Last week, touched by winning a science prize at the Royal
Society, I donated it to the family of Dr David Kelly, the
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 – if fussy agronomists tried to insist that it
did not apply to crop plants – 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 to
fundamentally change how those industries operate.
Two worlds are set on a collision course. One is the world
of science, where objective inquiry serves as a telescope
for seeing the world as it exists around us and accurately
foretelling what is going to happen. In that world, what
counts is finding the truth and adjusting your actions –
and, if need be, changing established industries –
accordingly.
But in the world of politics, what is most important is
what you have reviously decided you are going to hold to.
Anyone who threatens those goals has to be blocked, for
they get in the way of what you consider the greater good.
Often that is for the best – just think of any political
change or institution you especially like, that had to be
pushed through against strong opposition.
The problem comes when the two worlds collide. For in the
short-term, the world of politics almost always wins.
Politicians are good at pressing the buttons of emotion,
or group feeling, or character assassination, or selective
evidence – all the old rhetorical devices of the classical
Greeks. Very few scientists can fight back. Although in
their private lives they might be psychologically astute,
their profession teaches them that arguments are
ultimately won by appeals to the truth. That is their
reflex: it is what they are habituated to do. Against spin
doctors, leaked governmental whispers, smooth lobbyists
and the like they have scarcely any defence.
There is an added twist. These two worlds operate on
different time scales. Scientists are exceptionally good
at picking out small indicators of what is happening in
the outside world, and accurately foretelling their
consequences. That is the enormous power that centuries of development in instrumentation and analytic technique have given them. Politicians, however, naturally take more of the layman’s attitude, where only evidence that is
large-scale and immediately obvious is truly important.
In my books I have written about many people who, like
David Kelly, abided by the logic of science; confident
that what they saw would be justified as time went on. Yet
so often they crashed up against the far different world
of politics and established power, and they ended up
crushed by it.
At the Royal Society last week it all came to a head.
Shortly before the prize evening I had had a long talk
with a military friend, recently back from Iraq. He was
very patriotic and in no way a pacifist. But it was clear
to him that he and his colleagues had been misled: their
mission had been inaccurately conceived from the start.
That is the final danger of the two worlds clashing. It
was easy for deft bureaucrats and media within the
political world to hound and slander Dr Kelly. But not
only was that an injustice against a decent person; it led
to his accurate insights about the real world being
dismissed. I could not change that. But I could help
remind people that it was wrong.
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