公众科学的困境与超越——以福岛核危机为例

The Plight and Transcendence of Citizen Science——Take the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis as an Example

“大科学”时代到来之后,科学研究工作受外界因素影响增大,科研成果的客观性受到怀疑,与科学相关的公共政策也遭遇了合理性危机。为了监督科技精英,20世纪70年代以来在发达工业国兴起了倡导公众参与知识生产和政策讨论的公众科学运动,但该运动存在公众难以构建假说、公众科研水平低下、公众难以保持客观公正态度等三重困境。2011年日本福岛核泄漏后,日本政府的福岛核危机应对措施受到了国内民众的广泛诟病,公众科学在此之后开始蓬勃发展,但仍然不免遭遇公众科学的常见困境。公众科学因为专业性不足而得不到职业科学家的认可,其研究的客观性也值得怀疑,难以形成实质性的监督。欲超越公众科学当前的困境,需要政府超越新自由主义的意识形态困境,否则各利益相关团体会陷入科学的相对主义之争,在利益博弈中扭曲科学的客观性和中立性,公众科学也只能沦为社会的情绪发泄渠道。

After the arrival of the"big science"era,scientific research has been more affected by external factors,the objectivity of scientific research results has been questioned,and science-related public policies have also encountered a crisis of rationality.In order to supervise scientific and technological elites,citizen science movement has emerged in developed industrial countries to advocate public participation in knowledge production and policy discussions since the 1970s.However,the movement still has a triple dilemma,such as the difficulty in constructing hypotheses,the low level of scientific research,and the difficulty in maintaining an objective and fair attitude.After the Fukushima nuclear leak in Japan in 2011,the Japanese government's response to it was widely criticized by the domestic people.After that,citizen science movement began to flourish,but it also encountered the common dilemma of citizen science.Citizen science is not recognized by professional scientists because of its lack of professionalism.And the objectivity of its research is also questionable,thus it is difficult to form substantive supervision.To transcend the current predicament of citizen science,the government needs to transcend the ideological predicament of neoliberalism.Otherwise,various stakeholder groups will fall into the dispute of scientific relativism,distorting the objectivity and neutrality of science in the game of interest,and citizen science can only be reduced to a channel for social emotions to vent.