Stephen Hilgartner: ELSI is under fire even as importance grows

Hilgartner

By Roger Segelken and David Brand

Government and university programs for the study of the ethical, legal and social implications of science-and-technology policy, known as ELSI, "have been highly controversial and attacked from all possible directions" ever since they were first suggested as an adjunct to the Human Genome Project 14 years ago, according to sociologist Stephen Hilgartner, a Cornell associate professor of science and technology studies.

The programs grew out of widespread social concerns about technology. The question now being asked by ELSI practitioners, said Hilgartner, is whether or not ELSI is the right model for integrating social research into scientific research programs.

Hilgartner outlined the long history of criticisms of ELSI in a Feb. 17 session, "Science and Technology Policy and Its Publics; Challenges for Democracy," at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver. He was among the earliest practitioners of ELSI as well as an analyst of what he calls the "ELSI model" for public-policy studies. Today he is chair of Cornell's universitywide ELSI program associated with the New Life Sciences Initiative.

Criticism from within the scientific establishment can be especially harsh, Hilgartner noted.

"I hear some scientists say the small allocation to ELSI studies is a political tax on their work," he said. "And a few social scientists who could be making important contributions regard the ELSI funding as dirty money they can't take because that would make them part of an enterprise they oppose." Critics, he said, view the programs as a waste of resources, while others say they are irrelevant and some declare that they inflate public concern about research projects.

The criticism of ELSI programs is only one source of the tension surrounding the programs, Hilgartner said. Another is the different models suggested for "how the programs should be connected to social programs and responses."

He listed four models: the research-grant model; the contract model; a place where scientists and sociologists can work together; and a program akin to policy-making intended to make recommendations to the government.

But there is no doubt, said Hilgartner, that ELSI's role in the life sciences is essential because "this is a place where new ethical issues will continue to arise -- where public concern for our ever-increasing ability to modify living organisms and to conduct testing and surveillance will intensify before it subsides. This is a powerful science that is only going to grow and touch more people."

He noted, "Now is a perfect time to ask what we have learned, what the limits are for ELSI and whether there are better ways of applying this valuable perspective to informed decision-making."

Fifty years from now, he observed, "we may look back at the ELSI model and say it was naïve, it was underfunded or it didn't study the right problems. I don't think many people will say ELSI was about nothing. More likely, the criticism will be that ELSI was not enough."