dilettante
Mar 10th 2009, 08:19 AM
"Taking the politics out of science"
So yesterday President Obama changed the rules governing Federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells. It's a contraversial issue (at least in the US), but for the purposes of this thread I'm less interested in stem cell research itself, or the decision to fund that research, than in the language that has gone into explaining/justifying that decision. Some of what I've heard concerns me.
The president has said he desires to 'take the politics out of science' and to see it that we have "scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." And that is all well and good so long as we are actually talking about science and scientific decisions. But lately it seems that the language of science is being used (perhaps with the best of intentions) to disguise the true nature of what are in fact political/ideological decisions.
Science may be able to tell us how embryonic stem cell therapy can help people with various diseases, or at least whether or not it is likely to do so with more research, and what some of the consequences of that research/therapy would be. But science, qua science, cannot determine whether anyone should engage in/fund that research, or whether it would be better to spend one's time/money on something else. Science may tell us 'If A then X; if B then Y', but the decision of whether or not X is better than Y (and thus, the decision between A and B) is not scientific but political/ideological.
Now this is not in any way to deny that politics and ideology have gotton unduly "into" science of late and have skewed what were legitimately scientific decisions. Political/ideological pressures have led individuals to choose poor methods over more effective ones, to accept suspect findings that meet outside goals, and to misrepresent the results of research. This is all bad and should be stopped as much as possible.
But the decision of what should be researched is not, at root, a scientific decision. And I fail to see how Obama's decision to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research is any less political/ideological than Bush's decision not to expand funding for it. The difference, as far as I can see, is that Bush was willing to admit (in this case, if not in others) that his decision was based on politics and ideology.
So yesterday President Obama changed the rules governing Federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells. It's a contraversial issue (at least in the US), but for the purposes of this thread I'm less interested in stem cell research itself, or the decision to fund that research, than in the language that has gone into explaining/justifying that decision. Some of what I've heard concerns me.
The president has said he desires to 'take the politics out of science' and to see it that we have "scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." And that is all well and good so long as we are actually talking about science and scientific decisions. But lately it seems that the language of science is being used (perhaps with the best of intentions) to disguise the true nature of what are in fact political/ideological decisions.
Science may be able to tell us how embryonic stem cell therapy can help people with various diseases, or at least whether or not it is likely to do so with more research, and what some of the consequences of that research/therapy would be. But science, qua science, cannot determine whether anyone should engage in/fund that research, or whether it would be better to spend one's time/money on something else. Science may tell us 'If A then X; if B then Y', but the decision of whether or not X is better than Y (and thus, the decision between A and B) is not scientific but political/ideological.
Now this is not in any way to deny that politics and ideology have gotton unduly "into" science of late and have skewed what were legitimately scientific decisions. Political/ideological pressures have led individuals to choose poor methods over more effective ones, to accept suspect findings that meet outside goals, and to misrepresent the results of research. This is all bad and should be stopped as much as possible.
But the decision of what should be researched is not, at root, a scientific decision. And I fail to see how Obama's decision to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research is any less political/ideological than Bush's decision not to expand funding for it. The difference, as far as I can see, is that Bush was willing to admit (in this case, if not in others) that his decision was based on politics and ideology.