Cliff's Notes

From September, 1996 (Update #28)

I'm writing this shortly after watching Linford Christie get disqualified for his second false start in the finals of the 100-meter dash at the Olympics. During the ensuing drama one announcer repeatedly invoked the mantra "science has determined" that Christie (and another runner) jumped out of the blocks prior to the sound of the starting gun. Science has determined. This must be a comforting judgement to many who, like me, could not initially tell that Christie started too soon. The slow motion video showed that he got a head start on the other runners, but perhaps he was just quick. Then the comforting decision: "science has determined" that he could not have fairly started that fast. Scientific methods helped develop the technology used to measure the start of the race. But people determined, based on scientific measurements, what constituted a false start. It's a cop-out to say that science determined anything on that track in Atlanta. Scientists provided information; people decided what to do with it. As a scientist studying zebra mussels, this religious invocation of science as the ultimate arbiter bothers me. Scientists are repeatedly asked to make a host of judgements regarding zebra mussel impacts and control. These judgements usually come to public attention through media sources who, like the NBC announcer, invoke the mantra "science has determined." So why am I jumping so quickly from the starting blocks to attack this phrase? Science involves more than observation and measurement. It also includes analysis, deliberation and debate. This process takes time and is repeatedly shaped by human judgements. The body of scientific knowledge about zebra mussels has long passed the early stage of observation, but media reports don't seem to have matured. Science has helped us determine a lot of useful things about zebra mussels, some of which have been reported in the 28 issues of this newsletter. Some initial judgements were wrong, and many have been modified. I'm sure that surprises still remain. But the human judgements inherent in these determinations were just as important as the scientific observations. That's why Linford Christie tried to incite the crowd to overrule the scientific interpretation and let him run. And that's when the human drama became more interesting than the science.

ID: 199609-14.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.