The types of research that we choose to perform strongly influence how the benefits of that research are distributed. In particular, knowledge and innovation that drive up health-care costs can lead to reduced access to health care by poor people. To the extent that current science policy tries to incorporate considerations of societal outcomes into the national research agenda, it does so through very small and rather marginalized programs like the human-dimensions component of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the part of the Human Genome Project that deals with its ethical, legal, and social implications. Last year, in an issue of Wired magazine, Bill Joy, cofounder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, pointed out that likely advances in the areas of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and robotics may threaten our well-being. While I agree with Joy that we need to acknowledge the potential downside that accompanies the tremendous promise of those and other frontier areas of science, we must also realize that, while negative outcomes are conceivable, they are by no means inevitable.
Science is discovery, and discovery opens a range of alternative paths to society.
Our scientific and technical abilities far outstrip our knowledge of the relationship between research and its outcomes, and the sophistication of the methods we use to make decisions about science policy. Consider, as an example, the science of crop genetics. Our quest for expanded yields, year-round products, reduced perishability, and other improvements has resulted in the development of genetically modified organisms. Introduction of those products has created a firestorm of controversy, first in Europe and now in North America and Asia. Our science policy failed to consider the outcomes that society desired, and the results were widely perceived as harmful to human health, the environment, and consumers' ability to make choices.