Reasonableness Versus Rationality in the Construction and Justification of Science Policy Decisions: The Case of the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board

Abstract

This article examines the role of the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board (CERB) in the seven-month moratorium (July 1976-February 1977) on recombinant DNA research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The article focuses on CERB's 23 November 1976 debate, which was the turning point in the committee's proceedings. Although CERB members were implicitly charged with making rational decisions, they were inevitably influenced by biases and emotions. In the process of justifying their decisions, however, they were almost exclusively concerned with appeals to reason. This article argues that appeals to emotion and authority are essential and inevitable components of reasonable (though not rational) decision making. It further argues that legitimizing these appeals in the process of justification will make such appeals more accessible to criticism during the process of construction and, thereby, will help us to define which appeals to emotion and authority are appropriate and which are inappropriate in any given context.