Science, public trust

This book was produced under the auspices of the Dyers Company Publications Trust. The Trust was instituted by the Worshipful Company of Dyers of the City of London in 1971 to encourage the publication of textbooks and other aids to learning in the science and technology of colour and coloration and related fields. The Society of Dyers and Colourists acts as trustee to the fund. 

Whether in aquacultural or traditional fishing approaches, however, fisheries scientists find they must go beyond a simply biological understanding of fish stocks. Fisheries science is profoundly influenced by the context of the cultural and legal framework within which fisheries management takes place. An important part of this framework is the common-law doctrine of the public trust, particularly the idea that the resources of the rivers and seas within a nation s jurisdiction belong to the people, and the government holds them in trust for the public. 

What do these ideas have to do with science The answer is that science as an undertaking is a quite human process that relies on many decisions. For example, progress in science relies on the complete honesty of those who report their experimental results, because (among other reasons) those results are key to the understanding of the natural phenomena under investigation. In addition, because scientific results are generally made public and accessible to all, it is extremely important that scientific results are trustworthy. If results are not reported honestly, then anyone who uses these results in his or her work has had his or her trust violated, and the injured party has wasted time and other resources. When the results impact a field such as medicine, or bear on product safety, an immense number of people could be put in harm s way because of decisions made on the basis of false information. 

Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 22. Porter shows convincingly how "mechanical objectivity has served as a means for bureaucracies, especially in democracies where expert judgment and expertise are always suspected of masking self-serving motives, to create an impersonal set of decision rules at once seemingly democratic and neutral. 

Ibid., pp. 31-32. The recent social science literature on social trust and social capital, demonstrating the economic costs of their absence, signals that this homely truth is now a subject of formal inquiry. It is important to specify that Jacobs s point about "eyes on the street assumes a rudimentary level of community feeling. If the eyes on the street are hostile to some or all members of the community, as Talja Potters has reminded me, public security is not enhanced. 

Porter, T. Trust in Numbers The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton Princeton University Press, 1995. 

In the 1980s, however, Wellcome commenced a concentrated move into the new biological sciences and related technologies. To finance this step, in 1986 the Wellcome Trust offered 2 5 percent of its equity in the pharmaceutical enterprise to the public, continued to sell its shares publicly, and in 1986 sold off its animal health business for 65 million. These transactions funded research in herpes and AIDS therapy, as well as on tPA dissolvers of blood clots. Nevertheless, the Wellcome Trust recognized the fate of mid-sized... 

The scientist these days has a new partner—the auditor. He is not a financial auditor, but rather an examiner of knowledge. He is a verifier of accounts, as the dictionary puts it. In this case, he intends to verify that the public s trust in science is well founded. 

We trust that in addition to providing a lasting record of Robert Simha s contribution to polymer science, the book will encourage readers to study his original articles. As his publications demonstrate (see Appendix B), he has been a brilliant, active, and dedicated theoretical physicist who has had a lasting impact on the science and engineering of polymers and plastics. He demonstrated clearly the importance of fundamental research both for technology and for the economy. 

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