GMOs, shale gas, nuclear energy, climate change, stem cell research, drug efficacy: there is a long list of issues on which scientists have ceased to have a clear voice in our societies. First and foremost, there are uncertainties and controversies within the scientific field itself in a number of areas. But also, in a more problematic and much broader sense, because the notion of expertise tends more and more to be socially disqualified and to be understood only in relation to the undifferentiated field of opinion. The structural indeterminacy introduced by extensive interpretations of the notion of precaution also plays its part in this situation, since it amounts to placing any technical decision in a regime of unsurpassable uncertainty. The fact that the idea of authority is weakened in a democratic world based on the principle of the obligation to explain and the equality of votes also plays its part.
Today, there is nothing more urgent than to get out of this deadlocked situation in which the certainties of some and the relativism of others face each other. On the one hand, we need to bring science into democracy; on the other, we need to raise awareness of the structures and rules of the world of science, as the only way to restore its image in the public mind. The symposium will analyze these problems and clarify the issues at stake.
