ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two directions of the relation between science and the law — expertise and regulation, which can both be understood as consequences of functional differentiation. The politics of knowledge — this will be the practical message — must take serious cognitive and normative knowledge on both sides: legal norms and scientific facts, but legal facts and scientific norms. Law plays a pivotal role in the fabrication of nature and technology — and, vice versa, science and technology both create a corpus of normative knowledge. Expertise and regulation are two forms of knowledge exchange between different "owners." As a consequence, personal and organizational knowledge in most respects is imperfect. Structural coupling means that social systems observe each other and thereby make use of each other's complexity in order to build up internal structures. The term "reflexive knowledge politics" indicates blurring boundaries between science and other societal systems or the law. The chapter also discusses the theoretical and practical implications.
