Mavis Jones

Where Now for Post-Normal Science?: A Critical Review of its Development, Definitions, and Uses

‘‘Post-normal science’’ (PNS) has received much attention in recent years, but like many iconic concepts, it has attracted differing conceptualizations, applications, and implications, ranging from being a ‘‘cure-all’’ for democratic deficit to the key to achieving more sustainable futures. This editorial article introduces a Special Issue that takes stock of research on PNS and critically explores how such research may develop. Through reviewing the history and evolution of PNS, the authors seek to clarify the extant definitions, conceptualizations, and uses of PNS. The authors identify five broad areas of research on, or using, PNS which have developed over four decades. Their analysis suggests that the 1990s represent a symbolic watershed in the use of PNS terminology, when the concept was further developed and applied to highly complicated issues such as climate change. The authors particularly distinguish between uses of PNS as a normative prescription and as a practical method. Through this classification, they set out gaps and research questions arising. They then briefly summarize the Special Issue articles and consider their relationship to each other and the research questions raised by their analysis. They conclude by considering what the articles in this issue suggest for future theory building in PNS and related scholarship.

Biobanks and bioethics: the politics of legitimation

Abstract Taking Biobank UK as its centrepiece, this paper analyses the politics of legitimation accompanying the emergence of population-based genetic databases and the contribution of bioethics to the power play therein. First, it explores the nature of the legitimation problem experienced by biotechnology and considers the extent to which bioethics can be regarded as an epistemic community capable of responding to that problem through a regulatory contribution. Second, drawing on a range of documentary and internet sources, it examines the ethical content of the policy discourse of biobank regulation in four countries in terms of the balance of power expressed therein between the rights of citizens, science, industry and the state in relation to the control of genetic information. Third, the analysis deals with the contribution of the international discourse and networks of bioethics to the policy debate of biobank regulation and the disciplinary identity of this divided epistemic community.

Locating Scientific Citizenship: The Institutional Contexts and Cultures of Public Engagement

In this article, we explore the institutional negotiation of public engagement in matters of science and technology. We take the example of the Science in Society dialogue program initiated by the UK’s Royal Society, but set this case within the wider experience of the public engagement activities of a range of charities, corporations, governmental departments, and scientific institutions. The novelty of the analysis lies in the linking of an account of the dialogue event and its outcomes to the values, practices, and imperatives—the institutional rationality—of the commissioning organization. We argue that the often tacit institutional construction of scientific citizenship is a critical, and relatively undeveloped, element of analysis—one that offers considerable insight into the practice and democratic implications of engaging publics in science and science policy. We also present evidence indicating that over time the expanding ‘‘capacities’’ associated with dialogue can act in subtle ways to enroll other elements of institutional architectures into more reflexive modes of thinking and acting. In the concluding section of the article, we consider the ways in which research and practice could (and we believe should) engage more squarely with facets of institutional context and culture.

Human genetic technologies, European governance and the politics of bioethics

With human genetic technologies now an important area of European research and development, bioethics is becoming increasingly important in its regulation and future. As regulatory decisions are also statements about who should get what, bioethics cannot avoid political controversy. Can bioethics sustain its claimed role as authoritative adviser to decision makers, or will its attempts to reach a consensus on human genetic technologies be perceived as the actions of an ambitious interest group? What, in short, is its political future in Europe and elsewhere?

Regulating human genetics: The changing politics of biotechnology governance in the European Union

Human genetics poses new political issues for the governance systems of the EU and, in so doing, graphically illustrates the regulatory problematic of innovative health technologies (IHTs). Civil society, industry and the scientific community are registering new, and conflicting, political demands on the governance policy community of the EU. At the same time, the traditional reliance of that community on technocratic networks as the mainstay of policy formation and implementation is no longer a sufficient mechanism for maintaining the legitimacy of the process. New policy networks imbued with different value systems are rapidly making inroads into the previously impermeable policy community of EU governance. Recognising the limitations of the existing means for securing agreement to regulatory change, the institutions of the EU are adapting their stance, or stances, and seeking new methods of engagement both with the expanding numbers of NGOs in the human genetics arena and the public at large. To an extent, there is institutional competition between the departments of the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and, most particularly, the European Parliament for pole position in the business of policy agenda setting. Fuelled by the regulatory difficulties already experienced in biotechnology by GM foods and GM crops, that competition is rapidly causing a sea-change in the political culture of governance policy making at EU level.

Cultures, contexts and commitments in the governance of controversial technologies: US, UK and Canadian publics and xenotransplantation policy development

While there has been considerable interest in public participation in new and controversial technologies in the last two decades, less attention has been paid to how different ‘publics’ and ‘participation’ are constructed and defined in the context of policy development and the contingencies (historical, cultural, and situational) that can contextualize these processes. This study examines the development of xenotransplantation policy in the US, Canada and the UK in order to understand the emergence of different publics and versions of participation in the social appraisal of a controversial biomedical technology. By examining publics in invited arenas and those that operate in public spaces outside of these official rooms (paying special attention to animal rights and welfare groups), we suggest that a broader understanding can be gained of the nuances in policy trajectories. Contrasting experiences in three case countries with close cultural and historical traditions further elucidate the nature of the framing activities of policy-makers around public participation and the boundary work around different practices that emerged. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Proceeding carefully: Assisted human reproduction policy in Canada

The Canadian Act Respecting Assisted Human Reproduction and Related Research (AHR Act), which came into effect in 2004, was the culmination of fifteen years of policy development in this often controversial field. Drawing from a series of semi-structured elite interviews and extensive documentary research, we examine the path to policy for the AHR Act. We identified several influences on the Act’s development, including: 1) feminist-informed activism which found a balance between rejecting the medical model of reproduction and instituting protections against the commodifying potential of reproductive technologies; 2) Canada’s proximity to the United States (and its contrasting structures and stances); 3) the role of professional elites in supporting or resisting the proposed regulations; and 4) the tensions between federal and provincial jurisdiction in the Canadian federalist state. The path to this outcome provides an illuminating study of the tensions between internal and external pressures in the policy process.

Multiple institutional rationalities in the regulation of health technologies: An ethnographic examination

The regulation of risk associated with health technologies uses scientific evaluation to identify harms and protect citizens. However, in some cases scientific uncertainty has resulted in regulatory failures (e.g. Cox-2 inhibitors) and led regulators to explore new ways of working, such as bringing in the expertise of new actors (patient groups, community health workers, caregivers, etc.), to provide evidence and assessment in the regulation of risk. Implementing changes, however, can be an uncertain process in itself. Regulatory institutions are populated with actors representing a range of disciplinary perspectives, priorities, and values, which all influence their rationality towards accepting an introduced innovation. This paper provides an ethnographic exploration of disciplinary boundaries and multiple rationalities during a period of institutional transformation, within the Canadian Health Products and Food Branch. We interpret our findings through a multiple rationalities framework, illuminating the processes and practices of transformative risk regulation. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Exploring the post-genomic world: differing explanatory and manipulatory functions of post-genomic sciences

Richard Lewontin proposed that the ability of a scientific field to create a narrative for public understanding garners it social relevance. This article applies Lewontins conceptual framework of the functions of science (manipulatory and explanatory) to compare and explain the current differences in perceived societal relevance of genetics/genomics and proteomics. We provide three examples to illustrate the social relevance and strong cultural narrative of genetics/genomics for which no counterpart exists for proteomics. We argue that the major difference between genetics/genomics and proteomics is that genomics has a strong explanatory function, due to the strong cultural narrative of heredity. Based on qualitative interviews and observations of proteomics conferences, we suggest that the nature of proteins, lack of public understanding, and theoretical complexity exacerbates this difference for proteomics. Lewontins framework suggests that social scientists may find that omics sciences affect social relations in different ways than past analyses of genetics.

Interview with Dr. Young-Ki Paik, President of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO): Pharmacoproteomics and the approaching wave of "proteomics diagnostics"

Dr. Young-Ki Paik directs the Yonsei Proteome Research Center in Seoul, Korea and was elected as the President of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) in 2009. In the December 2009 issue of the Current Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine (CPPM), Dr. Paik explains the new field of pharmacoproteomics and the approaching wave of “proteomics diagnostics” in relation to personalized medicine, HUPO’s role in advancing proteomics technology applications, the HUPO Proteomics Standards Initiative, and the future impact of proteomics on medicine, science, and society. Additionally, he comments that (1) there is a need for launching a Gene-Centric Human Proteome Project (GCHPP) through which all representative proteins encoded by the genes can be identified and quantified in a specific cell and tissue and, (2) that the innovation frameworks within the diagnostics industry hitherto borrowed from the genetics age may require reevaluation in the case of proteomics, in order to facilitate the uptake of pharmacoproteomics innovations. He stresses the importance of biological/clinical plausibility driving the evolution of biotechnologies such as proteomics,instead of an isolated singular focus on the technology per se. Dr. Paik earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia and carried out postdoctoral work at the Gladstone Foundation Laboratories of Cardiovascular Disease, University of California at San Francisco. In 2005, his research team at Yonsei University first identified and characterized the chemical structure of C. elegans dauer pheromone (daumone) which controls the aging process of this nematode. He is interviewed by a multidisciplinary team specializing in knowledge translation, technology regulation, health systems governance, and innovation analysis.