USGS Workshop Woods Hole, Mass. February 6-8, 2001
Making USGS Information Effective in the Electronic Age
Description | Agenda | Porter | Frodeman | McDermott/Wendt | Hutchinson | Accomodations
Part One: The Challenge of Vision
Government and Citizen
The Role of the Public Scientist
Homo Sapiens are curious animals. We are social animals in
certain obvious respects: we need a degree of social organization to raise
the young, and we provide for food, clothing, and shelter through joint
activity. Yet, paradoxically, we have found it extremely difficult to
organize ourselves with any degree of stability. Thus, for most of our
history we survived in quite small groups. These groups had a kind of
balance between themselves, nature, and their enemies. But, they were--and
some are still in existence--rather primitive in that they were small and
had limited purposes. Still they have been most successful, and some have
lasted as long as recorded history. On the other hand, when we humans
organized ourselves into empires, these grander structure were always
short-lived. Great empires in the past were lucky to last one century.
Rome lasted a turbulent four. No one made it into double digits, and the
relation between government and citizen were turbulent.
Something quite extraordinary happened at the beginning of modernity (16th to 17th centuries): we developed a new understanding of political systems. To use modern language, we saw the birth of the state, the bureaucracy, the executive branch, and sovereignty. Along with fostering new developments in agriculture, health, communications, and transportation, we humans have been able to organize ourselves into large groups and to provide for the necessities of life. As far as human population is concerned, there has been an epidemic of our species: it has become a litany to note that in the 18th century humans numbered 300 million and today we are 6 billion or that in the last 50 years we have grown from 2.5 billion to 6 billion.
We have been able to deliver on the material necessities of life--thus the population explosion. Yet, who would, after the experience of the twentieth century, call our political institutions stable or argue that we have solved the task of relating government to citizens? It has become a commonplace among political philosophers of all stripes to question the materialism and the spiritual or moral vacuity of our political societies and to worry about the consequences for the future. Further, the growth of the executive branch and its focus on delivering the material conditions of our existence have combined to blind political and bureaucratic leaders as well as citizens to a host of long-term but pressing problems for humanity. One would be hard-pressed to find a better place to discuss such problems than Woods Hole.
What can be done? How can science--academic, public, and private--and citizens relate? What is the role of the public scientists? How can independence and competence be maintained? Without these two attributes an institution will have little success in persuading the public about long-term issues. Further, the great issues of the day do not come packaged in neat boxes labeled engineering, political science, biology, geology, economics, and so forth. Yet, without a blending of perspectives the problems will be neither seen nor addressed clearly. The experience of commonwealth countries--and some of it is quite dismal--may provide some examples of the interdisciplinary scope of public science and may show us what does not work as well as what may work in persuading citizens and politicians. It is simply indisputable that the institutions of public science will be critical in providing the moral leadership required in the twenty-first century.
Jene M. Porter