There are four parts to our argument. Part I introduces the problem, setting out the main issues as we see them, and describes the academic foundations on which our call to arms is built. Part II contains most of the new ideas: it sets out the principles that inform what we call ‘elective modernism’ and explains their implications for the ways in which scientific advice should be sought and used in policy-making. We argue that science should be seen as a moral enterprise and that the values that inform scientific work should be celebrated; this, as far as we know, is a new idea, so it takes precedence over the utilitarian justification of science in the argument of the book, but it can also be used in addition to the utilitarian argument when that works. Crucially, however, the moral argument works for sciences that do not have any obvious utility and, in that sense, it is prior. We argue at the same time for the primacy of democratic institutions in technological decision-making and invent a new kind of institution – ‘The Owls’ – whose job is to represent faithfully the content and degree of certainty of any technical advice that might be thought to bear on these decisions. Part III shows that we do what we say should be done in Part II. There we suggest that one of the values that characterizes science is ‘continuity’, by which we mean that even the most revolutionary of scientific ideas will seek to incorporate and retain a good portion of what was previously accepted as true. In Part III, we show the ways in which our ideas, which we have come to realize in the light of reactions to them must include an unintended element of revolutionary thinking, relate to the huge existing literature that deals with science and democracy. In Part IV, we sum up our argument in a manifesto for the future of science that sets out the key choices facing you, the reader, in as straightforward and uncompromising a manner as possible. Given what has been said so far, it will be no surprise that this manifesto emphasizes the moral responsibility of scientists to act in ways that preserve science’s traditions and values. If scientists fail in this task and we fail to support them in it, then a crucial element of the culture that sustains democratic societies will be lost.

Though both authors take full responsibility for the whole of this book, Collins was the lead author of Part II while Evans took the lead on Part III. The authors have to thank many people. We thank Martin Weinel for his marvellous analysis of the Thabo Mbeki, anti-retroviral drugs affair and for his contributions to the more political parts of this book. Under slightly changed circumstances, he would have been a co-author. Above all, we thank the various audiences who have been willing to listen to talk of elective modernism. The term had been batted around a bit but the ideas were probably first presented by Collins on 8 October 2008 at the regular meeting of Cardiff’s Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise and Science, and since then they have been presented at many national and international meetings and mentioned, en passant, in a few pieces of published work. Intervening events have slowed their presentation in extended form much more than we anticipated.