|
SRT Home Page What is the SRT Project? Site Map & Subject Index What's New? Highlights Current Talking Point SRT Publications SRT Newsletter SRT Information Sheets General Assembly Reports SRT Topical Papers Press Room Contact SRT Send a comment Guest Book SRT Trust & Associates Links European Christian Environmental Network Eco-Congregation |
|
Dr Donald Bruce
Society, Religion and Technology Project, Church of Scotland
, 121 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 4YN, Scotland, UK
Tel.: 0131 240 2250 Fax: 0131 240 2239 Email: srtp@srtp.org.uk
Part of a collaborative project of the
New Economics Foundation, Cinnamon House, 6-8 Cole Street, London SE1 4YH
tel. 0207 089 2800, fax 0207 407 6473, email: perry.walker@neweconomics.org
A paper given in Stockholm on 13 June at the
Valdor 2003 conference
on risk, values and public participation in decision making.
Contents |
In February 2003, fifty years after the discovery of the structure of DNA, Time magazine sponsored a conference entitled "The Future of Life" to celebrate the past event and to think forward about where the discoveries of Watson, Crick and others will take us in the decades ahead. Ideas both bizarre and sensible tumbled over one another from the scientists present - revealing some disturbing private values behind some of the science. Could we expect to live to 120 or 200 and beyond? Could everyone have their personal DNA sequenced in seconds and modify their descendants according to their whims? Would we have to give over running the earth to "nanobots" whose intelligence would far outstrip humans? Would the methods and materials of nanotechnology bring a delayed realisation of the 1950's journalist's sound byte of "energy too cheap to meter", or merely repeat the self-publicist's mistake of over-claiming?
Having filtered out the unrealistic and looked at the more likely outcomes, a sense of unease remained about where were the ordinary public would figure amidst all these techno-dreams. It seemed that insufficient regard was being taken of the concerns of the society for whom these predictions were being made. As the discoveries and methods of genetics and related disciplines have probed ever deeper into the mysteries of human and other organisms, so there has arisen a concern in the population which no longer automatically welcomes the novelties which are announced week by week. People are questioning how far we should be tinkering with the processes of life, and whether humans really do have the necessary understanding to manipulate genes, clone organisms or handle the processes and products of nuclear fission. They ask whether the risks have been considered sufficiently, amid commercial and other pressures, who is driving developments and for what ends, who will be the winners and who the losers, and so on.
The boundless possibilities and heart-searching challenges of biotechnology have come in a period when Western civilisation is now more unsure than it has been for perhaps a thousand years about what are the basic beliefs, principles and morals which should guide, encourage or limit the scope of human developments. In this post-modern era, perhaps the biggest single question facing science and technology - and indeed democracy - is how a highly pluralised society could come to any sense of common view on hugely far reaching developments in technology, over which its members may be profoundly divided. In another paper in this conference we have argued for the need to recover a concept of a social contract for technology [1], [2] but the practicalities of doing so also need exploring.
Belatedly the UK Government and scientific establishment have realised the mismatch between science and society. [3] In Scotland more specifically, the recently restored Parliament is designed along more participative lines than the Westminster model. In the new mood of openness, one response is that Government web sites now advertise consultation documents on every imaginable subject, inviting responses. Although in theory a very open process, there are serious limitations on who is able to respond in practice, beyond the 'usual suspects' - organisations known to have an interest. Unless one is on the appropriate departmental mailing list, there is often no way of knowing that a consultation relevant to oneself has been announced, except by regularly trawling web sites or by word of mouth. The time scales are usually too tight for a considered response from someone not already acquainted professionally with the particular issue. The sheer number of consultations and their irregular time scales exceed the capacity of many stakeholder organisations to keep track or respond adequately.
A second criticism of this approach is that the prior framing of the issues at stake by the department concerned has sometimes seriously restricted the public debate. An example was the first UK human cloning and stem cell consultation of 1998 whose final report stated that it had not wanted to consider the central issue of the status of the embryo. [4] Finally, unless one is called to give oral evidence, the process is strictly one way rather than dialogical. The assessment of the responses is generally remote and anonymous, as it were a black box into which one's contribution is put, and out of which comes a Government policy recommendation. Unless unusual care is taken, respondents may be reluctant to take part in future consultations, unless they have been given a sense of how the opinions they worked hard to contribute were duly taken into consideration.
The need for better means of consultation has led to a flood of activity in the UK to develop or adapt methods of democratic participation in technological debate and decision making. This has produced a tool kit of several techniques which are currently regarded as more or less effective in engaging with public values and attitudes on national issues. In most of these, however, the average citizen can take part only if he or she happens to be invited to a focus group, or hears about a public one-off event like a consensus conference, or perhaps contributes remotely in a TV/internet electronic voting programme. Otherwise their only engagement may be at a distance, by joining a campaigning group or an organisation who is likely to be consulted about the issue.
It was devised by the New Economics Foundation with the help of experts in bioethics and in participative communication methods, with funding by the Wellcome Trust. DEMOCS has been piloted during 2002 on various issues in genetic and related technologies, and in particular human embryonic stem cells, genetic selection, and across-the-counter genetic testing kits.
A card game kit is available to anyone (a co-ordinator) who wants to organise a DEMOCS session on behalf of a group of people. This could be any type of group. Participants in the pilot studies have included groups of friends, student classes, students responding to a notice in a department, conference participants, community groups of various sorts, church groups, and people dropping in 'on spec' to venues where sessions have been advertised. The co-ordinator is provided with the game and instructions on how to run it. Here is an example of the DEMOCS board which describes the process. This includes copies of background briefing material which he or she should send to the intended participants a few days beforehand, to enable them to familiarise themselves with the issues if they wish.
Ideally a group can run a DEMOCS entirely by themselves. They would need to co-ordinate with a central body only to request the materials, to check that they understood what to do with them, and, most importantly, to feed back the outcomes. The flexibility of the approach means that each game can take place at a time and location to suit the group. It is planned as a single session of two hours.
The locally organised nature of the approach offers an important advantage compared with focus groups, citizens juries and consensus conferences. The latter tend to require more formal planning and co-ordination, and to have external experts or facilitators present. During the pilot phase, one of the DEMOCS team has generally set up each session and been present as a facilitator. Although an organiser can request someone to facilitate, the game is designed to be organised and run without needing an external facilitation or anyone in the role of 'expert'.
The basic questions to be discussed are introduced by Scenario Cards and Policy Cards. The Scenario Cards are cases which illustrate the type of issues and dilemmas involved. Each player is given a scenario to read out to the group. These might be some medical conditions for which across the counter genetic tests may be made available, offering tests for genetic susceptibility or carrier status. Or they might reveal dilemmas raised by advertising such tests on the Internet or about the insurance implications of having a genetic test.
The Policy Cards lay out four policy options on which players are asked to vote at the end of the session. These might be introduced by asking participants to imagine the relevant Government minister would arrive at the end of the game and would want to know which of these policy options they would choose.
| Policy 1 | Policy 2 | Policy 3 | Policy 4 | |
| Support | xx | xxxx | xxx | |
| Acceptable (I can live with this) | xxx | xx | xx | x |
| Not Acceptable | x | x | xxx | xxxxx |
| Abstain. | xx | x | xx |
It is possible to create new policy options, if the group feels it can suggest a better alternative to the four that are proposed. There is then also an opportunity to discuss what practical advice the group would make on how a given policy might be implemented. This would be written on blank cards.
In the case of the GM Food version of DEMOCS, the output is not a policy vote but a 15 question preference questionnaire prepared by the Government, giving agreement/disagreement about a range of GM issues.
The matrix, the heading cards of the clusters, the feedback forms and any new cards are then sent back to the game's creators or the organiser of the consultation for assessment. If it is part of a formal process over a specific issue, in which many games are being played, there will be a central co-ordination of the responses and a means of feeding these formally to the government or other body who has asked for the public's views. For example, the Human Genetics Commission asked for a series of trial DEMOCS sessions be held, as a pilot scheme, as part of a public consultation on across the counter genetic testing kits.
It is felt important that the participants know what has happened to their efforts. At the end of the pilot phase of the DEMOCS project, we are considering not only the best ways to feed on the information from the different game to the relevant body, but also how to feed back to the participants and engage them in how the issue develops. The website could play a significant part in this. There may be follow up material around which the participants could meet again to find out what had happened, and to pass back any comments in the light of their experience. It is hoped that groups might be prepared to consider doing DEMOCS sessions on other issues in future. The aim is to have built up a clientele of people prepared to engage in discussing these issues that substantial numbers of citizens would be able to make their considered views known on matters of local and national significance, without having to "belong" to something, or make big time commitments.
It has also been a fast learning process for the organisers. As it has been developed, many different ways have been tried out. We have a prototype ready for the road, but we can envisage a lot of scope for improvement as we learn more. It is still work in progress. It is less a card game and more a method of discussion which uses cards. We have tried to make it more like a real game, where certain activities have to be done on order for players to reach a special destination, but thus far this has not seemed to be necessary. Kits have been developed around stem cells, genetic testing and xenotransplantation, and others are envisaged. It would well apply to local planning issues like the siting of waste disposal facilities or wind farms, mobile phone masts, as well as broader national issues like GM crops, or nuclear power.
The informality of the approach is appealing, compared with the more organised event-based methods of consensus conferences and citizens juries. The fact that it can be done anywhere by anyone, without expert organisation means that it has the potential to overcome the primary disadvantage of facilitator-led focus groups. Playing DEMOCS games could play a substantial role in future in democratic participation in controversial technologies.
[2] Bruce, D. M. (2002) A Social Contract for Biotechnology - Shared Visions for Risky Technologies?
J. Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol.15, pp.279-289
[3] House of Lords (2000), Science and Society, Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, London: HMSO.
[4] Human Genetics Advisory Commission and Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (1998), Cloning Issues in Reproduction, Science and Medicine, Human Genetics Advisory Commission, London.
[5] source reference for DEMOCS
Page created 17 June 2003
