Sir

Roger A. Pielke, in his Commentary “Policy, politics and perspective” (Nature 416, 367–368; 2002) argues that scientists should not be advocates; that research should be communicated to society through policy analysts. Unlike the advocate, who subordinates science to one narrow vision of its social implications, he says that the analyst “increases the range of alternatives available to decision-makers by clearly associating scientific results with a range of choices and outcomes”.

Pielke objects to natural scientists who simply advocate more research to help solve social problems — but he then argues something similar for his own form of science: social-science policy analysis. Pielke is right that more social-scientific research and analysis of science and its results would be beneficial. But with this argument, is he not as much an advocate as those he criticizes?