previous sub-section Conclusion Credible Knowledge Hierarchies
of Expertise, and the Politics of Participation in Biomedicine
next section  Expertise and Democracy  "If citizens ought to be
empowered to participate in determining their society's basic
structure," writes Richard Sclove, "and technologies are an
important species of social structure, it follows that
technological design and practice should be democratized."[62]
There is a growing, international body of literature suggesting
means by which science and technology can be brought further
under popular control—studies of "science shops" that bring
researchers into collaboration with citizens, "science courts"
that invite laypeople to pass judgment on political
controversies with scientific dimensions, and citizen boards to
assess technological risks.[63] Yet there is also good cause to
recognize the extraordinary difficulty of eradicating
hierarchies founded on knowledge-possession—hierarchies that can
cut across social movements just as easily as t