Soft Lysenkoism

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Daniel Sarewitz of Slate grapples with the fact that most scientists are Democrats and, to his credit, finds that fact a "problem." Unfortunately, his analysis is limited by aspects of the very vicious circle he is, in fact, unwittingly observing and commenting on. Discussing an upcoming appearance by Barack Obama on Mythbusters, where he hopes to "reinforce the idea that Democrats are the party of science and rationality," Sarewitz considers the correlation between sides of the global warming debate and political affiliation. You are getting warm, Mr. Sarewitz, and it's not due to an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

Sarewitz correctly notes that, "evidence about global warming has been directly and explicitly linked to a set of policy responses demanding international governance regimes, large-scale social engineering, and the redistribution of wealth," and that these anti-capitalist policies have caused many conservatives to become "suspicious of the science."

Think about it: The results of climate science, delivered by scientists who are overwhelmingly Democratic, are used over a period of decades to advance a political agenda that happens to align precisely with the ideological preferences of Democrats. Coincidence -- or causation? Now this would be a good case for Mythbusters.
Thank you, Mr. Sarewitz. Also, you are getting red hot.

Sarewitz also gets points for acknowledging the fact that the monolithic political culture of modern science endangers its credibility with the public, but he gets no cigar. His stab at a solution is something of a Band-Aid, and an attempt to reverse cause and effect. Simply (somehow) having more Republican scientists might indeed lend more surface credibility to science, but having more would likely require fixing the "something" that is "going on that is as yet barely acknowledged, let alone understood."

I agree that there is something going on that is barely acknowledged (at least as a problem), and which is encouraging Democrats to become scientists, rewarding scientists who favor leftist policy reactions to scientific findings, and causing certain areas likely to cause enormous expansion of state power to become "hot" prospects for funding. But that something is actually well understood: It is state sponsorship of scientific research.

One need only revisit one of the darkest examples of state "encouragement" of science and use a little imagination to understand what is going on.
Under Lysenko's guidance, science was guided not by the most likely theories, backed by appropriately controlled experiments, but by the desired ideology. Science was practiced in the service of the State, or more precisely, in the service of ideology. The results were predictable: the steady deterioration of Soviet biology. Lysenko's methods were not condemned by the Soviet scientific community until 1965, more than a decade after Stalin's death. [bold added]
This example is less crude and is closer to home than one might think. Leftist ideology favors redistribution of wealth -- and already practices it in terms of deciding which topics and which scientists receive funding expropriated from private citizens via taxation and inflation. Grant proposals come by nature from ideas deemed likely to generate new data in support of a given theory. Many scientists have pet theories to which they have devoted entire careers -- and some of them are in charge of reviewing grant proposals.

If the government starts becoming concerned that global warming is a problem (i.e., is already predisposed to believe positive results), starts funding research to determine the extent of the problem, and has "experts" committed to the theory of anthropogenic global warming reviewing the grant proposals, which scientists are going to become encouraged, and which discouraged? And what of those dissenters who go to private funding sources instead, but practically have to label their articles as advertisements since only the government is supposedly free from bias. (As if the self-interest of a private donor or even a corporation completely divorces someone from wanting to know the truth. And as if the government can't possibly become a less-than-objective arbiter of which ideas deserve research funds.)

The fact that the government might make drastic policy decisions in reaction to a scientific verdict that there is man-made global warming is bad enough -- and confuses the debate among laymen. Whether there is man-made global warming and what to do about it are two separate questions from two separate spheres (science and political philosophy). But setting aside the attraction that some "fringe" (or incompetent or not-really) scientists might hold on some conservatives, state interference in science can -- without full-blown Stalinist repression -- compromise and politicize the scientific process.

I think that the fact that so many scientists are Democrats is primarily a cultural phenomenon stemming from the kinds of philosophical ideas that predominate our culture (and particularly the universities that educate our scientists), but state funding of science reinforces that tendency and entrenches the worst offenders, as I have indicated above. By the time we see a meaningful number of prominent non-leftists in science again, other cultural changes will have had to occur. And that -- helping such changes along -- is where the most fruitful efforts will take place.

-- CAV

8 comments:

Chris said...

When I was writing on alcohol, I'd often be accused (woefully incorrectly) of having been funded by the alcohol lobby; by contrast, nobody much worried about the money paid to the consultancy firm that seemed to have been directed to come up with a very large number on the costs of alcohol.

The sad state of affairs is that anybody suggesting that alcohol or tobacco is anything less than completely evil will have all of his work entirely discounted if he's funded by industry, government won't fund anything that isn't likely to show alcohol and tobacco as being completely evil, and folks funded by government agencies or NGOs that demand findings of "EVIL EVIL EVIL!" are never thought to have anything but the most benign and non-pecuniary of motivations. Guess what that does to the level of debate over time when researchers also have to pay their bills?

If one is worried about the corrupting influence of big oil on some climate scientists, worry also about the corrupting influence of competing for research grants from pro-warming governments.Examine results where the authors set things up for easy replication and less where they bury the data.

Gus Van Horn said...

I wasn't thinking about alcohol and tobacco when I wrote this, but those are excellent examples of the kinds of biases, real and imagined, that exist in the funding apparatus.

Mike said...

I think one should employ a healthy and skeptical attitude about research funding. Two-sided skepticism I call it:

Zero skepticism about research results based on funding links: bad.

Total skepticism about all research results based on funding links: worse.

One-sided skepticism about any research you don't like because of funding links: worst of all.

Steve D said...

I work in a large biotechnology company. What I find amazing is how very anti-capitalist most of my colleagues are. We're not talking just your normal centrists. Many of these people make Obama look right wing. These are people who are very smart and innovative. (But I guess not very wise)
One of my colleagues is a socialist who readily acknowledges that he would lose his job if his ideas were implemented but that doesn’t faze him at all.
There is more too this than just politics and funding and more than just education as well. Of that I am sure even if I don’t fully understand it. As you say it’s primarily a cultural phenomenon but the question is why does it affect some groups more than others? One possibility might be that well educated and smart people have simply more metal capacity to learn the wrong things.
From observing people I can see that most of these people approach problems in real life and politics completely differently than in science. They’ll make claims about economics for instance that simply make no sense and if I ask for evidence I get blank stares. This is compared to the completely different response I get if I ask for evidence for their scientific hypotheses.
So, I get people telling me all the time ridiculous stuff like ‘If we don’t pay taxes, we won’t have roads.’ as if only the government was capable of building roads.
One other interesting point is that there where I work there is certainly no consensus on AGW and other controversial scientific theories. I often get skeptical comments about them and AGW in particular.

Gus Van Horn said...

Gus,
"The results of climate science, delivered by scientists who are overwhelmingly Democratic, are used over a period of decades to advance a political agenda that happens to align precisely with the ideological preferences of Democrats."

There is a short science news blurb on NPR that uses the tagline, "A Clear Voice for Science" intoned after the science factoid and it's obvious political conclusions are addressed. I've started calling it "A Clear Voice for Socialism" because in any month of sundays there might be two times where the obvious political conclusion doesn't call for more government expenditure and interference.

c. andrew

Gus Van Horn said...

Mike,

Not that to defend government funding of science, but your comment does remind me that one reaction I have seen is unwarranted skepticism of any and all government-funded research.

Lots of that research is still valuable.

The best way to judge any new research is by evaluating how well it conforms to reality, and part of doing that -- assuming one has the knowledge to evaluate a given result -- is to consider how well it fits in with the other knowledge one has acquired.

Steve,

I think that in addition to an education that, as far as political philosophy goes, amounts to indoctrination, many such people (many of my colleagues as well) have been taught to regard normative judgments as beyond the scope of reason.

So, in addition to people spouting beliefs that would make Obama sound like a reactionary, they treat such beliefs as if they are revealed truths insofar as they do not test them before or after accepting them.

c.,

Heh. And I bet that if you had a nickel for every big government proposal they aired, the egalitarians would try to save the rest of us from you and your bank account!

Gus

madmax said...

I work in a large biotechnology company. What I find amazing is how very anti-capitalist most of my colleagues are.

I don't work in a bio-tech firm but I have friends who do. They are all, without exception, Leftists. Only one is a moderate liberal. But more generally, it seems as if the overwhelming majority of people in the sciences are Leftists. They are also usually skeptics. I think that one leads to the other.

A skeptic believes that there is no valid basis for ethics, and that uncertainty rules, especially in philosophy. The rest follows. If there are no valid philosophies, then all belief systems are irrational. If reason cannot arrive at the truth, then any claim to the truth is "unique" and mystical.

It also follows that the only belief system that escapes ridicule is Skepticism - explicit uncertainty about everything. Since religion is associated with free market politics (unjustly so), then free market advocates must be Right-wing nutjobs like Glenn Beck. All of this leads to a Leftist being a militant collectivist in their politics especially their economics.

To say it is frustrating is an understatement. It makes me almost understand what it must have been like during the Dark and Middle Ages when everyone was a true-believing Christian. Today's Left-Liberals and their underlying philosophy are the ruling paradigm. Goodness knows what it will take to break that.

Gus Van Horn said...

"It also follows that the only belief system that escapes ridicule is Skepticism - explicit uncertainty about everything. Since religion is associated with free market politics (unjustly so), then free market advocates must be Right-wing nutjobs like Glenn Beck. All of this leads to a Leftist being a militant collectivist in their politics especially their economics."

It contributes to collectivism, but doesn't wholly explain it. Collectivism (and its ethical root, altruism), are positive normative judgments, and ought to be (but aren't) pooh-poohed by skeptics. Why? In part, it's because those are the dominant ethics and politics of our culture, which such people absorb without necessarily realizing it.