Editorial: Rethinking science as an area of concern

Summary 

Science has played an influential role in framing public policy in many areas of concern. But in recent years, science itself has become an area of concern. This is partly because scientific theories can be difficult to understand and because the evidence that supports them is rarely as definitive as we might hope. But it is also because scientific inquiry is increasingly influenced by a variety of factors that many people regard as non-scientific. We are currently straddling several different concepts regarding what science is and what its primary goals are. The idea that science aims at the preservation and enhancement of our economic welfare is just one example. It is difficult to know whether we are witnessing a distortion of science or its evolution. But the time has come to begin a discussion aimed at rethinking science as an area of concern. This discussion should explore, develop, and describe each of our several contrasting concepts of science, together with their possible consequences. The purpose of the discussion is not to decide what science is, or even what it ought to be. It is to illuminate the different possible concepts of science and their likely consequences as clearly as we can so that we can see more clearly what science might become – and so that we will be in a better position to choose how we should think about science, and about how it should interact with public policy in democratic open societies with market economies like our own. We should discuss our different concepts of science not so much with an eye toward determining whether they are accurate as descriptions or attractive as ideals, as with an eye toward understanding what our future science, scientists, scientific research, and scientific knowledge might become under their influence. It is only by rethinking science in this way that we will knowingly be able to choose which way we want to go.