This opinion piece by pollster Daniel Yankelovich in NAS Issues is remarkable for its complete lack of connection with current realities and trends. His subject is the 'science divide', a large and growing gap between scientists and the public.

Science has reached greater heights of sophistication and productivity, while the gap between science and public life has grown ever larger and more dangerous, to an extent that now poses a serious threat to our future. We need to understand the causes of the divide between science and society and to explore ways of narrowing the gap so that the voice of science can exert a more direct and constructive influence on the policy decisions that shape our future.

It seems odd to say but Yankelovich doesn't seem to be paying attention to social trends. I suspect this is a classic example of echo chamber group think, that Yankelovich lives in a small world of like-minded people and studiously ignores the rest of society.

Popularizations of science by charismatic and articulate scientists have been well represented among best selling books for quite a while. In many ways scientists and philosophers of science have assumed the role of public intellectuals as political, social and literary theorists have fallen into disrepute after their massive failures of past decades and subsequent dalliance with post modern fashionable nonsense. Public awareness of scientific issues and involvement with technology is greater than ever. Conversely, the political, social and literary class failed to keep up and falsely assumes that the public is as confused as they are.

The volume of scientific knowledge has grown exponentially. It is no longer possible to be a renaissance man in the original sense, to be a polymath having a working knowledge of all fields. Specialists often have very few peers, success is sometimes waggishly characterized as knowing a great deal about very little. But the large and growing group of science popularizers are doing a wonderful job of contextualizing and explaining the significance of their work to the public. When we see a working physicist with a multi-part PBS series explaining string theory to the unwashed it becomes quite clear that Yankelovich is out of touch.

I suspect Yankelovich's greatest failing is in not understanding the significance of complexity science. Much of his lament consists of longing for the good old days of 1950's style scientific politics and the brave new world of command societies.

There was a time, however, when scientists' voices were heard and heeded at the highest levels of policymaking. When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's James Killian served as President Eisenhower's science advisor in the 1950s, the two men forged a close and mutually respectful working relationship. This proved to be the pinnacle of science's influence in U.S. policymaking circles.

In many ways, Killian's advisory role to Ike resembled McGeorge Bundy's advisory role as John F. Kennedy's national security advisor and "options czar" more than it resembled that of any current presidential science advisors. Instead of offering a specialist's perspective, Bundy exercised his influence by controlling the process of framing and presenting policy options for presidential action.

These weren't the good old days, these were the bad old days of arrogance and ignorance I posted about in Mental Tools. That post deals with the belated comprehension of Donnela Meadows of the tragic mistakes of that time:

People who are raised in the industrial world and who get enthused about systems thinking are likely to make a terrible mistake. They are likely to assume that here, in systems analysis, in interconnection and complication, in the power of the computer, here at last, is the key to prediction and control. This mistake is likely because the mindset of the industrial world assumes that there is a key to prediction and control.

I assumed that at first too. We all assumed it, as eager systems students at the great institution called MIT. More or less innocently, enchanted by what we could see through our new lens, we did what many discoverers do. We exaggerated our own ability to change the world. We did so not with any intent to deceive others, but in the expression of our own expectations and hopes.
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But self-organizing, nonlinear, feedback systems are inherently unpredictable. They are not controllable. They are understandable only in the most general way. The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. The idea of making a complex system do just what you want it to do can be achieved only temporarily, at best. We can never fully understand our world, not in the way our reductionistic science has led us to expect. Our science itself, from quantum theory to the mathematics of chaos, leads us into irreducible uncertainty. For any objective other than the most trivial, we can't optimize; we don't even know what to optimize. We can't keep track of everything. We can't find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each other, or the institutions we create, if we try to do it from the role of omniscient conqueror.

Scientists learned these lessons well and are vigorously engaged in a project to serve a more useful role in society. They aren't decision makers, they now understand that they can't be decision makers. What they can do is play their part in helping society to govern itself. That role is to create knowledge and communicate with society. The cumulative effects of increased knowledge are subtle, pervasive and powerful. They have several new tools to assist them in the great and continuing project as society becomes ever more interconnected. People no longer need 'priests' to mediate their relationship with scientists and scientific knowledge, they can gain access to knowledge quickly and cheaply. Through their work and their hobbies they are exposed to ever more sophisticated concepts and tools.

What Yankelovich is really complaining about is that the public is no longer obedient, no longer in awe of scientific authorities and willing to march lockstep in indicated directions. The public is thinking for itself and there is turmoil reminiscent of the reformation when Gutenberg first made it possible for the public to read scripture for themselves. It meant trouble for Rome, a great good thing when viewed from this late date though it meant social division and even war at the time.

Free thinking societies seem chaotic to priggish observers. They are offended by the diversity and obvious futility of some parts of society. A more useful attitude is one of bemused and watchful tolerance, like watching a child at play, doing the serious work of learning. Childlike blunders are precursors of mature behavior when allowed to proceed to completion. Sick societies result from interrupting child play, like an over controlling parent, never allowing the child to learn and grow to maturity. Similarly, societies sicken when activists and demagogues stifle diversity, too impatient to wait for society to arrive at its chosen destination.

The flood of new knowledge that has accompanied our transition to an information society has created islands of unequal progress, lumps in the stew. This isn't something to be alarmed about, to try to correct. It is the normal and expected consequence of change. Short sighted attempts to quell the chaos, to control the flood, will prevent the long term maturity of society. The discomfort of priggish observers is the problem, not the exuberance of a newly empowered society that can google up answers for itself and listen to a profusion of new voices rather than the same few authorities that once dominated the public sphere.

It is important to remember Meadow's belated insight; "For any objective other than the most trivial, we can't optimize; we don't even know what to optimize." Human society is a natural system like any other. It should be respected as the greatest existing discovery machine and assisted to achieve its purposes rather than controlled to achieve the pale purposes of priggish observers. Learn to admire the muck and mystery, smile at the blunders as you marvel at the astonishing creations of the multitude. Accepting them as they are allows you to see their value.. and perhaps your own as well. You are a multitude too and only present as an integrated singleton to keep your secrets, your Whitmanesque multitudes, hidden.