Complexity in Science and Technology Policy... Symptoms or Disease? [Commentary]

For many years I have questioned how democracies decide, enact, and carry out Science and Technology (S&T) Policy. Around the world, most Congressional and parliamentary leaders tend to be lawyers who have no formal education in S&T Yet the decisions that these leaders make affect among other things, our education, our healthcare, and our national defense. It is in our best interest then to provide lawmakers with the best information available so that good decisions can be made. The reality is that most of the time events that happen within or outside a country can contribute to major errors in how we act. In other words we (may) think we know what we are trying to correct, when in reality the problem was never well defined, and therefore the solution that we seek may be for the wrong question. We encounter problems that on the surface seem like discrete pieces and where if a single piece breaks it can be replaced by a new part of the same type, but then we find that we have encountered a complex system that is dynamic, and where the solution also changes with time.