Reasonableness Versus Rationality in the Construction and Justification of Science Policy Decisions: The Case of the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board

Abstract

This article examines the role of the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board (CERB) in the seven-month moratorium (July 1976-February 1977 on recombinant DNA research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The article focuses on CERB's 23 November 1976 debate, which was the turning point in the committee's proceedings. Although CERB members were implicitly charged with making rational decisions, they were inevitably influenced by biases and emotions. In the process of justifying their decisions, however, they were almost exclusively concerned with appeals to reason. This article argues that appeals to emotion and authority are essential and inevitable components of reasonable (though not rational) decision making. It further argues that legitimizing these appeals in the process of justification will make such appeals more accessible to criticism during the process of construction and, thereby, will help us to define which appeals to emotion and authority are appropriate and which are inappropriate in any given context. Early in 1976, Harvard University announced plans to renovate space in its Biological Laboratories to conduct potentially hazardous recombinant DNA experiments. In response to public opposition to this plan, the Cam-

Integrating science and policy in natural resource management: lessons and opportunities from North America.

“…Clearly explaining how management and policy discretion was used, and where science did or did not play a role, can do a great deal to make policy decisions understandable and acceptable (Waddell 1989) and protect the credibility of science. One barrier to using science in policymaking is the use of scientific jargon that neither policymakers nor the public understand.…”

Technological Citizenship: A Normative Framework for Risk Studies

“…They would do so by requiring that scientific disputes be resolved through procedurally equitable, orderly hearings and not through decision-making processes dominated by (1) brute numbers, (2) unequal control over funding, (3) unequal control over media resources, (4) momentarily greater solidarity of organization of the members of one school over another, or (5) the &dquo;resources&dquo; of more persuasive personality. As Waddell (1988 suggests, fair procedures and clear syllogisms are most critical to valid scientific debates. However, within such valid procedures, appeals to character and emotion are permitted within syllogisms (Waddell 1988(Waddell , 1989; Engelhardt and Caplan 1987; Masters and Kantrowitz 1988).R ights to absolute limits on levels of endangerment.…”

“…As Waddell (1988 suggests, fair procedures and clear syllogisms are most critical to valid scientific debates. However, within such valid procedures, appeals to character and emotion are permitted within syllogisms (Waddell 1988(Waddell , 1989; Engelhardt and Caplan 1987; Masters and Kantrowitz 1988).R ights to absolute limits on levels of endangerment. The most controversial rights of TC would be the technological polity's respect for the safety of laypersons and thus for their intrinsic worth or dignity.…”

“…a determination of the extent of capture of regulatory agencies by their client industries or by officialdom in general; 3. a determination of the feasibility and cost of democratizing decision making over and providing information about the index of complex environmental hazards (Masters and Kantrowitz 1988;Gricar and Beratta 1983;Sandman, Sachsman, et al 1987;Sandman, Weinstein, and Hotz 1987;Covello, McCaUum, and Pavlova 1989); 4. a determination of where the optimal equilibrium rests between individual self-verification of safety and autonomy øn the one hand and the convenience and higher living standards of delegating this to guardians on the other, either generally or case-specifically (Viscussi 1983;Viscussi and O'Connor 1984). It is better to determine this through direct, explicit deliberation and expressed preferences than through inferences that are &dquo;rationalized&dquo; through imputations of &dquo;indirect consent&dquo; or &dquo;revealed preferences&dquo; (MacLean 1986); 5. a determination of the extent of cult consciousness among laypersons in relation to epistemic authorities (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982;James and Thompson 1989;Sjoberg 1987); and 6. a distillation of the essence of epistemic authority and the relevance of political resources to it (Haskell 1984;DeGeorge 1985;Waddell 1988Waddell , 1989English 1988).…”

“…As W~sddeB (1988,1989) states, societal decisions should be &dquo;ratiouagy reconstructable&dquo; to be valid and legitimate. In other words, the base grounds of such decisions and delegations must be capable of being restated as logical syllogisms even if the sequence of presentation of issues that were variously logical, rational, and emotional was not strictly syllogistic (DeGeorge 1985;Faden 1986;Fischhoff 1985;Gibson 1985;Hurca 1987;MacLean 1986;Schemer 1985;Waddell 1988Waddell ,1989Yankelovich 1991),…”