By Glenn Haas

Some 229 years ago, Benjamin Franklin realized that even with a plethora of information, its utility was for naught without a systematic means of full consideration. His letter to a friend introduces Franklin’s moral or prudential algebra, known today as decision science.

Decision science is a field of applied cognitive psychology. It attempts to understand and improve human reasoning and the systematic integration of diverse information for the purpose of improved decision making.

The dilemma is that, although the world is enormously complex and science continues to add to this enormity, the human brain has a limited capacity to store, recall, analyze, and interpret information. A recent analogy might be helpful: communications technology and 24-hour political analyses greatly increased the amount of information about the presidential candidates reaching our homes, but it seems we forgot to upgrade the voting box. Decision science is about improving the voting box and is as applicable to natural resource management in the national parks as it is to politics.

The vast majority of federal land litigation is based on lack of compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Administrative Procedures Act (APA). NEPA gives procedural guidance on how to make complex decisions, which is further embellished by NPS planning guidance. APA gives substantive guidance by directing that all decisions not be arbitrary, although operational details on how to meet this responsibility are limited.

The Federal Interagency Task Force on Visitor Capacity on Public Lands was initiated by the Assistant Secretary of the Interior in July 2000. At first glance the charge of the task force is to help resolve the old “visitor carrying capacity” question in parks and on other federal lands, but a close examination reveals an effort to develop tools for making decisions that are not arbitrary but based upon decision science.

The approach is simple. Arbitrary decisions are those without principle and reason. Thus the task force is developing an explicit set of principles and reasons (i.e., decision criteria) that can guide decision making, along with decision-making protocols that will help ensure, and document for the administrative record, a reasoned and systematic integration of science, circumstances, and assumptions defining a particular situation.

The goal of the task force is ambitious. It is intended to improve the substantive guidance to make better decisions; to improve the clarity of NPS plans; and to increase public understanding and support, and managerial confidence and resolve to make the difficult decisions.

Will this effort reduce judicial challenges? No, not in the short run, because complex, new, and controversial decisions such as visitor capacities will always stimulate a body of case law initially. But our judicial system operates on the principle of judicial deference—that is, administrative decisions should be made by the responsible person and not by the courts. Thus the strategy is that the courts will defer to NPS decision making if we can demonstrably ensure that principled and reasoned decisions are made through a NEPA-compliant planning process.

Benjamin Franklin’s prudential algebra and today’s decision science will help guarantee that the increasing volume of scientific information will be used intelligently by decision makers.