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CHAPTER 8: Science policy: circumstantial evidence
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Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. — henry david thoreau A question has long haunted Canadians interested in problems of science and technology: how can Canadian activities in science and technology be coordinated so that Canadians can make the highest and best use of their brain power in the pursuit of social and economic prosperity? Over the years, many answers to this question have been offered. Some have been willing to bet that economic competition would provide the requisite drive, even for scientists and other researchers. Others have preferred science policy blueprints through which to plan the national science effort. Still others have sought some sort of compromise on a middle-of-the-road position , somewhere between the pure market and a central plan, some form of loose coordination that could be sold under the rubric of either scientific or economic pragmatism. Neither faith in the coordinative abilities of perfect market competition nor the belief in a perfectly planned science agenda has provided viable policy alternatives. The market is woefully ill-equipped to take account of CHAPTer 8 Science policy: circumstantial evidence (written with John de la Mothe) 188 CRIPPLING EPISTEMOLOGIES AND GOVERNANCE FAILURES the subtle long-term and synergistic benefits of research, and therefore tends to induce significant underinvestment . Top–down government planning is painfully utopian , given that ours is a world laced with complexity and uncertainty. This is made especially clear when dealing, as we do in science and technology policy, with such ill-understood processes as innovation and creativity . Thus, despite the attractive aspects of each of these simple polar-opposite views, one is forced to opt for the third way: bottom–up approaches with a modicum of management or coordination geared toward ensuring minimum waste and maximum gains. Since World War I, there have been geopolitical and economic pressures on the Canadian government to develop a coordinating function, to ensure that the national science effort is as effective as possible. Yet over the same period, strong science-based interests have defended the gospel of the absolute autonomy of the “Republic of Science” in Canada, resisting even the mention of the word “coordination”. The result has been many years of national equivocation, punctuated by a series of unsuccessful attempts to find effective compromises between the need for relevance in matters where public funds are involved and the icon of excellence, which is served best, or so academics assert, by curiosity-oriented and “peer-reviewed” research. The challenge facing any science policy review is to find effective balances, on the one hand between the forces of the market and planning, and on the other hand between the imperative of relevance and that of excellence. Finding the right balance in both cases constitutes the riddle that has vexed our forefathers for some eighty years and that faces the government today. In the next section of this chapter we shall sketch the interplay between policy objectives and circumstances that has woven a web of unsuccessful attempts at coordination . In the section after that we shall examine the [52.91.255.225] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:47 GMT) PART III: LESS THAN EFFECTIVE BRICOLAGE 189 roots of the failures in coping with the same task in the 1970s and 1980s. Then we shall examine the constraints and opportunities facing Canada in designing a science and technology policy today, and sketch the broad contours of a plausible strategy that is likely to constitute a suitable response to these haunting dilemmas. In conclusion we shall venture some suggestions for its smooth implementation. By wAy OF THe PAST Volume 1 of the Report of the Senate Special Committee on Science Policy, chaired by the late Maurice Lamontagne, contains a synopsis of the efforts, from the early days of confederation onward, to design some form of science policy in Canada (Senate 1970: 1). There was a great deal happening, even in the 19th century, in Canadian science. The oldest government scientific organization, the Geological Survey of the Province of Canada, was created in 1841. It laid the foundation for the Canadian mining industry. Other government-instigated activities stimulated important work in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Nevertheless, the Senate committee concluded that, despite clear evidence of scientific activities and development, “on the whole, the growth of Canadian science before World War I was a slow and cautious process” (Senate 1970: 20). Of course, this should not be surprising. Canada was a young country that had a...