Science and environmental policy—making them compatible

D uring the Second World War and the initial postwar years, the physical sciences were the most influential of the sciences in shaping public policy in the United States. In the last 40 years, however, the biological sciences have come to surpass the physical sciences in influencing public policy. Rachel Carson's landmark book, Silent Spring, and mounting public concerns over the quality of the environment have promoted an increasing reliance on the biological sciences to uncover and solve environmental problems. Indeed, most of these problems were uncovered through the research of biologists. Solutions, however, have not been forthcoming , have confused the public, or have for various reasons been ig-If the biological sciences are seen as incapable of solving problems, they will lose public and political support. Moreover, if biologists are unable or unwilling to attempt to integrate their science into the political process, nonscientific criteria will inevitably prevail in the making of environmental policy (Herrick and Jamieson 1995). At the extreme, it is conceivable that society would turn exclusively to the legal or regulatory arena to provide solutions to environmental problems. If the biological sciences are to continue enjoying the support of the public and politicians alike, biologists must attempt to understand the difficulties inherent in integrating science with public policy making. My goal in this article is to identify and discuss the most challenging barriers separating science (in particular , ecology and related biological sciences) and public policy. I begin by presenting a brief historical context, one that spans the last 40 years, from which most existing federal environmental policy statutes arise. I then discuss the difficulties of integration. Finally, I conclude by proposing actions that ecologists and biologists can undertake to effectively integrate science with public policy. I developed these views based on experiences gained from a Congressional Science Fellowship that was coordinated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and cosponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), the Ecological Society of America (ESA), and the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB). The biological sciences have done an admirable job of discovering environmental problems. These discoveries are often made well before the public, or even the environmental community, becomes aware of them (see Pace and Groffman [1998] for case studies in ecosystem science). Over the last 40 years, such environmental problems as the bioconcen-tration of toxins in food chains, the causes and consequences …