1.1 Introduction and When Is Science Relevant
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When is science relevant? The many uses of a scientific approach.
The Lesson in Context
As the first topic of the course, this lesson sets the tone by teaching the importance of science in society and political decision making. Specifically, societal decision making in a well-functioning democratic society incorporates factual knowledge offered by scientific expertise with values judgments made by the wider public. We provoke a discussion on democracy vs. epistocracy and allude to processes for incorporating facts and values that will be taught near the end of the semester.
- Denver Bullet Study method incorporates facts and values by splitting the decision making process into two parts. Factual evaluation is done by relevant experts, while the prioritizing of values is done independently by the general public.
- Deliberative polling incorporates facts and values by providing a neutral and factual briefing document as well as opinions by relevant experts, while letting participants from the general public deliberate with each other in groups.
Takeaways
After this lesson, students should
- Recognize the need to distinguish facts from values in political and everyday decision-making.
- Realize that social and behavioral aspects of the world can be approached scientifically and, therefore, have relevant experts.
- Understand that scientific expertise has utility for political decision-making.
Sometimes people think political decision-making is entirely a matter of values and opinions. However, an evidence-based scientific understanding can inform us about which policies are likely to have which outcomes. Sometimes politicians disagree not only about values, but also about facts. Scientific expertise, when the system is working effectively, can help arbitrate some of these disputes over fact, though not those over value.
Facts
Values
Students tend to be familiar with the distinction between facts and values. The commonest misconception is the idea that there are no facts about values. A result from a survey about values can be a matter of fact, even if its interpretation is likely to be influenced by value. A simpler example: A person's love of ice cream may be a value they have, but that they love ice cream is a fact about them.
Democracy
Epistocracy
Claim of Value
- "Ice cream is delicious!" is a claim of value.
Claim of Fact About a Value
- "I love ice cream." is a claim of fact about a value.
Political Disagreement
- Many politicians disagree not only on values and opinions, but also about facts. Scientific expertise (when the system is working effectively) can help arbitrate some of these disputes over fact, though not those over value.
Useful Resources
Recommended Outline
During Class
| 10 Minutes | Go over the structure of the course. |
| 20 Minutes | Have a discussion on the sort of world the students would like to see. |
| 5 Minutes | Give a brief topic overview. |
| 45 Minutes | Have a discussion of democracy vs. epistocracy. |
After Class
Collect the posters from the students' utopia discussion. We'll bring them back in the last lesson of the course.
Lesson Content
Course Structure
Warning
This section has content that's mainly relevant to UC Berkeley. You'll want to tweak the weekly structure and grading presentations to match your syllabus.
This is a quick overview of the class' structure. Everything said here is also in the syllabus, so this shouldn't take too long. Ideally, the students will have already seen the video for this lesson. But, they might not have. You can inform them of this and that they have until Thursday to watch the videos for this week if they haven't done so already.
This is also a good time to emphasize the experimental nature of this course. Students should be reassured that, although there's a lot of class time and a complex structure, there is not much work outside of class. There will be many opportunities for questions and review, and most students who attend regularly and pay attention do well in this class. Emphasize participation as an essential part of learning this content and the importance of the class community, even when it's online. And make sure to leave some time for questions!
Weekly Structure
There are two main topics per week.
| Tuesday | Graduate student run discussion on topic 1 |
|---|---|
| Wednesday | Office hours with all the professors (optional) |
| Thursday | Graduate student run discussion on topic 2 |
| Friday | Plenary session with the professors on both topics |
There are lecture videos on each topic. The students should watch them before the relevant discussion section.
Grading Breakdown
| Project 1 | 12% |
|---|---|
| Project 2 | 15% |
| Final Exam | 19% |
| Quizzes | 20% |
| Participation (attendance in discussion and plenary) | 18% |
| Pre-class Preparation (lecture videos) | 16% |
Discussion of Utopia
This is a brief discussion getting students starting to think about how society is and how it might be better. You can tease the students about their utopian thinking. (Can they imagine something even better? Conversely, is it realistic?)
This activity should take around 20 minutes.
Students tend to enjoy this topic and it isn't heavily discussed in the lecture video. Feel free to take an extra five or so minutes from the later democracy/epistocracy discussion to go into more detail on utopia if your students are enjoying it.
Instructions
- Have the students work in small groups of about five people each. Hand each group a large sheet of poster paper as well as a set of markers.
- Give the students a chance to do some ice breakers and instruct them to write down or draw their answers to the following discussion questions on their sheets. What they put down doesn't need to be well thought out or amazing. They can just put whatever pops into their heads.
- Group the class together and let the students briefly share some highlights from their posters.
- Collect all the posters. We'll hold onto them. Let the students know that you'll be bringing these posters back at the end of the term to see if anything's changed in their thinking over the course of the semester.
Collect the posters at the end of class. The students will do a more involved version of this activity at the end of the semester and see how their thinking has developed.
Discussion Questions
Ice Breaker
Name, major, one interesting thing you learned or experienced recently.
Future World Question 1
Imagine the world you would love to see us reach 50 years from now. In what ways would it look different from the present?
Students should answer this on the front side of their posters.
Future World Question 2
To achieve your ideal world, is what's needed primarily a change in knowledge or a change in values, or both? How should we go about making those changes? What are the biggest obstacles/challenges to achieving that better world?
Brief Topic Overview
The purpose of this activity is to review the basic ideas of facts vs. values and democracy vs. epistocracy, in order to set them up for a productive discussion in later activities.
We won't typically spend much labscussion time on review. An exception is made in this case since it's the first section and it's likely that not all the students have seen the lecture video.
Instructions
| 2 Minutes | Review the definitions for claims of fact as well as claims of value and give a few examples. Note to the students that there can be claims of fact about values. |
| 3 Minutes | Review the definitions of democracy and epistocracy. |
The distinction between fact and value is usually very straightforward. Claim of fact: All sheep are black. Claim of value: It is more important to safeguard public health at the expense of the economy. Claim of fact about values: Saul's favorite ice-cream flavour is chocolate. Tricky: Fox News is a propaganda outlet. (How one chooses to define "propaganda" involves values judgment.)
No need to go into detail about how democracy and epistocracy are manifested in practice, we'll have students discuss that in the next activity.
Discussion of Democracy vs. Epistocracy
The purpose of this activity is to really get the students thinking about the roles science does and not play in decision making. We give some recommended points to try and bring up. But, this discussion should be open ended so as to facilitate discussions and questions that can be carried over to plenary.
Instructions
| 3 Minutes | Quickly poll the students about whether they'd prefer to live in a democracy or epistocracy. |
| 10 Minutes | Have the students talk through the first round of discussion questions in small groups. |
| 20 Minutes | Bring the class back and talk through similar discussion questions as a class. |
| 12 Minutes | Have the students go back into small groups for another round of discussion questions. |
Quick Poll
Off the top of your head, which would you prefer to live in?
- A democracy (government by the people)
- An epistocracy/technocracy (government by experts)
First Small Group Discussion
- Choose a group for the first two weeks. Make sure your group has a spokesperson (someone who will share with the main group).
- Why did you give the answer you did (better to live in a pure democracy or a pure epistocracy)? What are the benefits of your choice? What are the costs/limitations?
- In what ways is the current U.S. political system epistocratic and in what ways democratic? What aspects have been successful? What are limitations/problems/failures of our system? In what ways is the U.S. governed by people who are neither representative nor experts?
- (Optional) What about other countries you're familiar with?
Whole Class Discussion
- Why did you give the answer you did (better to live in a pure democracy or a pure epistocracy)?
- What are the benefits of your choice? What are the costs/limitations?
Challenges of Democracy
What if people are misinformed? How are minorities protected from the potentially oppressive will of the majority? What of people who don't have a vote such as foreigners and children?
Challenges of Epistocracy
How do we decide who the experts are? How do we decide what they should be experts about? What's to prevent the experts from having systematically different interests from the majority and imposing those interests on them?
- In what ways is the current U.S. political system epistocratic and in what ways democratic?
Democracy in Current U.S. System
It is a representative democracy with unequal representation due to gerrymandering and the Senate, which gives more power to sparsely populated states than they have people. Representation also decreases the extent to which the US is a pure democracy, insofar as representatives are guided by interests beyond those of their constituents such as funding to get re-elected.
Epistocracy in Current U.S. System
Politicians are partly guided by experts, including scientific consultants and public servants with accumulated expertise on political matters such as those in the State Department and CIA. Many decisions are delegated to other federal agencies like the FDA and CDC.
- What aspects have been successful? What are limitations/problems/failures of our system?
- In what ways is the U.S. governed by people who are neither representative nor experts?
Neither Epistocracy nor Democracy in Current U.S. System
In some respects the U.S. is an oligocracy/plutocracy, with a few unelected non-experts and companies with lots of money having way more power than most other citizens through lobbying and funding political campaigns. This is especially true since the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which ruled in 2010 that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections.
- (Optional) What about other countries you're familiar with?
Second Small Group Discussion
Return students to small groups to discuss the following questions: If you were to create a government from scratch, to what extent and in what ways would it be epistocratic and democratic?
Students are welcome to answer this on the back side of their posters.
- How would your system come to a decision on a new healthcare plan?
- How would you deal with disagreement about facts? How would you deal with disagreement about values? Why are they different?
- How might your system go awry? How would you go about minimizing such problems?
- How different is your system of government from the one we have? How could we get there from where we are now?
- How can expertise on psychology, decision-making, and society help us make better decisions as a society?