Important Issues in Ecologically Sound Integrated Pest Management

Most graduate programs require students to participate in a course or seminar that allows them to develop skills in scientific presentation. Few programs, however, prepare students to locate, read, analyze, and critique the types and sources of information that so frequently underpin the public debates that precede most policy decisions. Still fewer programs allow students to practice using incomplete or contradictory information to formulate and defend arguments on policy, ethics, or related issues. Increasingly, entomologists find themselves involved in a public arena, using such information to discuss matters that have broad consequences for science and society. Scientists who enter the workplace with debating skills will be more prepared to shape effective policy, prioritize research agendas, defend their discipline against budgetary cutbacks, and/or confront allegations of ethical or other misconduct. This being the case, providing opportunities in graduate education for students to debate timely and important issues will benefit not only the students but also their discipline and society as a whole (Carroll et al. 1993).