How to Depoliticize Science in One Easy Step
March 12, 2009
Via Disputations:
There is only one way to separate politics from science
And that is to separate politicians from scientists.
What connects them is money. If you’re not for government defunding all its scientific programs, then you aren’t for separating politics from science.
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10 Comments
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And Catholic health care institutions would not need anything like the Provider Conscience Regulation if they took no government funding.
I read part of a very serious article by a Catholic making a case that Catholic hospitals and other health care providers should wean themselves off of federal funds. It was not in a Catholic publication, but I believe it was a publication having to do with religion (and/or ethics) and hospitals. I am trying to find it again, so far without success, but maybe someone out there knows the publication or the article. If so, please let me know what it is.
David
You might have a case
I have been a Catholic Convert going on many years and I am not sure what a Catholic Hosoital does that is not provided by the secular porvider accross the street.
I am more concerned with de-free-enterprising medical science than depoliticizing science, because as long as drugs and other treatments can be sold for a dandy profit, enterprising medical scientists and their collaborators will be concentrating feverishly on producing those things that cure our ills to the detriment of promoting “wellness” (or healthy living), which prevents the ills in the first place but cannot be sold for a profit in a convenient way.
I take it, Blackadder, that you think government should totally get out of the science business, leaving the business of science to–what? business?
When and if that happens, I’ll be looking for the genetically-modified apes to go on sale soon as the perfect type of industrial worker, guaranteed disease-resistant and not susceptible to unionization.
i’m with david here. science and medicine (& health insurance) for profit seem to me to be the biggest problem.
I’ll be looking for the genetically-modified apes to go on sale soon as the perfect type of industrial worker, guaranteed disease-resistant and not susceptible to unionization.
That’s your nightmare scenario? Really?
BA,
Just posting something without comment doesn’t indicate agreement, so I am betting you don’t believe the government should defund all science programs. The government has a legitimate interest in funding research to benefit public health. I think most of us believe in at least some space exploration. And unless you are a total pacifist, it’s pretty difficult to say there should be no defense spending on scientific research.
My father (a chemist) used to be disdainful of efforts to protect endangered species, and he used to say that if the housefly was going extinct, someone would have a campaign to save it. It seems to me if we keep the small-pox virus from going extinct, we would probably try to save the housefly as well, but in a lab somewhere, not in people’s houses.
David,
If you read the post closely, you’ll see that the author I’ve quoted doesn’t say the government should defund all science programs either, only that this would be the only way to prevent science from becoming politicized. I happen to think that’s right (though, as you correctly note, the fact that I reproduced the quote doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with it).
I am inclined to see the politicization of science that comes from government funding as a serious negative, but one which must be accepted in some cases for lack of a better alternative. For that reason, I’m willing to accept some government funding for basic research, though the closer the research gets to actual practical applications the less willing I am to tolerate it. I’m also not a big fan of the space program, fwiw.
By the way, this isn’t a propos of anything in particular, but I’ve wanted to compliment you for a while now on your comments here on this blog. They display a level of rigor and courtesy that is sadly all too often lacking on the Internet.
I don’t agree that defunding scientists would depoliticize science itself. Nor would strictly separating politicians from scientists. At it’s base, science makes truth claims about the observable world. How a politician might use the fact that apples fall downward does not make gravity a conservative force or a liberal slippery slope. In this way, scientists could be funded by private donation and their results might still be spun by this or that machine.
Now, speaking as a scientists whose funding is currently provided by the federal government and will be writing grants for federal dollars for the rest of my life I will say this: How a scientist presents their own case in order to convince other people to part with their money is often tied to specific administrations. Everything is salesmanship. A good scientist, however, will follow evidence to a sound conclusion and, I believe, make a-political conclusions. A slip-shod scientist will bend over backwards to make things come out the way someone else wants to hear it. This boils down to specific individuals and it is a disservice to all to call “science” a politicized arena.
The real nightmare scenario happens for the RCIA director when one of those workers wants to sign up. I guess that will be one to ask Father about.