Congress Blinded Me With Politics!

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has proposed draft legislation that would require every grant handed out by the National Science Foundation (which oversees non-medical science) relate to research that is of “the finest quality, is ground breaking, and answers questions or solves problems that are of utmost importance to society at large; and … is not duplicative of other research project being funded by the Foundation or other Federal science agencies.” Smith also asked the NSF for information about the independent peer review process that led to the approval of 5 grants that he thought were dubious.

Smith’s proposal seems, on its face, to make sense: who doesn’t want high quality research? But there are several glaring problems. First, science is, by its nature, duplicative. For a scientific finding to gain acceptance, it must be replicated by other scientists. Only after collection of research is assembled can scientific theory become scientific fact.

More troubling is Smith’s intrusion into the independent peer review grant process. It seems that, these days, everything is political. Politicization is not always a bad thing. For example, the environmental movement was able to politicize the environment and get legislation like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts passed. Making an issue political often means we get to have a discussion about it in the public sphere, which is usually better than ignoring it.

But politicizing science is a bad idea. We’ve seen that bringing politics into climate science has transformed what is a settled scientific debate into a political football. I’ve written about the efforts of Sen. Tom Coburn to ban the NSF from conducting political science research, and why this is foolish given the need to investigate and perfect our democracy. Congress has banned the Centers for Disease Control from researching guns violence, which kills twice as many kids as cancer.

When it comes to fixing problems like climate change or gun control, we should have a vigorous public debate about potential policies. I’m sympathetic to the argument that many of the proposed solutions to gun violence and climate change are of dubious effectiveness (although we should try anyway). But squelching the science that can inform those debates is not the right thing to do.

America, a country where about half the people consider themselves middle class, has always been skeptical of elites. But Republican orthodoxy means treating the rich as righteous “job creators.” So Republicans have changed the definition of elite to embody such traits as being liberal, living on the coasts, city dwelling, and being connected to higher education. Professors and scientists are increasingly the subject of Republican scorn. Thus you have Sarah Palin making hay on the campaign trail by sneering about fruit fly research.

This kind of anti-intellectualism is troubling. While I’m wary of those who loudly proclaim the idea of American exceptionalism, it’s true that American scientists and universities have been truly exceptional. But the world is catching up. There should be a public dialogue about some issues of science, especially around ethical matters. But sacrificing scientific independence on the alter of politics does mostly harm and little good.

Scientific progress, in fact progress of all kinds, can often seem unstoppable, especially with the rapid changes of the last half century. I still have faith in progress, but the lessons of history have sowed some doubts. Centuries ago, the Muslim world was far more advanced than the West. But now much of the Muslim world clings to a religious orthodoxy that has left it a step behind. Supporters of science must always be vigilant, even if progress seems inevitable.