TY - JOUR T1 - Translating science into policy JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 441 LP - 443 VL - 47 IS - 6 AU - Elfring, Chris Y1 - 1992/11/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/47/6/441.abstract N2 - SINCE you got out of bed this morning, you've made a dozen decisions based at least in part on your understanding of science: Should you drink a cup of coffee? Eat a bowl of bran cereal? Should you drive or take public transportation to work? For each situation you weighed the facts and made a decision. Maybe something more than facts influenced your decision—maybe you hate bran cereal and went for a cheese danish instead. Or maybe you fought the urge to eat the danish—sugar and fat are bad for you—and you compromised by eating a bagel. As you can see, we are experienced in the art of translating science into policy, at least at the level of our everyday lives. But how do you translate science into policy on a bigger scale? How do you take what you know about science, about natural resources, to provide information useful to de-cisionmakers? In other words, “How can we get them to listen?” Why don't decisionmakers listen to scientists? There are at least three possible reasons: (1) “They” don't understand science. (2) “They” are too influenced by … ER -