A Dialogue, Not A Diatribe Effective Integration of Science and Policy through Joint Fact Finding

At a reception honoring his service as the chairman of the House Science Committee in November 2006, retiring Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) quipped that Washington “is a town where people say they are for science-based decisionmaking until the overwhelming scientific consensus leads to a politically inconvenient conclusion.”1 He added, “We should be guided by sound science. We shouldn’t have politics determining science.” While few in the scientific community or the public at large would disagree with this argument, a problem arises when parties involved in a dispute disagree on what science has found or on the very definition of “sound science.”