Science in a Changing World: Sustainability and Society

Science says what will happen. People decide what should

Every big decision about the environment arrives as one question and is really two. Suppose a council is asked to allow a new sand and gravel quarry beside a river. Some of what it needs to know can be found out: how much dust the quarry would make, how far the noise would carry, what would happen to the river when heavy rain washes loose soil off the site. Those are questions about what IS, or what WILL BE, and evidence can answer them, sometimes precisely and sometimes only roughly. The rest of what the council needs cannot be found out by anybody, however good their equipment. Is a new supply of building stone worth a stretch of quiet riverside? Should the people who live next to the site count for more than the people who would use the stone? Those are questions about what SHOULD be, and they are answered by what people value. This module is about keeping those two kinds of question apart, because an argument that mixes them can sound scientific while settling nothing. The facts about resources themselves, such as which are finite and which renewable, how recycling helps and how burning fuel changes the climate, are taught in other modules. Here they are the setting, and the skill is using science well inside a decision that people have to make together.

Words for weighing a decision

These five words turn up whenever science is used to inform a choice. Each one helps describe a decision honestly, and none of them makes the decision for you.

Match each quarry question to what could answer it

Two experts, same evidence, different answers

Two scientists read the same survey of the river and agree on every one of its findings. One supports the quarry and the other opposes it. What does their disagreement most likely show?

• They weigh the same facts differently, so more data alone will not settle it
• One of them must have misread the survey somewhere
• The survey must be faulty, since experts would otherwise agree
• The one who opposes it is not thinking scientifically

What evidence can and cannot do

Science is powerful inside a decision, and it has an edge. Knowing where that edge sits makes an argument stronger rather than weaker, because it stops you claiming more than you can defend. An answer that earns top marks uses the left column fully and never pretends to have done the right one.

Count the road incidents avoided

In this worked scenario the quarry would send its stone by road in 12000 lorry trips a year. A rail plan would carry most of the stone instead, leaving 3000 lorry trips a year. Assume, for this scenario only, that about one lorry trip in every 1500 ends in a spill or a road accident. How many fewer incidents a year would you expect under the rail plan?

Put science into the decision in order

The council wants to use science well when it decides on the quarry. Put these five stages into a sensible order.

• Separate the questions evidence can answer from the ones only values can answer
• Gather evidence on every option, including refusing the quarry altogether
• State how certain each finding is, rather than presenting estimates as facts
• Use those findings to set out who would gain and who would carry each cost
• Make the values judgement openly, and say what new evidence would change it

The gain and the cost often land on different people

A decision can look simple when its benefits and its costs are added up as if they fell on one person. Often they do not. The stone from a quarry might build homes in a distant town, while the dust and the lorries stay with the village next to the site. A cheaper way of making something today might leave a clean-up for people not yet born, and sustainability is exactly the case where the people carrying the cost are not in the room when the choice is made.\n\nScience has a real job here. It can find out who is affected, where, and by how much, and that is often the most useful evidence a decision ever gets. What science cannot do is say whether the split is acceptable. That is a judgement about fairness, and it belongs to everybody affected, not only to the people who produced the evidence.\n\nSo a strong answer names the people on each side, says what the evidence shows about their position, and then says plainly which part of its conclusion is a judgement.

Which parts can evidence settle?

Five questions raised at a public meeting about the quarry. Select the THREE that evidence could settle, at least roughly.

• How far dust would travel from the site on a dry, windy day
• Whether loose soil from the site would reach the river after heavy rain
• Whether birds nesting on the riverbank would leave during blasting
• Whether the new jobs are worth giving up a quiet riverside
• Whether people fifty years from now should count as much as people today

One walk, two kinds of question

A family plans a hill walk on a grey morning, and before they set off they sort their worries without really meaning to. Will it rain by midday? They cannot know for sure, but the forecast gives them a fair idea, and a better forecast would give them a better one. That worry can be looked up. Is a wet afternoon a fair price for the view from the top? No forecast can tell them. The grandparents and the teenagers may answer it differently, and neither side is making a mistake. That worry has to be talked through. Then there is the ridge. A slip on the steep edge would be very unusual, but it would be terrible, while getting soaked is almost certain and only unpleasant. They treat the ridge far more seriously than the rain, not because it is more probable but because of how bad it would be. Last of all, somebody points out that staying at home is not free either: the day is lost, and the dog still needs a walk. By the time they leave, they have done on a small scale everything a council has to do about a quarry.

Complete the science-and-society facts

A question that measuring or observing could settle is a question of _____. A question about what matters more, which no measurement can settle, is a question of _____. How probable a harm is gives its _____, and how bad it would be gives its _____. When the evidence cannot pin an answer down exactly, an honest report states its _____.

Find the judgements dressed as findings

Five sentences from a report on the quarry. Tap the TWO that present a values judgement as if it were a scientific finding.

• The survey measured how loud the quarry would be at the nearest house.
• The science shows that losing the riverside is a price worth paying.
• Loose soil from the site would reach the river in heavy rain unless a settling pond is built.
• The evidence proves that the objections from the village are outweighed by the need for stone.
• The survey could not say for certain whether the nesting birds would return after blasting stops.

Build an honest recommendation

Choose the option in each gap to build a recommendation that keeps the evidence and the judgement apart.

Evidence, values or both?

Five questions about other decisions. For each one, decide what it would take to answer it. Three lives.

The quarry hearing

You are advising the council committee on the quarry. Four moments in the hearing each need a decision from you.

• A campaign leaflet says that science proves the quarry is wrong. A committee member asks you, in front of the room, whether that is true. How do you answer?
• The bird survey covered only one nesting season, and the firm wants a decision this month. Waiting a year would delay the stone. What do you recommend?
• The figures show that most of the stone would be used in a distant town, while the lorries and the dust stay in the village. The chair asks what science can add at this point. What do you tell the committee?
• A resident stands up and says she has no right to speak because she is not a scientist. The chair turns to you. What do you say to her?

Explain what science can add to the decision

A local newspaper says the quarry question should be left to the scientists, because it is a scientific question. Explain how far you agree. Use the quarry, or an environmental decision of your own choosing, as your example.

• Name one question in the decision that evidence can answer, and say how
• Name one question that only values can answer, and say why
• Explain how a risk here combines likelihood with severity
• Say who would gain and who would carry the cost
• Reach a judgement on the newspaper claim, with a reason