At the dawn of 2000, science and research evidence featureprominently in government pronouncements on food safety andagricultural policy in the UK. In the furore surrounding the Frenchban on British beef (part of the ongoing BSE saga) Nick Brown (theMinister for Agriculture at this time) frequently refers to the wayin which the decisions of his ministry needs to be guided by ‘thescience’. Thus the Chief Medical Officer was charged with reviewingthe evidence for lifting the ban on purchasing beef on the bone. Weare also told that research trials of genetically modified cropsneed to go ahead in order to provide the evidence on which to baselonger-term policy decisions in this area. The government's WhitePaper on Modernising government (Cm4310, 1999) makes it clear that policy decisions should be based onsound evidence. This includes evidence from the social sciences:

The prominence of such calls for evidence might lead to speculationthat we are living in the era of the ‘scientifically guided society’(Lindblom, 1990). However, such a view would be misleading. Thechapters in the first half of this book provide many alternativeexamples of policy initiatives that seem to either fly in the faceof the best available research evidence on effectiveness or, at thevery best, are based on flimsy evidence. For example, in educationthe evidence in support of the introduction of the literacy hour orthe homework policy is disputed (see Major, 2000). Similarly, inhealthcare the evidence to support the case for the introduction ofthe Patient's Charter and NHS Direct seems to be lacking. Even whenpolicy decisions relate to areas that are highly technical andscientific, there is little evidence that technical arguments (basedon science and research evidence) necessarily have much of a directimpact on the decisions made (Nelkin, 1992).