This research examines a series of case studies from the agricultural sector to illustrate how various models of innovation embrace value proposition. A conscious value contestation at the interface of science, policy and civil society requires transformations in the triple-helix model of university-government-industry collaboration, because reiterations in the triple-helix model of innovation, such as quadruple, quintuple and higher helices, do not necessarily address civil society concerns for human values and science ethics. This research develops and tests a matrix model of (...) university-government-industry-civil society collaboration, which involves the co-creation of inclusive and transformational spaces for value proposition. Findings suggest that the matrix model of innovation institutionalises citizen science as it serves as a moral heuristic to make seemingly apolitical science responsive to essentially contested societal values. (shrink)

Legitimation of public policies that support the widespread plantings of transgenic crops presuppose, among other conditions, that evidence supports that there are no unmanageable environmental risks and there are no better ways to produce enough nourishing food that can dispense with the transgenics-oriented ways. This paper discusses: the kinds of scientific inquiry that are needed to address adequately, the connections between investigations of and , and how these investigations are related with controversial social values.A legitimação de políticas públicas que apóiam (...) o cultivo de lavouras transgênicas em larga escala pressupõe, entre outras condições, que os dados empíricos garantem não haver riscos ambientais não-administráveis e, a não-existência de modos melhores de produzir alimentos sem a utilização de técnicas transgênicas. O artigo discute: Os tipos de investigação científica necessários para um exame adequado da condição , como as investigações sobre e se relacionam entre si, e como tais investigações se relacionam com valores sociais controvertidos. (shrink)

The public controversy over genetically modified crops is predominantly framed in terms of concerns over health and safety. Within this framing, the primary point of controversy is whether GM foods are likely to cause bio-physiological injury or disease to human consumers; a secondary issue, but one that still fits within the health and safety framing, is whether the cultivation of GM crops is likely to cause bio-physiological injury or disease to non-target species or ecosystems more broadly. Proponents of the development (...) and... (shrink)

This paper examines the scientific controversy over the yields of genetically modified [GM] crops as a case study in epistemologically deep disagreements. Appeals to “the evidence” are inadequate to resolve such disagreements; not because the interlocutors have radically different metaphysical views (as in cases of incommensurability), but instead because they assume rival epistemological frameworks and so have incompatible views about what kinds of research methods and claims count as evidence. Specifically, I show that, in the yield debate, proponents and opponents (...) of GM crops cite two different sets of claims as evidence, which correspond to two rival epistemological frameworks, classical experimental epistemology and Nancy Cartwright's evidence for use. I go on to argue that, even if both sides of the debate accepted Cartwright's view, they might still disagree over what counts as evidence, because evidence for use ties standards of evidence to what is sometimes called the “context of application.”. (shrink)