GM Nation? - Lessons learnt from the public debate

摘要

Over the summer of 2003, a public debate on the commercialisation of GM crops took place in the UK. This was the first large scale exercise to involve the public in a deliberative process about matters of science and policy, and represented a consequence of the government's emphasis on stakeholder involvement. Subsequent analysis of the debate process has concluded that it was flawed in a number of respects, an inevitable consequence, perhaps, of the novelty and scale of the exercise. Here, we outline the different components of the debate, and discuss three elements which have proved controversial: 1) provision of information to inform the debate; 2) representativeness of participants; 3) presentation of the debates results. We conclude that experts and those involved in the media should work together to play a key role in societies future debates.