A couple of days ago USA Today published a story with this headline: “Science vs. politics gets down and dirty.” The article starts with a reprise of congressional testimony last month by former Surgeon General of the United States Richard Carmona. Carmona testified that “top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations” (Surgeon General sees 4-year term as compromised, New York Times, 11 July 2007). The tenor of the article is captured in this paragraph:
Carmona's statements crystallized the schism between the president and many of the nation's scientists, touching off conversations within and outside the administration on how bad things have gotten, who is to blame and what this means for the future.
Ian Hart points out that the article conflates political considerations and political interference.
Political interference in science refers to changing the results of scientific investigations to suit political purposes. It refers to the sorts of things that Julie McDonald apparently did – her actions “raised questions about the integrity of scientific information used [in endangered species decisions]” (USFWS press release, 20 July 2007).
In Hart's view, political considerations in science refers to not following scientific recommendations. I don't think that's quite right. It's not quite right, because in the second category of cases there isn't a “scientific” recommendation. The recommendations are about public policy, which intrinsically involves tradeoffs between competing values. Science can describe the outcomes associated with different policy choices, but the choice between those outcomes is determined by what we value. So political considerations concern how policy choices are made in the context of competing values.
Bush's position on federal funding of scientific research on embryonic stem cells may be shortsighted and wrong, for example, but his position is based on his deeply-seated belief that embryos are a potential human being and worthy of legal protection. He regards the potential benefits to be derived from embryonic stem cell research as insufficient to compromise the almost infinite value he places on human embryos. His position is based on his values.1 Supporters of stem cell argue both that the benefits of embryonic stem cell research are much greater than Bush imagines and that the embryos on which he places such value should not be valued so highly.
Thus, the stem cell debate is2 informed by science, but the debate whether federal or state funding of embryonic stem cell should be supported is largely a debate about competing ethical values, not a scientific debate at all.
1There are those, of course, who think Bush is merely pandering to his right-wing supporters, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here and to think that his position on stem cells is not merely expedient.
2Or should be.
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