Scientists have no chance against spin doctors (David Bodanis)

[swag]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d869fe94-ea81-11da-9566-0000779e2340.html (reg. req.)

via Mark Thoma at Economist's View

Financial Times commentary by David Bodanis

Last week, touched by winning a science prize at the the UK’s Royal Society, I donated it to the family of David Kelly, the British scientist who committed suicide after governmental criticism associated with his research into weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Not everyone thinks mine was the right decision, on the grounds that science should not be sullied by bringing politics into it. From my years looking at the history of science, I do not agree. For science often leads to technologies that can undermine the established powers in society – and when those powers fight back, they fight to win.

Sometimes that retaliation is deadly and scientists die for the truth. Soviet authorities of the 1930s, for example, hated biologists who pointed out that changing a plant’s environment did not alter its genetic nature. That truth undercut the authorities’ belief that by altering society, they would be able to create a new Marxist man in a single generation. If there were any exceptions to this idea at all ... then those opponents had to be crushed. Many were demoted; others were sent to prison, beaten or killed.

George W. Bush’s attitude to science is less deadly, of course, but similar in essence. The US president and many of his supporters know that if the public were to be convinced that present uses of coal and oil were putting the planet in grave danger, there would be an outcry . . .

(more readable at Mark Thoma's Economics blog, if you don't want to hassle with the free trial at Financial Times.}

[Demeter]

1. Spin Doctors Have No Chance Against Science

Gravity--not only a good idea: It's the Law!