Debate and scrutiny are essential parts of the scientific process; they help researchers test ideas, refine theories, and correct errors. But even in the scientific realm, disputes can move beyond competing interpretations of evidence and into deeper questions: What counts as a fact? Who gets to define expertise? And how should societies decide what knowledge to elevate? As debates over science in the United States—from vaccines and climate change to artificial intelligence—are increasingly shaped by politics, such questions become more critical.
Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer professor of science and technology studies at the Harvard Kennedy School, has spent her career examining those questions. Her research focuses on science and the courts, environmental regulation, risk management, and comparative public policy. In this interview, edited for length and clarity Jasanoff discusses why the same scientific evidence can sometimes produce competing interpretations.
1. Many public debates today seem to involve people looking at the same evidence but reaching completely different conclusions. Why does that happen?
Observations about the world rarely lead to unambiguous conclusions, especially when what you are observing is a complex phenomenon, such as falling birth rates, poor educational performance, or climate change. The “evidence” brought forward to prove a point may lend itself to multiple readings. Social scientists have coined a term for this: “interpretive flexibility.”
This phenomenon is a little like the differing perceptions of a dress that went viral in 2015: was the dress black and blue or white and gold? As it turned out, the answer depended on perceptual settings in the brain that neuroscience only identified after the controversy began. But disagreements with regard to scientific claims that affect how we should live can arise from many sources. These include differences in experts’ disciplinary backgrounds, disparities in knowledge between modelers and technicians, and skepticism among laypeople toward experts, often rooted in firsthand experiences of dishonesty or unreliable expert observations.
2. Some people worry that science is getting pulled into politics. Do you think that’s a new problem?
Science has been entwined with politics from its origins. Rich patrons such as monarchs and powerful corporations have underwritten discovery efforts for centuries. Yet, in all these settings, communities of scientists were left somewhat free to decide for themselves what counted as “good science.” The worry today is that science is being driven not by criteria, vetted by practitioners of the science in question, but by explicit political agendas.
3. What should people look for when deciding who to trust?
It depends: In a highly esoteric area, such as the discovery of a new subatomic particle, we may be satisfied if a tightly knit scientific community raises its own questions and reaches answers that satisfy its members. In aråeas of wider societal relevance, such as prevention or treatment of infectious diseases, people may ask for more lay involvement in knowledge-making, longer and more inclusive deliberation, and more transparency.
[But there are] seven questions that people can ask to provide a framework for deciding the right balance between an experts-only process and a wide-open citizen referendum:
- Who posed the questions for the experts?
- Who claims expert knowledge?
- Based on what authority?
- Using what evidence?
- Subject to what oversight or criticism?
- With what openings for expressing countervailing views
- And with what mechanisms for settling disagreements?
4. Today, more people have access to information than ever before. How should we think about the role of everyday citizens in shaping decisions about science and technology?
People have wider access to informational claims, but it would be a mistake to think that access alone translates into influence. First, access may itself be an illusion: for example, many areas of knowledge and application are closed off to public access through intellectual property rights. Second, the economy of information provision has allowed platform technologies to put people into siloes within which they never get exposed to a wider range of opinions on controversial issues. Third, people who are marginalized and stand outside of entrenched social networks are rarely in a position to shape decision-making inside the networks of power.
It takes more than information that has been filtered and channeled to allow citizens to steer science and technology. You also need robust controls on the power to inform citizens, and procedural means for citizens to assert control.
5. From artificial intelligence to gene editing, new technologies are developing quickly. What can society do to make sure we’re thinking carefully about the risks and benefits?
It’s never too late for society to think carefully about the direction and steering of technological change. Developments in some areas do seem to be happening so fast that we don’t have time to take stock, but this is in part because we have emphasized innovation ahead of concerns for the greater good. The foundational reset we need in contemporary societies is to understand that technologies do not simply serve us. They also constrain us.
This is not just a matter of surveillance and control by collecting our data or tracking our movements, for example. Technologies change our understanding of who we are, what we can or should accomplish as human beings, and how we imagine our futures. As such, technological frontiers should constantly be held to changing standards of democratic accountability.
