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Science developed as an open-ended method of discovering the workings of existence. It is operated by people of intelligence, curiosity and ambition with training in technique and subject matter. The operators are presumed to be rational, objective and value-free. Skepticism is the watchword of science. Ideally, scientists present discovered data and hypotheses to explain observations for review and critique by skeptical colleagues. Skeptical colleagues drive scientists to further discovery. Skeptical scientists drive science to healthy ferment. Thus, new data continually displace old data and new hypotheses displace old. Scientists defend their hypotheses and attack the hypotheses of others. However, scientists with a personal or political ideology tend to stifle ferment and dissent. Ideological scientists promote stagnation in science. Stagnant science is no science at all. In science, the fat lady never sings.

Policy is the determination and enforcement of preferred social and political arrangements. In Jeffersonian democracies, policy is supposed to reflect values, attitudes and beliefs, whether or not based on fact, reality or other objective measure. Ideally, policy-makers are influenced by those who are to be affected by the policy, presenting proposals for public examination, debate, challenge, review and change. Conflict and controversy generally precede policy, with the majority or the powerful minority winning specific policy disputes. In constitutional societies, fundamental laws or constitutions provide basic principles to be followed indefinitely, to be amended only for the most compelling reasons. Yet policy changes with time.  The radical left-wing program of one era becomes the hidebound right-wing conservatism of the next. In policy, it's never over.

Using science as a basis for policy offers a degree of confidence in the suitability of policy-making. However, it also has potentially negative effects:
    1) Scientists in the pay of policy makers tend to discover that existence is exactly what the boss wants it to be.
    2) Using science as a basis of policy invites policy considerations into science, promoting the erosion of objectivity and inviting personal or political values to corrupt scientists and scientific endeavors, i.e., all science tends to become political science;
    3) Placing scientists in positions of power as arbiters of policy invites the superior intellect to act upon its inclination to dismiss lesser intellects, with consequent disenfranchisement of vast numbers of citizens;
    4) Science can be manipulated to suit political preferences as easily as any other human activity, with the consequence that any value, attitude or belief promoted by a powerful group of scientists can be held up as "scientifically sound," as if that were the only standard of public policy-making.
      

Axioms for science based policy:
    Scientific advice for policy is just that: advice.
    Science has its place in policy making: servant, not master.
    Scientists get one vote per person, same as non-scientists.
    Scientists have no right to disregard those who disagree with them, but they do it anyway, so be skeptical.
    Scientific advice for policy should always come with a dissenting opinion, like appeals court judgments.
   

Problems already observed with using science as a basis for policy:

A government call for the use only of "sound science" in policy making denies that there are armed camps of scientists in conflict over what constitutes "soundness" in particular sciences. It also ignores the fact that people may disagree with science, sound or otherwise, and prefer policy based on non-scientific considerations.

Government scientists are in a position to claim "consensus" about controversies such as global warming where none exists.

Policy debates tend to degenerate into arguments that "My scientist is better than your scientist," when experts of equal credential produce diametrically opposite conclusions from the same raw data, a situation familiar to attorneys and judges.

The presumption that sound science somehow leads to sound policy is a presumption false on the face of it -- policy makers are free to slice and dice any science to fit any policy scheme they see fit, then tout the policy as scientifically sound, perpetrating a fraud on the public.

Government scientists act as philosopher kings and disdain the non-scientist who may not agree with their policy recommendations or who do not show proper respect for their wisdom and majesty.

"Government science" is an oxymoron.

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