Of Mille-Feuilles and Hamburgers:How Scientists Can Engage

in Society and Policy

Daniel PaulySea Around Us ProjectFisheries Centre, UBC

Knowledge for the Salish Sea:Towards Collaborative Transboundary Solutions

Georgia Basin - Puget Sound Research ConferenceVancouver, British Columbia

March 26–29, 2007

While all cultures of the world had their share of smart people (witness the invention of calendars, or of the zero), inventors and creators, it is in Europe, somewhere in the late 16th Century, that what the social process we later called ‘Science’ slowly emerged from the muck of ancient and politically powerful superstitions.

Venice, where Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in 1600

Lecture at the Université de Paris,

12th Century

However, the birth of Science did not occur at any of the many universities which had been founded since the turn of the millennium. They were too busy elaborating on these superstitions, and defending them.

Rather, Science emerged from the practice of private ‘academies,’ usually under the patronage of a powerful and benevolent monarch

The first such academy may have been the Accademia dei Lincei (founded in 1603)

And things could turn out badly if your patron turned less bene-volent…

Trial of Galileo Galilei, 1633

Thus, Science migrated northwards, towards more tolerant climes…

The first signatories of the Royal Society of London (founded 1660; right), its coat of arms (right), with the maxim “Nullius in verba”

There, Science gradually acquired ‘rules’, and an ‘ethos’…. • Nullius in Verba – The notion that ‘words mean nothing’, i.e., that

rhetoric, with its appeal to authority and flowery language be replaced, in scientific communications, by a simple language, emphasizing evidence;

• Communalism - the common ownership of scientific discoveries, according to which scientists give up intellectual property rights in exchange for recognition and esteem;

• Universalism - claims to truth are evaluated in terms of universal or impersonal criteria, and not on the basis of race, class, gender, religion, or nationality;

• Disinterestedness - scientists are rewarded for acting in ways that outwardly appear to be selfless;

• Organized Skepticism - all ideas must be tested and are subject to rigorous, structured community scrutiny.

This is what should be, according to the Royal Society, and sociologist of science K. Merton

Science then allied itself with the nascent movement that gave birth to the first modern democracies. We call this alliance the Enlightment.

Like Democracy, the Enlightment had lots of failings, but an acceptable alternative is hard to conceive, and the values of modern societies (and of most scientists), are still those of the Enlightment (human rights, equality, rationality…).

This mild man for example, was both a great scientist, and, throughout his life, a principled opponent of slavery, one of the greatest scourge of his time.

However, the uneasy relationship between powerful people and science was not resolved…

She also wrote the book which inspired this…

It is significant that attempts to suppress Science, nowadays, often imply an unenlightened agenda…

But then, such things also happen in Canada.

Which brings us to this graph, illustrating a Canadian tragedy…

And it goes on!

The role of science, in this case, can be illuminated by an analogy with two types of ‘food,’ the hamburger and the mille-feuilles…

Let’s characterize them…

In a hamburger, the meat (drippy, greasy, whatever) is what it is. It doesn’t make a mess, though, because we use the two halves of a bun to hold it.

Mille-feuilles (French for ‘thousand leaves’) are different: the cream and the pastry are so intermingled that you don’t know when one stops and

the other starts

With Science (the meat) and Policy (the bun), one should always be able to distinguish what is what. For example, we had before the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, which gave us meat, which policy makers had to somehow accommodate...

Now we have a Department of Fisheries and Ocean, responsible both for Science (e.g., how many fish are in the ocean?) and Policy (e.g., who should fish them?

In a mille-feuilles, you can’t separate the cream from the pastry.

Let’s examine the milles-feuille scientifically, dissecting it as it were:

Minister

Deputy Minister

Assistant Deputy Minister Top of the heap former scientist

Less top of the heap former scientist

Least top of the heap former scientist

Working and politicking a lot scientistsWorking and less politicking scientists

Working scientists, politicking only a little bit

Working scientists

Working scientists who know what happened, but that no one listens to

How such system works in practice can be illustrated with an example from China, where the government wants something (red), and then gets it (green)

“Fisheries catches are to increase by 7 %!”

7 % catch increase …

And here is the increase of China’s fisheries catches …

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Ch

ine

se

c

atc

h (

t ·

106 )

Overall marine

EEZ uncorrected

EEZ corrected

(b)

Constant catch mandated

(Watson & Pauly, Nature, 2001).

Global fisheries landings, in reality, have been declining since the late 1980s, a fact long hidden by over-reporting from China:

Watson and Pauly (Nature), 2001.

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Glo

ba

l c

atc

h (

t ·1

06 )

Uncorrected

Corrected

Corrected, no anchoveta

El Niño event

(a)El Niño events

In the case of the Northern cod, the red arrow was saying that it is the cold waters that did the cod in, or the seals, or whatever (but not the fishery).

“It is the cold water that did it!”

“Yep, it is the cold water that did it.”

the late R.A. Myers was reprimanded for publishing otherwise.

Now here in B.C., we raise Atlantic salmon in floating farms, well known (in Europe) to share their parasites with wild fish.

Regarding salmon farming in B.C., the red arrow was clearly drawn. The green arrow, unsurprisingly came back as expected…

“There is no sea lice problems!”

“Indeed. And Alexandra Morton doesn’t know anything about sea lice.”

Except that she does

When I was a student, I was taught that (fisheries) scientists had one (1) set of clients, ‘fisheries managers’

‘Fisheries management’

Fisheries biologists

Fisheries

Managers

Social Social scientistsscientists

Then came …

Fisheries biologists

FishersGovernment

Resource

‘Co-management’

… and this

Fishers

Government

Resource

Other stakeholders

Scientists

‘New Governance’

Conservation biologistsConservation biologists

How about this?

Government

Resource

Citizenry

Conservation groups

Fisheries scientistsFisheries scientists

Fishers

This is all very complicated. What is clear however, is:• The ‘mille-feuilles’ model of combining science and

policy in one organization has not served us well; • Scientists cannot abandon their Enlightenment

values, and should not be required to do so;• The relation between the scientific ethos and Ethics

tout court is a evolving one, and it will determine whether we meet the great environmental challenges we now face.

Thank you very much for your attention!

Also: Thanks to Mimi Lam and Lyne Morissette for the images.