The Rules

The competition is open to any student enrolled in an academic program during the year 2007-08.

How to choose a controversy?

First rule: select a topic that remains unresolved. It is imperative to choose a subject that has evolved over the years and which the student may therefore follow as it occurs, given that the inquiry lasts for the semester. This rule is imperative because it is the only way to avoid the retrospective error of supposing that the "true" experts knew "from the beginning" how it would conclude. For example, the Y2K problem was a good topic in 1999 before it became apparent how the issues would unfold, but it is now no longer worthy of study. It is important that the student immerses herself in a real, un-simulated situation, where everyone, even the best experts and scientists, do not know the resolution. This is the sole means by which to make the mapping of the full range of positions - even those which are most extreme - indispensable. Of course, there is nothing to prevent returning a few years into the past, since no controversy starts from nothing and finishes, miraculously, on the date of examination. But the central work of framing the debate must be performed in real time. Neither does anything prevent a return to a subject undertaken in a prior year, if it is actively followed during the current term and prior students of the subject agree. Any necessary determinations will be made under the guidance of the head lecturers / lead professor.

Second rule: pick a topic whose controversy is relatively intense. This does not necessarily mean a high-profile subject, but rather one in which there are a sufficient number of actors so that one can expect conflicting results, rebuttals, and new developments over the course of a school year. Understanding that there is a risk in choosing a subject that will prove worthy of study, course lecturers will help the students choose wisely. A good gauge can be found in the new research pages of Science, Nature, and New Scientist. These journals impart a great deal about ongoing experiments, anticipated results and forecasts made by the actors on developments in their domain; these journals can often give a good sense of the "temperature" of a potential controversy.

Third rule: pick a topic that requires reading across as heterogeneous a range of texts as possible. It is inappropriate for a student to restrict herself, for example, to reading only the New York Times, The Guardian or Le Figaro. The student must dive into the full range of media, including specialized professional journals. If these materials are not found in the library, the web now supplies access to most of them; conversely, the student should not limit herself to a single type of highly specialized literature, forgetting other media (internet discussion forums, investigative commission, mainstream press, etc.). What counts is to follow how different types of publications interpret, transform, or even distort the same controversy, depending on the issue.

Fourth rule: pick a topic that is modest in size so it will be manageable over the course of the term by the group. There is no value, for example, in picking "global warming of the planet" as the subject. One must, through a gradual reduction in scope, find the micro-controversy within these macro-controversies, so the group can find their bearings within the allotted time. There is no definitive rule on the ideal size of a topic, especially because controversies are often interlinked. The best way is to work as a group, sharing findings with fellow group members, and frequently seeking the advice of the instructors.

Fifth rule: pick a topic that is manageable, meaning that its specialized literature remains accessible. Very often students choose excellent subjects, but with no source save the mainstream press or web forums; the remainder is either in the form of gray literature (reports with limited circulation), in a foreign language inaccessible to students, or confidential (in the case of subjects classified top secret). Before choosing a topic, therefore, access to esoteric literature such as this should be confirmed (through a relationship, through a specific survey, through interviews), remembering that the more time spent tracking down rare information reduces the time permitted to analyze it. Criteria such as this are what make specific issues so much easier than others, even those apparently more popular; through the interplay of publications, references in footnotes, and now the web, the necessary documentation will accumulate.

What does it mean to follow a controversy?

Once the topic is defined and accepted by the professor, the student group must gather relevant information throughout the course of the term. This entails consistent attention to the same topics in the general press, newspapers and specialized scientific journals, perhaps membership in a forum, and eventually the programming of an ad hoc research engine. These tasks resemble the normal work of a librarian: cut, mark, archive, tag with keywords. During specific periods in the course schedule, the group must collect information in a more voluntary fashion, in order to start gradually mapping the controversy; there are many methods that will be explained throughout the course: citations, keyword hierarchies, possibly interviews with actors in the debate, all designed to identify the major variables within the controversy: the number of actors, diversity of professions and trades, geographical dispersion, intensity of the dispute, its history, its elements.

What does it mean to analyze a controversy?

It is not enough to accumulate a large file of documents which through the web, is both easy and burdensome. Students are judged on their ability to analyze and stage the controversy (see below). This analysis includes several successive levels, explained further in the course.

First level: the means of production of the knowledge. This concerns moving from casual statements, matters of opinion and passion (for example: "micro particles released by diesel engines are a health hazard") to practical means for generating reliable knowledge about these subjects: researchers in a particular discipline, funded by a particular institution, working with a particular type of data, on a particular hypothesis or theory. These researchers are probably not isolated, they are responding to other researchers in other fields and other countries, who work with different instrumentations, different theories and are engaged with different data collections. In short, there could already be a form of inquiry that is fairly controversial. It is primarily this first level of controversy within the scientific professions or between engineers that needs to be sketched. This is a basic precept of the sociology of the sciences, which is available in the collections of texts addressed in courses and conferences.

Second level: unless the controversy has been poorly chosen, producers of knowledge are not isolated in an vacuum: they have sponsors, investors, and multiple audiences to whom they are speaking in the form of essays, research projects, forms of marketing, and articles in professional journals. One can even discover, depending on the example, extremely close linkages between the mainstream press and the most advanced research: this is the case, for example, at the press conferences on the human genome in which one finds articles in Science magazine, in the Wall Street Journal and in the Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. These types of connections, which appear very heterogeneous at first, compose the second level of analysis: the allies, spokespersons, employers or opponents of specialized researchers. Each of these groups - often outnumbering the knowledge producers - have their own interests, values and world views, and they make use of data on the basis of their political or even anthropological views. These views must be reconstituted because they frequently provide the key to the controversy.

Note: the order of levels has little importance. One can pass from one editorial opinion read in a daily newspaper and arrive at the specialized text behind such views, or from a precise and apparently isolated topic one can gradually discover its multiple impacts on the general public. The important task is to pass between the two levels. Also important: one must keep perspective on what is called the "general public" in relation to the chosen subject. The number of people concerned may only reach a few dozen, but what's important is the difference between the network where the controversy begins, and where it ends. For example, the number of solar neutrinos coming from the sun can have an impact that begins with particle physics and ends with a discussion on religious cosmology. While staying within the scientific world, one sees nevertheless that its discipline has changed, and we have in this case analyzed the network associated with a particular controversy. On the other hand, when examining petroleum taxation, we find ourselves addressing the "general public" because each motorist has his or her opinion on the subject.

Third level: from the moment the controversy has become visible to the student, it has already been partially formatted in a way to lead to its resolution, or conversely, to prevent its closure. This formatting process takes on innumerable forms and obviously depends on the chosen topic. It may be present in an experimental campaign organized by a scholarly institution (for example, an Antarctic expedition to judge the merits of two competing methods for oil drilling under extreme cold), or within a press campaign, or a public debate organized by the state (as was the case in France for GMOs, the Swiss having even held a referendum on the issue ), or within a television show that broadcasts any number of variations on a controversy at the time of a scientific panel, board of inquiry or grassroots mobilization of citizens (for example Consumer Reports studies on nitrates where readers analyze their own tap water and report the data back), or through petitions and even violent protest (for example the destruction of GMO fields by farmers, etc.).

All these methods have a fundamental significance to the overall analysis because they permit the identification of the actors' own analyses of the controversy, and advance, in some ways, the actual work of the students. This formatting is particularly important for devising ways to reconstitute the controversy at the end of the year (see below).

Fourth level: the internal dynamics of the controversy are obviously the most sensitive. The selection of an open controversy means that no one can offer a definitive resolution. The goal is to observe within the space of a year how the controversy has evolved and, if possible, why. Almost always, the actual content of the controversy changes: it expands, or subsides, becomes more public, or more specialized, fades from memory, evolves into something completely different, or even, as is sometimes the case, is definitively closed through a single, decisive event. It is this movement within the controversy that we want to make explicit.

Thus, there is no requirement on the student to arbitrate the controversy on the basis of his scientific knowledge, attempting to determine in the end who is right or wrong, because that would be acting in the role of decision-maker, concealing one's choices under the façade of an optimal solution. The student must instead put himself in the position of providing to his employer (business, government, cabinet and associations) and the general public, the widest range of possible positions and issues, so they can make their own decisions knowing full well that the definition of the scientific state of the art and the optimal technical solution are disputed by others who are neither irrational nor closed-minded.

Fifth level: the personal analysis of the authors on the probable evolution of the controversy. Using the resources and information that they have developed and analyzed, students will predict the future of an uncertain situation. With the passage of time, we can check, by following the controversy the subsequent year, to determine whether the prediction has been realized or not. Such predictions could be in the form of a mini research project explaining what remains to be understood in order for the issue to be resolved (the type of data to collect, its instrumentation, collaboration, cost, etc.) or a proposal on the kind of debates (investigative commissions, quality control, draft laws, etc.) that would permit a clearer picture (see below). Students may also use new web tools to stage a discussion wherein the debate is revived (subject to the agreement of the professors and the institution, since controversial topics are often sensitive). The goal is to allow the students to express - at this moment, in light of the given state of forces and the situation of uncertainty as it stands - what can be stated with assurance. However, if we organize the investigation of information and discussion of the issues in this particular fashion, the controversy can evolve in directions that modify its associated risk. This endeavor, therefore, becomes a practical way to employ the precautionary principle.

How to reconstruct the controversy's analysis?

Once the documentation has been collected, and the analysis is underway, we set the stage for a very different type of work from the study undertaken by the students throughout the year. This time we share the results in their most dynamic and comprehensive form possible. The audience will be other students, tutors, professors from interested universities, and eventually the public and experts mobilized for the occasion, who will attend the final session or visit its web site.