Science for Policy

• Evidence review report on cancer screening: www.sapea.info/cancer

Could the implications of science advice, and the policies that follow from it, be decided by a citizen jury following a courtroom battle between scientific adversaries? Dr Zeynep Pamuk thinks so, and in this episode she tells Toby Wardman why.

• Politics and expertise: How to use science in a democratic society: https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691218946/politics-and-expertise

Some of our discussions on this podcast can veer towards the abstract and philosophical. Not today! Migration policy is an area where high-minded principles drive headlong into authentic realpolitik — an area where science has lots to offer, but how much of it is actually listened to, never mind implemented, is a whole different question. Two experts on migration policy, Professor Jakub Bijak and Dr Daniela Vono, debate with Toby Wardman the pros and cons of working in such a contentious area.

• Bianca Nogrady: https://biancanogrady.com/

Professor Ortwin Renn is one of Europe's leading academic authorities on scientific advice, complexity and risk. In this wide-ranging conversation on the multiple roles played by science advisors, he discusses the limits of science as a source of knowledge, the challenge of complexity and wicked problems, why scoping is so hard, science as a catalyst, tangled values, good and bad faith motivations, and much more besides.

What joint challenges are faced by policy advisors and TV advisors? Why would a committed scientist make the switch from basic research to the entertainment industry? How serious is Star Trek about 'getting the science right'?

In this reissue of an episode from 2020, Dr Erin Macdonald discusses these questions with Toby Wardman of SAPEA. We also discuss the nature of gene transfer in tardigrades, whether it’s wise to step into the transporter, and how to solve the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in one easy step.

Just as politicians and policymakers need scientific advice to inform their decisions, so too do judges. But in the adversarial context of a courtroom, science and evidence can be even more hotly contested than in the public policy sphere. And in recent years, campaigners from several European countries have tried to bring the science of climate change before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, hoping to force national governments into dramatic policy changes.

In this episode, Professor Helen Keller — for nine years a judge on the Strasbourg bench — discusses these cases with Toby Wardman, as well as drawing analogies between the challenges faced by science advisors to governments and by expert witnesses in courtrooms.

• Analysis of climate change cases by Professor Keller and others: https://academic.oup.com/hrlr/article/22/1/ngab030/6497578

On the same day this episode went live, the world-renowned IPCC published its comprehensive report on climate change impact and adaptation. Taking time out of a hectic 24-hour calendar of scientific meetings and reviews, Professor Diana Ürge-Vorsatz — one of the coordinating lead authors — sat down a week earlier with Toby Wardman of SAPEA to provide a fascinating insider insight into the workings of IPCC and the secret sauce that keeps the world's best-known scientific advice mechanism firing on all cylinders.

• IPCC working group 2: https://www.ipcc.ch/working-group/wg2/

Combative debate, accusations and blame are often seen as legitimate tools in the toolbox of partisan political debate. Now, in the new world of high-profile science advisors stepping (or being dragged) into the political limelight, should they be held to the same standards of accountability as their political colleagues?

Two years on from the start of the pandemic, an era of public enquiries is beginning, and Professor Matthew Flinders has something to say about the dangers scientists face — and what practical skills they might need if they want to survive in the shark tank.

Professor Silvio Funtowicz is one of the originators of the concept of post-normal science, which urges us — both scientists and policymakers — to widen the sources of evidence we draw on, the kinds of knowledge we recognise, and the communities who evaluate our success.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Professor Funtowicz lays out the history of post-normal science and delves deeply into its implications for the science-policy interface, especially in a world grappling with multiple public health and climate crises

• Foundational paper on post-normal science: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001632879390022L