Science in Dialogue

Contemporary society is confronted with complex issues—climate change, the increasingscarcity of raw materials and nutrients, and the aging population, among others. Scientists play an important role in identifying, analyzing, and finding solutions to such issues, and this role has changed significantly over the years. As shown in Section 2.8 of Chapter 2, scientists are not only asked to provide reliable knowledge that businesses and government agencies can apply but also increasingly requested to contribute to social issues through providing socially robust knowledge that benefits health care, the economic power of individual countries, or governmental sustainability policies. To develop socially robust knowledge, scientists are working more and more with other stakeholders in society such as local and national governments, businesses, non-governmental agencies (NGOs), experiential experts, or other members of the general public.
This chapter focuses on the changing role of science in tackling complex social issues. Two trends are discerned with respect to science in dialogue:(1) research into the ethical and social aspects of science and (2) public participation in science in which interaction between social parties or experience experts and scholars is central. Within the first trend, the term dialogue refers to the interdisciplinary collaboration between natural scientists, social scientists, and philosophers in opening up the social practice of science to society. Within the context of public participation, dialogue refers to the reciprocal nature of communication processes in which public stakeholders