ABSTRACT
TOP Arenas provides answers for why joint fact-finding (JFF) is effective even when the main factors that drive scientific controversy-disagreement on values, beliefs, and practices-continue. TOP stands for the term and concepts (T), objects and frameworks (O), and processes and procedures (P) that effective processes develop to enable cooperation among people who disagree, not only about solutions but also about science, values, and other more fundamental issues. Similarly, Arenas stands for the characteristics-additional (A), removed (RE), negotiated (N), and arenaspecific (AS)—that the TOP Arenas need to allow communities with “apparently irreconcilable differences” to cooperate in a few, limited and potentially beneficial areas.
