{"id":291571,"date":"2015-03-20T18:19:11","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T22:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/2015\/03\/on-the-limits-of-evidence-for-policy\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:18:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:18:27","slug":"on-the-limits-of-evidence-for-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2015\/03\/on-the-limits-of-evidence-for-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"On the limits of evidence for policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long ago and far away I took a course in philosophy of the social sciences.\u00a0 Surprisingly, this philosophy course involved a field trip and a very peculiar one indeed.\u00a0 On campus there was a small office in a bit of commercial space that housed, if memory serves, an office of Technocracy Inc<\/a>.\u00a0 The organisation was committed to advancing the cause of a rational and scientific approach to life in general and government in particular.<\/p>\n

Flash forward to today. Like you, I repeatedly encounter variations on this desire for a scientific approach to government. Generally speaking, the idea is to select among candidate policies or programs in a rational manner using the scientific method.\u00a0 Sometimes this view goes by the name of evidence-based policy making.<\/p>\n

In response, my first inclination is to discount if not dismiss the argument by simply asserting that in real life things are not so simple and grumble about the hubris of scientists.<\/p>\n

But the desire for a rational approach to policy making seems to never go away. It remains powerfully seductive, at least at first glance. Therefore, it is not enough to ignore the argument. A more fulsome response is required.\u00a0 There are any number of possible objections. Fore example, much has been written on whether policy making is rational. Many have argued that it is not rational and indeed cannot be so.\u00a0 In fact, I have argued<\/a>, as have many others<\/a>, that policy making should not<\/em> be reduced to rational problem solving.<\/p>\n

But for the moment I want to focus on one aspect of the argument for a more rational or scientific approach to policy making.\u00a0 To reduce policy making to problem solving assumes that we can agree on the nature of the problem and on the desired outcome.\u00a0 Let us consider each of these claims in turn.<\/p>\n

Before there can be a policy choice there has to be agreement that there is a problem to be solved or at least one that government can do something about.\u00a0 In effect then, the art of governing is to choose<\/a> the problems that will be addressed and which are to be more or less ignored.\u00a0 However, among the many challenges of governing is the simple fact that we do not always agree on the nature of the problem.\u00a0 I observe that Canadians eat too much salt, which causes widespread high blood pressure.\u00a0 Others say that there is no scientific consensus on the matter and scoff at the idea<\/a> that there is a problem to be solved.\u00a0 In effect, fighting over how to define the problem and the science underlying problems<\/a> is often a big part of the policy process \u2013 witness the debates about climate change or drug addiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Assuming we can agree on the nature of the problem (or at least most of us can, at least for a time) a rational policy process would see us choose the option that is most likely to achieve desired outcomes.\u00a0 However, we are confronted by the reality that we are unlikely to agree on what is desirable.\u00a0 Policymaking is never only about solving a problem.\u00a0 It is addressing a problem in a way that is acceptable to at least some citizens some or most of the time.\u00a0 It is making decisions that advance a broader overall agenda if not a broader philosophy. It is addressing public concerns in a politically prudential way<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To return to the case of attempting to reduce dietary sodium, we have no way of demonstrating unequivocally whether what is required is social marketing, industry self-regulation, or government regulation of the food industry.\u00a0 And even if it could be shown that government regulation is the optimal way to reduce the amount of salt in our diet, small-c conservative governments are unlikely to want to do so<\/a> on broadly philosophical grounds.\u00a0\u00a0 Government regulation of food raises concerns about undue government influence<\/a> in the lives of citizens.\u00a0 The latter objection cannot be resolved with reference to science alone.\u00a0 It is a normative claim and requires a different kind of reasoning altogether.<\/p>\n

In effect, most of the truly interesting and non-trivial policy issues do not lend themselves to rational decision-making.\u00a0 Why? Either because we cannot agree on the proper definition of the problem or folks strategically use scientific disagreement to defend inaction<\/a>. More fundamentally, evidence-based policy making is a bit of a mirage because to make policy requires politicians and those who decide in their name to resolve disagreements over values. Such disagreements, as Hume reminded long ago, cannot be resolved with reference to science alone.<\/p>\n

\n

This is an updated version of a short commentary initially prepared for the newsletter of the University of Ottawa Institute for Science, Society and Policy<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long ago and far away I took a course in philosophy of the social sciences.\u00a0 Surprisingly, this philosophy course involved a field trip and a very peculiar one indeed.\u00a0 On campus there was a small office in a bit of commercial space that housed, if memory serves, an office of Technocracy Inc.\u00a0 The organisation was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":290936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-291571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn the limits of evidence for policy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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