Science Cheerleader

I’d like your thoughts on something.

Quick framework: Before Newt Gingrich shut it down in the ’90s, the Office of Technology Assessment was a Congressional support office. It provided nonpartisan, science and technology policy advice to Congress. Sounds dry but it’s something Congress ought to have when deciding upon issues such as stem cell research, global warming, alternative power, genetically engineered foods, national infrastructure–our future.

Our country needs and deserves an OTA. But not the OTA of the 90s that took two years to put together well-researched and highly respected reports on science issues…issues Congress had pretty much decided upon on already. We need a better, faster, visionary OTA that values the collective opinions of today’s citizens to prepare our country for future science and technology issues.

Other countries opened an OTA with a twist: public participation. Denmark, for example, employs a number of ways, including consensus conferences, to fold the public into critical discussions of science and technology policy. More can be done. More needs to be done. And, the Executive Branch is already making advances in this regard. The Legislative Branch (Congress) lags far behind.

Shifting the culture of science policy–providing sound science advice to Congress and engaging the public in important discussions–can only happen with a massive, groundswell of support from the public.

So let me know what you think. I can’t think of a reason NOT to push for the reopening of a “new” OTA. Good idea? Waste of time? Are there other ways to accomplish this goal? How can we unite the nation’s public and push this through as a team? Join the OTA Facebook Task Force !

If you think it’s the start of a good idea, I also encourage you to sign this petition and post your comments.

Let’s get this party started!

Cheers!

A nod of approval from Nature Magazine

Last week, Nature Magazine’s Daniel Sarewitz, wrote this about a science policy initiative SciCheer helped to inspire:

“More and earlier public involvement is required to steer powerful new technologies wisely….Relative to the cost of research and development, increasing this capacity would be cheap. It could be paid for by a small tithe on the federal research budget, and coordinated by one or more loose networks of non-governmental groups, research universities, and government laboratories (for example, see www.ecastnetwork.org). New social networking technologies could permit such discussions on scales from local to international, in venues ranging from science museums and research laboratories to presidential commissions and nationwide virtual conferences. This is the momentum of democracy. In the long run, it will also be the best thing for science.”

His column,  “Not by experts alone” boldly and clearly states the case for participatory technology assessment. Readers of Science Cheerleader know this is something of an obsession of mine. This passion led to the incarnation of ECAST (which has been cited or endorsed by the White House, Nature Magazine, and dozens of other academic, professional, and mainstream publications): Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology. This network of universities, science centers, and policy makers, anchored by the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., will play ring-leader to several forthcoming pilot projects designed to integrate public participation into critical discussions of emerging technologies (synthetic biology to name one).

Why is this important? I’ll turn the mic back to Sarewitz:

We are an innovating species, engaged in a balancing act. In the decades after the Second World War, innovation fuelled an unprecedented era of wealth creation while keeping us on the brink of nuclear annihilation. The green revolution fed billions while poisoning soil and water and destroying agrarian cultures. Today, synthetic biology and geoengineering portend a future in which managing socio-technical complexity will be every bit as challenging, if not more so. Is there a better way forward?

Maybe — if we act fast, embrace our ignorance, and keep experts from taking over.

Once a complex technology is widely used — like the automobile or the coal-fired power plant — restricting, reorienting or replacing it becomes incredibly difficult. So the key to making better choices is to start early, when uncertainty about a technology’s future is high, by maximizing the diversity of perspectives and interests involved in the discussion.

The goal is not to convince the hoi polloi that they have nothing to fear, but to improve social outcomes of emerging technologies. Scientists may be inclined to ignore or dismiss the efforts of non-experts to influence complex technical discussions — for example, in discounting the views of English sheep farmers during the response to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, or belittling the critiques of AIDS patients in early efforts to develop treatments. But when it comes to the future of an emerging technology, no one (or everyone) is an expert.

If you’d like to learn more or get involved, simply go to the  (beta) ECAST website and  sign up.  We’ll send you news and invitations as they become available.

Next up in the realm of science policy and public participation….The U.S. Government Accountability Office just made public one if its reports. I spoke with GAO’s Chief Scientist, Tim Persons, about this report and its implications. Stay tuned for more on that interview.

Tags: ECAST, gao, Nature, OTA, Public Participation Science Policy
Posted by Darlene, in In the News, OTA, Uncategorized | View Comments

Technology Assessment Makes a Comeback (with a former “76ers Cheerleader”).

Nice feature in the May edition of the American Chemical Society’s magazine:

Momentum for technology assessment based on input from everyday citizens who are not experts in a particular topic, or participatory technology assessment, is just beginning to build in the U.S. To get the conversation started, a group of institutions, universities, and science museums, as well as a former Philadelphia 76ers cheerleader turned science policy enthusiast (C&EN, Jan. 12, 2009, page 56), have teamed up and proposed a network dedicated to the process.

Called Expert & Citizen Assessment of Science & Technology (ECAST), the project is envisioned to be a geographically distributed network of complementary institutions that are independent of government. Nonpartisan policy research organizations would help broadly disseminate information to decisionmakers. Universities would both help assess technology and develop new ways to assess it. And science museums would help educate the public and inform society in user-friendly ways.

Read the full article, here.

Posted by Darlene, in In the News, OTA, Science Policy | View Comments

Your future. Buckle up and put both hands on the wheel.

On Sunday, the same day the New York Times featured YOUR future–aka Singularity, read on–on the cover of its business section, I was listening to the head cheerleader of all-things-Singularity, Ray Kurzweil, as he presented the future of humanity at the H+ Summit at Harvard. You might recall that we interviewed Ray on SciCheer sometime last year.

Ray and I, along with several others, were speakers at the H+ Summit, the theme of which was The Rise of the Citizen Scientist. I spoke about “citizen scientists” as I know them. (A copy of my powerpoint presentation can be found, below. I’ll post a link to the video when I have it.) As it turns out, my definition of citizen science isn’t quite the same as the who follow the Transhumanist/Singularity philosophy. While they are very interested and enthusiastic about what “our” citizen scientists are doing–and quite a visionary and friendly group of people, I might add–they are more interested in how humans can, ultimately, harness the deepest powers of technology to  “seize control of the evolutionary process” and create immortality.

I’ll do my best to explain what this means by pulling excerpts from my past interview with Ray Kurzweil:

Ray’s “short version” definition of  Singularity:  “The Singularity is a future time when the pace of technological change will be so fast and transformative that you will not be able to follow it unless you merge with the intelligent technology we are creating.”

How this work will and when: “Accessing the web from inside our brains is one good example of what we will see in about twenty years. The machine extensions to our brains will grow exponentially both in hardware and software capability. By the late 2030s, it will be the nonbiological portion of our intelligence that predominates.”

No thanks, I like things just the way they are. “First of all, it is human to change who we are. We didn’t stay on the ground, we didn’t stay on the planet, and we have not stayed with the limitations of our biology. Human life expectancy was 23 a thousand years ago. We are the only species that changes who we are and extends our reach, both physical and mental, through our tools. So it is human to change who we are. There will always be early and late adopters, but people are not going to completely dismiss these changes. How many people today complete reject medical and health technologies? When there is a therapy based on blood cells devices that overcome a particular disease, very few if any people will reject it. People put computers in their brains today if they have Parkinson’s Disease. People do not reject this FDA approved therapy due to philosophical issues.”

The buzz kill: real concerns that microscopic robots will pose a threat to the world: “Yes, that is called the grey goo scenario, and the narrative thread in the movie illustrates this danger. I do think we can manage that through a combination of ethical standards to build in safeguards into nanotechnology, as well as a rapid response system that detects threats and immediately deals with them, just like our biological immune system is designed to do. But this is not something we should be sanguine about. We need to be very diligent about it.”

So, there’s your future. Want to have a say? First step, head over to the beta website of ECAST (Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology) and sign up so we can keep you apprised of so-called “participatory” opportunities. We (see below) set up ECAST precisely so the public and scientists can inform each other on emerging technologies so smart, representative policies are initiated. And, as stated before: government policymakers, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and citizens need such analysis to capably navigate the technology-intensive world in which we now live.

“We”=Science Cheerleader, Arizona State University, Boston Museum of Science, the Loka Institute, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars.

Now, more than ever, we need to get in front of emerging technologies to help shape our future.

As promised, here’s a copy of my presentation.

Tags: ECAST, participatory technology assessment, Singularity, Transhumanism
Posted by Darlene, in Appearances, Citizen Science, OTA, Science Policy, Uncategorized | View Comments