Imperfect Oracle: The Epistemic and Moral Authority of Science

7. Science and Government

This chapter is about the ways in which science exercises epistemic and moral authority in the a¤airs of government, and how governmental policies and actions in turn constrain the scope and autonomy of science. It is in some sense a continuation of the theme of chapter 3, which dealt with American science. Much has been written about the roles and status of science in the federal government over the past half century and more. I will not attempt to reprise this literature. Our concern is with the particular question of the limits of the exercise of authority by science in government , and on how science’s authority, moral authority, and autonomy are circumscribed by politics. We begin with a brief introduction and recapitulation of themes already touched on, then follow with speciWc stories of recent vintage that reveal how government has given scope to science’s authority, constrained it, or even trumped it entirely. In 1978 Don K. Price wrote about the evolving character of the social contract between science and government in the decades following World War II and the implementation of Vannevar Bush’s classic 1945 report, Science: The Endless Frontier. The scientiWc establishment traded e¤ectively on its important contributions to the war e¤ort in order to gain the federal government’s acquiescence to support basic research as a foundation for practical progress and support of national military, social, and economic goals. The terms of the contract were a complex mix of reliance on procedures and authority structures that arose in the war e¤ort, and the invention of new organizational structures that would assure governmental oversight seven sc ience and government and control of expenditures and policies. In the process, scientiWc research achieved a measure of autonomy, though of limited scope. In writing about this, Price speaks of “authority,” but I believe he really meant what I have been referring to as autonomy: “The authority gained by the scientiWc community was not of the kind that could be defended as a matter of constitutional right; it was a delegated authority, and it depended on the continued conWdence among elected politicians in the assumptions on which the tacit bargain was founded—that basic research would lead automatically to fruitful developments” (79–80). Price identiWes three types of governmental constraint on research: regulatory red tape, antielitism, and controls on the substance of research. The Wrst of these is not central to our concerns here, although we will see that regulatory agencies can and do place constraints on science through rule making. Egalitarian, or antielitist, movements are a Wxture in the competitions for resources. Those who are less successful in garnering federal support for their research e¤orts are tempted to claim that special interests have been able to set the terms of competition in ways that disadvantage the less well connected. But throughout this book, we have previously encountered another aspect of the antielitist attitude: science frequently produces results that contradict settled beliefs, upset traditional understandings , or have the potential to negatively a¤ect particular economic interests. A commonly employed response is to invoke the image of intellectuals isolated in their ivory towers, indi¤erent to and largely ignorant of the practical world in which nonscientists live. To the extent that such sentiments are felt and acted on by politicians, antielitism becomes an element of political constraint on science. Thomas Gieryn’s account of the struggles of the social sciences to gain status and support from the federal government provides an interesting historical review of post–World War II science policy generally, and of the processes of boundary making within science and between science and society at large (Gieryn 1999, chap. 2). The social sciences had to struggle to gain recognition as legitimate science within the science establishment. Vannevar Bush was concerned mainly with securing autonomy for basic research in the natural sciences in university settings, free from the intense governmental oversight that had characterized wartime research e¤orts. He was not very interested in the social sciences, and made no e¤ort to include them in his brief for a new approach to federal support of science. Second, the social sciences had to overcome popular notions shared by many congressional Wgures that they really amounted to no more than science and government 209 common sense, and hence were not deserving of the same sort of support received by the natural sciences. Eventually the...