Introduction

The pace of science and technology advancement over the past half-century has delivered enormous benefits to societies throughout the world as well as sobering challenges associated with the role of technology in virtually every aspect of our lives. While reaping the benefits, all of society must also cope with the challenges.

Over two centuries ago as the American democracy took shape, the founding fathers of the fledgling republic worried that democracy could flourish only when the electorate and, in particular, the institutions of government serving it are well informed about the issues upon which they must decide. Today, and increasingly, as science and technology issues become more and more prevalent, prominent, complex and of far reaching impact on society, a democratic government poorly informed about such issues carries greater and greater risk in making bad policy choices with potentially significant consequences from such choices. Yet, it is also becoming increasingly more difficult for anyone, or even any one institution, to keep pace with the frontier of scientific knowledge and its impact on society. In addition, over the last quarter century, the information revolution has expanded the quantity of information accessible to government policymakers, but more information has not proved to be necessarily better information. Indeed, a fundamental problem today is not the lack of information; rather, it is how to gauge validity and usefulness within the torrent of available information and advice.