ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the need for analyzing the quality of thought used in the policy making process. The course of the scientific development and of the swine flu vaccine and the development of public policy to vaccinate tens of millions of persons provides an example of the use of each mode of inquiry. But the weakness of the information requires that policy makers exercise their judgment to a large degree; quasi-experiments are not highly valuable as aids to decision makers. The use of such aids is entirely feasible in policy making. Policy-making by scientists is no more precise then policy-making by politicians, economists, or diplomats. In short, policy makers and science advisors are telling us that public policy is formed by the weakest mode of thought. The critical task for scientists, then, is to free policy makers from the object-focused mode of cognition they currently use, to the more powerful one that is oriented toward variables.
