Credibility and Advocacy of Environmental Scientists in Resouce Decision Making: A Regional Survey
By Peter List
ABSTRACT
While many individuals and groups have normative expectations that integrating environmental scientists more directly into complex natural resource decision making will improve the quality of management decisions, there has been little empirical research that studies the attitudes and expectations about the proper roles of scientists and scientific information in these decisions. Moreover there is some evidence that tensions between the institutional needs and personal values of decision makers and scientists may preclude the effective use of science and scientists in these matters. This talk presents the results of attitude surveys carried out in 1999 and 2000 with four Pacific Northwest groups: environmental scientists, resource managers, representatives of NGOs, and members of the interested public. The surveys focused on attitudes about such matters as the nature of science and the scientific process, the uses of scientific information, the credibility of scientists and scientific organizations, and advocacy roles of scientists in resource management decisions.
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