Science Advocacy Is Inevitable: Deal with It
Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters, 1996
16 Pages Posted: 7 Aug 2014
Date Written: 1996
Abstract
The Forest Service has sought to address the increasingly contentious relationship of scientific research and analysis to its policy and management activities. This paper draws on an extensive literature review and ten case studies of science-intensive policy processes to address the appropriateness of Forest Service policies for science/policy interaction. Its findings directly challenge a number of the assumptions embedded in those policies The paper both clarifies the management and policy context in which the work of scientists has become increasingly controversial, and details the ways in which scientific work is a form of advocacy. The appropriate response to the inevitability of scientific advocacy requires scientists, managers, and society to negotiate a changed set of expectations for science that would align with the reality of modern scientific practice.
Keywords: Advocacy, Forest Service, Federal Forest Policy, Policy Process, Science Advocacy, Society of American Foresters, Management, Agency Analysis
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