Our forum, ‘science and democracy’, takes place against the background of contested meanings of both ‘democracy’ and ‘science’.

The WSF rejects the subordination of democracy to capital and the market, found today in dominant institutions and nations that are called ‘democratic’. Hence, its signature aphorism, ‘another world is possible’ – a social order that more genuinely reflects the historical ideal of democracy, in part because it is neither realizable nor definable apart from the aspirations and collaborative actions of the social movements and their allies.

Likewise, we can aspire to ‘another way of conducting science’, one that contests the current tendency to subordinate mainstream scientific practices to the commoditization of science ; and – at the same time – that responds more completely to the historical ideals of science – ideals such as serving common human interests (or belonging to ‘the commons’), objectivity (and this includes rejecting the notion that the criteria for evaluating scientific knowledge are culturally relative), and (hence) scientific autonomy.

My first proposal is that both democracy and science have been diminished by being subordinated to the values of capital and the market ; and, the emancipation of democracy and of science – the quests for ‘another world’ and ‘another way of conducting science’ – must go hand in hand.

Commoditized science subverts the historical ideals of science. Scientific knowledge is being used today primarily for the benefit of commercial and military interests, rather than for the common interests of humankind and to address the needs of the poor. And the priorities of research are being shaped increasingly by these special interests, in order to further technoscientific innovation that is integral to economic growth, without adequate attention being paid to its environmental, human and social consequences – to pollution and global warming ; to the untreated sicknesses of the poor, genetic abnormalities, psychological pathologies and spiritual malaise ; to undermining the human rights of poor peoples.

My second proposal is, therefore, that – in the light of both the aspirations of the WSF, and commitment to the traditional ideals of science – science needs to be re-institutionalized, with democratic participation and oversight, in order to redirect the uses of scientific knowledge and the priorities of research.

Here, there will be disagreements among us that are worth discussing forthrightly and respectfully. Some at this Forum reject the traditional values of science, regarding them as merely ideological baggage, and they interpret science in the light cultural relativism. Others think that only the uses and priorities of science need to change. My third proposal lies between these two : that the re-institutionalized science needs also to embody a different conception of science, and incorporate a variety of currently marginalized methodologies.

Today, mainstream science tends to be identified with technoscience – research conducted with the horizon of technological innovation in view. The methodologies of technoscience deploy a mode of understanding of phenomena that focuses upon their underlying molecular structure, physico-chemical mechanisms, mathematical form and quantifiable properties, and that (consequently) enables discovery of the possibilities for exercising technological control – and, in so doing, they decontextualize the phenomena by ignoring their ecological, human and social contexts, and (in the case of biological and human phenomena) reduce them to underlying physico-chemical mechanisms.

No phenomena can be fully understood without some use of decontextualized/reductionist methodologies. But, if only they are used, some phenomena cannot be adequately understood – including : • risks : especially long-term ecological and social risks of technoscientific innovation • the causal networks in which problems facing the poor are located • alternative practices (e.g., agroecology) that are not primarily based on using technoscientific innovations (e.g., transgenics) • phenomena that cannot be reduced to their underlying physico-chemical mechanisms : e.g., biological organisms, ecological systems, human intentional action, and social structures.

To investigate these phenomena, one must use methodologies, marginalized in mainstream science, that do not decontextualize or reduce.

The re-institutionized science needs to decide research priorities with this broader array of methodologies in mind. Otherwise, the well-intentioned question, ‘How can technoscientific innovation be used to serve the needs of the poor and to further democratic initiatives ?’ will be addressed without the input of knowledge about alternatives, risks, etc that is essential for democratic participation and oversight.

This question does indeed need to be addressed ; but my fourth proposal is that it is more fundamental that there be space in the re-institutionalized science where researchers can begin with the aspirations and practices of the social movements, and involve their participation in an integral way ; where the forms that science takes, and the kinds of questions it addresses, can be determined in collaboration with the social movements and reflect their values and experiences.

I’ll give a brief example of what I have in mind. Via Campesina has emphasized the right to food security for poor peoples, and argued that food sovereignty – not corporate dominance of agriculture – is the best way to ensure and safeguard it [1].

This raises a wide range of issues for scientific investigation :

1. What is the evidence supporting this claim about food sovereignty ? Crucial evidence needed here can only come from the experience of farmers themselves – for their experience speaks to the many-dimensional obstacles posed by industrial agriculture, and to the time-tested successes of non-industrial alternatives. Note that claims, often made by scientific spokespersons in their arguments for legitimating the use of transgenics, about technoscientific innovation being the principal source for maintaining food security, are not objectively confirmed, since they do not contend with this evidence.

2. What forms of agricultural production better serve to consolidate food sovereignty ? E.g., not industrial farming using transgenics, but agroecology used by family and small communal farms, – but, not necessarily one method, perhaps a multiplicity of complementary methods, each adaptable to its social-ecological environment.

3. What is the role of indigenous and traditional knowledge in informing these practices ? Note : the empirical credentials of ‘the test of time’ should not be ignored. The laboratory is not the only source of scientific evidence.

4. How is food sovereignty linked with other current concerns : biofuels, global warming, the destruction of the Amazon forest, the financial crisis ?

Questions like these are downplayed when science, as in technoscience, is conducted only with decontextualized/reductionist methodologies. Science, I contend, should be thought of as systematic empirical inquiry, responsive to the ideal of objectivity (while recognizing inevitable uncertainties in investigations on , e.g., risks and alternatives), conducted using whatever methodologies are appropriate for gaining understanding of the objects being investigated. Then, technoscience is just one – albeit an important and indispensible – approach to science ; and indigenous knowledge does not stand opposed to scientific knowledge, but can be interpreted as scientific knowledge gained using different (but appropriate) methodologies from mainstream science. In principle, it – as well as knowledge gained from feminist, deep ecological and other perspectives – lacks nothing compared to them in its epistemic credentials.

In the proposed re-institutionalization, social movements will be part of some of the practices of scientific research, and not only of its oversight – and in a way that embodies both objectivity and belonging to the common patrimony of humankind.

Now comes the hard part : (1) to generalize this vision of another way of conducting science, to characterize more precisely the features of the alternative methodologies, and to provide clear examples of research projects involving them ; (2) to respond to objections (both from friends at the Forum and from the adherents of commoditized science) and to confront obstacles to it ; and above all, (3) to face drectly our own disagreements on these issues, and deliberate on the practical steps needed to realize and fully define the re-institutionalized science. That would be a collaborative task for scientific and related organizations, sympathetic NGOs, and the movements from all over the world that participate in WSF. [2]