User:Shawndouglas/sandbox/sublevel12

Discussion and closing remarks

Discussion

In truth, researching and writing this guide has been a challenge because few have put the disparate pieces together. Instead, a review of journal articles, books, and news items revealed:

material written from a technical, regulatory, and methodological perspective, with few from the sociological and anthropological perspective;
material that takes a focused, analytical approach to laboratory activities and not so much a broader, human interest approach to those activities; and
material that simply glosses over or fails to mention the relevance of laboratories to manufacturing, research and development (R&D), and analytical activities.

As such, it doesn't take much effort to reach a perhaps inconclusive belief that today the laboratory setting and its researchers are so interwoven into the fabric of our society — largely behind the scenes — that the average person is practically blind to them and their impact on their day-to-day life. That's not to say, however, that the impact of research laboratories on the social structure hasn't ever been discussed; rather, it's not discussed often. But it is happening. In June 2014 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the report The Impacts of Large Research Infrastructures on Economic Innovation and on Society: Case Studies at CERN to show "the ways in which the outcomes of publicly-funded research can benefit national economies and can affect the lives of citizens in general."^[1] The motivation for this case study came from CERN leaders themselves, who wanted a third party to analyze the laboratory's impact on society and the economy. In that study, the authors emphasized the difficulty of that task^[1]:

Long-term impacts [of the activities of a laboratory] on science, the economy and society are, typically, difficult to forecast and to assess. They can even be difficult to evaluate retrospectively, since science typically advances over a broad front, with many separate but interlinked discoveries producing overall societal change. The impact of any particular scientific result is hard to separate cleanly from that of many others. In addition, it is widely acknowledged that scientific and technological progress are closely intertwined, such that certain fundamental problems cannot be tackled unless technology (even commercial technology) is sufficiently advanced.

Scientists who undertake basic research may not be motivated by a desire to achieve concrete societal benefits. In some cases the emergence of benefits is a long-term and highly indirect process, such as when advances in understanding provoke a "scientific crisis" that then becomes a driver for breakthrough discoveries ...

These are all important points worth noting when thinking about how laboratories affect our lives. Quantifying and qualifying is how most seek answers and rationalize their world, but doing such with laboratories and their activities is apparently a difficult task indeed. This may lend to the lack of research on laboratories and how they affect societies.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has also been promoting the idea of correlating research laboratory activities with societal impacts, primarily through their science and research advocacy workshops.^[2]^[3] Speakers at these workshops have been encouraging scientists to more clearly and succinctly demonstrate the social and cultural implications of their laboratory research to lawmakers. The AAAS' thinking is essentially by making laboratory research more relatable to society and human outcomes, the difficulties of acquiring research funding will be lessened slightly.

We also see attempts being made in other arenas. The American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, American Clinical Laboratory Association, and Advanced Medical Technology Association have all promoted the value of the diagnostic laboratory to patient outcomes and disease prevention through various position and white papers.^[4]^[5] On the teaching front, Sunal et al. have published a collection of papers addressing the importance of laboratories in science teaching and learning. "In general, recent research provides evidence that students do benefit from inquiry-based laboratory and technology experiences that are integrated with classroom science curricula," they emphasize.^[6]