The endocrine disruptor hypothesis: Scientists, values, and agenda-setting in American environmental policy-making

By way of a long-standing social agreement between science and society, government funds environmental research efforts thereby instituting a continued role for science in the 'objective' discovery of environmental problems. As a result of these investments, our understanding of environmental problems has improved dramatically over the last twenty-five years. In principle, this knowledge ought to translate into better environmental policies. Yet much of the literature on the role of science in environmental policymaking concludes that advances in scientific knowledge are irrelevant to political contests. Most researchers find that our environmental policies reflect dominant values and political clout, not science.; The question of the role that values play on scientific production has not been not fully explored. It is therefore important for students of environmental policy to evaluate effects of social arrangements, such as soft-funding, on scientific activity. This project is designed to assess possible influences that economic considerations, as well as particular values and beliefs held by research scientists, may have on the formation and formulation of policy problems related to the regulation of toxic substances, particularly endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC).; It examines the relation of science and policy by surveying over one hundred research scientists over a two-month time frame. This survey directly assesses the importance of retaining and securing funding on their choice to get involved in research activities related to endocrine disrupting substances in the environment. The survey finds that new funding opportunities played a very important role in this group's decision to choose research problems. It also explores particular value orientations and perceptions held by scientists about the separation of science and policy, objectivity, speaking to the media about uncertain environmental issues, the role of society in contributing to scientific progress, as well as the role of science in policy making. It is suggested that these values may affect the reasons scientific studies are conducted for use in the policy process, particularly in setting the policy agenda, thereby limiting the vision of EDC's as a scientific and policy problem.