There is always a tug-of-war between truth and expedience. Scientific truths can be inconvenient for politicians and economists. There is however an avenue in all of this to advocate scientific findings and bring it closer into focus for policy-makers through some sort of "pragmatic theory of truth" approach.

http://thewire.in/2015/12/16/ten-inconvenient-truths-about-the-paris-climate-accord-17398/

Article Using political science to progress public health nutrition:...

Some are seriously considering them through official science expertise, and some will not tell you depending on the media through which they reach publications and expert advice, e.g. via blogs, research networks. 

@Artur: I appreciate Stiglitz and often quote him - but what did Clinton took from him? What did Clinton leave to the world by the way? Peace in the Middle East?

Same is true for any science. Scientific results are one thing and to shape the political progress is another. And takes time. See vaccine politics. And mostly, there are different views even among scientists - e.g. energy politics: some favour nuclear, some favour renewables to reduce CO2. In economics and social sciences there is even more room for different viewpoints. 

Mr. Alexander Dill,

Findings in Social Science are for the archives. They are best for politicizing  Mind you politics is derogatory to socialization and sociology reason being politics is hypocrisy. There is no gain unless the findings of social science are politicized. Is not the war on terror the worst form of hypocrisy? If yes then why should it continue?

 It should continue Mr. Alexander Dill because it supports the trillion dollar arms industry. No body will disagree with my hypothesis: Hate begets hatred and terror begets panic but terrorism cannot be annihilated. So warring to annihilate terrorism will only result in waste of resources, their impoverishment, and in terms of my Socio- Physicochemical theory the waste of resources and energy is all entropy.  Politics, the other name of hypocrisy can only increase entropy but the game must go on for that is the only means to sustain supremacy in arms, warfare and trade.

 So social science will remain academic, while politics i.e. its derogatory form (hypocrisy) will rule supreme.

Dr. Mirza Arshad Ali Beg

Former Director General PCSIR,

Karachi Pakistan

Author of : Democracy Displaced in Pakistan, Case History of Disasters of Social Pollution .. & ..

Social Pollution & Global Poor Governance, Analysis of Psyche of the Governing Hierarchy.

Scientists think long-term, but politicians mostly think short-term... unless institutions ensure that the long-term implications of political decisions are internalized by the politicians, they will never listen.

I do not agree with this thesis . In Nigeria under IBB ,OBJ &EGJ he made use of them extensively. Their performances depended on the world view of the appointee.

Dear Mirza, unfortunately you are right and I just noticed an impressing figure: the total  sales of weapons in 2014 was around $ 400 Billion. But how big was the damage created by these weapons in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Libya, Palestine, Lebanon, and other countries?

Only the boycott against Russia created losses on both sides of one trillion Dollar.

I think a total of 3 Trillion Dollar damage might be realistic. So weapons create opportunity costs nine time higher than their original value!

@Louis: Could you explain why governmental bombings and killings by drones are not counted as a part of terrorism?

@ Bilin: I wish I could think long-term only but I have to create revenues as well. And my customers are politicians. So there exists short-term science as well.

Youi may find the following study interesting:  http://impact.cgiar.org/measuring-benefits-policy-oriented-social-science-research-evidence-two-developing-countries

I would add that the Rockefeller Foundation's "RockyDoc" program (postgraduate fellowships for social scientists to gain additional experience through work with the CGIAR Centers)u has produced many of Africa's scientific, policy-making and donor leaders.  It is a program that has been under-studied for its impacts.  As is often the case, investment in people has made the difference.

Dear all,

You may think of social scientists , experts politicians and hypocrits, but the world affairs are not governed by any of them. They are governed by the NeoCons who borrow ideas from some of the several think tanks. So if you have brilliant ideas you may feed one or the other senator related member of a certain think tank, but that is at a cost. Since honesty is for the birds and hypocrisy rules supreme the exercise may prove futile and the brilliant proposals on scaling down the growth rate are shoved under the carpet while billions would be allocated for modeling adaptation to climate change.

Correct me if I am wrong but please do admit that we have no alternative for the get-rich-quickly and enjoy the richness syndrome.

Dr. Mirza Arshad Ali Beg

dear mirza...  good- thinking-writing , thank you

Dear Alexander,

if you want a more scientific perspective on this, I recommend looking into the vast literature on the science-policy nexus and knowledge utilization.

Good entries are the works of Carol Weiss, e.g. in the book "Social Science and Modern States" by Wagner et al. (https://goo.gl/bZOs9q), as well as a more recent update on the topic by Christina Boswell in her book "The political uses of expert knowledge" (https://goo.gl/lx2L5J), who offers a more neoinstitutionalist perspective.

Best, Basanta

 In my opinion, has both an academic and practitioner of long experience, I think the answer to the question is more complex and nuanced than the space here allows. I will just touch on a few points that I think should be considered.

First, most academics have no practical experience. As a result, many of the theoretical constructs appear incomplete practitioners. In public administration, this is referred to as the theory practice gap.

Second, political decision-makers and the public they serve want answers, clear and unambiguous solutions to social problems. We cannot provide them.

Third, even if we could provide a silver bullet, the political process requires compromise. Therefore, even if a perfect policy solution could be designed, it could never be implemented.

Fourth, society favor simple solutions, short timelines, and results that can be measured quickly and unambiguously. However, most public policies take many years, in some cases decades, to show results.

Fifth, much public policy is driven by emotion rather than sober reflection. Examples in the United States include Prohibition, and emotional response to the perceived evils of alcohol consumption. The only lasting result was the capitalization of organized criminal organizations and the corresponding expansion of their activities. The same effect can be observed in today's War on Drugs.

Sixth, as Simon pointed out in 1942, decision-making is a complex task and most people find it, to use his term, computationally intractable. As a result, we settle for something analogous to what is worked in the past, without any historical context or validation that the process actually did work in the past.

Seventh, most policymakers, urged on by emotional immediacy and handicapped by an almost complete lack of historical perspective, propose solutions that cannot be reasonably expected to work. For instance, Westerners who live in 'democratic'political systems that are the result of thousands of years of struggle characterized by war, ethnic violence, religious persecution, and all the other ills that we perceive around the world today, propose and try to implement policies to 'solve' these problems that assume Western liberal democracy can be created in societies to which it is alien by fiat. They have a naïve belief in the validity of 'nation states' that were created not as a result of these internal struggles but by colonial administrators. Many of these 'nations'make absolutely no sense in the local context and it is naïve to think that the protracted and often bloodly struggles that were needed to resolve these issues in the West will not occur in the societies. The biggest differences involve communications and advances in weaponry. The vivid images provoke the emotional response and the ahistorical assumptions drive the failures.

Alexander,  Well.  You do seem to have reaped a harvest of negativity! One which is entirely justified given the accuracy of the consensus assessment of the social, political and economic realities in which we all live and work.

It all begs the question "Is it possible to justify and undertake the effort required:

a) to examine what are the probable causes of globally endemic dysfunction of governmental processes when evaluated from the assumption that their purpose is to improve and develop the well-being of the 99% of their populations who daily experience significant deficiencies in this regard, and

b) to identify a reasonably cogent and acceptable vision of a 'system complex' that would be more likely able than the present one to create and follow a path of development and adaptation of itself which will be  significantly more 'fit for purpose' in attaining the goal that we have assumed to be that of the present one, and

c) to identify, design and execute those similar actions which might peaceably facilitate the development and implementation of necessarily diverse and locally relevant  transitional initiatives that can build to create the regional and global complexity and diversity that is required to deliver the assumed goal durably, resiliently and sustainably?"

My answer is "Yes it is!".  We tackle the big things because they are difficult, not because they are easy.  I am convinced from my own independent work, and discussions here in RG, that it is not only worthwhile to put in the effort but that it that it is also possible and that it will also be successful.  In the end.  That end may be judged to have occurred long after any of us have died. Certainly that is true for myself and a few others of us in this forum.  It may be true for all of us.  That does not make it any the less worthy to pursue.

Those of you who have any economic and institutional insight into the present from the behavioural and societal perspectives, and have an appreciation of the historical contexts that all peoples must consider when developing that, will accept that the present is always a result of the actions, thoughts and beliefs of the past.  This is the cultural and situational 'collimator' that influences everyone of us in developing our views, understandings and interpretations of our realities.  What we do and say in, what is now from the mainstream's point of view, 'The Heterodoxy' will create the vision that people in the future will be able to believe in and thereby implement.  Our 'Other Doctrines' will in turn become the mainstream.

The vision that the Classicists initiated and which people came to believe caused them to create a reality that is now firmly based in that belief system.  It was inherently one that envisioned that privately owned concentrations of wealth, selfishly accumulated and managed, will by unknown mechanisms, but which were and are dogmatically believed, cause every other person, in stable proportionality, to produce and consume more goods and services and that this plenitude, independently of the conditions under which it is produced, will be the necessary and sufficient condition for their perpetual well-being.

We now know that this belief system is baseless and that the proportions by which wealth and well-being was distributed then were not humane by the standards of today's populations of people.  We however left with institutions of society, governance, commerce, law, culture which have adapted to this belief system which is now incongruent with the moral sentiments of the massive majority of the world's populations.  The powers that might easily change this situation today are vested in those few individuals, relatively speaking, who are today's beneficiaries of a 'system complex' and belief system which was developed within and promoted by a similarly few individuals representative a small part of an earlier society whose great commercial wealth and power was concentrated even then amongst them and who had no expectation or desire for the proportionality of the situation to change.

That being so, we of the heterodoxy, are best advised to write down the elements of a new vision so that our people will not in the end die but will be strengthened by our work and have the courage to believe that they can re-shape our future accordingly.

Our tools must not always be seeking to understand an immutable 'status quo' so that we might get it to do less damage and more good.  That is where effort is wasted.  Our tools and skills should rather be imagining, building, testing, coordinating and integrating what, if built upon our firmly held moral sentiments, our world should like, what it will need to do so and to be then looking at what is actually happening through the lens of today's data sets but from the perspective of of an unfolding vision for the future so that the policy recommendations seek to move us towards that future rather than just seek to survive the contemporary crisis and chaos. 

The call by 'green industry' and industrially sponsored 'Forums for the Future' to stop worrying and let technological progress, that is coming soon from developments that are in our laboratories today, save us tomorrow will not do so unless it is in  institutional and societal frameworks that are supportive of the societal conditions and human goals that we expect of them.  We are THAT technology's' laboratories.  What is coming out of yours today?

Best Regards to all,

Robin

@Howard: Thank you, but you have to buy access to read this article. I built up a library with free articles now because you can't quote something that is not available to your readers at the same time. Open access is a condition to discuss.

@Basanta: You recommended an excerpt of a Google book from 1991 and another Google book from 2004 showing some excerpt pages.

To both of you: If expert knowledge appears in such a form you can exclude any political, societal and even scientific reception. So even in case there are relevant recommendations in these books this knowledge is hidden in archives.

So it would be of value to make your case or opinion here instead of recommending sources that none of us will and can consider in this discussion. It's the use and meaning of our discussion here to directly share our own experience and views.

It's our discussion here, not a discussion of absent scholars.

@ Robin: Thank you for your optimism and the "Yes, we can!".  I'm quite successful in contributing to paradigm change in politics by the way and the blockage of the innovation comes from my colleagues who would like to have the case investigated in another 5-years-project and then reviewed and tested and so on.

They say to the politicians: "We cannot advocate Mr. Dills projects as long they are not referred within the scientific community."

It's the normal business case in science to set up a successful 5-years-project.

But do you respond on current problems then?

E.G. if you have ideas and proposals to address conflicts and terrorism you cant't do that with a 5-years-project.

You have to offer something for RIGHT NOW!

You can't have methodological discussions for years on urgent subjects. 

Imagine the theories on debt and finance in the year 2007, one year before the "World Finance Crisis" - all for the wastebag.

And there were Nobel laureates and thousands of LSE, Oxford, Harvard, Yale 200k fellows involved.

Alexander,

I am somewhat gratified to know that you share my frustrations. 

An appreciation of the existence and power of systemic obstacles to the successful challenging of said system, from any direction, is important for every person who would hope to contribute to its actual improvement.  It is important for us to understand that it is the nature of human systems for them to be developed in response to extant threats so as to maximise their stability in the face of future known and unknown threats.

Systems theory also tells us that the consequence of complexity within a system is to that it tends towards greater stability and resilience....  complex systems tend to be 'strong' systems.  Thus the complexity of the problem that we face in trying to steer 'the system' of today towards helpful changes in its conceptual paradigm so that it may become more likely to ultimately endure is to be expected.  It is not cause for despondency but a time to 'dig in one's heels for the long haul'.

There are two scenarios which are already working in favour of those changes being realised:

1) As 'the system' has matured and power within it has become increasingly centralised through following the very path along which it has guided the nations and businesses of the world.  This centralisation increasingly attempts to simplify the system so that its operation can continue to be 'managed' in the interests of an increasing few.  This has to be done so that those few can continue to be assured of their control, assured that they can humanly conceptualise and recognise the sources and the occurrences of threats and be assured that they remain the principle beneficiaries of 'the system' and will, thereby, be able to retain the power to claim and exercise the control that is required.  But this 'sign of maturity' is also a sign of impending fragility and of its developing vulnerability to unperceived, unexpected and disregarded threats which simplification will bring.

2) "Systems of Power", just like powerful individuals, cannot endure in the long-run and also be effective unless they can claim 'legitimacy', and consequently also 'loyalty', in the minds of the majority of the people by whose daily actions the system is maintained and developed.  It follows that only systems which are overtly and demonstrably able to continue operating primarily and effectively in the interests of those people can have any chance of enduring indefinitely and so also of assuring, to the maximum extent possible, the indefinite success and survival of those people.

All information, which can be and is widely disseminated amongst those people, which is able to credibly caste doubt upon any system's legitimacy, will contribute to the weakening of the legitimacy and hence of the loyalty and active support enjoyed by such systems.  Etsko 'Ibrahim' Schuitema deals at length with these issues of legitimacy and loyalty, at the grass roots level of social anthropology as applied in the industrial and commercial context, in his book 'Beyond Management'.

We have now created an increasingly complex 'meta-system' of paths and tools whereby masses of information is daily shared across half the population of the world. A good part of this carries evidence, discussion, justifications and conclusion drawing on many topics and concerning many events and circumstances which, whenever threads within it are able to be drawn together and emphasised at appropriate moments, has been shown to be highly effective in challenging previously unquestioned assumptions of the legitimacy of many powerful societal, industrial and political institutions and individuals across the world.  Yet it is still in its infancy, when judged by how immensely powerful such 'meta-systems' could be imagined to become.  This is a 'genie' which no amount of dismemberment and attempts at control by fearful system interests of states and 'the few' can ever 'put back in the bottle'.

                                                -/-

The legitimacy of neoclassical philosophy has been challenged and it will be its demise.  The danger for everybody is that this demise which necessarily calls for a 'system' to replace it will create a vacuum, or even a 'flux', into which other self-avowedly  but still self-deluded 'systems' will step and succeed in gaining support and then power through similar methods of misinformation and authoritarian limitation of dissenting viewpoints as has been practised by all civilisations and their 'systems' to this very day.

This is a very real danger.  The community of thought and study out of which any globally credible alternative and enduring 'system' might be conceived and constructed, that is the community of which we are a part, is already to a large extent structured and controlled by the many such 'systemic' factors within the 'status quo' it would want to adapt and transform under an improved paradigm.

These factors enable this community to be 'used' and to be disregarded by those supportive and effective within the 'status quo'.  The criteria by which the community is used are in accord with the self-informed interests of those who seek to cause the present 'political economy' and its socio-political outlook to be maintained such that so too is the shape of social relationships and duties between ordinary individuals so that they themselves might be maintained as its 'self-perpetuating elite'.

I would hope that, from this growing understanding of the precious 'truths' coming into its possession, this community will begin to systematically bring together a credible and worthy body of knowledge and practical proposals in time to be the 'successor' that much of the world hopes for.

Robin

@Robin: Intellectuals had been corrupted by the government in old Greece yet and most of them serve to stabilize the power of the elites in their systems. Therefore they work at the universities and governmental research institutions. That's the way critical and innovative thinking in many disciplines - maybe less in natural sciences - is blocked from the beginning.

If scientists were a community by themselfes they wouldn't accept Researchgate mainly paid by Bill Gates. But they are isolated and career-minded.

You can't even mail to Researchgate or having any dialogue with them. No phone number. No e-Mail address. That's the way Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook work.

And influences us to being not political.

@Alexander: It sounds as though we are on the same page.  I spent a long time debating with myself after doing due diligence on RG and Academia.  I found the same as yourself.  That was only a few months or weeks ago.  If you get to read what I have said so far you will see that I fully understand, if that is possible, the ramifications of power when it is advised by the behavioural sciences.  Even my alma mata Uni of East Anglia, where I was fortunate to be taught in the early 1970's in 'Behavioural Science'-based econometrics, history, philosophy and computer science, that is now the cradle of the 'nudge' institute commissioned by the conservative government to devise ways of doing just that to the UK population in general to facilitate order and successful policy implementations...  Himmler reborn?

To be more academic...  the current paradigm is based upon a secular belief system that is neoclassical political economy dressed up as the 'saviour of mankind'.  the left is just a reactionary movement that still accepts, in effect, the same philosophical moral principles of the 18th century.  The only resolution that has any chance of being constructive is one that is built on a rational assessment of man that encompasses our basic irrationality, and upon what we have already learned about ourselves and the mistakes we can so easily make.  One that is also self-consciously capable of presenting that vision in a third way - a belief system that is based upon a credible path and which can elicit self-respect and dignity at an 'emotional' level as well as conviction at a logical and analytical level that is able to yield policy and transformative pathways prior to setting out upon them...  in effect a 'theory of human economy' based upon  a humanitarian universalist 'theory of moral sentiment' which expresses that same aspiration which already excites mankind in general.  A way that does not threaten diversity and difference but embraces it as the means to resilience, development and sustainability. A paradigm offering an evolved or bottom-up or evolved hierarchical centralism, where it is needed, rather than an imposed devolved hierarchical centralism. This is a practical democratic governance than does not abdicate its power periodically and serially to a self-perpetuating self-interested elite.

The practical issue is that the nature of the structures of political power is to emulate the nature of the structures of the economic powers which they serve.  Centralised, infinite accumulation of wealth and economic power will always, and always has lead to the same phenomenon displayed by their associated political structures.  The centralised economic powers of globalism and of the Stalinist Soviet Union have both tended towards the establishment of increasingly centralised and autocratic political structures and of the political powers they wield.

They are both equally antithetical to governance of a universalist and humanitarian flavour.  But, economic power begins with economic activity... even in the stylised and limited models of Smith and Ricardo.  They just did not explore those implications. This imperative comes from anthropological fact, not philosophical dreaming. (cf. popularly - Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel)

The consequence is that to change what we have for the better, one has to change the whole complex institutional structure that supports it.  That is not to say it must first be destroyed... down that route is annihilation.  It must be changed by an overhaul.. but that cannot happen until a 'new vision' and guidebooks can provide some reassurance to the masses of people who are the only ones in the end who have the power to change their own lives... if they want to take change of them rather than be taken charge of... yet again, by megalomaniacs and small men needing theatrical props to the psychological deficiencies.

The overhaul will be a long haul.  But it must be started. In my small way I have engaged with the problem by using the RG arena to say what must be said... it is the 'conscientization' phase. :-)

(cf Paolo Freire - Conscientization

The process of developing a critical awareness of one’s social reality through reflection and action.  Action is fundamental because it is the process of changing the reality.  Paulo Freire says that we all acquire social myths which have a dominant tendency, and so learning is a critical process which depends upon uncovering real problems and actual needs. http://www.freire.org/component/easytagcloud/conscientization)

I too am independent, earning from ICT for 4 decades, while I thought and scribbled. Now I am retired, a little older and wiser, and with very little to lose.

Seasons greetings to you too!

Robin

@Alexander  Hi, WRTO RG Contact:  I had to 'talk my way in' when signing up for RG as I do not have an email address issued by an 'accredited organisation or institution' because UEA does not allow its alumni to operate UEA email accounts. I did this through email exchanges resulting from an inquiry through their RG customer support page at : https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/Help+Center  .  Pleasant enough real people but the reply email address is constructed from one's original inquiry's ID code each time you want to talk to them.  Rob

There is always a tug-of-war between truth and expedience. Scientific truths can be inconvenient for politicians and economists. There is however an avenue in all of this to advocate scientific findings and bring it closer into focus for policy-makers through some sort of "pragmatic theory of truth" approach.

http://thewire.in/2015/12/16/ten-inconvenient-truths-about-the-paris-climate-accord-17398/

Article Using political science to progress public health nutrition:...

This world that we are living in is governed by Politicians. Politicians are liars of the first order. They use the long handle of social pollution to find their way through.

I have published papers in which I have developed a scale of social pollution based on the Corruption Perception Index. You may find from the paper (it is on ResearchGate website) none of the 176 + countries except 10 has a score exceeding 9.0 on a scale of 10.0.Countries with a large number of MNCs have an average score of 6.0. You and every body else knows who is on the driving seat of economic manipulations.This is where you Mr. Shian Loong Lew are right in saying: a tug-of-war is going on between truth and expedience. Scientific truths can be inconvenient for politicians and economists. Therefore Sir, it is a crime to speak the truth even if it is nothing but the truth.

I have cited several case histories on Social Pollution in: 1) Democracy Displaced in Pakistan, Case History of Disasters of Social Pollution and 2) Social Pollution and poor governance, Analysis of the psyche of the Governing hierarchy, both Books are on ReseacchGate and Academia website. Yet writing a Book only satisfies my ego; it goes into deaf ears nevertheless.

Dr. Mirza Arshad Ali Beg

Former Director General PCSIR, Karachi. 

Dear Dr. Mirza!

Despite your pessimistic view: would you please answer the questions in our Social Capital Assessment, of course in Urdu:

https://trustyourplace.com/?lang=Urdu

It would be great to have a lot of results for Pakistan!

Thank you and best regards your Alexander Dill

Alexander, you may have seen in some of my other answers on RG that there exists a common thread across a number of 'dilemmas' and 'concerns' that are increasingly being voiced in the general field of socio-economics - at a practical, theoretical and philosophical levels. That thread represents, perhaps, the manifestation of the consequence of the popular adoption of the universalistic humanitarian philosophy of the UN Charter of Human Rights encountering the reality of the 18th century morality of autocracy and inherited rights to wealth and power embedded in the philosophical justifications of the economic systems of all those originating countries. 

The economic realities of those nations' social structures and institutions remains the de facto motivator of all national and international policy of by assimilation that of nearly all nation states.  Even North Korea's inherited plutocracy is an example.  However, this is not the developmental goal which underpins all of the aspirations and expectations of all of the peoples who have been drawn into the UN dream over the years by its originating nations - members of the League of Nations which preceded it and which 'flag' has now been assumed by the permanent members of the Security Council and perhaps the OECD organisation.

The UN dream remains a dream, as evinced by the latest plan - this time for completion by 2030.  Which of course raises more aspirations and expectations.  The accomplishment of these dreams has long been outsourced by organs of the UN, on behalf of the member nations, to academic sources of expertise.  For several decades the main message coming back to the UN members has been that paradigm scale change and almost complete redirection of philosophy is required by the developed nations if they are to be realised.   The developed nations are of course also well represented by the OECD and the Security Council and the executive levels of almost all of the major organs of the UN. They are in utrn under the influence of their respective governments, for their jobs, and those governments are mostly funded in their ability to win elections by money donated, according to the rules (of democracy???), from sympathetic (read that as self-interested) commercial and industrial sources whose modes of operation, institutional infrastructure and personal philosophies of their owning parties are totally immersed and dependant upon for their 'good fortune' and 'well-being' the contradictory philosophies and social arrangements of 18th century Europe.

Although governments are generally required to take the advice of appointed and recognised experts, or else demonstrate why they should not ... i court and in public in many cases - this requirements is easily overcome when government can so easily select as experts those representatives of academia that 'owe' the governments something at a personal level.  So we see government funded research programmes, commercially funded research programmes and so on.  These views are unlikely to dissent in significant and fundamental ways that may encourage the paradigm change that is being indicated by more objective and fundamental work being done by their less favoured and hence less obligated colleagues.  But now I am in danger of overlapping what I have written in a previous response to your question.

The 'why' of your question is clear. Descartes might have said that it was 'self-evident'! 

The real question must of course be "How can this status quo of institutional censorship be overcome such that realistic policy recommendations might be adopted by governments even should they lead to paradigm shift by changing the rules and institutions that would alter the pattern of power, influence and wealth that is the essential characteristic of the current paradigm?"

The answer must lie somewhere in the Heterodoxy and perhaps in its de facto adoption as 'the mainstream' in so far as non-developed nations are concerned.  They should then diligently rely upon and submit their own findings from their own commissioning of the studies important to them such that it is for the Orthodox mainstream to disprove or disparage them upon the same fundamental axiomatic and factual basis as the original studies adopted, rather than their own.

Admittedly this would highlight the so-called North-South rift amongst members of the UN, but it would also increasingly expose their logic and bankrupt axiomatic basis for their self-righteousness in a manner that would be necessarily public at a global level.  In effect 'the gloves would be off' - but in a 'polite' and peaceful contest that might just cause an evolutionary alignment of real world systems with those humanitarian goals that have been set up as the aspiring goal for all mankind.  Rather than continue to feed the counter-productive and destructive revolutionary tensions that have been growing by the decade for some years now.

The essence of this policy followers the philosophy and advice of a notable sage from 2,000 years ago, perhaps paraphrasing a little, "By your good actions heap coals upon the heads of those that would abuse you."

Robin

Why scientists do not go public?

First, not all of them. For example, are our discussions here - going public? To some extent yes. The scientific fund that financed my research has recommended to make results more public.I try to participate in conferences (IAEE, ERSA) where not only scientists but also businessmen and politicians are present.

Another issue is that there are no TV interviews for not so famous scientists. Not all scientists have journalistic skills to go directly to press. Finally, not all interviews are published. We do not know why Nobel prize winners that are listed do not go public. Some other people like Krugman often go public.

I have posted this question:

Comparative advantage is what you teach every year in your classroom. Are you sure that you are updating your knowledge and teaching?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Comparative_advantage_is_what_you_teach_every_year_in_your_classroom_Are_you_sure_that_you_are_updating_your_knowledge_and_teaching2

There were no responses and I am much frustrated. It is difficult that politicians and common people learn new scientific development in the social domain, it is at least necessary to teach up-to-date knowledge to students. If university professors are not very sensitive for new developments, students will graduate with the old invalid knowledge and continued to influence politics for a long time, because it is difficult that established politicians learn new knowledge when they are in an important position. They are too busy.

Let me cite one of Keynes's most famous paragraphs from the last part of his concluding chapter of his General Theory.

• But apart from this contemporary mood, the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

If the average age of politicians  is 50 years old, there are in average 25 to 20 years of lapse, even they had the chance to know the up-to-date knowledge when they are students or novice politicians. Our task would be to shorten the lapse of time "20 to 25 years" as far as possible.

Of course, I know that there are always controversies and fights of opinions. Even though, it is necessary that many people (I think at least 1% of people) know the present state of discussions.

Dear Yoshinori, that was a great explanation. Do you want to be in the council board of our Institute? It would be an honour for us.

Best regards your Alexander Dill

@Alexander Having spent my career rotating between the academy and government, I'm going to hazard response - I believe that the answer lies in the gap or gaps between theory and practice. I believe this applies to theories from political science, economic, public administration, public policy, and sociology; in short, all social science theories that are applied to politics, economics, and most, if not all, public policy questions.

While a myriad of factors are involved, I'm only going to address the ones I think of as most prominent.

The first involves political decision-making. Political decision-making is, by its very nature, a compromise process. Therefore, regardless of the validity of applicable scientific findings, adopting and implementing theoretically optimal policy is seldom possible.

Second, theories are often truncated to remove elements that, for one reason or another, are considered inconvenient. In my experience, the elements removed often represent the strongest theoretical links to practice. For instance, I rarely see any mention of Keynes's animal spirits and attribute this to the quantitative fixation among economists. Budget processes are frequently examined through a technical lens that de-emphasizes, frequently ignores, the strong, politically influenced, policy aspects of the budget process in the public sector and the compromises that are necessary prerequisites to budget adoption.

Third, during my career I've deliberately rotated between practice and the academy. This is unusual because the career incentives faced by practitioners and academicians are not complementary. As a result, many theoretical approaches are ignored by practitioners because they are inconsistent with practitioner experience.

Fourth, the normative bias that I believe pervades most policy related social science further attenuates the theory-practice connection. While I believe that normative social science can be useful, it is not an analytical method. Theorizing about what 'ought to be' is not the same determining 'what is'.  My own dissertation explored the impact of local government debt policies, a normative standard for over 100 years in the US, and found that they were, at best, irrelevant. Investment bankers and others who profit from the current practices funded 'research' that attempted to refute these findings. Academics, long steeped in the normative tradition, were not, and are not, eager to embrace them either.

Finally, although I believe there are several other material elements, I quote Karl Popper '[i]t is the task of social theory to explain how the unintended consequences of our intentions and actions arise, and what kind of consequences arise if people do this that or the other in a certain social situation'. In the general case, social scientists do not do this. My own early work on local government debt, and the work that proceeded mine by over 20 years, was completely ignored by practitioners for political reasons. In my view this occurred because the political planning horizon's incentives relate to a much shorter time frame than do the consequences of inappropriate debt issuance. The same can be said concerning the almost global pension crisis and many other knotty problems that are the result of public policy decisions made in the past.