actions.  She describes a recent scientific paper in which the authors attributed the introduction decades ago of North American beavers into Europe to ignorance about this exotic, and therefore potentially damaging, species.  The implication was that given what we now know, such a mistake would not be made today.  As Dolly explains, this view exhibits a na�ve understanding of human behaviour and scientific knowledge.  In fact, she notes, those who made this introduction may have had thoughtful reasons for doing so.  It's an elegant example of using an historical episode to make a point about science and historical reasoning.

There's also a useful point to be made here about science and policy.  Many scientists share the view that Dolly identified: that unless impeded by ignorance or self-interest, correct knowledge leads necessarily to right action.  It's a comfortable view, that underpins much of the political authority of scientists.  It was also the foundation for the bargain that for decades governed postwar science policy in the United States and elsewhere, as expressed in Vannevar Bush's classic report: Science: The Endless Frontier (1945): in return for ample support for basic research, scientists would generate the knowledge needed for a healthy economy and a strong defense.

Yet this view also misunderstands the roles of science in the policy process.  Of course scientific knowledge can influence action, but it often does so by crooked ways: by indirectly shaping how people view the world, or how they calculate their own interests and options.  Communicating new knowledge is often only the first, and simplest, step involved in exerting influence in the messy world of politics.

This is something that scientists, believing that knowledge necessarily leads to action, often find frustrating.  As a result, too often they seek to influence policy merely by broadcasting research results � say, predictions of climate disaster.  While these predictions may be true, they are also usually politically ineffective (as the last twenty years of climate politics have shown).  Real influence on policy instead depends on figuring out how people respond to new knowledge � both in the past, and today.  Perhaps this is another reason for scientists and those who study how science works (including historians) to talk more?