UC Santa Barbara

Undone science refers to missing areas of scientific knowledge needed for decision-making or public policy. Though the term has become ubiquitous in STS research, it is hard to distinguish undone science from other possibilities like uncertainty, secrecy, or even unknowability. This paper advances a framework for distinguishing undone science from these other scenarios and applies it to the case of glacier management in Chile. Drawing on observations of glaciology science and regulatory documents, the authors compare how glacier science informed decisions on two Environmental Impact Assessments about new mines, nearly 20 years apart: Pascua Lama and Los Bronces, approved respectively in 2006 and 2023. The comparison shows a shift in Chilean glacier management, from a classic case of “undone science,” defined as that needed by specific mobilized or marginalized groups to advance their cause, to one of scientific controversy. In this second moment, contests over uncertainty or what counts as good or bad science dominate, creating a risk of leaving new areas of research undone. The analytical framework helps identify contests over scientific autonomy, validation, and pluralism and advances a clearer picture of how power is exercised, who holds it, and what science is (and is not) useful for.