Science and Democracy World Forum

Statement towards Copenhagen Climate Summit

2009-12-16T16:15:18Z

The grave climate and biodiversity crisis confronting humanity brings to the fore many issues central to the concerns of the Word Forum for Science and Democracy. As noted in WFSD's founding Declaration adopted in Belém, Brazil, in January 2009, “it is necessary to deepen our understanding of the overall economic, climate/ecological and democratic crises that the world faces today as well as crises related to energy use and production, food security… [and] how issues related to science and technology (S&T) are part of these problems and are also part of solutions to these crises.”

The ongoing Summit in Copenhagen from December 7 to 18, 2009, under the aegis of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC), is expected to discuss and finalise global arrangements under the Climate Treaty for the post-2012 period. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -prepared by over 3000 scientists and social scientists from over 100 countries on the basis of over 30,000 peer-reviewed published papers besides actual measurements and modelling exercises - offers compelling evidence that we are very near the “tipping point” beyond which changes in global climate could become irreversible, with potentially cataclysmic consequences for humanity as a whole by the end of the century. Even in the short to medium term, serious impact will be felt all over the world, especially in developing countries and by poor and marginalised communities. The impact will be felt in various ways: Extreme weather events; floods and droughts; rising sea levels that threaten to submerge entire small island nations as well as vast densely-populated coastal areas; likely substantial decline in crop yields threatening food security; increase in vector-borne diseases and other health problems; and severe social problems such as mass migration of climate refugees, loss of livelihoods and exacerbation of poverty and other vulnerabilities.

Equity issues lie at the very heart of the climate debate. This is clear when we consider some of the factors responsible for the current crisis: Prior abuse of the global atmospheric commons by industrialised countries, enormous disparities in emissions and in consumption both between nations and within nations, non-sustainable high-carbon modes of production and lifestyles of consumption of some in contrast to sustenance-level existence of others, commodification and appropriation of environmental goods and services by a few at the expense of the vast majority of humankind, are all responsible for the current crisis. The global debate over the past almost two decades has made clear that solutions too are to be driven by equity considerations and the now well-established doctrines of ecological justice as embodied in the principles of the Kyoto Protocol: responsibility of industrialised nations for historical emissions and global environmental damage; the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” of developed and developing countries; reparations (“polluter pays”) by industrialised nations in the form of finance and technology transfers; and equitable per capita entitlements to the global atmospheric commons. In addition, WFSD holds that these principles should include the responsibility of governments, corporations and social movements to develop new practices that are compatible with and simultaneously serve to enhance, not only environmental sustainability, but also the strengthening of democracy, social justice, and the well being (enhanced income possibilities and better living conditions) of workers, both industrial and rural, and of all the poor people of the world.

IPCC/AR4 Contribution of Working Group I, Chapter 10, page 824 and 825. “In fact, only in the case of essentially elimination of emissions can the atmospheric concentration of CO2, ultimately be stabilised at a constant level. All others cases of moderate CO2 emission reductions show increasing concentrations…”. Therefore, in order to stave off the crisis, the global emissions have to be stabilised and start declining by 2015. Again according to IPCC/AR4 this in turn will require deep binding cuts in emissions by industrialised nations in the range of 40% by 2020. Appropriate mitigation measures by large developing countries, linked to fund and technology transfers from the industrialised North, would also be required. If such targets are truly to be met, and horrendous climate change impacts warded off, this cannot be left to market mechanisms including offsets and carbon trading which not only dilute emission reductions but also further the commodification of the environment. While it may not be possible at this stage to precisely spell out all the measures necessary to overcome the crisis or even minimise its impact, it is clear that alternative developmental paths will be required. It is also evident that the struggle for such alternatives will be multi-dimensional and will continue well beyond the Copenhagen Summit.

Researchers, scientists and engineers, NGOs and social movements with S&T concerns from all continents, who have contributed to WFSD deliberations, strongly believe that techno-fix approaches cannot tackle the complex socio-economic and geopolitical issues involved. The requisite low-carbon pathways of development will need the participation of the State, corporations, social movements, civic organisations, and society as a whole. Environmentally sustainable and socially just development under these conditions would call for transformative societal goals as well as new directions in scientific and technological research and new strategies for their application that emerge from a broad societal consensus. For this to happen, S&T innovation should occur through increased cooperation between individuals, institutions and nations, and it should not be subordinated to profit or to the commodification and corporate appropriation of knowledge. WFSD will work towards these immediate and long-term goals by bringing together scientists and technologists, social movements and citizens at large with the aims of stimulating the formulation and funding of research projects that simultaneously serve the interests of environmental sustainability and social justice, drawing public attention to those that successfully do this, and challenging those that do not. WFSD reaffirms that it is only through such socially inclusive and participatory processes with such aims that S&T can serve the common good and truly fulfil its history and destiny as the heritage of all humankind.

December 2009.

First signatories : All India Peoples Science Network (India) - Alternatives (Québec) - Associação Filosófica Scientiae Studia (Brazil) - Association Femmes pour l'Égalité et la Démocratie (Maroc) - Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs - Brazilian Research Network in Nanotechnology, Society and Environment (Brazil) - Comité science et démocratie de la Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université (Québec) - Centre de Recherche et d'Information pour le Développement (CRID - France) - Fondation Sciences Citoyennes (France) - Espaces Marx (groupe sciences et démocratie - France) - Observatorio de Nuevas Prácticas y Alternativas Tecnológicas (Brazil) - Projet du Feu Solaire (France) - Sociologists without borders - VECAM (France) - World Federation of Scientific Workers...

NB. If your organisation wants to endorse this statement, please send a message to the International Secretary of the SDWF: fabien.piasecki[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Several organisations of the SDWF propose a text for the French Public Debate on Nanotechnologies

Fabien Piasecki — 2009-11-09T13:29:21Z

Several organisations of the SDWF process proposed a statement for the French public debate on nanotechnologies organised by the CNDP (Commission nationale du débat public).

You can read this text by clicking below.


SDWF Nanotechnologies

Science and Democracy: what are the problems?

Hugh Lacey — 2009-04-21T10:51:10Z

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]

[1] Via Campesina – Brasil, O Problema dos Alimentos: A Agricultura Camponesa é a Solução, Cartilha de Estudos, Brasília, Outubro de 2008.

[2] The argument of this presentation is developed more fully in my posting, Science, Respect for Nature, and Human Well-Being' at http://fsm-sciences.org/spip.php?article178&lang=en, which will be published in Portuguese in the next issue of Scientiae Studia (No. 3, 2008). See the last section of this posting (§6.2) for proposals about the practical steps for implementing the re-institutionalized science that are hinted at in the last paragraph of the presentation.

The 1st SDWF as if you had been there

Fabien Piasecki — 2009-04-21T09:10:00Z

January 26th, 2009.

Introduction

Lionel Larqué (in French) - listen.
Frédéric Sultan (in French) - listen

NB. For technical reasons, the speech of Rosa Azevedo can't be online. Sorry.

Panel A - Sciences and democracy, what are the problems?

Hugh Lacey (in English) - listen
Janine Guespin (in French) - listen
Priscila Faulhaber (in Portuguese) - listen
Silvia Ribeiro (in Spanish) - listen
Anita Rampal (in English) - listen
Edna Castro (in Portuguese) - listen
Questions of delegates and answers by speakers - listen

Panel B - Access to knowledge : building the commons

Valérie Peugeot (in English) - listen
Amit Sengupta (in English) - listen
Pascale de Robert (in Portuguese) - listen
Viviana Muñoz Tellez (in English) - listen
Pascale de Robert (in Portuguese) - listen
Pablo Ortellado (in English) - listen
James Love (in English) - listen
Questions of delegates and answers by speakers - listen

Panel C : New social and cultural confrontations

Mariana Tamari (in Portuguese) - listen
Sergio Amadeu (in Portuguese) - listen
Marcos Barbosa (in Portuguese) - listen
Cécile Sabourin (in French) - listen
Kashinath Chatterjee et Asha Mishra (in English) - listen
Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida (in Portuguese) - listen
Questions of delegates and answers by speakers - listen

January 27th, 2009.

Panel D – Science and democracy in a sustainable world

Angelika Hilbeck (in English) - listen
Reiner Braun (in English) - listen
Michel Doucin (in French) - listen
D. Raghunandan (in English) - listen
Ian Illuminato (in English) - listen
Louise Vandelac (in French) - listen
Questions of delegates and answers by speakers - listen

Panel E - Social responsibility, what cooperation between sciences and society?

Vinod Raina (in English) - listen
André Jaeglé (in French) - listen
Thekkiniyil Gangadharan (in English) - listen
Andrew Feenberg (in English) - listen
Ligia Simonian (in Portuguese) - listen
Questions of delegates and answers by speakers - listen

Science, Technology and Democracy: Distinctions and Connections

Andrew Feenberg — 2009-04-20T14:37:50Z

Abstract

This paper argues that despite considerable overlap, science and technology must be distinguished. Research aimed at understanding of nature is controlled by the community of researchers. This distinguishes it from activities aimed at the production of products under the control of organizations such as corporations and government agencies. Even where one and the same activity aims at both truth and utility, it is controlled in these two different contexts. This distinction is traced in the paper through the post-War history of science and society in America, through direct comparison of several cases and their implications, and through a discussion of the paradoxical structure of technology-society relations. These relations constitute an “entangled hierarchy” because social groups form around technical mediations which they in turn mediate and transform. The politics of science and technology differ in that the contribution of social groups to scientific change is far less direct than to technological change.

Prologue: The Cold Fusion Fiasco

On March 23, 1989 Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons appeared at a press conference at the University of Utah where they announced the discovery of cold fusion. The President of the university and several other officials were also present and spoke to the press. The unaccustomed involvement of the press and these officials signalled that cold fusion was more than a scientific advance. Soon the University announced the formation of a research institute with funding from the state. Its goal was not only to produce knowledge of the phenomenon but also to prepare large scale commercial applications. It seemed possible at first that cold fusion would revolutionize electricity production and transform the world economy.

We know the end of the story. Within a short time cold fusion was discredited and most researchers lost interest in it. The institute at the University of Utah closed in 1991 and support for further work in this field quickly evaporated (Simon, 2002). These events provide a particularly clear illustration of the complexity of the relation between science and technology today.

The classic but generally discredited account of these relationships holds that science is a body of truths about nature and technology an application of these truths in the production of useful devices. Truth and utility belong to different worlds linked only by the subordination of the latter to the former. But historians have shown that few technologies arose as applications of science until quite recently. Most were developed independent of science and, indeed, in cases such as optics had more impact on science than vice versa. Science is even more dependent on technology today than in the past. It is true that the 20th century saw a dramatic increase in practical applications of scientific knowledge, but this new situation does not reveal the essence of the science-technology relationship. Rather, it confounds the common sense distinction by establishing the productive character of science itself.

In any case, the classic model does not describe cold fusion. Fleischman and Pons did not apply any existing science in their work but made an empirical discovery of the sort that we associate with invention. They were not seeking to confirm or invalidate a theory with experiment as philosophical accounts of scientific method would have it, but rather aimed to produce an unexplained (and ultimately unexplainable) effect. Their discovery employed a technical device that was both an experimental apparatus and a commercial prototype. Accordingly, the two pronged launch of their discovery aimed at both the scientific and the business communities.

Cases such as this one proliferate in the biological sciences, where scientific techniques are deployed in the search for results of interest not only to researchers but also to pharmaceutical houses. Products and knowledge emerge from the laboratory together. The pursuit of knowledge and the making of money are joined in a single labor. The distinction between science and technology appears to break down. Hence the widespread use of the term “technoscience.”

Distinguishing Science and Technology

Postmodern scholars and many researchers in Science and Technology Studies no longer believe there is any distinction of principle between science and technology. Certainly the boundaries are much fuzzier than in the past. But if we conclude that they are no longer distinguishable at all, what becomes of the associated distinctions between theory and practice, research and application, scholarship and business, truth and utility? Must they be given up too?

The old distinction between science and technology and all these associated distinctions implied a value hierarchy. Science, theory, research, scholarship and truth were considered nobler than technology, practice, application, business and utility, in accordance with the ancient preference for disinterested contemplation over worldly activity. This hierarchy grounded the demand for the complete autonomy of science. In 1948 P.W. Bridgman expressed this “ivory tower” indifference when he said “The assumption of the right of society to impose a responsibility on the scientist which he does not desire obviously involves the acceptance of the right of the stupid to exploit the bright” (Bridgman, 1948: 70).

As the distinction between science and technology blurs the value hierarchy that justified such outrageous snobbery loses its persuasive force. A basic change has occurred in the relationship between science and society. There is growing openness on the part of science to various forms of political and economic control and in some cases what I will call “democratic intervention” by lay members of the public. But what exactly do we mean by this? Certainly not eliminating the laboratory, obliging scientists to work with the public looking over their shoulders, and relying on government for epistemic decisions. Democratization and political and economic intervention into science are more modest in their objectives for many reasons. But the struggle for social control of technology is hardly modest. It intensifies constantly and it often leads to direct intervention by citizens and governments into technological decisions and even into the decision-making criteria employed to select technologies.

The old value hierarchy has certainly been scrambled in recent years as more and more scientific work aims directly at producing marketable goods. We live in a two dimensional flatland, not a three dimensional universe with vertical coordinates. But despite the changes, we cannot do without the old distinctions. They correspond to vital strategic divisions within the world of politics. The question is, how can we reconstruct the distinction between science and technology without falling back into an outmoded valuative framework? That is what I will attempt here.

In the remainder of this presentation I want to offer a new framework for discussing the relationship between science, technology and democracy. I will discuss four issues in the time allowed. First, I want to introduce some basic criteria for making the distinction that concerns us here. Second, I will propose a historical sketch of the evolving cognitive relation of science and society. Third, I will argue that democratization has a specific normative significance for technology it does not have for science. Fourth, I will present some philosophical reflections on the paradoxical structure of the emerging technical public sphere.

Two Criteria

Even if it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the pursuit of truth from the pursuit of utility, other criteria enable us to the make a usable distinction between science and technology. I am not concerned here with the obvious cases such as the difference between theoretical physics and road work. The difficult cases are more interesting. They arise in the expanding zone of activities that appear to cross the line between science and technology. In that zone criteria can be developed from study of scientific and technological practice, for example, the subtle differences in the roles of knowledge and technical work in experimentation and science based technology (Radder, 2009). Here I will focus on criteria reflecting significant differences in governance and procedures because they are directly relevant to the politics of science and technology.

The science/technology distinction used to be associated with the distinction between academic and corporate research. But there are obvious counter-instances such as Bell Labs where high quality scientific world has been done under corporate auspices. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the kind of research done in universities and Bell Labs and most product development, including development that employs laboratory methods but which is conducted in secret or used to promote specific products. This suggests a first criterion for distinguishing science and technology: the difference in decision procedures in the two cases.

Scientific controversies are decided by the scientific community, or rather, by what sociologists of science designate as a “core set” of researchers engaged in debating the relevant scientific issues. Social, cultural and economic constraints play only indirect roles in these debates, for example, empowering some participants to carry out expensive experiments or influencing the initial response to the announcement of results. But in the final analysis epistemic tests carried out by individuals or small groups in conferences, articles, and laboratories are the principal measure of competing ideas.

I do not mean to imply that scientists arrive at absolute truth, but they do achieve credible knowledge of nature and this is their primary aim, the make-or-break factor in their work, even if that work also involves them in commercial activity. Technology too involves knowledge of nature but many of the most important decisions in this case are not about knowledge. Social and economic criteria are relevant to technological choices and intervene through the mediation of organizations such as corporations or government agencies that employ technical workers. These workers, who may be scientists, are usually situated in a chain of administrative command leading up to individuals in non-technical roles with wide responsibilities that have nothing to do with knowledge of nature. Where those individuals determine outcomes, we can be fairly certain we are dealing with a primarily technical activity, even if scientific knowledge is ultimately generated as a by-product. This difference is clearly illustrated by the cold fusion affair. The pursuit of commercial cold fusion depended on the willingness of the state of Utah to invest in a likely money maker. The research was to be oriented toward this goal. Within the institute the existence of cold fusion was not in question and the experiments were conducted in secret. But the very same effect which the organization was created to exploit was also exposed to scientific evaluation and this proved to be decisive. There the potential profits to be made on commercial electricity production were attention-getting but less significant. Scientific criteria were brought to bear on the effect, so far as knowledge of its production was available, and it was rapidly discredited, primarily by two epistemically significant factors: failures to reproduce the effect in the laboratory, and lack of a plausible connection between the effect and existing theory. Clearly, truth and utility still belong to distinguishable worlds, even if they refer to aspects of one and the same phenomenon and often cross boundaries in pursuit of their separate goals. The point of intersection, where scientific and technological criteria must both be aligned, corresponds to the proper application of the term “technoscience.” This blurring of boundaries has had an unfortunate influence on the evolution of research funding. In recent years neo-liberal ideologists have convinced governments that the responsiveness of science to society is measured by the commercial success of its applications. An ever tighter bond between business interests and funded research programs has increasingly harmful impacts on the research community. Public support for basic research in a wide variety of fields, including many with no immediate prospect of commercial payoffs, is the basis of long term scientific advance. It is also essential that science have the means to serve the public interest even where business prospects are poor, as in the case of medicines for “orphan” diseases. This new system reduces science to a handmaiden of technology, with disastrous consequences because not all of science is “techno-”.

The second criterion useful for distinguishing science and technology is the different role of underdetermination in the two cases. The concept of underdetermination was introduced by the French historian Pierre Duhem to explain the fact that scientific theories are not uniquely determined by observation and experiment. The interpretation of these tests of theory always depends on other theories and so the whole edifice of knowledge is implicated in the evaluation of any particular branch of it. In practice, this means that no logically decisive experiment can relieve the researcher of the need to make a personal decision about the truth or falsity of the tested theory. Such decisions, Duhem claimed, are based on “good sense.” They are rational, but not possessed of the certainty often claimed for science. Cold fusion illustrates this conclusion, if not Duhem's precise point, since failures to reproduce the effect were interpreted by Pons and Fleischman as technical breakdowns and by their opponents as proving the non-existence of the effect. The decision between these two interpretations could not be made on the basis of experiment alone since the competence of the experimenters was in question.

Variations on this theme have been discussed in philosophy of science for a century. No doubt there is something to it. But Pons and Fleischman discovered that ad hoc explanations are weak defences for anomalous and conflicting experimental results such as characterized the cold fusion case. The only effective move in such cases is the production of new theory that encompasses old and new observations alike. But the production of plausible alternatives is extraordinarily difficult. Advocates of cold fusion were unable to supply one. Their failure is not unusual. Although Einstein objected to quantum mechanical uncertainty, he found it impossible to come up with something better. Creating new scientific theory requires rare originality and a special kind of critical insight into existing theory.

The case with technology is quite different once again, not least because alternatives are usually easy to invent. The concept of underdetermination can be adapted to signify this difference. It is obvious to engineers and other technical workers that no “technological determinism” or “technological rationality” dictates a single design of each device. The technical equivalent of Duhem's “underdetermination” of scientific observation and experiment is the proliferation of alternative designs of roughly similar devices. Just as observation and experiment can have different meanings in different theoretical contexts, so devices can be designed differently and have different meanings in the larger framework of existing technology.

There are of course hard problems such as the AIDS vaccine. We will be lucky to find a single successful design, much less a multiplicity among which to choose. But most technical problems are not so hard and alternatives are available. The question then is how choices are made among them. Technical underdetermination leaves a wide opening for social, cultural and economic criteria to weigh on the final decision between alternatives. The equivalent of scientists' “good sense” in this case is supplied by management sending orders down the chain of command to technical workers whose advice they may or may not have taken into consideration.

Democratizing Science

With these distinctions in mind, I want to introduce some historical considerations on the concept of the democratization of science. Science was always marginal to national politics until the Second World War. The Manhattan Project and radar research actually changed the course of the War and thereafter the union of science, government, and eventually business became one of the driving forces of social and economic development. But science was exposed to new forms of public intervention as a result. I will sketch this history very briefly in the American context.

The Manhattan Project played a special role in this transformation of the relationship between science and society. The scientists involved were sworn to secrecy throughout the War. They acted as agents of the federal government under military command. But they realized toward the end, when it came time to decide whether or not to use the bomb, that they were not simply government employees. Because of the secrecy of the project, they were also the only citizens able to understand the issues and express an opinion.

Under the leadership of Leo Szilard and James Frank they attempted to enact their role as citizens by petitions and reports advocating non-use. They were unsuccessful but after the War, when they were no longer bound by military secrecy to the same degree, a number of them committed themselves to informing public opinion. The famous Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was the semi-official organ of this “scientists' movement.” It had wide influence but it took many years for its advocacy of test bans and disarmament treaties to have an effect on public policy.

There was a strong element of technocratic paternalism in this movement. In the immediate post-War period, up until the middle 1960s, technocratic notions were widely believed to chart the course for the future of modern societies. Politics was increasingly guided by technical experts of one sort or another. But the problem of what to do about public opinion remained once its input was devalued relative to expert advice. One solution consisted in refining the techniques of persuasion. Scientists chose a more respectful alternative and attempted to educate the public. Their efforts were motivated by the sense that an uninformed public might obstruct essential government decisions based on scientific knowledge.

This experience influenced the attitude of scientists in the 1960s and ‘70s as the environmental movement began to take shape. Biologists saw themselves in the role of the atomic scientists of the post-War period, possessed of knowledge of critical importance to the public. They too attempted to inform the public, advocating science-based solutions to problems most people could barely understand.

But technocratic paternalism soon gave way to a new pattern. Disagreements arose among environmentalists in the early 1970s and weakened the authority of science. True, some physicists disagreed over issues such as civil defense but the vast majority of the articulate scientific community favored the policies embodied in the treaties that still falteringly regulate nuclear affairs. No such consensus emerged in the environmental movement. In fact there were open conflicts over the causes of pollution, some blaming over-population and others blaming faulty technology, some calling for involuntary controls on births, others more vigorous regulation of industry, still others a return to nature or at least to “voluntary simplicity” (Feenberg, 1999: chap. 3).

The appearance of politically significant splits in the environmental movement meant scientists could no longer occupy the role of teacher to an ignorant public, but that they were obliged instead to play politics in the search for public support. For a population that made little distinction between science and technology, the loss of authority that resulted from these controversies was amplified by a series of technological disasters. The Vietnam debacle testified to the limits of the kinds of knowledge and power the technocratic state had at its disposal. The Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 refuted the standard measures of risk put forward with such misplaced confidence by the scientific and engineering community. The Challenger accident in 1986 was a rebuke to the hubris of a nation that was proud of having put a man on the Moon. Many other incidents contributed to a gradual shift in sentiment and by the end of the millennium few young people were choosing scientific careers and strong fundamentalist movements were increasingly effective in opposing the teaching of science in schools. Against this background a new configuration gradually emerged. By the 1970s we were beginning to see more public awareness of medical and environmental issues that affected individuals directly in their everyday experience. These issues were not confined to the realm of public discourse as had been nuclear issues in an earlier period. Now individuals found themselves involved in scientific-technical controversies as victims or potential victims of risky technical activities. In cases such as these ordinary people may well possess part of the truth before scientists interest themselves in their problems. That is a reason for scientists to listen as well as speak, to accept the role of learners as well as the role of teachers. In this context small groups of scientists, technologists and citizens began to explore an entirely new relationship between science and society. This relationship took the form not of paternalistic education but of a true collaboration with community activists.

A signal instance was the Love Canal struggle in the late 1970s. Residents of this community organized to demand government help dealing with the nearby toxic waste site that was sickening them and their children. They worked closely with volunteer scientists to document the extent of the problem and eventually won reparations. In this case lay informants brought a problematic situation to the awareness of scientists and collected useful epidemiological data for them to analyze.

Another similar movement among AIDS activists in the 1980s started out with considerable conflict and distrust between patients and the scientific-medical community. Patients objected to restrictions on the distribution of experimental medicines and the design of clinical trials. But the struggle eventually died down as the leaders of patient organizations were invited to advise scientists and physicians on a more humane organization of research (Epstein, 1996). This lay intervention added a new ethical dimension to scientific practices that were not well conceived from the standpoint of current values. The changes were also cognitively significant since they made it easier to recruit human subjects and to insure that they cooperated in supplying researchers with the desired information.

These are American examples but other cases and other institutional procedures in other countries confirm the general pattern: from indifference to paternalism to signs of democratic engagement between science and society. If this trend develops widely, it promises to make a lasting contribution to democracy in technologically advanced societies.

Technology and Society

I have left an ambiguity in the above history. My examples included a weapon, a toxic waste site, and a disease. Scientists were involved in all three. But is “science” the right word to describe their activities in these three cases? Clearly, the making of a bomb differs from the work of the physicists whose theories made it possible. In fact the making of the bomb involved many industrial crafts and aimed primarily at producing a weapon, not better understanding of nature. The other cases are similar. Chemists and microbiologists were involved (and still are in the case of AIDS). But their activities were organized by an elaborate industrial apparatus to produce goods, not to contribute to our understanding of nature, although they will certainly do that too.

In my view it is a mistake to focus exclusively on the relationship between science and society in discussing cases such as these. That approach tends to place the emphasis on the cognitive aspect of the relationship. But when science leaves the laboratory and enters society as technology, it must serve many other interests besides the interest in knowledge. As we have seen, technology is a field of activity in its own right. It does not cancel out of the equation as a mere application of science. Industrial organizations intervene between the work of scientists and their technoscientific products. These organizations are independent mediations with their own logic and procedures. For reasons I will explore in this section, technical creation is far less protected from lay intervention than is science in its cognitive role. In those fields properly described as technosciences the situation is complicated by the ambiguity of the various activities involved in research and commercialization. When the actors seek more autonomy, they claim to be doing science; when they seek financial support they claim to be engaged in technology. Jessika Kammen describes an interesting case where researchers working on a contraceptive vaccine attempted to offload all the difficulties onto complementary “technologies” while reserving the title of “science” for their work. The distinction enabled them to continue pursuing the vaccine without worrying about the practical obstacles to its actual deployment (Kammen, 2003). Here the distinctions we are working with become political resources, but this should not blind us to what is really at stake, namely, the welfare of millions of women and their families.

The reason for the difference between the role of the public in science and technology is simple. While scientific theories are abstractions and experiments confined to the lab, technologies supply environments within which ordinary people live. Experience with these environments is a potential source of knowledge as we have seen, and everyday attitudes toward risk and benefit prevail there. All this distinguishes lay publics from scientists and technologists whose knowledge is formalized and who evaluate risks and benefits with mathematical tools.

Bridgman simply dismissed the public as “stupid,” but this is no longer possible. All too often lay observers have turned out to be the canaries in the mine, alerting scientists to overlooked dangers. And scientific and technical disciplines contain many traditional elements introduced during an earlier state of the society and its culture. In the case of technology the persistence of these elements past their time sometimes causes harm and motivates challenges from below that bring the tradition up to date.

Consider the huge variations in obstetrics from one time and place to another. Not so long ago husbands paced back and forth in waiting rooms while their wives gave birth under anesthesia. Today husbands are invited into labor and delivery rooms and women encouraged to rely less on anesthetics. The result of scientific discoveries? Hardly. But in both cases the system is medically prescribed and the feminist and natural childbirth movements of the 1970s that brought about the change forgotten. A technological unconscious covers over the interaction between reason and experience.

There is a further distinction between the relation of science and technology to society. Even when they employ scientists and scientific knowledge, corporations and government agencies should not enjoy the relative autonomy of science. Their products give rise to controversy not about ideas but about potential harm. Those in the best position to know are usually associated with the very organizations responsible for the problems. But these organizations cannot be trusted to tell the truth or to act on it. Of course many corporations and agencies are honest, have the public welfare at heart and act accordingly, but it would be imprudent to generalize from such instances to the conclusion that vigilance and regulation is unnecessary. The dominant feature of this relationship is the potential for conflict of interest. Familiar examples are the manipulation of information and the manufacture of artificial controversy by the tobacco industry with respect to lung cancer and energy companies with respect to climate change (Michaels, 2008). Conflicts of interest in such cases give rise to political struggles over regulation and, unlike scientific controversies, we do hope democratic procedures will decide the outcome rather than a “core set” of actors, namely, the corporations and agencies involved.

There is thus an enormous strategic difference between the science-society and the technology-society relationships. No matter how extensive the many interdependencies of scientific research and technology, no matter how blurred the boundary between them may sometimes be, there remains a fundamental difference with real consequences. In the case of scientific research we seek public interaction and mutual engagement but leave scientists to draw their own conclusions. We may suspect particular scientists of incompetence or chicanery and ask for second opinions, but in the end we must rely on the scientific community. We do not have a similar confidence in corporations and governments. When they order up “truths” on command the results are disastrous. Nothing has changed in this respect from Lysenko to HIV denial in South Africa.

As public institutions corporations and government agencies, including those that employ scientists, must submit to democratic control of their activities. That control is often extensive and detailed and needs to be where their products circulate widely with significant public impacts. Thus we do not want an oil company rather than scientists to decide if climate change is real, but we are not worried when the government orders a medicine off the market or bans a pesticide. Such decisions are a normal exercise of governmental authority and easily implemented by technical workers because, as noted above, so many viable alternatives are generally available. The danger in confusing the cases is that when we demand democratic intervention into “technoscience,” we will be understood to blur the line between cognitive and regulatory issues. Unless we keep these issues clearly separate we will appear to be irrationalists rejecting science when in fact we need it precisely in order to control the activities of technological actors such as corporations.

The Entangled Hierarchy of Technology and Society

I want to conclude this talk by considering the paradoxical structure of the relationship between technology and society. The paradox tells us something important about what it means to be a human being in a technological society.

While ordinary people often play an important role in alerting scientists to problems and sometimes in collecting data as well, for them the new relationship is not primarily about knowledge but rather about experience. It concerns how people understand the world in which they live, the lived world of everyday experience.

The inhabitants of the Love Canal neighborhood recognized a new element in their world, a toxic element boiling up from the waste dump on which their houses were situated. Their experienced world turned out to be more complicated than they had realized. This discovery about the world was also a self-discovery: these neighbors suddenly became actors in new relationships to scientists, doctors, the government and the corporate author of their misfortune. Understanding of the world, identity and group formation go hand in hand. All are fluid in modern societies and intertwined with technology. This is the result of a historic change. In traditional societies the specialized knowledge of craft workers and the lessons of everyday experience shared by all members of society merged together in a tradition passed down through the generations. Social identities were also stable since disruptions of the sort occasioned by rapid technological change were rare. But as capitalism develops, control of design is restricted to a small dominant class and its technical servants. They are not restrained by the lessons of experience and accelerate technological change to the point where society is in constant turmoil.

This change has consequences for the structure of knowledge. Scientific and technical disciplines are freed to become specialized formal systems. It is in this context that the idea of a pure rationality that would be independent of experience arises. Although expressed in secular forms, this idea is essentially theological. One imagines a hypothetical infinite being capable of acting on His objects without reciprocity. God is at the top of the ultimate practical hierarchy in a one way relation to His objects, not involved with things and exposed to their independent power. He creates the world without suffering any recoil, side effects, or blowback. He has nothing like what we call experience.

Modern thought takes this imaginary relation as the model of rationality and objectivity, the point at which humanity transcends itself in pure theory. But in reality we are not gods. Human beings can only act on a system to which they themselves belong. This is the practical significance of embodiment and implies participation in a world of meanings and causal powers we do not control. Finitude shows up as the reciprocity of action and reaction. Every one of our interventions returns to us in some form as feedback from our objects. This is obvious in everyday communication where anger usually evokes anger, kindness kindness, and so on.

The technical subject is finite too, but the reciprocity of finite action is dissipated or deferred in such a way as to create a necessary illusion of transcendence. We call an action "technical" when the actor's impact on the object is out of all proportion to the return feedback affecting the actor. We hammer in nails, transforming a stack of lumber into a table, but we are not transformed. All we experience is a little fatigue. This typical instance of technical action is narrowly framed to highlight the apparent independence of actor from object. In the larger scheme of things, the actor is in fact at stake in his action if not in the same way as the lumber. His action has an impact on his identity: he becomes a carpenter or at the very least a hobbyist. But that impact is not visible in the immediate technical situation where big changes occur in the wood while it seems that the person wielding the hammer is unaffected.

This example may seem trivial but from a systems point of view there is no difference of principle between making a table and making an atom bomb. When J. Robert Oppenheimer exploded the first bomb at the Trinity test site, a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita flashed through his mind: "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds." In this case the similarity between technical labor and divine action is all too clear. Technique appears to represent a partial escape from the human condition. But it did not take Oppenheimer long to realize that the destroyer is also exposed to destruction, and to call for international control of nuclear weapons. Unlike Oppenheimer, Shiva, the god of Death, did not have to worry about the Russians.

Without wishing to return to traditional arrangements, we can nevertheless appreciate their wisdom, based as they were on a longer term view of the wider context of technology than we are accustomed to today. Tradition was overthrown in modern times and society exposed to the full consequences of rapid and unrestrained technical advance, with both good and bad results. The good results were celebrated as progress, while the unintended and undesirable consequences of technology were ignored as long as it was possible to isolate and suppress the victims and their complaints. The dissipated and deferred feedback from technical activity, such unfortunate side effects as pollution and the deskilling of industrial work, were dismissed as the price of progress. The illusion of technique became the dominant ideology.

These side effects are consequences of a technology cut off to a considerable extent from the experience of those who live with it and use it. As it grows more powerful and pervasive, it has become more and more difficult to insulate technology from feedback from the underlying population. The experience of users and victims of technology eventually influences the technical codes that preside over design. Early examples emerge in the labor movement around health and safety at work. Later, such issues as food safety and environmental pollution signal the widening circle of affected publics. Today, as we have seen, such interactions are becoming routine and new groups emerge frequently as “worlds” change in response to technological change.

In the technology studies literature, this is called the “co-construction” of technology and society. The examples cited here show this “co-construction” resulting in ever tighter feedback loops, like the “Drawing Hands” in M. C. Escher's famous print of that name. I want to use this image to discuss the underlying structure of the technology-society relationship.

Escher's self-drawing hands are emblematic of the concept of the "strange loop" or "entangled hierarchy" introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979). The strange loop arises when moving up or down a logical hierarchy leads paradoxically back to the starting point. A logical hierarchy in this sense can include a relationship between actors and their objects, such as seeing and being seen or talking and listening. The active side stands at the top and the passive side at the bottom of these hierarchies. With this in mind the famous liar's paradox can be analyzed as an example of a strange loop in which top and bottom trade places. Like all statements, the statement "This sentence is false" refers to an object. The statement itself is the actor at the top of the hierarchy. But the object to which it refers is also itself and in describing itself as false it reverses the direction of action. When one claims that something is false that claim is the actor and what it describes as false is the object. But that object is itself. Now the sentence is only true if it is false and false if it is true. A strange loop indeed! In the Escher print, the paradox is illustrated in a visible form. The hierarchy of "drawing subject" and "drawn object" is "entangled" by the fact that each hand plays both functions with respect to the other. If we say the hand on the right is at the top of the hierarchy, drawing the hand on the left, we come up against the fact that the hand on the left draws the hand on the right and so is also located at the top level. Thus neither hand is at the top or both are, which is contradictory.

On Hofstadter's terms, the relation between technology and society is an entangled hierarchy. Social groups form around the technologies that mediate their relations, make possible their common identity and shape their experience. We all belong to many such groups. Some are defined social categories and the salience of technology to their experience is obvious. Such is the case with factory or hospital workers, whose organization and employment depends on the technology they use. Other groups are latent, unconscious of their commonalities until disaster strikes. The inhabitants of Love Canal may have been indifferent neighbors, but when toxic waste was discovered in the land they inhabited they were alerted to a shared danger. Their world was transformed and, as a conscious collective, they recruited scientists to help them understand it and made demands on the government. Such encounters between the individuals and the technologies that bind them in groups proliferate with consequences of all sorts. Social identities and worlds emerge together and form the backbone of a modern society (Callon et al., 2001).

Once formed and conscious of their identity, technologically mediated groups influence technical design through their choices and protests. This feedback from society to technology is paradoxical. Insofar as the group is constituted by the technical links that associate its members, its status is that of the "drawn" object in Escher's scheme. But it reacts back on those links in terms of its experience, "drawing" that which draws it. Neither society nor technology, reason nor experience can be understood in isolation from each other because neither has a stable identity or form. This paradox is endemic to democracy in general. Self-rule is an entangled hierarchy. Hofstadter's scheme has a limitation that does not apply in the case of technology. The strange loop is never more than a partial subsystem in a consistent, objectively conceived universe. Hofstadter evades ultimate paradox by positing an "inviolate level" of strictly hierarchical relations above the strange loop that makes it possible. He calls this level "inviolate" because it is not logically entangled with the entangled hierarchy it creates. The person who says "This sentence is false" is not entangled in the paradox she announces. In the case of the Escher drawing, the paradox only exists because of the unparadoxical activity of the actual printmaker Escher who drew it in the ordinary way without himself being drawn by anyone. But there is no equivalent of this "Escher" in the real world of co-construction, no inviolate god creating technology and society from the outside. All the creative activity takes place in a world that is itself created by that activity. Only in our fantasies do we transcend the strange loops of technology and experience. In the real world there is no escape from the logic of finitude.

References

Bridgman, P.W. (1948). “Scientists and Social Responsibility,” in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 4, no. 3.

Callon, Michel, Pierre Lascoumbes, Yannick Barthe (2001). Agir dans un Monde Incertain. Paris: Seuil.

Epstein, Steven (1996). Impure Science. Berkeley, University of California Press.

Feenberg, Andrew (1999). Questioning Technology. New York: Routledge.

Hofstadter, Douglas (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach. New York: Basic Books.

Kammen, Jessika (2003). "Who Represents the Users? Critical Encounters between Women's Health Advocates and Scientists in Contraceptive R&D," in N. Oudshoorn and R. Pinch, eds., How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology, Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press, pp. 151-171.

Michaels, David (2008). Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Radder, Hans (2009). Handbook Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences, ed. A.Meijers,. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 71-87.

Simon, Bart (2002). Undead Science: Science Studies and the Afterlife of Cold Fusion. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

NB. The picture can be removed on demand by sending an email to contact@fsm-sciences.org

SDWF Process : on the road to Dakar in 2011.

Fabien Piasecki — 2009-04-20T09:56:27Z

The first Science and Democracy World Forum (SDWF) took place in Belém (Brazil) on January 26th and 27th and the first conclusions were presented during the Assemblies of the Alliances Day of the World Social Forum on February 1st, 2009. It was a success beyond what the initiators and organizers were expected, particularly with regard to the human and financial means, which allowed this forum to be held, were “modest”. Nearly 300 delegates, coming from 18 countries on 4 continents, shared on the place that sciences and technologies have on the “march of the world”, on their evolutions and on the necessity of the emergence, on an international scale, of a network-space, which could put in prospects the working of the scientific institutions (funding, scientific politics, knowledge production) in the globalization era and linked with social movements.

You can read the "final text" of the SDWF written in Belém here.

You can listen to the whole debates by clicking here.

You can read the Political Assessment and Perspectives here.

Photos : Les Petits Débrouillards

Political assessment and perspectives

Groupe d'impulsion français — 2009-04-20T09:55:34Z

A subtle but strong positioning – A political dialogue forum

Nearly 300 delegates, coming from 18 countries on 4 continents, shared on the place that sciences and technologies have on the “march of the world”, on their evolutions and on the necessity of the emergence, on an international scale, of a network-space, which could put in prospects the working of the scientific institutions (funding, scientific politics, knowledge production) in the globalization era and linked with social movements.

In that way, we completely validated the bet on which we based this first edition of the Science and Democracy World Forum: the necessity to initiate a political dialogue space between CSOs and scientific organisation or institutions. All the delegates admitted that such a space didn't exist before this one. This statement makes the follow-up and the development of the SDWF even more meaningful and precious.

We confirmed the tendency observable in many countries: the demand level and the constructive criticism towards the techno-scientific complex are increasing. The demand level goes with a real voluntarism of not letting the techno-scientific complex drifting according to dominant forces. On the same way, it appeared as an agreement that “the” scientific community is not homogeneous and affected by many tensions. In that way, we shared the assessment of a weakness regarding social, ecological, ethical and democratic parameters within the techno-scientific complex, regarding the “social responsibility” of researchers issues, the ambiguous (or which deserves, at least, to be deepened and updated) notion of “freedom/autonomy of research and researchers” and many other parameters absolutely crucial in the “life” of this community.

A last very positive point of this first edition came from the quality of the exchanges between the different actors but also from the progressive establishment of an atmosphere of trust and a desire of common work. This fund of understanding is precious because it will determine the future of our initiative. It allowed political agreements on the governance and decision processes for the second edition. A mandate was given to the French organisations to stimulate and coordinate the preparation of the 2nd Science and Democracy World Forum.

Beyond this very positive assessment, three important limits must be expressed. These limits can be mainly explained by the fact that the organisations don't have a real “shared culture” yet (and consequently not enough mutual trust for the moment).

The first limit is geographical: the absence of representative of important “zone” such as the USA, Russia, Japan or China for the 1st SDWF; efforts will be needed to solve it for the 2nd edition.

The second one is that organisations feel reticent to integrate a space, which would lead to campaigns and actions. This platform/network is, on the one hand of scientific organisations, is firstly seen as a place dedicated to exchanges and debates. On the other hand, NGOs have expressed the will to go beyond debates to head for common actions and campaigns as soon as possible (even if debates are, even for them, the core of the process).

And last of those three identified limits: the refusal to sign the final document, which has been considered as a statement and a first step. Even if the absence of formal signatures doesn't burden with the future at all, it would be good to create the conditions of a better “visibility”.

Strong common axes with prospects

We finally managed to produce collectively a document, which doesn't level the debates too low. Some strong axes are building a solid political framework. In spite of a big political and cultural diversity, no debates were left on one side.

Besides, the context of “multiple crisis” allowed the debates to become rooted in a wider frame. Facing with the crisis, the analysis of the ravages of “wild capitalism” in the scope of knowledge created an efficient political consensus. But we didn't manage to solve the deep-rooted differences of opinion on the place of sciences and technologies in the world to come but from now on the question is on the table and people accept to talk openly about it.

One of the main concerns was the choices and orientations as regards of research policy (stakes of university policy included). Different tendencies appeared on those questions according to whether you were an activist or an NGO on the one hand, or a researcher and even more a technician or an engineer on the other hand.

But sturdy political convergences emerged. Firstly, the place of financial markets and of the privatisation of knowledge: several options and ideas appeared on different property regimes, establishing that it was a common concern for all the actors. The stake of “common goods” or “public goods” (various approaches are persisting) will be one of the structuring axes of the next editions. The “commons' battle” (even if the semantics is not totally shared) open a new way for alternatives and allow to think about potential campaigns coordinating at a global scale.

The fact that the SDWF took place in Belém guaranteed a wide presence of indigenous topics during the debates, particularly the link between academic and traditional knowledge. As a matter of fact, this stake converges on the will to fight against monopoly (in the present case, the presumption of legitimacy monopoly) and hegemony. The strong tropism to accept the principle of their own monopoly on knowledge within the scientific communities of research institutions is progressively called into question (c.f. international conventions on biodiversity, cultural diversity, etc.). But we noticed that this “mutation” must go on to promote another form of “knowledge ecology” based on diversity without putting one knowledge over another.

An other axis of agreement was the education stakes but it strangely not appear in the final text of the SDWF even if it should have been thanks to an explicit demand formulated, in particular, by the French union Snes-Sup.

An important point of dissensus appeared but it will lead to major debates in the SDWF process: the “organic” link and the debate between the techno-scientific complex and our democracies. Between autonomy on the one hand, necessity to free scientists from a brutal intervention of states, markets or militaries on the other hand, scientists can't promote one univocal solution alone. In that sense, the question of counter powers, of new balances should be one of the frames of the 2nd SDWF.

Geopolitical stakes of opening and broadening

The broadening of the SDWF could follow four directions:

In the scientific community: firstly to continue to popularise these stakes, to federate actors and stakeholders. To reach this point, a clear idea of the different agendas is needed. Where is it possible to talk and debate? Which document or idea can be spread? These issues have to be structured before summer 2009;

Thematically: many actors and stakeholders coming from different organisations, leading different type of experiences showed their interest for the 1st SDWF. NGOs (for example Attac, Friends of the Earth, Climate and Justice Network, etc.) and researchers networks or associations (Save Research or Save University from France, etc.) understood the stakes of such a platform. Among these stakes, we could mention the needed “docking” of the SDWF to the agendas of the alter-globalisation movement and of the internal questionings of scientific communities;

Geographically: we agreed on the fact that we have to find scientific organisations and concerned movements in the USA, in Russia, in Japan and in China. Concerning China, discussions with the French organisation Fondation pour le Progrès de l'Homme should help us. Concerning the USA, we will take in account the eventuality of a US Forum open to the world in june 2010 to “connect” with academics, concerned scientists and whistleblowers organisations in the USA;

Nationally: we consider as crucial the fact that the SDWF dynamics could reinforce exchanges, sharing and dialogues within each country or region (European Union, Latin America, India, etc.).

How to gather the conditions for success and reinforcement

It was interesting and revealing to notice how much prejudices and pre-requisites of delegates carried weight during the discussions. So it appeared essential to build a corpus of common references, of concrete, situated and tangible examples, which would allow to each actor to understand and apprehend better the scope of the debates. When NGOs are talking about the necessity to discuss about new method of governance of research, it's quite natural that scientists fear for their autonomy and “room of freedom”. In the opposite direction, regarding the actual practices of traditional knowledge plundering or the spreading in the “environment” of scientific products or molecules even before the end of impact-studies, it's understandable that NGOs and whistleblowers are “scalded” by a scientific “freedom”, which is too often the curtain of smoke of submissiveness to the funding of research. That's why going further these contradictions (it's written anywhere that the NGOs involved in the SDWF claim for a “taking over” of the process) deserves to know what everybody is talking about by proposing examples, proposals and alternatives.

One of the first conditions for a success of the second edition of the SDWF will consist in writing a pedagogical document illustrating case studies in which the “sciences and democracy” stakes are present. This document could be analysis on different topics: evolutions of research methods, funding choices and orientations, evolution of scientific paradigms, alternatives like Open Access or Open Review, governance of emerging technologies, difficulties to follow up the “technological path”, use-conflicts, proposals to manage in a better way polarized and/or controversial debates, campaigns to promote alternatives (such as “commons”), property regimes and necessity of involvement of the scientific community, question of choice in uncertainty situations, etc.

This corpus could be spread widely and could build problematics and perspectives for the 2nd edition of the SDWF.

These objectives are ambitious. They are answering the hopes and questionings raised up by the holding of the 1st Science and Democracy World Forum. Delegates and organisers must gather forces to make it go further. To reach it, we need a framework built on initiatives and shared events, meetings or encounters. The preparation of the forum in Belém “taught” us how much dynamism such an agenda could inject into the process.

The French group of associations received the mandate to impulse such an agenda and to coordinate the preparation of the 2nd edition of the SDWF, to involve actors from different regions of the world in mobilising in conferences and reflections, and to exchange on a global scale to share experiences and point of views.

We propose the following calendar to impulse the follow-up of actions and reflections for the SDWF process:

before summer 2009: in each concerned region and in the “linguistic zone”, a day dedicated to a seminar on assessment and perspectives;

Spring 2009: search for funding to make the process go further. Within this framework, the French coordination, which funded for a large part the 1st SDWF will meet its partners to ensure the continued existence of Sciences and Democracy Forums. The other “regions” are invited to lead their own research of funding to contribute to the continuity of the process;

Fall 2009: to allow “organizers” and “stakeholders” of the different involved regions to meet each others and build a common agenda and evaluate the expectations and feedbacks, the French group set as an objective to hold meeting for about fifteen people strongly involved into the process to “bind together” an “international steering committee” to prepare the steps to come and to organise the collective writing of documents (such as the ones proposed above);

End of 2009: to insure a permanence of reflections on “Sciences and Democracy” issues, their sharing and to bring under control the quality of contributions, we should think about the same kind of validation process that the scientific review. The idea of a scientific review with a “mixed-peer-review committee” (researchers, academics, “intellectuals” of social movements) was proposed. The publishing of a multilingual book (or translated in the four languages of the SDWF) would be a good starting point. This book would make concrete and tangible the understanding of what the actors of the SDWF mean when they are talking about “Sciences and Democracy” stakes. Regarding the diversity of speeches and experiences, it appeared crucial to clarify our reflections by giving examples, by situating cases, by explaining the differences and common points from one geographical area to another;

Before the end of 2009: To allow a better coordination and a better visibility to the SDWF process, the “reworking” of the website is a necessity. We must switch from a “mobilisation website” (call, wiki, contributions, schedule of the forum…) to a website of coordination and reflection. The website will be “display case” of our project. The multilingual aspects must be increased for a better global understanding, to improve open sharing, to let each linguistic zone to exchange fruitfully, by respecting the thought and writing of each language. The Indian group could lead this project of reworking of the website. The French people, who initiated the existing website, would help the Indian group during the “transition”;

2010: “continental” events;

2011: 2nd edition of the Science and Democracy World Forum.

This text was proposed by the so-called “French Impulsion Group”.

Shared concerns and issues emerging from the 1st Science and Democracy World Forum

Facilitator — 2009-02-12T23:37:00Z

BROAD ISSUES AND CONCERNS

1. All knowledge, including science, is a common heritage of humankind. To increase human knowledge has been one of the most fundamental endeavours of humanity throughout history.
2. Knowledge and the methods of its production can result in both emancipation and advancement of societal interests and/or domination and oppression.
3. We support regimes that ensure and promote common public goods and other systems of rewarding innovation that are not premised on creation of monopolies over, or deriving profits from, knowledge.
4. Issues related to science & technology (S&T) form an important part of the overall economic and climate/ecological, democratic crisis that the world faces today as well as crisis related to energy use and production, food security, war and militarism. It is necessary to deepen our understanding of how issues related to S&T are part of these problems and are also part of solutions to these crises.
5. It needs to be recognised that the values of scientific communities are shaped by and rooted in historical and cultural processes. The autonomy and social responsibility of researchers, openness, and universality of science need to be promoted while being sensitive to the contemporary social and cultural diversities.
6. We recognize that diverse knowledge-production regimes exist in different countries and at different levels, including scientific institutions and local communities. Historical contexts influence the political, cultural, educational and scientific developments in society, giving rise to a diversity in the production of both academic and traditional knowledge. There is a need for a new kind of an eco-knowledge-system that is sensitive to different knowledge property regimes. In this context we support initiatives such as the one for Open Access Initiative for scientific reviews & repertories of scientific selfarchiving.
7. Endeavours to promote informed involvement of citizens in decision-making processes on S&T policies at international, national and local levels must be strengthened.
8. There is a need to change the present situation where the interests of the market, corporate profits, the consumer culture and military uses are the main drivers of research, technology and innovation.
9. We are committed to the principle that preservation of human life is a core value of science practice and hence call upon the S&T community not to engage in research that is put to military use.
10. There is a major need to promote social demand and empowerment of the people in order to exercise democratic control over policies of research and innovation.
11. Systems of collaborative, bottom-up and participative research need to be promoted.
12. We aim to build an international network that seeks to underline the importance of S&T, while at the same time pursuing an approach that looks critically at some dangerous trends in S&T today regarding democratic and environmental issues and the dynamics of capitalist globalization.
13. This open network should include both communities of scientists and engineers and diverse social movements. We shall aim to establish a democratic dialogue and collaboration between scientific and social organisations
14. This network aims to strengthen movements that challenge the manner in which S&T is sought to be taken over by corporate, private, military, political and related State and other power interests which impact the ethical values and production of S&T knowledge.

This text is addressed to
scientists, engineers, academics, educators and experts and their institutions around the world;
indigenous peoples, farmers' organisations, trade unions, other social and political movements, NGOs, organizations and institutions with science and technology concerns
all actors of the global, regional and local social forums;
international, regional, national and local public authorities, all over the world.

Science, research, technologies and innovations are connected to broader and major issues about the future of our societies and environment. Therefore, we invite all of you to make concrete connections between your own agendas and political priorities and the content of this document.

We invite all scientific and social organisations, actors of Social Forums and all citizen around the world to enlarge and strengthen this movement from now on and invite you to join following agenda:
January 2010: Science and democracy regional forums
January 2011: 2nd Science and democracy world forum

From now on, we invite all concerned people, all kind of organisations, movements and networks to organise public debates around the world in order to empower the largest part of our respective societies and communities about these issues.

Belém-Brazil, February 1st 2009.

Introduction to the panel B - Access to knowledge: building the commons - Introduction

Valérie Peugeot — 2009-02-12T21:13:54Z

Welcome to this second panel, dedicated to the question of access to knowledge and the building of the commons.

Let me introduce myself briefly: my name is Valérie Peugeot, I come from France, from an non profit organisation called Vecam, which was created in 1995, and works since then to promote social appropriation of information and communication technologies and to put into the public space the political issues related to those technologies.


Valérie Peugeot

This morning I have the difficult task to coordinate and introduce this panel. It was prepared together with other organisations, KEI - Knowledge ecology international (Jamie Love), APC - Association for progressive communications, AIPSN – All Indian people science networks (Amit Sengupta), in relation with the coordination of the sciences and democracy world forum.

Before presenting and giving the floor to our five panellists, let me just say a few words about the way we decided do draft the theme of this panel.

We all have a deep consciousness that the importance of knowledge in our societies is growing everyday, not only is it the centre of our culture, but it is also becoming the hart of our economies, the driving force of our development, both in so called developed or developing countries. We are also aware of the fact that the way in which this knowledge can circulate is changing dramatically for two main reasons: one is technical, and the other political.

The technical one is networking and digitalisation, a direct result of innovation. This allows knowledge, converted into data, to circulate and to copy instantaneously without any limits. Among other consequences, it implies that one main factor of growth is becoming what economists use to call a non exclusive, non rival, non subtractive good. That means that the access to knowledge can not be denied, that once a person enjoys access to a chunk of knowledge, others still can have the benefit of it. Those characteristics are traditionally related to economic public goods, although in today's economy, they apply to a large range of cultural knowledge, of which only a small portion falls into public domain. And this major change is introducing a deep destabilisation in our economic models. The private sector, used to deal with scarcity, ignores how to deal with this situation of abundance, or refuses to take the change into account.

The second reason for a drastic change in knowledge circulation is ideological: in the last 30 years, we have, little by little, under the influence of neoconservative and neo liberal ideologies, lost sight of what the objectives of sciences, technology and knowledge as a whole should be. Equity, shared welfare, a sustainable society, a growing cultural inheritance are almost “politically un correct” once confronted with the short term ambitions of a science compelled to find its funding in the private sector and therefore driven by commodification forces.

Having said that, how do the knowledge commons fit into the picture, how the commons can help us facing this deep shift both in the production and circulation of knowledge?

First of all, let me clarify briefly the concept of knowledge commons: the commons, are neither knowledge in the public domain, nor knowledge ruled by market forces and its restrictive conception of intellectual property rights. Knowledge commons are results of innovation, of creativity, that are deliberately placed under a self organised regime of rights and rules by the communities which have a direct interest in them, whether they are producers or users of this knowledge. Theses rights and rules favour the circulation and sharing of this knowledge among the community, while maintaining the community control and governance over these discoveries, inventions, traditional knowledge and artefacts.

In our views, this approach presents several advantages, and I shall insist on two of them:

First of all, the knowledge commons open a path, a third way, which goes far beyond the traditional closed choice between a publicly owned or privately owned knowledge and science as a whole. The knowledge commons can be built and increased by the communities themselves, in a self organised manner. This implies that not only will it have an impact on the circulation of knowledge, but also on the democratic organisation of communities. The knowledge commons allows us to build a different relation to economy – the way wealth is built and shared – but also to governance.

Second advantage: it questions the public authorities about their new responsibilities. But, as the issues at stake call for an international public framework, which by nature takes years to be built, we do not have to wait: the communities can start building the knowledge commons, right now, at the local, national or international level. When you look at the existing movements – I am talking about the free software movement, the creative commons movement, the open science initiative, the free archive organisation, the free data movement, and other initiatives that will be introduced by the panellists… –, you can tell that the knowledge commons is being built here and now, and it is our task, our responsibility, as searchers, academics, or activists, to amplify this wave, and to give it the theoretical and political framework it deserves.

L'adresse originale de cet article est http://www.vecam.org/article1090.html

Interview Of Andrew Feenberg

Facilitator — 2009-02-10T23:37:52Z

Rachel Bertol
Editora Assistente
Prosa & Verso - O Globo

RB : What is new in these kind of meeting of scientists? Do you believe scientist, in general, are still resistants to discuss with society the challenges of their work?

AF : What is new in this meeting is first of all its international character and the participation together of many scientists and non-scientists. But perhaps the most important innovation is simply that it takes place in conjunction with the World Social Forum. The issues we raise are of great importance to many of the groups and organizations attending the World Social Forum. Problems involving science and technology cut across everything else here. Unions must deal with technological change that eliminates jobs. Native peoples face destructive technological development. Intellectual property issues are affected by the Internet in exciting new ways. Environmental problems are caused by polluting technology. Development questions concern how to benefit from technology without suffering bad side effects of progress. And so on. The unifying element in all these cases is the very scientific and technological issues we are discussing. It is time the World Social Forum took up these issues.

I think most scientists are concerned that public intervention into scientific work will make it more difficult for them to pursue their interests. So, yes, there is still a lot of resistance. But universities themselves are becoming more and more corporate, more and more influenced by business and government priorities. Many scientists feel that they are losing their autonomy and freedom of research. Perhaps this explains the growing interest among scientists in movements like Science and Democracy.

RB : What changed in the last years to allow this kind of mouvement? How do you see the futur of it?

AF : According to neo-liberalism every worthwhile activity must make money. Since science is expensive, it is not realistic to pursue research that cannot get support and support is increasingly contingent on serving the business system in some way. In the university, professors who think of themselves still as intellectuals are encouraged to deliver patents as well as articles and books. All this is contrary to the traditions of the academic world although of course there have always been some connections between business and the university. But today, these connections threaten to overwhelm the university. I think some scientists have concluded that they must work for the public interest and not the interests of business in reaction against this situation. I expect this reaction will grow stronger as neo-liberalism is discredited by the current economic crisis and problems such as climate change grow worse.

RB : And how do you see the differences of priorities of different countries, reflected in the diversity of participants of the Science and Democracy Forum?

AF : There were strong voices in our forum representing researchers who work on projects in the Amazon. They are concerned to protect nature and the peoples of the Amazon region. The representatives from India had a very different program that involved educating the population in the villages to understand science and helping village crafts with scientific advice and support. From Quebec we heard representatives of academic unions concerned about the evolution of the university. French speakers, who were the most numerous, contributed to the discussion of many issues, including especially environmental problems. It is too early to judge that these differences are significant for the future of the forum. It must grow much larger and represent many more activists from each country. Perhaps then the emphases will prove different.

RB : Do you mind to do a little "resumé" of your paper presented during the Forum?

AF : My paper concerned the relations between science and technology and what our stance should be on that relation. I think we have been using the word "science" to refer to both science and technology. This is okay among people who share the same understanding, but it can be confusing for others. Science pursues truth while technical activity is about making useful products. This is a huge difference. Science enjoys much more freedom from outside control than technology, although as I have mentioned previously that freedom is diminishing. Technology has never been free under modern capitalist conditions. Technical workers are situated in a chain of command that leads up to business and government leaders at the top. This works as well as it does because there are so many choices in making a useful device that need not be decided on purely technical grounds. The choices can be guided by management toward designs judged most useful by influential social groups. But it is very hard to generate alternative scientific theories and scientific decisions are not made by management but by the scientific workers themselves. When we talk about the democratization of science, we ought to mean that scientists and the general public engage in free and open exchanges about relevant problems, for example, the contamination of a neighborhood by toxic wastes or the design of medical experiments on human beings. When we talk about democratization of technology we should mean that democratic governments extend their regulation of industry to protect and further the public interest. These are very different strategies and it is important not to confuse them. No one wants governments to dictate the "truth" to scientists, and mere communication between business and the public will not suffice to prevent pollution and other problems. I therefore suggested that wherever in the documents defining our mission we mention "science" we add "and technology."