Who Is Listening? When Scholars Think They Are Talking to Congress

• Date: 01 January 2015
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Author: Kenneth Prewitt
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214552053
• Subject Matter: Section III: Issues of Implementation

ANNALS, AAPSS, 657, January 2015 265

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214552053

Who Is

Listening?

When Scholars

Think They Are

Talking to

Congress

By

KENNETH PREWITT

552053ANN The Annals of the American AcademyWho is Listening?

research-article2014

The editors asked for my view on whether, in the cur-

rent political climate, the recommendations in this

volume of The ANNALS are likely to be heeded. The

question that precedes this one is whether the volume’s

contributors understand why policy-makers make use

of science at all. “No” is the obvious answer, though I

see this not as a failure particular to their effort but

rather as a broader failure of social science. Getting the

science right is a necessary but not sufficient step in

getting it used. Social scientists have not investigated

the use of science in policy in a serious way. They must

if science is to have influence in the public sphere. I

also comment on the political climate, unhelpfully

described by many worried observers as antiscience. It

is more informative to say that there is a Congress-led

effort to push science policy and federal expenditures

toward short-term and narrow national goals. This is

harmful to science and consequently to the nation, and

scientists should explain why. But they must also

respect that science policy and setting priorities for

spending public funds are congressional responsibili-

ties.

Keywords: science policy; statistical system; public

policy; social mobility

What do we need to know about inequality

and social mobility? This is precisely the

question that is so thoroughly and intelligently

answered in the foregoing articles. Not

addressed, however, is whether the answer will

lead to the changes urged in some of these arti-

cles—in what the government measures and in

policy uses of the results. The editors asked me

to consider if the agencies and legislators that

we think should heed the recommendations

Kenneth Prewitt, now at Columbia University, directed

the U.S. Census Bureau from 1998 to 2000. He has

written extensively on the federal statistical system,

chaired the National Academy of Sciences’ committee

that produced Using Science as Evidence in Public

Policy, and currently chairs the advisory committee to

the National Research Council’s Division of Behavioral

and Social Sciences and Education.