science policies for reducing societal inequities...science policies for reducing societal...

Science and Public Policy, 34(3), March 2007, pages 139-150DOI: 10,3152/030234207X195158; http://www,ingentaconnect,com/content/beech/spp

Science policies for reducing societal inequities

Edward Woodhouse and Daniel Sarewitz

In an effort to move social justice issues higher on R&D policy-making agendas, we ask whether newtechnoscientific capacities introduced into a non-egalitarian society tend disproportionately to benefitthe affluent and powerful. To demonstrate plausibility of the hypothesis, we first review examples ofgrossly non-egalitarian outcomes from military, medical, and other R&D arenas. We then attempt todebunk the science-inequity link by looking for substantial categories where R&D is conducive toreducing unjustified inequalities. For example, R&D sometimes enables less affluent persons topurchase more or better goods and services. Although the case for price-based equity proves weakerthan nonnally believed, R&D targeted towards public goods tums out to offer a reasonable chance ofequity enhancement, as do several other potentially viable approaches to science policy. However,major changes in science-policy institutions and participants probably would be required for R&D toserve humanity equitably.

LONG AGO, "who gets what, when, and how"is the way Harold Lasswell (1936) defined thedomain of politics. Technoscientific knowl-edge clearly helps shape who gets what in everydaylife, and scholars of science and technology studieshave documented the manifold ways that scienceand technology are political in the sense of encodingsome values and perspectives more than others(Collins and Pinch, 1998a; 1998b; Jasanoff et al,1995). Curiously, however, social conflict has rarelybeen an important part of the political discoursearound science policy. This is true even thoughevery scientist, every staff member of the NationalResearch Council, every mission agency administra-tor, and every other participant in science policymaking pursues not the public interest but their ownsyntheses of public and private objectives. Nobodytakes account of every plausible perspective; every-one champions some interests and ignores or actu-ally acts against others.

In Science and Social Inequality, Sandra Harding(2006) suggests that those advantaged by the status

Edward Woodhouse is in the Department of Science and Tech-nology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 22 LedgestoneRd, Troy, NY 12180, USA; Email: [email protected]; Tel:+1 518 272 4989, Daniel Sarewitz is at the Consortium for Sci-ence, Policy and Outcomes, Arizona State University, PO Box874401 Tempe, AZ 85287-4401, USA; Email: daniel,sarewitz@asu,edu; Tel: +1 480 727 8831.

quo tend to operate in a state of denial about themaldistribution of costs and benefits of tech-noscience. Those most engaged in R&D policy de-liberations obviously come disproportionately fromadvantaged classes and from powerful nations, andthe standpoints they bring to science policy reflectwhatever biases come with their social roles. Someacademics who write about technoscience and pol-icy-making actually "service the 'conceptual prac-tices of power'" by providing ways of justifyinggross disparities in command of material resourcesand social control (Harding, 2006).

Part of the neglect of social conflict can be tracedto reigning myths of scientific progress, which de-pict an almost entirely positive social role for newknowledge, together with more or less automatictranslation of research into benefit for all (Sarewitz,1996). This renders moot any inquiry into whetherthe direction, pace, products, or other consequencesof science might contribute to injustice (for instance,Lepkowski, 1994; Pardes et al, 1999). Thus, for ex-ample, the National Science Board's (2005) 2020Vision statement contains no mention of poverty, en-vironmental justice, global disparities, or any otherwords conveying concems about winner and losers.

In the rare instances when science-policy influen-tials do mention the subject, as in the case of thedigital divide, they do not point out that previoustechnoscientific research helped contribute to theproblems. At best, we hear bland notions that science

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Edward Woodhouse is a political scientist studying howtechnological civilization couid become less unwise and iessunfair by iearning to cope better with uncertainty and withdisagreement. Current scholarship focuses on the runawaypace of technosocial change, misdirected scientific exper-tise, overconsumption by the world's affluent, the nanotech-nology juggernaut, and barriers to socially beneficialinnovations such as electric vehicles and environmentallyconscious housing, Booi


people do not have, the argument goes, so the solu-tion must come via foreign aid, economic develop-ment, more jobs, or at least national healthinsurance. Scientists, therefore, can go about theirtasks while leaving equity issues to others (Bozemanand Sarewitz, 2005).

Yet there are reasons to expect that science policydeserves to be part of the story as well. First, theratio of private to public investment in science hasbeen increasing rapidly over the past several dec-ades, especially in the USA, where a plurality ofthe world's R&D is conducted (National ScienceBoard, 2004). Except for R&D and science-based in-terventions supported by foundations, 'private' in-vestment tends to be shaped by corporate priorities,which are oriented towards potential customers withwealth and access more than towards the poor anddisenfranchised.

The World Trade Organization and other compo-nents of neoliberal intellectual property regimes am-plify the increasing privatization of scientiflcknowledge (Commission on Intellectual PropertyRights, 2002). Moreover, while linkages betweenbusinesses' innovation efforts and public sciencehave always been strong, recent science policies andpolicy recommendations have strengthened publicsupport for corporate endeavors (for instance,Branscomb et al, 1999; Committee on Prospering inthe Global Economy ofthe 21st Century, 2006). Thedecreasing proportion of R&D that is publiclyfunded, therefore, is at the same time increasinglyinfluenced by the innovation priorities of the corpo-rate sector.

Another reason for expecting scientiflc inquiry tosometimes lead to increased inequity is that knowl-edge-intensive innovation is prized for economicgrowth, which rarely has stood out as an egalitarianenterprise. Especially in an era of deregulation andtrade liberalization, those with education and skillsare best positioned to benefit in the so-called knowl-edge economy (Frank, 1994; Bluestone, 1995). Bycontrast, low-wage jobs proliferate in the informa-tion-technology-enabled service sector (Card andDiNardo, 2002; Crompton and Jones, 1984). Thus,science policy is implicated in helping create a digi-tal divide in the workforce as well as in homes andschools (Wyatt et al, 2000).

The knowledge and innovation wants ofthe afflu-ent world also tend to be quite different from those ofmost people living in poor countries — across theboard, not just in regard to medicine (Sen, 1992;Meridian Institute, 2005). The history of science pol-icy is very much a history of interests vying for powerand influence over resources and agendas, and thosewith little economic, political, and scientiflc clout areunlikely to have much say over what science getsdone and who benefits from it (Black, 1999). To ex-pect otherwise would require that science agendas dif-fer from every other human enterprise, somehowarising spontaneously in response to a natural andbenign ordering of priorities and possibilities.

Yet everyone who has observed and reflected onthe everyday realities of science policy and profes-sionalized R&D knows that agendas actually evolvevia complex processes implicating everything fromhardball politics to instmmentation technologies toenvironmental headlines. Problems, policies, andprograms combine to gradually open up new lines ofinquiry for those who have sufficient influence towin a share of the funding (Baumgartner and Jones,1993; Kingdon, 2002; Greenberg, 2001).

A fourth way that science links with inequity isvia the technological sophistication of forefrontmilitary technologies, which means that casualtiesduring warfare increasingly are bome by the techno-logically inferior side. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War,Iraqi casualties were roughly a thousand timesgreater than those of the US military (DaPonte,1993). Much ofthe history of technological innova-tion can be written in terms of military competition,where reducing one's own casualties and increasingthose of the other side is precisely the goal (McNeil,1982). Nevertheless, given that the USA spends"three times more than the next six powers com-bined" on military R&D (Brooks and Wohlforth,2002: 22), and that the military portion compriseswell over half of US public R&D, we can hardlyavoid examining this sector as a contributing sourceof inequality; opinions will differ as to whether theinequalities are undesirable ones.

Closely connected are economic 'sanctions of massdestruction' against so-called rogue states. These areimposed by the world's technologically sophisticatedand powerful nations with the aim of bringing intoconformity with intemational norms the Cubas, NorthKoreas, Irans, and other technologically inferiornation-states whose authoritarian leaderships makethreatening noises. Such sanctions probably causedthe death and immiseration of more (predominantlypoor) people in the past century — people who borelittle culpability for the behavior ofthe regimes underwhich they lived — than have all weapons of mass de-stmction (Mueller and Mueller, 1999).

The successful imposition of sanctions wouldhave been impossible without the scientific andtechnological capacities possessed by the USA andits sometime allies. Inasmuch as contemporary

Economic Sanctions of massdestruction' against so-called roguestates probably caused the death andimmiseration of more people in thepast century (who bore littleculpability for the behavior of theregimes) than have all weapons ofmass destruction

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science-policy processes are institutionally insulatedfrom effectively taking sanctions and other tertiaryconsequences of science into account (Sarewitz etal, 2004), those concemed with intemational equityand other societal outcomes arguably ought to beseeking major changes in the institutions by whichscience is govemed.

Inequities enabled by new knowledge and tech-nologies rarely come about without a combination ofother factors, of course. For example, health prob-lems in poor countries are a consequence of manyinteracting variables, including: geography andclimate; histories of colonial dominance; poor insti-tutions and feckless govemments; and inadequatepublic health and educational infrastmctures. Never-theless, given that 'more science' is the conventionalprescription for societal inequities of many types,and seeing that even our brief overview demonstratesobvious contraindications for the prescription, a prac-tical question emerges: is there a set of potentialscience policies that might help ameliorate societalinequities?

We will be tackling the question systematically insubsequent sections. To frame the effort, we want tosharpen and extend our analysis so far by distilling itinto a general 'law' that can be investigated andpotentially falsified:

New technoscientific capacities introduced into anon-egalitarian civilization will tend dispropor-tionately to benefit the affluent and powerful.'

Some may find this idea outrageous, whereas othersmay say the point is too obvious to even bother writ-ing down. To date, however, we have encounteredfew observers of science policy who clearly fall ineither camp; most seem not to have thought deeplyabout the issue. So we invite readers to join us inprobing the matter: What sorts of clear exception toinequity-maintaining/worsening can we identify?Could the equity-enhancing approaches to tech-noscience policy be substantial enough to underminethe believability of the 'law' proposed above? Dothe equityjenhancing policy changes appear to berelatively feasible? Consider with us six categoriesof policy that might reduce inequity:

• R&D focused on poor people's problems;• Broader participation in decision-making;• R&D focused on creation of public goods;• Research that reduces the price of goods and

services;• Greater honesty about equity implications; and• Slowing down the pace of technological change.

R&D focused on poor people's problems

Actions designed to address the problems of poor ordisenfranchised people around the globe are themost obvious category of science-policy activities

that should be conducive to faimess rather than un-faimess. Exactly what should be included in thiscategory is contestable, and nobody has a very goodestimate of how much contemporary R&D presentlyis targeted in this direction, but the percentageclearly is small. Given that resources for conductingresearch are concentrated in affluent countries, itwould take some combination of enlightened self in-terest and genuine altmism to lead affluent-countrytechnoscientists and funding agencies to redirect re-sources and energies.

The global biomedical arena offers a glimpse ofhow this conceivably could become feasible. A con-fluence of high-level yet non-traditional players hasemerged in the global health arena, ranging from theUnited Nations and the World Health Organization,to the Rockefeller Foundation and Bill Gates(Mihill, 1998). The strategy they are pursuing on the10-90 problem centers on new institutional ap-proaches, especially public-private partnerships notdependent on tax dollars or govemmental institu-tions, but still focusing on a public mission (Buseand Waxman, 2001).

While there is some perhaps predictable contro-versy surrounding these new approaches (for in-stance, Bim, 2005; Piller et al, 2007), this activism,philanthropic attention, and institutional innovationsuggest that it may be possible to redress other ineq-uitable research policies in creative ways. For, ai-though one may doubt that this phenomenon islikely to be replicated across the board for a broadset of worthy purposes, the dramatic reorientation ofbiomedical research to address malaria, childhooddiarrhea, and other problems ofthe very poor shouldput to rest any lingering thoughts that forefrontresearch has its own immutable trajectory.

In contrast, the challenge of global climate changeoffers a telling example of scientific research thathas not been targeted toward poor people's prob-lems. As demonstrated by the Asian tsunami in 2004and by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the effects of'natural' disasters tend to be disproportionatelybome by poor people. Yet the environmental move-ment in affluent nations has joined with influentialresearch communities to induce govemment officialsto spend huge amounts on high-prestige, fundamen-tal science aimed at tracking climate changes anduntangling the causes.

This approach has provided little assistance in ac-tually coping with the impacts of climate, as mighthave been achieved via restrictions on coastal con-stmction. As climate scientists pursued their inter-ests, vulnerable coastal areas worldwide increased inpopulation by approximately one billion people.Whereas 28% in the USA lived in a coastal countyin 1980, for example, by 2003, some 53% did, thustotaling more than 150 million residents (Crossett etal, 2004). Not only has most of the scientific re-search not been very helpful in counteracting the in-creased risks, the focus on climate modeling actuallyhas absorbed both scientific and political attention

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that could have been productively applied to thepractical challenge of coping with natural hazards.(This argument is more fully developed by Pieikeand Sarewitz, 2002; Sarewitz and Pieike, 2007; andLemos and Diiling, 2007: this issue.)

Global dependence on oil and coal for energy,chemicals, and materials likewise exacts a substan-tial toll that is distributed unequally via high energyprices, environmental impacts, warfare, and geopoli-tics tolerant of repressive, oil-rich states. Mostknowledgeable observers believe that the world isseriously under-invested in energy R&D (for in-stance, Runci, 2005), and more than half the currentinvestment is devoted to traditional fuels and nuclearenergy. Increased inquiry and innovation applied toreplacing coal and oil with cleaner, less geopoliti-cally potent technologies clearly could contribute toglobal equity. Why energy R&D has not receivedthe public profile or the level of investment of bio-medical science is rather mysterious to us; nor do weunderstand why equity considerations play such asmall role in energy conversations.

Thus, R&D potentially could be targeted towardsinquiries with better direct and indirect payoff forthose who now are underserved by science. Thatsuch research is not a high priority is due in part tothe domination of some voices rather than others inscience-policy decision-making.

Broader participation in policy decisions

A second way to reduce inequitable outcomes fi"omscience policy would be to reduce the extent towhich relevant choices are made by those who arepolitically and socioeconomically privileged. Fromthe US House Science Committee to National Sci-ence Foundation (NSF) review panels to most mis-sion agencies, proximate policy makers tend to behighly educated, affluent males of the dominant eth-nic group in northem hemisphere nations. Likewise,scientific inquiry, teaching, and public commentaryare carried out overwhelmingly by the advantaged.

We are hardly the first to suggest that, if science-policy deliberations reflected a greater diversity ofperspectives, then funded inquiry might better serve awider spectrum of humanity (for instance, Sclove,1995; Gibbons, 1999; Stilgoe et al, 2005; Harding,2006; Eubanks, 2007: in this issue). Indeed, philoso-pher Philip Kitcher (2001) has formalized the claimthrough his ideal of "well-ordered science," which isbased on a deliberative democratic process that fairlyrepresents everyone who deserves to be included.

Greater diversity of perspectives generally is re-garded by political theorists as leading to a greaterdiversity of policy options to choose among; suchdiversity also makes it tougher for insiders to gamerenough support to pass their programs unless theytake into account outsiders' needs and perspectives(Lindblom and Woodhouse, 1993). If science-policyprocesses included people and institutions more

If science-policy processes includedpeople and institutions morecommitted to advancing societalequity than, say, to advancing militarytechnology or scientific research for itsown sake, then moves aiming toreduce inequity would become moreprobable

committed to advancing societal equity than, say, toadvancing military technology or scientific researchfor its own sake, then moves aiming to reduce in-equity would become more probable.

Interest groups including AIDS and breast canceractivists have occasionally been successful in steer-ing scientific research and technoscientific practicein previously under-served directions (Epstein,1996; Lemer, 2001). Politicians, acting partly on be-half of constituents, have sometimes pushed R&D inpotentially equity-enhancing directions, for example,with congressional action requiring reluctant admin-istrators and scientists at the National Institutes ofHealth to conduct serious research on altemative andcomplementary medicine.'̂

So, while we can hardly doubt that a more repre-sentative science-policy process could be equityenhancing, three cautionary notes are appropriate.First, the AIDS, breast cancer, and altemative medi-cine successes were motivated by politicallyempowered groups, not by the politically or eco-nomically disenfranchised. Second, opening up thedecision-making process to greater influence fromvarious interests could make science policy lessundemocratic without necessarily enhancing equity— it all depends on which interests gain improvedrepresentation. Working-class Americans, social sci-entists and humanities scholars, and Ethiopian elitesmay arguably all deserve better representation in set-ting priorities for global science, but they are alreadyrelatively advantaged, so the increased inclusivenessmight do little in combating the world's most severeinequities.

Third, given that scientific knowledge is one ofmany contributors to societal inequity, it might ormight not be a more important route than other ap-proaches open to equity-seeking interest groups.Thus, from the perspective of AIDS sufferers able toafford sophisticated Pharmaceuticals, AIDS activismwas a tme triumph in directing resources to researchand accelerated clinical testing. Yet we might won-der if, in the mid-to-late 1980s, the politics of AIDSresearch had been strongly influenced by representa-tives of poor African and Asian nations, might pol-icy discussions have contextualized the problem



better from their perspective? Rather than high-techpharmaceutical treatments for affluent consumers,perhaps the focus would have been on affordable in-terventions for people living in regions with inade-quate public-health infrastmctures? We do not meanto say that both should not be done, just that, asthings now work, one of those approaches tends totmmp the other, time after time.

We have thus far focused on the question of R&Dpolicy priorities — might different policies, madethrough different processes, lead to reduced inequity?In the next two sections, we consider the problemfrom a different perspective. Are there some attrib-utes of technoscientific products that we would ex-pect to be equity enhancing? Might science policiesthat focus on these attributes contribute to greaterequity?

Focusing R&D on creation of public goods

A third route to reduced inequity would focus oncreation of new public goods, which usually are paidfor from taxes that come from affiuent taxpayersmore than from the less well-off. Public goods alsotend to be available without cost to the user, or atleast are subsidized, so access to them typically ismore equitable than goods and services availablethrough ordinary buying and selling. This categoryof activities is larger in socialist countries and inwelfare-state democracies than in the USA and othernations where public expenditure accounts for asmaller fraction of total spending. Nevertheless,every national science enterprise feeds some publicinnovation.

Environmental research and innovation are par-tially public goods, and the less well-off generallysuffer disproportionately from polluted air, water, orsoils, or an unhealthy built environment. Exposure tolead paint and proximity to toxic waste dumps isstratified by socioeconomic status (Pastor et al,2006), and research contributing to exposure mitiga-tion therefore should be equity enhancing. Yet thematter is not straightforward, because, for example,well-off people are likely to have more leisure timeand other resources required to benefit from someenvironmental public goods, such as restored ornatural wildlands (Foley and Pirk, 1990).

Seasonal climate forecasting seems like a quintes-sential public good, but those already advantagedhave better resources to obtain and utilize the inform-ation, and some ofthe world's most vulnerable havebecome worse off by trying to adapt their agriculturalpractices to forecasts of droughts and rains (Lemosand Diiling, 2007: in this issue). Cole (2007: in this is-sue) demonstrates that "the superficial image of DNAprofiling as an inherently equalizing (public good)technology does not withstand deeper analysis."

Caution about the advantages of public goods iswarranted also because publicly funded scientificinquiry does not always remain a public good. Much

has been made of intellectual property claims byuniversities and by faculty with businesses on theside, but probably more important is the routineutilization of publicly funded science by businesses(Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz, 1996). Federallyfunded research on fungi and mold, ionization, andrelated topics now is showing up in products used bythe affiuent. As an advertisement for the 2007Toyota Camry puts it, "Any car can have a naviga-tion system, but what about an immune system?":

A new HVAC system ... uses Plasmaclusterionizer technology to help reduce airbomemold spores, microbes, fungi, odors, germs andbacteria inside the passenger cabin. The plas-macluster ionizer does this by artificially cre-ating positive and negative ions that seek out andsurround harmful airbome substances. The sys-tem also features a micro dust and pollen filter,along with an antibacterial coating designed tominimize the growth of mold spores. {Forbes,2006; Toyota Motor Corporation, 2006)

Given the rising incidence of asthma and allergiesamong children in many parts of the USA (Pope,2000), is science helping to tum what should be apublic good — clean air — into a scarce, privateone? Is the new technology likely to tum up anytimesoon on mass transit used by the less affiuent?

Such observations are at odds with the commonporfrayal of scientific knowledge as an archetypalpublic good (see Callon, 1994, for a critical discus-sion), a portrayal that perhaps underlies the commonassumption that science is always equity enhancing.Certainly some products of science, such as poliovaccines, can be viewed as de facto public goodsthat were equitably distributed. Some people wouldadd the intangible benefits of space exploration andthe more concrete benefits of transportation infra-stmcture or national military security, whereas oth-ers might interpret some of these as public 'bads'. Ineither case, the distributional inequities do not loomlarge.

Even in a market-oriented society, there could beways of increasing the fraction of science policyaimed at public goods. We have already mentionedenergy and environmental quality R&D. Consumerprotection, likewise, is a partially public good andthe less well-off are more vulnerable to predatorybanking and ordinary business schemes and less re-silient afrer being scammed. Making automobilesless repair-prone and cheaper to repair could be con-sidered an equity-enhancing public good deservingof govemment-supported R&D, because the mar-ginal contribution to less affiuent car owners wouldbe greater.

We must admit, however, that most of the exam-ples we have been able to think of do not seem like thekinds of research that 'real scientists' would want topursue. However, that may be partly because toofew scientists, business executives, science-policy



infiuentials, social scientists, and interest group staffhave thought seriously about the possibilities. Onehuge domain for forefront basic research with equityimplications from the environmental realm, for ex-ample, was called for recently by the director of theAmerican Chemical Society's Green Chemistry In-stitute, who challenged chemists and toxicologists towork toward "a molecular level understanding ofthenature of chemical synergisms in the body and thebiosphere" (Anastas et al, 2006: 678). Still, it is ob-vious that public goods offer, at best, only limitedopportunities for equity-enhancing R&D policies;our fourth category therefore explores access to pri-vate goods.

Reducing price

Science policy makes an indirect connection withsocial justice when R&D leads to increasing af-fordability of goods and services. When less well-offpeople can more easily purchase products alreadyconsumed by the affiuent, discrepancies betweenhaves and have-nots are reduced, and the marginalbenefit of increased affordability often will be great-est for the poorest. Unfortunately, we know of veryfew instances where reduced costs have proven anunalloyed good; however, there sometimes may begains in terms of equity even if there are losses interms of other values.

Consider the case of agricultural science, whichhas been enormously successful at increasing pro-ductivity and decreasing the direct costs of food.Real prices for all agricultural commodities have de-clined over the past four decades, with cereals andtropical beverages falling the most, and meat anddairy falling the least (UN FAO, 2004). The up sidein terms of affordability is obvious. On the downside, agriculture-related policies have been so suc-cessfril in stimulating supply that:

Govemment policies in both developed and de-veloping countries have seriously distorted theover-supply problem in agricultural markets ...The vast majority of the world's poor andhungry, who live in mral areas of developingcountries and depend on agriculture, sufferlosses in income and employment caused bydeclining commodity prices which generallyoutweigh the benefits of lower food prices.(UNFAO, 2005: 1)

The agricultural sciences have also been implicatedin environmental degradation including over-emphasis on chemical inputs, and in socioculturaldestabilization of both US farm communities andmral social stmctures in many poor countries (Grayet al, 2006). Ample food supplies coupled with lowprices have helped stimulate problematic urbaniza-tion and suburbanization, and those with fewestresources often bear the bmnt.

The equity implications of R&D policies relatingto agriculture thus cannot be held up as generallyexemplary, but several attributes nevertheless meritattention. First, agricultural research typically hasnot been administered according to the elitist ap-proach pursued, say, by most professional astrono-mers who have very little to do with the sizeableworldwide network of amateur astronomers. Rather,agriculture has ofren been funded with attention toregional equity and to maintaining capacity in less-technological nations, such as via the ConsultativeGroup on Intemational Agricultural Research.Moreover, agricultural R&D has often been con-ducted at institutions with close connections to localfarmers, albeit with the intention of advancing agri-cultural productivity more than the interests of thefarmers themselves.

Beyond agriculture, innovation processes acti-vated partly by market competition have led to pro-gressively decreasing prices for technologicallyenabled consumer products from plastic bags totelevisions to washing machines. Most of the incre-mental innovation takes place in the business sector,but it often takes off from publicly funded researchin areas such as materials science (car tires), chemis-try (fire retardants in televisions), and electricitystorage (Ni-Cad batteries). Science-related policymaking likewise provides social support for such in-cremental innovation, including intellectual propertylaw, intemational standardization, and health andsafety regulations. Even the rise of mass-market,low-price retailing exemplified by Wal-Mart hasbeen built on a foundation of scanners and barcodes, containerization, and electronic databases, allof which were derived partly from military and othergovemmentally frinded R&D.

The R&D that contributed to greater productivityin the manufacture of consumer goods also dismptedthe roles of skilled workers. Whether the dispersedequity benefits of cheaper consumer goods from in-creased science-enabled productivity outweigh theconcentrated and severe harm suffered by displacedworkers is hard to calculate and inherently contest-able. However, it makes us pause, and putting theconsequences for workers together with the otherproblems associated with low prices, we doubt that a

Whether the dispersed equity benefitsof cheaper consumer goods fromincreased science-enabled productivityoutweigh the concentrated and severeharm suffered by displaced workers ishard to calculate and inherentlycontestable



strong case can be made for justifying science poli-cies on the basis of equity-enhancing price reduc-tion. This complexity of cause-effect relationshipsthat link science policies, prices, and equity re-inforces our initial suspicion of standard claims thatscience policies are inherently equity enhancing, andleads us to our next category.

Greater honesty about (in)equity

Is it honest to try to justify science policies, explic-itly or implicitly, in terms of enhancing societalequity? Agricultural biotechnology has long beenpromoted as a solution to world food problems(Conway, 1999). Nanotechnology is now beingpromoted partly on that basis (Salamanca-Buentelloet al, 2005) and various enhancement technologiesare promoted for their ability to eliminate disabilities(see Wolbring, 2004, for a critical discussion).

Yet all such claims are, in an important sense,necessarily false: science per se cannot achieve anyparticular societal outcome, because university andgovemment researchers, as well as technoscientistsemployed by business, all work within a broader setof social, cultural, political, and economic forces andinstitutions, co-making both problems and partial so-lutions to problems. In the jargon of philosophers, apromise that science will lead to a given societaloutcome is fatally underdetermined.

One ofthe factors left out is that there may be bet-ter routes to the goal than to invest huge amounts viathe expensive and indirect activity known as scien-tific research. Just because a line of scientific inquiryconceivably might help with a given problem doesnot mean that it is the best approach. Thus, a recentreport argues that nanotechnology could help withimportant problems suffered by poor nations (Merid-ian Institute, 2005), and some advocates actually aretouting 'nano' as the long-sought solution to theworld's water, energy, health, and food problems(Salamanca-Buentello et al, 2005). Given that manysuch problems probably could be ameliorated moresimply and cheaply using existing technologies suchas wells and pumps, the promise of science-derivednanopore filters implicitly is a way of displacingaccountability, which serves political elites and in-fiuential components ofthe scientific community.

Moreover, those who speak optimistically aboutthe benefits of R&D seem to assume that newcapacities will be distributed equitably. They rarelyeven discuss the socioeconomic context where theprojected knowledge actually may be deployed, andthey certainly offer no compelling reason to believethat equitable distribution is probable.

Yet, equity implications can only be assessed inthe light of a broader context, as in the 2004 Califor-nia ballot initiative (Proposition 71) to allocate US$3billion of state-bond funds in support of embryonicstem cell research. A coalition of venture capitalists,scientists, entrepreneurs, and disease advocates spent

US$24 million to promote this voter initiative,boldly predicting that the resulting research wouldrapidly lead to cures of conditions and diseasesranging from spinal chord injuries and Alzheimer'sto diabetes and Parkinson's (Vogel, 2004).

Had the promoters of Proposition 71 been con-cemed about honestly communicating with voters,their predictions might have looked something likethis: while a small number of significant therapiesmight result over the next decade or two from em-bryonic stem cell research funded by the initiative,cures for most of the specific diseases potentiallysubject to stem cell therapies will remain elusive be-cause of unanticipated technical complexities. Forexample, understanding and controlling cell devel-opment and differentiation processes probably willremain mdimentary during this period.

Scientists, however, will use up the US$3 billionfairly soon, and presumably will seek additionalpublic investments. Meanwhile, the rising price ofmedical care may disenfranchise increasing numbersof Califomians from the health-care system thatwould deliver the new therapies, while significantincome from patenting advances funded by the ini-tiative is likely to accme to institutions and personsconducting the R&D.

If voters had considered Proposition 71 in theseterms, they might well have rejected it — and that isprecisely our point. Science honestly discussedwould be depicted not as an autonomous and inexo-rable path towards desired outcomes, but as oneelement in a complex web of causes and effects,sometimes including greater inequity, sometimeslesser. If science were promoted and discussed hon-estly, science-policy decisions might be made morecautiously; certainly they would be made withgreater awareness ofthe complexity of their implica-tions. Then those who care about inequity mighthave a better chance of raising questions about sci-entific trajectories that help maintain inequity. How-ever, would it not be terribly inefficient to routinelyintroduce such considerations into science-policy de-liberative processes? This possibility points us to afinal category.

Slowing down

As a strictly logical matter, we could redress inequi-ties by focusing on science policies that may ad-versely affect those who are already well off. Forexample, affiuent people probably have been atgreater risk from side effects of newly approved butincompletely understood pharmaceutical productssuch as Lipitor, Fosamax, and hormone replacementtherapy, because the affiuent tend to have the inform-ation, resources, and expectations that foster earlyaccess to innovative products. Yet such reverse in-equities are almost certainly trivial compared with thedisadvantages suffered by those who do not enjoy thebenefits of expensive new pharmaceutical products.



Moreover, with clinical trials of new medicines"going global," it is "the world's poorest patients"who increasingly are exposed to pharmaceutical sideeffects prior to regulatory approval and sale (Shah,2006). Even in the USA, stmctural inequalities andan absence of universal health insurance mean thatstudies of new pharmaceuticals "are overwhelminglyconducted on uninsured and impoverished citizens,"who participate in order to obtain access to treatment(Fisher, 2007: in this issue).

If deliberately disadvantaging the affiuent is mledout as a way of helping level the playing fieldamong potential technoscience winners and losers,an altemative approach would be to modify the paceof technoscientific change, in order to create time forpolitically disadvantaged groups to recognize, andrespond to, equity threats. The potential benefits ofslowing down are well illustrated in the realm ofhuman enhancement technologies, where access andequity concems surround what appears to be a rap-idly emerging capability (Parens, 1998). Who willget enhanced attributes ranging from strength tointelligence? Will these new technologies pushhumanity toward a bifurcation along enhanced/non-enhanced lines, where some get to be stronger, morebeautiful, and smarter, while others of us are stuckwith the limits of our old-fashioned normalness be-cause we cannot afford what biotechnological inno-vations catalyzed by science have to offer? Anexacerbation of inequalities resulting from theadvent of enhancement techniques seems all but in-evitable, and one appropriate science-policy inter-vention would be to slow the rate of such inquiryand innovation, to allow time for leaming, politicalorganization, and appropriate compensatory policydevelopment.

Science policy has little experience with seriousdiscussion about slowing down the pace of advance(debates over nuclear weapons and recombinantDNA stand as exceptions), but allocating R&D re-sources routinely involves choices to acceleratesome areas of technoscience rather than others. Sci-ence policy makers take such actions in small wayswhenever they make decisions; over time, a hugediscrepancy is created between science that is and isnot funded. We have already noted the societalchoice to favor biomedical science over energy re-search in the USA; the relative neglect of greenchemistry is another such arena of "undone science"(Woodhouse et al, 2002).

By acknowledging that choices are inevitable, andby making friture choices more explicit, the notionof deciding to slow certain areas of̂ research shouldseem less heretical. Indeed, if the reasons for doingso are rooted in well founded and widely sharedconcems about equity, perhaps a heresy can be re-framed as an imperative?

We are not unaware of the moral issues lying inwait here. Sarewitz has been accused of being will-ing to consign sick people to an early death when hehas publicly suggested that responsible govemance

of science sometimes might entail slowing the paceof technical advance. We do not reach this issuehere; we merely argue that participants in sciencepolicy making ought to face up to tradeoffs betweenequity and other considerations.

Conclusion

This essay's basic spirit should be hard to quarrelwith: make social justice a primary consideration indeliberations about science and technology policiespertaining to research, innovation, human resources,and regulatory matters (Cozzens et al, 2002). Evenelite voices of the science-policy apparatus at leasttacitly endorse such a stance. For example, theNational Science Board (1997) wrote that:

To ensure the most effective use of Federal dis-cretionary funding it is essential that agreementbe reached on which fields and which invest-ment strategies hold the greatest promise fornew knowledge that will contribute most effec-tively to better health, greater equity and socialjustice, improved living standards, a sustainableenvironment, a secure national defense, and toextending our understanding of nature. It isintrinsic to research that particular outcomescannot be foretold; but it is possible, indeednecessary, to make informed choices and to in-vest wisely. The need for better coordinationand priority-setting is not related to cycles offiscal constraint alone. It is, rather, an integralaspect of a sound, future-oriented strategy forthe investment of limited Federal dollars.

We are not asking much more than that such goodwords be taken seriously.

Actually acting in accord with the rhetoric wouldtum out to be more difficult and contentious thanmany R&D administrators may have realized. Manywho articulate aspirations for publicly beneficialoutcomes probably have not deeply pondered thepossibility that scientists' business-as-usual tends atleast to maintain, and in some cases even to exacer-bate, hard-to-defend inequities across the globe andwithin many nations.

To retum to the biomedical arena: "Despite anoverall decline in death rates in the United Statessince 1960, poor and poorly educated people still dieat higher rates than those with higher incomes orbetter educations, and this disparity increased be-tween 1960 and 1986," during a period of unprece-dented public investment in biomedical research(Pappas et al, 1993: 103, emphasis added). Simi-larly, the USA continues to have infant mortalityrates higher than most other affiuent nations, withpoorer families bearing the bmnt of the losses(Hamvas et al, 1996; Gortmaker and Wise, 1997).Even biomedical research has a long history of mis-treatment of have-nots (Fisher, 2007: in this issue).



The pattem is sufficiently clear, pervasive, well-publicized, and long-lasting that participants in sci-ence policy and in scientific inquiry cannot crediblyallege not to know. We presume most readers willjoin us in considering some of the inequalities notjust unfortunate but immoral. Opinions will differ asto whether biomedical scientists who go about theirwork without challenging prevailing inequities inmedical care demonstrate a de facto willingness toperpetuate them; similarly uncomfortable questionsarise regarding the work of other technoscientists,such as the information technologists who arguablyassist indirectly in oppression of people enmeshed insocial service bureaucracies (Eubanks, 2007: in thisissue).

The systematically unequal outcomes from R&Dpolicy seem to be in tension with the professionalethics that most scientists and engineers would wantto uphold, and with which they ofren justify theirown claims to public tmst and support. Because theproblems are structural and therefore beyond the ca-pacity of individuals to rectify (Fisher, 2007: in thisissue), we believe that professional organizationshave a responsibility to create a dialogue of suchprominence that scientists and engineers can hardlyavoid exploring what they may come to believe aretheir ethical obligations to support science policiesthat work for social justice.

Ethical refiection on such a scale is, admittedly,difficult to imagine. Perhaps even less likely is forscientific elites to reexamine their ideologies in re-gard to 'progress' and prevailing power relations.Yet the pattem of inequitable outcomes arguably isso central to the future of technological civilizationthat people in and out of science are morally obli-gated to reexamine who gets what from science andtechnology.

For a brief period in the 1970s, inquiries did begininto relationships among science, business, the mili-tary, and a consumer culture dominated by those inthe upper quintile of humanity in income and wealth(Primack and von Hippel, 1974). Whether these willbe revisited and refreshed, nobody can say for sure,but scholars surely have an obligation to press forsuch discussion and refiection.

Our analysis has pointed to ways that doing scien-tific research or innovating technologically can con-tribute to reducing societal inequities, or at least tonot helping maintain them. Before summarizingthose exceptions to the mle, we want first to say thatwhat we initially considered the most important ex-ception simply did not stand up to scmtiny. It intui-tively seems that price-reducing incrementalinnovation would enhance equity, and certainlysometimes does so, but high-end innovation for theaffiuent comes out of the R&D process along withlower-end cost cutting, and we see little basis forany generalized claim of net gain.

Moreover, even those facets of the process thatactually do work for equity almost invariably exactother tolls, such as the environmental cost from the

need to manufacture, deliver, and dispose of the in-creased number of units. When R&D does succeedin putting, say, plasma TVs into many more homes,the diffusion rarely actually reaches the poorestquintile of humanity, and meanwhile the partial suc-cess probably helps build a cultural expectation thatmarket-oriented, price-reducing technological inno-vation can be a pretty good substitute for public ef-forts on behalf of those most in need. We readilyacknowledge that there is a need for more researchand thinking on this category of R&D outcome, butwe provisionally strike it from our list of possibleexceptions to the 'law' that new technoscientific ca-pacities introduced into a non-egalitarian societywill tend disproportionately to benefit the affiuentand powerful.

Even taking off the table this category of excep-tion, those who seek reduced inequity still have atleast five approaches they can adopt to partiallycounteract science-catalyzed inequities:

• Specifically address problems of the poor, whileshying away from R&D clearly serving affluentelites.

• Refiect the aspirations, values, and interests ofa more diverse set of potential stakeholdersworldwide, rather than carelessly assuming thatpolitical and economic elites are relatively goodrepresentatives of 'the public'

• Focus on R&D that will go into public goods paidout of tax dollars.

• Justify endeavors in terms of an honest appraisalof the socioeconomic context within which the re-sults of research will be applied.

• Deliberately slow down R&D trajectories thatthreaten to erode equity.

In addition to these general exceptions, there arenumerous context-specific actions that could helpscience-policy infiuentials and everyone else tothink more deeply about the equity implications ofR&D. Although there is no substitute for actuallychallenging grossly misdirected priorities, fairly in-nocuous moves can also contribute. For instance, theUS President's science advisor and the National Sci-ence Foundation in 2005-2006 called for improving"the social science of science policy," and their vi-sion included improved science and engineering in-dicators (Marburger, 2005). We applaud the idea,and believe that improved indicators of the socialoutcomes from R&D ought to be among the highestpriorities, especially indicators pertaining to(in)equality (Cozzens, 2006).

Indicators alone are not nearly enough, though,because better information is less important thanbetter motivation and improved decision-makinginstitutions for retargeting science policy. Neverthe-less, better information about science outcomescould certainly help focus attention on the complexand sometimes contradictory types and causes oftechnoscience-catalyzed societal inequity, and could



help make concems regarding equity more legiti-mate within science-policy discussions.

In closing, we acknowledge again that 'doingresearch' or 'applying technology' to solve a givenproblem often is not the best way to go about reduc-ing inequity. In recognizing the tendency to relyexcessively on technological fixes, however, weought not to overlook instances where a good tech-nological fix is exactly what is needed. Childhoodvaccines offer a powerful example of such an equity-enhancing technology. Technical fixes sometimes

are easier to implement politically, and sometimesare more potent than sociocultural fixes at ameliorat-ing human suffering.

The challenge is to figure out what future fixesmight actually be equity enhancing, and to targetscience policy in those directions. Although wesuspect that this will be infeasible under prevailingdistributions of authority, those who seek to defendthe existing system can easily prove us wrongsimply by retargeting science policy towards globalequity.

Notes

1, Not all new technoscientific capacities emerge directly fromscience policy per se, but the big changes in the past half cen-tury in computing, electronics, biomedicine, and most otherdomains would have been improbable or impossible withoutscientific research trajectories relying on government funding,

2, As our selection of examples reveals, it is much easier tocome up with equity stories from biomedicine than from mostother realms of R&D, Within the technology-focused US medi-cal system at least, we suspect this is because the anticipatediinks between technoscience products and actual outcomesare explicit, and inequities in health outcomes can be effec-tively measured. Inequitable outcomes therefore can bedirectly attributed to science-policy priorities within a very high-profile realm of public policy.

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