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Published online 2 April 2008 | Nature 452, 519 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452519a
Column: Party of One
Hazy reasoning behind clean air
Science alone can't determine how regulations are written, argues David Goldston.
Last month, The Washington Post reported that President George W. Bush had personally intervened to weaken new regulations to control smog just as they were about to be announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
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I'm not up to speed on the EPA issue but I think Goldston has expressed the problem of "good science" in policy debates very nicely. The notion that science can dictate policy decisions is erroneous: Science deals with potentially uncertain physical facts whereas policy calls for value judgment in light of the facts. Goldston's diagnosis is right on: Talk of what science "dictates" is a way of disguising politically troublesome value judgments. Similar rhetoric characterizes the recent mad-cow debate in Canada, the use of animal modeling in bioscience, etc. Justified policy depends not only on whatever factual claims enjoy scientific support but on whether the relevant policies are fair and respectful of people's rights. Liora Salter's concept of mandated science sheds some light on this mode of applying science to public policy.