Moving forward

Author James Scott clearly illustrates the inherent difficulties when viewing interests while blinding ourselves to the periphery of information available, the artifacts that directly impact the object of interest. In the authors example of forestry science, the primary interests resided in fiscal regulation and predictability. The irony of the situation emerged when 100 years after the first or second round of trees had developed the whole system of forestry science failed due to the very reason why it succeeded in the first number of years, lack of diversity. While time may have passed since the days of forestry science, are there other areas of government or private sector interest that may follow the same fate as the forests; leaving very little viable and a whole host of social issues?

Looking at the focus of government funded organizations such as NIH or DOE, it is feasible to see how their goals may restrict their vision of a situation and the dangers of doing so, as illustrated by James Scott. Referring back to forestry science, while the need of the state for regulation, predictability of finances and a whole host of other justifications for stripping the forests are quite plausible, the impact of the technology created social and ecological issues stemmed from oversight of the intricate relationship between nature and society.

The United States government budgets large sums of money for the NIH, which is then distributed to fight the war on cancer and while this may provide applauding results in the field of cancer research for our generation, one could question whether or not it will continue to do so with such a narrowed focus upon goals. Is it possible that the goal in which the state has in cancer research will become so involved in the process that genes may become another "economic resource to be managed efficiently and profitably?" Often social actors with clear agenda’s to structure society to make it more efficient can do so with the purest intentions but are still vulnerable to fail to see the most important and intricate pieces of the puzzle. So how can society move forward with confidence that the blinders have been removed?