State corruption and suppression of science

Three men at their podia -- with three different understandings of science, different pressures and different policy objectives

This is a very interesting article in the BMJ.  Most of it is about the mis-use of science in the context of the Pandemic, but then the author goes on to say:

Politicians often claim to follow the science, but that is a misleading oversimplification. Science is rarely absolute. It rarely applies to every setting or every population. It doesn’t make sense to slavishly follow science or evidence. A better approach is for politicians, the publicly appointed decision makers, to be informed and guided by science when they decide policy for their public. But even that approach retains public and professional trust only if science is available for scrutiny and free of political interference, and if the system is transparent and not compromised by conflicts of interest.

Suppression of science and scientists is not new or a peculiarly British phenomenon. In the US, President Trump’s government manipulated the Food and Drug Administration to hastily approve unproved drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir. Globally, people, policies, and procurement are being corrupted by political and commercial agendas.

The UK’s pandemic response relies too heavily on scientists and other government appointees with worrying competing interests, including shareholdings in companies that manufacture covid-19 diagnostic tests, treatments, and vaccines. Government appointees are able to ignore or cherry pick science—another form of misuse—and indulge in anti-competitive practices that favour their own products and those of friends and associates.

How might science be safeguarded in these exceptional times? The first step is full disclosure of competing interests from government, politicians, scientific advisers, and appointees, such as the heads of test and trace, diagnostic test procurement, and vaccine delivery. The next step is full transparency about decision making systems, processes, and knowing who is accountable for what.

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Two points come to mind:

1.  This is not just a medical problem.  It happens across the board -- the suppression and manipulation of science happens everywhere, in all subjects.  Physics, chemistry, astrophysics, geology, botany.  And yes, even in glacial geomorphology.  And the "misappropriation" or "misapplication" of science happens not just within government (politicians are, of course, notoriously naive) but within government agencies too.  Think English Heritage, and even Cadw and the National Museum of Wales, who are very happy to pretend that their narrative about Stonehenge is soundly based upon good science, when it is in fact based upon a series of narratives developed over the years by professional archaeologists with "reputations" in the forefront of their minds, and with "commercial advantage" trumping everything else as far as the exhibitors and guardians of our heritage are concerned.  They need press coverage and they need to keep the turnstiles clicking.

2.  I part company with the author of this article because -- like many other people who write about science -- they seem to assume that "the science" is the truth.  That is not what science is, or what it pretends to be. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.  Hopefully, it progresses towards the truth, but in that process there is always debate and always dispute -- hypotheses are created in order to explain natural phenomena, tested to destruction, and replaced by new hypotheses.  So in the science of Covid-19, as in everything else, some science is sound and others science is not -- and in fairness to the politicians, it is not always easy to see which is which.  At best they simply have to go with the consensus, which is of course sometimes completely wrong. 

Editorials
Covid-19: politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of scienceBMJ 2020; 371 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4425 (Published 13 November 2020)

Cite this as: BMJ 2020;371:m4425


BMJ lashes out at UK ‘state corruption’ and ‘suppression of science’
The highly-respected medical journal hit out at the "politicisation of science" in an article lashing out at Tory cronyism,  by Henry Goodwin
November 16, 2020
in Politics

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/bmj-lashes-out-at-uk-state-corruption-and-suppression-of-science/