BY ZACHARY PERROTTA
Science.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method.
Naturally, it seems that this set of processes created to determine the truth should not be influenced by forces which can skew reality in their favor. However, the influence of politics, which regularly works to paint pictures supporting biased agendas, has seeped its way into the truth.
This interference on the part of interest groups and political organizations has worked to bring a new dynamic to scientific advancement, which brings to prominence a single question: should science be intertwined with policy?
Science always will be intertwined with public policy to some extent. A multitude of issues in the political sphere, including reducing the impact of anthropogenic climate change and the promotion of vaccination all rely upon studies conducted by climatologists or vaccination researchers to reach conclusions about the potential impact of policies.
In some ways, politics already has a positive impact on scientific development, just as in other ways the influence that politics holds over science is causative of a scientific malpractice of sorts.
The issue is not that the scientific community is influencing policy. In fact, it should. The leaders of our time should allow scientific evidence to shape their positions on all issues.
For instance, when the government decides to subsidize research to solve national crises, that is a reasonable action. When the government, lastly, runs departments such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) which are intertwined naturally with science and attempt to achieve relatively non-partisan goals, that is acceptable.
Instead, it is when the relationship becomes inverted, and interest groups influence findings to favor their positions that the relationship becomes problematic. To understand why, know that research is not free and, usually, is reliant upon governments or outside entities for funding. This phenomenon is not restricted to the U.S. and exists worldwide.
Case in point: the Australian Research crisis of 2013, wherein the Australian Coalition party threatened to revoke funding from ‘wasteful research.’
“A Coalition Government … will crack down on [the] addiction to waste,” Coalition MP Jamie Briggs said. “By auditing … ridiculous research grants and re prioritizing funding through the Australian Research Council (ARC) [the Coalition will] deliver funds to where they’re really needed.”
The ARC was also being compelled to provide 103 million USD over four years not just for healthcare research, but for the improvement of Australian healthcare itself. The reason behind this attempt at funding redistribution is hiding behind some fancy smoke and mirrors; in reality, it has little to do with where the money is going, but where it has come from.
While the ARC asserts that their method for selecting research to award grants to is private and practical, the Coalition is attempting to audit it and, therefore, modify it. This method is one of the most prominent ways in which politics influences research: by shutting down projects that are perceived as useless.
Moreover, because of the reliance of research on funding, private interest groups often capitalize on needy researchers to slightly alter results.
This relationship was demonstrated when, allegedly, the Exxon Mobil company paid off the renowned and esteemed Princeton physics professor William Happer to write a study disproving the high impact of anthropogenic climate change. Today, Happer testifies before Congress frequently among others with eerily similar connections to companies which, entirely coincidentally, emit a high degree of CO2.
Like most issues, this is solvable.
First of all, governments including our own must shift the role in which they play in the sciences, working to use scientific evidence in the same logical and truthful fashion that science-based agencies use. Yes, asking politicians to interpret studies correctly and not to misconstrue their results is a hard request. The way that politicians interpret and use scientific findings is just as critical as what the results say.
Further, the government needs to continue to provide grants for necessary research, but must not influence that research as the private sector does. Lastly, the private sector, by extension, must refrain from the skewing of results and, if they disregard this recommendation, the governments of the world must promote effective peer review to weed out falsified and inaccurate results.
By instituting such reforms, the U.S. and nations around the world will restore the faith in the credibility of research and reduce researchers’ dependence on outside funding, which negatively influences the research itself. It will also increase the accuracy behind the positions of our leaders as credible research leads to more credible politicians assuming, of course, that they don’t continue to intentionally spin the results of this research to their own benefit.
