Science and Advocacy

MikeGene gives this insightful warning about using science as a rhetorical hammer. (He is responding to Matthew Nisbet, of Nisbet and Mooney fame.)

"Growing chunks of the public view science as partisanship. In other words, science is beginning to lose its authority in the public domain as more and more people come to view the scientific community cynically. And this is the serious problem with Nisbet’s solution."

This involves a confusion (not on MikeGene's part, though) between science as such and something else--political or moral advocacy, perhaps. Science does not say we should practice embryonic stem cell research or cut carbon emissions or vaccinate every girl and young woman against HPV. Science can tell us what the results of such choices might be; but "which choice is better?" is not a scientific matter. It is moral, philosophical, economic, theological, political, and so on.

The confusion, as I said, is not MikeGene's. It comes from those who tell us, "Science says..." while employing moral/political spin of the type Nisbet and Mooney injudiciously recommend.

How often has it been said that the difference between science and *you name it* (religion, philosophy, etc.) is that science is objective and self-correcting; more or less "above the fray;" and that is the basis of science's success and its epistemic superiority? Scientists risk their entire authority if they allow themselves to be co-opted into partisan advocacy.

Posted: Sun - April 22, 2007 at 08:20 AM |

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Science and Advocacy

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson