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Perspectives
Where are the Scientists? by
Daniel S. Greenberg A nasty paradox of our time is that science has never mattered more in the life of the nation but scientists have never mattered less. On the Washington scene today, they are virtually ineffective, if present at all, in the venues that count. And for these failings, science is largely to blame. It’s by choice that the savants are absent from the fray.
Oh, yes, scientists discourse on public issues to the converted in their journals and at their conferences. But as a force in national politics, as an influence over a scientifically untutored public, as a bloc that politicians must respect, scientists in America today rank low on the potency scale.
Perhaps the most assured way for them to get into the White House these days is as tourists. When the health lobbies seek an impact on Congress and public sympathy, they put entertainment stars in the witness chair, a la Michael J. Fox for Parkinson’s disease and Mary Tyler Moore for diabetes. There’s no scientist or physician today who counts with politics or the public. The president’s science adviser, little known and rarely heard from in Washington, is a political outsider—not to mention a Democrat—several circles distant from the shark-filled inner circle of the White House.
All of the behemoth issues, and many minor ones, on today’s political agenda are packed with complex scientific content: Bio-terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, energy, AIDS, SARS, flu, stem cells, missile defense, genetic modification, and so on. Yet the people who know most about the scientific and technical cores of these issues are, at most, bit players in the decision-making processes. Their absence is not solely attributable to the fact-averse administration that now runs the government, though scientists have receded even further under this regime. Even under the science-friendly Carter and Clinton administrations, scientists were minor figures in governmental affairs.
The tip-off is that science advice at the presidential level is so little regarded that often many post-inaugural months elapse before a presidential science adviser arrives on board—9 nine months in the case of George W. Bush, with similar delays occurring under Reagan, Carter, and Bush I. (Clinton named his science adviser on Inauguration Day.) The security clearance process is cited as a delaying factor, and it is. But the presidential posts that are recognized as politically important, the national security and economic advisers, for example, are quickly filled. A new post-election report from the National Academy of Sciences echoes the Academy's previous pleas for presidential recognition of the importance of sound science advice, at the outset of an administration, to identify "the best candidates for key S&T appointments and to provide advice in the event of a crisis." The report acknowledges that similar recommendations after the 2000 election went unheeded.
Why the neglect of science? The answer is not simply that politicians get all the science advice they care for—which is not very much. (After all, Congress did abolish its own scientifically oriented in-house think tank, the Office of Technology Assessment.) Rather, despite their persistent grousing, mainly in private, about the follies of scientifically illiterate politicians, scientists have no stomach for electoral political combat. Taking the lobbying route, and shunning the ballot box, they focus on maximizing federal money and minimizing federal regulation, goals that are relentlessly pursued by a flock of affluent Washington-based scientific and higher-education organizations. Count among them the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Association of American Universities, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At the drop of a budget line, they’re at the barricades; otherwise they are comfortably recumbent.
When it comes to wading into real politics—i.e., supporting friends and opposing foes —science, unlike other professions and interests, shuns the battlefield. Physicians, lawyers, real-estate agents, pharmacists, gun owners, and others regularly and diligently pursue their interests through elective politics. Not so scientists. In their occasional declarations on the scientific-political issues of our time, they tend to be polite, non-partisan, apolitical—and ineffective, as with mealy-mouthed pronouncements on restricted stem-cell research, post 9/11 visa barriers for foreign students, and tip-toeing responses to climate-change deniers. In that same report calling for prompt appointment of a presidential science adviser, the National Academy of Sciences expresses concern about "the politicization of S&T decision making and advice" and urges purity in these matters. It is doubtful that Karl Rove will be swayed. The most direct and constant opposition to the Bush Administration’s depredations against scientific values has come from a quasi-scientific organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a public-interest organization group that heretofore has concentrated on environmental issues.
But didn’t scientists organize for collective participation in the recent presidential election? Yes—in a fashion that illustrates their touching political naïveté. Their mobilization, on behalf of John Kerry, bore the bland, unrevealing title “Scientists and Engineers for Change.” It ran a web site, sponsored speakers in quite a few states, issued statements, and came and went virtually unnoticed by the news media—which is what counts in elections. In 1964, the nuclear saber rattling of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater brought out a massive nationwide mobilization under the banner of Scientists and Engineers for Johnson-Humphrey, strongly backed by the leadership of the scientific community. But the morning after election day, second thoughts prevailed about the wisdom of going political, and later efforts to repeat that performance were quelled by the chieftains of science.
Science’s aloofness from political involvement is based on two contentions: First, that partisan involvement could erode Congressional support for science budgets, and, second, that scientists cannot constitute a single political interest group because they differ among themselves in their politics and values.
Both wrong. The political base for science support is strong because almost every Congressional district now wants a slice of R&D spending, and political unanimity is not present in the aforementioned vocations that vigorously take part in politics—nor should it be expected in science.
Politicians pay careful attention to the National Rifle Association, not because it is wise, but because it is well-organized and determined to achieve its goals. They can safely ignore science and scientists because there’s no risk in doing so. Count up all the scientists, associated workers, their families and friends, and there’s the potential for a lot of money and votes—unfulfilled, unfortunately.
Daniel S. Greenberg, a
long-time science reporter in Washington, is the author of “Science,
Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion” (University
of Chicago Press, 2001), and “The Politics of Pure Science” (1967, new
edition by the University of Chicago Press, 2003). He is currently a
Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, where he is working on a
book about the impact of commercialization on academic health research,
under a Health Policy Investigator grant from the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation. He can be contacted at:
DanielG523@aol.com.
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