Baywood Publishing Company
0047-2433
1541-3802
Journal of Environmental Systems
BWES
300323
http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=journal&id=300323
32
4
4
0
0
0
000032000420050101
Number 4 / 2005-2006
L3612JU340V3
http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=issue&id=L3612JU340V3
10.2190/ES.32.4.b
F31714387VM726K7
2
Scientists' Perceptions of Objectivity and Advocacy: Making the Linkage of Science to Environmental Policy
291
310
20111121
20111121
20111121
20111121
F31714387VM726K7.pdf
http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=F31714387VM726K7
4
Leslie
R.
Alm
Boise State University, Idaho
There is no question that science plays a profound role in American public policymaking and that scientists are critical actors in the environmental policymaking process, serving as entrepreneurs, introducing, popularizing, and elevating environmental ideas onto national and international agendas. This article uses interviews with scientists to investigate the complexities of linking science to environmental policy, with special attention given to how scientists view the concepts of advocacy, objectivity, and the separation of science and policy. Because of the importance of scientists to the environmental policymaking process, it is worth exploring what they have to say about linking science to policy. Interviews of scientists in 1997 and again in 2009 illustrate the fact that scientists remain committed to the ideal of objectivity, struggle with the trend toward advocacy by scientists, and are distrustful of the way science is used in the environmental policy-making process.
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