Energy Myths and Realities: Bringing Science to the Energy Policy Debate

摘要

When an author claims to bring "science" to a public-policy debate, I normally cringe because the combination mixes epistemological categories. Science is the use of experiments or their reasonable statistical equivalent seeking to establish cause-and-effect relationships among variables, that is, if X occurs then Y follows with empirical regularity. In contrast, public-policy debate is a discussion about whether coercion (the power of the state) should be used to alter outcomes. Such discussions include considerations about costs versus benefits, individual rights, value conflicts among people, and the proper role of the state in human affairs. So science, which tries to tell us what is, is completely distinct from the question of whether public policy can improve social welfare.