Gary: on the contrary, I am rather confident that politicians, policy makers and high level decision makers do NOT base many policies on research evidence. It is rather the wallet that talks, and their own agendas. This is my experience from Swedish health care. As a health services researcher, I also feel that we may be focusing too much on trying to affect clinician behaviour, while we need to increase research on organisational and policy makers' behaviour. And we need to be much better at disseminating and implementing research findings to policy makers and political decision makers, in digested formats. To their defence, they can maybe not be expected to read and interpret primary research but need it "served on a platter". The whole idea of systematic reviews would be particularily important in this context, since I think a lot of individual studies get unwarranted attention and are used for specific purposes, hidden agendas, etc. Basing decisions on systematic reviews would decrease this bias and would help make some sense in areas where data are conflicting.

Frankly speaking, I know no politicians who use specialized literature - peer-review papers in prestigious journals - for their programs and speeches. Thus, in my own take, politicians are considerably ignorant vis-à-vis science - at large. The language and jargon, the attitudes and concepts of politics are solidly rooted in commonsense.

Yet, spearhead science is highly counterintuitive. I wish politicians could know (more) about science. The time for that. here or there, are no ripe enough.

In the U.S., while I think empirical science has a certain authority, scientific consensus is often not enough to move the country in particular policy directions (climate change is one example). This takes raising awareness and changing attitudes and beliefs in order to build the political will to do so. And even then, sometimes corporate and big money influences are too great to overcome. Unfortunately, too many academics and researchers do not prioritize moving science and findings into the public sphere, widely circulating their ideas and data in the commons, and literally marching their evidence to decision making bodies.

Dear Gary,

In Spain I do no think that politicians based their policies in scholarly research. In my area of research (migration) there are many evidences that polcies are driven more by immediate electoral interests than by the reading of available research.

In a perfect world, politicians would read what we social scientists write and then design informed policies but we do not live in a perfect world.

So, my answer is: this does not happen.

Somebody in Mexico's Secretariate of Public Education had the right idea in 2001, when a Spanish translation of Carl Sagan's book *The Demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark* was printed in a massive edition and distributed to hundreds of thousands of educators as a Teacher's Day gift. This important text, which argues that scientific thinking is a necessary ingredient for democracy and modern civilization, should also be placed in the hands of all politicians and their policy-making staff. Perhaps an international network of grassroots organizations could accomplish this and shine a much-needed light on world politics!

How can politicians refer to a scientific article or journal accepting (1) that they did not have a science-based formation after high-school enabling them to select a relevant publication, and (2) observing that science specialists themselves often do not agree.....

I noticed in France that at least some politicians use scientific arguments (and publications?) to justify decisions, like decisions involving the protection of bees suffering from pesticides, laws that prevent use of genetically modified organisms in free-ranging conditions or laws that should fight climate change at a longer-term basis. There have been meetings at political levels that accept that environmental protection is important, but is this because the scientists convinced them or is it because the politicians observed themselves the consequences of flooding and extreme weather conditions causing damage ?

For other politicians, decisions might be mainly socially religion-based accepting that some higher force will protect them and the population to which they belong (God bless America, God bless the Queen).

In Brazil they do not use, and still have a huge distrust of political scientists.

There is an emerging literature on the role of expertise in government, particularly with respect to the census and poverty knowledge. Several graduate students at Brown University are doing this kind of work , e.g., Trina Vithayathil, who works on the Indian census, Michael Rodriguez-Muniz, who work on the use of demographic knowledge in understanding Latino constituents, and perhaps most relevant, Diana Graizbord, who works on knowledge production in the Mexican government. A published work in this vein is Louise Walker's Waking from a Dream (Stanford 2013). This is a critical literature, though, which argues that all such knowledge, however seemingly objective, is still very much politicized.

What is needed is for politicians and their work groups (together with the rest of humanity) to be able to think critically, not acritically accepting the findings of so-called "scientific studies." When large and well-organized segments of the world population possess these skills, the pressure will be on the "leaders" to base their decisions on evidence-based reasoning. Education at all levels is essential to building these foundations.

Not at all. Political establishments in Lithuania very rarely use scientific method for their purposes. Very often science goes its way and politics goes its way independently. And after that the politicians have courage to blame those especially from social sciences, that scientists do not have enough relation to practice. That they want to escape from practice.

Thanks for sharing all your interesting experiences. It seems to me that the scientific community must engage in politics more often. Above all the leaders of our society must be held accountable for their methods/policies. The alternative is a nation of followers and corrupt politicians whom use the system to entrench their unfounded opinions ( sounds familiar? ) .

In society that stands for “truth” a democratic political party that advocates a particular policy should use evidence based citations in the written policy document to justify their views.How that evidence is measured ( Lab experiment,historic evidence, psychology test,successful trial etc etc.) should be open and available to all individual voters to see.

Ultimately the principle of democracy is based on attaining freedom from those whom would dictate and force their views on society. Maybe that's why many people/politicians don't accept the most probable scientific evidence when it doesn’t suit their opinion . They feel science is another form of dictatorship telling them that this is how they must think rather than what they “choose” to think. However I'd argue that “truth” in the context of reality isn't a choice. As a individual your either more right,more wrong or equally positioned depending on what your views are founded on.As a example of my point. A person whom goes by the name of 'White' spins a coin,on a flat surface, and asks Mr purple and Miss orange to predict the side that faces up,”heads or tails” . If they both disagree and one says Heads whilst the other says tails ,the odds are certain ( atomic physics aside and the minute chance that the coin remains on it's edge) that one person is going to be right whilst the other is going to be wrong.

 We don't use the spin of a coin (well usually) to form policies in which direction to take. Because we do have a certain amount of rationality in our politics and we understand that the decision can not be based on a 50/50 chance either way.Thus we can concede that our actions,though founded on chance events (thus fundamentally we have no choice) can be directed by understanding the laws that govern the spinning coin. By using science to understand how and why the coin spins we can find the truth.

 My point being is that why do we contend with the politics of chance?. Collectively we know enough about the spin of the coin to not let chance rule our decisions, yet we have people in positions of political power whom advocate chance based beliefs.I suppose the key is to spread the knowledge that scientific evidence can provide cultural and personal security.

Two common and polarising points of view;

A;Is it better to live a life of ignorance, truly believing that eventually you will go to heaven/paradise and be with whomever or whatever you love, if you obey some pre-ordained rules.(and blow up a few non believers if chance totally ruins your sense of humane self )

continued~

B;Or accept the over whelming evidence that we are simply part of the natural system and, as all living organisms, we will all one day die and what was "I" will end as our brain stops functioning.

The psychological difference ,as I see it, from the two "beliefs" above ,is in believing 'A' you are believing what you want to believe ( in society’s that "allow" freedom of belief that is).

Whilst in accepting 'B' you have figured out that belief is merely a thought in your individual brain .And for those thoughts to be merely more than fantasy or opinion they must be attuned to a method that tests what is most probably real.

In a way,reality is fundamentally an external event to ourselves and as individuals we have difficulty comprehending it .( A relatively minuscule brain can not fully comprehend the vastness of timing and space(correction;thus far their is no evidence also to suggest that a brain can not comprehend space timing). As individuals our brains are very busy doing what they evolved to do,that being keep the body alive. As such there are many biological / psychological barriers to remove in order that we may glimpse the reality that we do all share.

Science is the only method I know of that can get closer to this objective reality. As Carl Sagan said "Science as a candle in the dark" .

Isn't it time we focused our light more on the political sphere?. Or should we leave it all to chance and hope that rationality wins out in the end?.

Only this methody, no!