Deliberative Polling and Bioethical Controversies
Channel: HMS Center for Bioethics
Date: 2022-03-28

Recent advances in bioengineering, genome editing, and human embryo research have heightened the need for public consultation and engagement across a broad spectrum of scientific and bioethical controversies. It is not so clear, however, how best to fulfil this social need. 
 
Dr. James Fishkin and moderator Dr. Insoo Hyun will lead the audience in a discussion of one promising approach called Deliberative Polling. Deliberative Polling is a distinctive form of public consultation that engages stratified random samples of a population in deliberations probing the pros and cons of policy proposals with moderated small group discussions as well as plenary sessions with competing experts or policy makers. Deliberative Polling has not yet been applied to bioethical controversies, but it has been applied to many policy issues that engage scientific issues (especially climate change, energy policy as health care). This interactive talk focused on what Deliberative Polling could accomplish as distinct from other methods of public consultation, such as standard opinion polls, focus groups, town meetings, citizens juries and citizens assemblies. 

Presented by:
James Fishkin, PhD

Moderated By:
Insoo Hyun, PhD

This session is part of the Ethics in Research and Biotechnology Consortia.  Learn more about this series at https://bioethics.hms.harvard.edu/events/weekly-consortia/ethics-research-and-biotechnology