ScienceWeek

Nature 449, 989 (25 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/449989a; Published online 24 October 2007

Science & politics: Fishing for Certainty

Andrew A. Rosenberg

Science advisers should have confidence in their data, or risk being undermined by more dogmatic and vociferous stakeholders during the policy-making process.

Policy-makers receive formal and informal advice from all quarters: scientific, legal, political and public. Each piece of advice is considered mandatory by the giver, and it often conflicts with other advisers' points of view. Uncertainty is a feature of all advice, but it is usually only acknowledged by the scientific adviser.

I have worked as a scientist, policy-maker and adviser, mostly managing marine resources. As an ecologist specializing in fisheries population dynamics, I naively assumed that scientists develop advice that is passed on to policy-makers who then make decisions in the light of it.
Fishing for certainty

When in 1995 I moved into policy-making, managing fisheries in the northeastern United States, I learned that advice comes from all directions. Scientists would present data with many caveats; others would give advice based mainly on opinion. Fishermen coming to the microphone in a public meeting might categorically state that the science was wrong, the rules wouldn't work and everyone would go out of business. Scientists tended to emphasize their uncertainty, and would be unwilling to speculate.

As scientists, we learn to analyse uncertainty and we explore decision-making in the light of that uncertainty. This is important, but we must also recognize that the precautionary approach will be adopted only slowly in policy-making. Uncertainty undermines political will in environmental decision-making. Officials are more likely to support a vociferous interest group that is apparently certain of the dire economic consequences of new restrictions, than scientists who advocate caution and prioritize the environment.

Emphasizing what we don't know often drowns out what we do know.

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