{"id":32702,"date":"2004-12-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/science-democracy-and-the-public\/"},"modified":"2024-05-07T09:41:45","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T09:41:45","slug":"science-democracy-and-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/en\/science-democracy-and-the-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Science, Democracy and the Public"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the last twenty years scientific research and technological innovations have been abruptly accelerating, at the same time of important political and social changes (as the end of the bipolar balance and the increasing globalisation of economy): this contributed to the complexity of the relation between three of the most important agents of our society ( public, science and politics). The relationship between citizens, scientific institutions and institutions of traditional democracy is still under discussion and seems to be characterized by issues of uncertainty and inequality.
\nThe former characterizes first of all political institutions that have to face the necessity of giving rules to a scientific Knowledge whose effects on customs and often on the values of a community show more and more potentially overwhelming (biotechnologies are the most evident example, from GMO to experiments on embryos).
\nBut uncertainty characterizes also scientific knowledge and that means incapacity to give the public a clear image of the research\u2019s status, of its consequences and chances. The lack of agreement inside the scientific community (the so-called \u201cwars of science\u201d) conveys a fragmentary image of the scientific community that is at odds with the traditional idea of science as \u201cbearer of truth\u201d and that indeed creates confusion and uncertainty in front of the new challenges of techno-scientific research.
\nFailing suitable answers, uncertainty leads to the perception of our society as if it was full of inequalities.
\nThe decision-taking process seems more and more a privilege of a limited group of politicians (democratically elected) and experts ( bearer of knowledge that others -the non-expert-have not), while the effects of these choices affect the whole community.<\/p>\n

We have to consider this situation when we explain some factors as the need for more participation to the decision-making process and to the debate shown by several citizens\u2019 associations, the review in academic institution of the Public Understanding of Science\u2019s principles and the discussion on themes such as \u201ctechnological democracy\u201d and \u201chybrid forum\u201d, and finally the public institution\u2019s attempt to create new ways to increase public participation to the debate on technosciences.
\nIn this field nowadays the examples in Europe are a lot, from English \u201ccitizens\u2019 foresight\u201d and \u201ccitizens\u2019 forum\u201d to Plannungszellen developed in Germany, to the Danish pattern of the \u201cConsensus conference\u201d.
\nThis last practice, partly because of the high grade of public participation (the citizens\u2019 panel that takes part to the meeting sets the agenda and the main themes and leads the final debate), partly because of its structure, that makes it adaptable to different contexts, is meeting with success to the point that it has been used in several European and Extra-european countries.
\nWithin these discussion spaces, these \u201chybrid forum\u201d as they are often called, the participants have a double role: from one side, as \u201cunskilled\u201d they are bearers of a knowledge that, even if not expert, is the result of a daily and constant relation with more and more invasive technologies ( telecommunications, GMO, etc.). From the other side, as citizens, they ask for a more active role, for an enlarged decision taking committee traditionally composed by elected representatives, putting the representative method together with forms of participative and deliberative democracy.
\nWith its twofold process of \u201cexploration of possible worlds\u201d and \u201cenlargement of the committee\u201d, we can see in the experiment of participatory Technology Assessment (pTA) a challenge turned more to politics and to the role of the decision takers in our democracies, than to science and to the role of scientists.
\nCitizens\u2019 uncertainties and worries regard more the use and abuse of the scientific discoveries than the new frontiers of science (in which, instead, they seem to have hopes that could still reveal somehow illusory).
\nTo politics they ask a stance but also a flexibility that is more and more difficult to achieve for the traditional pattern based on scientific expertise and representative democracy. In conclusion, we can say that in this moment, pTA practices are one of the possible tools to promote the debate and to increase citizens\u2019 participation. However, only in the future we will be able to assess which are the benefits of this method and who are the ones that benefit more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last twenty years scientific research and technological innovations have been abruptly accelerating, at the same time of important political and social changes (as the end of the bipolar balance and the increasing globalisation of economy): this contributed to the complexity of the relation between three of the most important agents of our society…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[475],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-475","description-off"],"yoast_head":"\nScience, Democracy and the Public - Observa Science in Society<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.observa.it\/en\/science-democracy-and-the-public\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Science, Democracy and the Public - 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