Protecting Science from Abuse Requires a Broader Form of Outreach

Abstract

The politicization of science may be as old as science itself. Famously, Galileo's championing of the theory that the Earth revolves around the sun met with staunch political opposition as a perceived challenge to the authority of the Catholic church. In the Soviet Union, Lysenko rejected the widely held chromosomal theory of inheritance in favor of a theory of environmental influences that aligned more closely with the philosophical underpinnings of communism. More recently, the assertion of the South African president Thabo Mbeki that AIDS is not caused by HIV flew in the face of decades of research and threatened to undermine proper treatment of the disease. In the view of many, science under the current United States administration is also under threat. Underlying many government policies that depend upon or affect science is a pattern by which evidence—which decision makers could use to craft well informed policies—is changed into a subjective tool for political or ideological goals [1–8]. The resulting perceptions of government hostility toward science threaten to drive frustrated federal scientists from agencies and to undermine the already flagging public respect for science. Ultimately, blame for the tension between science and politics does not lie with politicians alone. The minor role that scientists have played in the public arena allows such tensions to persist, and to grow elsewhere.