Using science to further government objectives

OPINION:

“Scientists Discover Strong Correlation Between Trusting Government And Eating Paint Chips” read a recent headline in The Babylon Bee. The article went on to report that “trust in government also ranked high among gasoline sniffers, toad lickers, and oven cleaner huffers.”

Although the article is ostensibly satirical, trusting government does seem a mite flaky these days, especially when combined with a trust in mainstream media reporting on science in the service of government.

Obviously, government can and does support many honorable scientific ventures that benefit society. Nevertheless, even with impressive scientific and technologic advancements supported by government subsidy through the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a stark caution about government-funded research in his farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961, saying:

“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

So, decades ago, the nation was warned of the potential untoward influence of government largesse on learned research results, and vice versa. Who would have thunk it today?

Here’s where government must be nuanced with politics. Politics sway government science-related pronouncements, like the kind of pronouncements that conveniently conclude that any unusual weather event is indicative of human-caused catastrophic climate change.

Or a pronouncement that asserted that a deadly virus that originated from a Chinese city with a virology lab that was allegedly highly secure could not have even accidentally released a deadly biological agent.

As I noted in these pages in June 2021, the government-contested allegation beginning in early 2020 that COVID-19 might have originated from a Wuhan laboratory was never that far-fetched, and certainly not part of a conspiracy theory.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, that a deadly virus could emerge from a secure government or university laboratory is not that surprising. Even under the best of circumstances, accidents happen.

No wonder science, especially government-promoted science, is not credible to the public.

There is plenty of evidence that politics has infested science to the point that politically verminous policies have overrun certain government sectors not unlike a COVID plague.

The public may view certain organizations as being staffed with completely objective people that control the decisions of the organization. That view, however, is quite distorted. Having worked full time in government for 20 years and in academia for 10, I can confirm that strong personalities and solid conventions regularly determine what the populace is allowed to know, rather than a sort of democratic balance or spectrum of views.

Any definitive “consensus” is characteristically left-wing, and organizational pronouncements typically follow suit. Conservative voices, if present, are often muted, censored or self-censored as necessary.

Consensus is not an ultimatum in science. Science is strongly dependent upon independent review of consensus assertions, especially when such assertions are infused with political pressure.

Another sad fact today is the introduction of partisan “fact-checkers” to assure a skeptical public that what they are reading is dependable information. Many of these checkers are not reliable because of their political ties, and this degrades science even further.

Politically biased science and its partisan champions, including many in the media, contribute to the poisoning of true knowledge and must be remedied by objective scientists and defenders of impartial science. Scientists and their defenders must take a stand to encourage and find rational solutions to the contemporary issues of the day.

Some good news, though: Going the political route, the truth will emerge when it is politically safe for it to do so. Better late than never. But time is of the essence on critical issues like emerging deadly diseases and ecological disasters.

Part of the problem is that scientific discovery can move much more slowly when driven by politics and can certainly be steered in the wrong direction. The GPS (government positioning system) can be quite unreliable.

Eisenhower followed his 1961 cautionary statement on government input and financing and the scientific-technological community with a noteworthy solution:

“It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”

But regardless of such sound and constructive advice, with so much meddling in what the public knows or is allowed to know, government “science” by any other name would be politics. And, as the Babylon Bee article quoted above concluded in response to favorable “scientific research” results, “lawmakers proposed a bill supporting a universal basic paint chip supply for all Americans.”
 
• Anthony J. Sadar is a certified consulting meteorologist and co-author of “Environmental Risk Communication: Principles and Practices for Industry” (CRC Press, 2021).