health and safety issues. These questions of need obviously would make the disentangling of facts and values more difficult. Secondly, the farmers' representatives proposed that Governor Perpich himself should sit in judgment rather than any panel of scientists. This would again obviously politicize the determination of scientific facts and I think was properly opposed by the Governor. In connection with the power line dispute Professor Allan Mazur (3) has made an attempt to: Promote an exchange in the dispute over possible harmful effects from the electromagnetic fields of high voltage transmission lines, using the science court mechanism . . . Specifically, in cooperation with the leading scientific advocates of the deleterious effects of electromagnetic fields, Andrew Marino and Robert Becker, he made an attempt to phrase their scientific claims in language which would be acceptable as falsifiable statements suitable for use as claims in a science court proceeding. This effort was remarkably successful. However, Mazur's efforts to induce proponents of the power line, who did not believe in the importance of the claims of Becker and Marino, to participate were unsuccessful. Obviously he lacked the authority to require a confrontation. However, Mazur's work indicates very clearly the feasibility of the translation of highly partisan statements into clear statements of fact. [3] The third case which has been brought to my attention is an effort by the Division of Magnetic Fusion Energy of ERDA (now the Department of Energy), to evaluate a series of magnetic fusion geometries other than their two principal directions (Tokamaks and Mirror Machines). They said that An adversary of science court-like procedure was used for arriving at judgments on the criteria for each concept. They reported that the procedure was efficient and useful (4). These three cases provide a little added insight into what needs to be done before the development of science court-like procedures can be undertaken in earnest. First, the Minnesota case illustrated the need for enough authority to bring the adversaries to present and substantiate their cases in the presence of opposition as is required in the science court procedure. It became apparent that Governor Perpich was unable to bring about this confrontation. However, in the later history of the dispute, it was noted that the discussions of health and safety issues were muted and the opposition of the farmers was stated much more simply in that they did not want the power lines to cross their lands for esthetic and practical reasons. In the breast cancer case it was clear that Dr. John Bailar as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute had sufficient authority so that his proposal to set up a science court procedure had to be taken seriously by his opponents. The result was institution of “concensus” procedures by the National Institutes of Health. In the magnetic fusion energy case a funding agency obviously had power to require the confrontation. In the power line controversy it was perfectly clear that while authority was lacking to force a scientific confrontation the very threat of such a confrontation may have been instrumental in simplifying that dispute.
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