Is Science Acting Insane? AAAS President Bemoans Constraints of Societal Ethics, Advocates Dipl

“…insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.”   Alan I. Leshner, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, reminds readers of Science¹ of this proverb in order to help them face the fact that ignoring the public’s values, or protesting against them, will not allow scientists to get what they want.
    Leshner isn’t looking forward to the next annual meeting.  The theme will be “Where Science Meets Society,” and from the way he wrote his editorial, he dreads having to come to terms with the fact that “the relationship between science and society is undergoing significant stress…. This disaffection and shift in attitudes predict a more difficult and intrusive relationship between science and society than we’ve enjoyed in the recent past.”  What’s causing the stress?  Two things:

1. Cloning and Stem Cell Research: (see 02/08/2005 entry):  Leshner notes that “Some members of the public are finding certain lines of scientific research and their outcomes disquieting” (emphasis added in all quotes).  He elaborates:
   

   Examples of these strains in the relationship include sharp public divisions about therapeutic or research cloning and stem cell research.  Although many understand the potential benefits of such research, they also are troubled about scientists working so close to what they see as the essence and origins of human life.  Last year, ideology came dangerously close to publicly trumping science when the U.S. Congress failed by only two votes to defund a set of grants from the National Institutes of Health on sexual behavior, HIV/AIDS, and drug abuse that made religious conservatives uncomfortable, even though the research was critical to solving major public health problems.

   Speaking in the collective first person, Leshner apparently sympathizes with the attitude of many scientists: they should be able to do whatever they want….

   For many scientists, any such overlay of values on the conduct of science is anathema to our core principles and our historic success.  Within the limits of the ethical conduct of science with human or animal subjects, many believe that no scientifically answerable question should be out of bounds.  Bringing the power of scientific inquiry to bear on society’s most difficult questions is what we have done best, and that often means telling the world things that it might not initially like.

   What “ethical conduct” is, and what its limits are, Leshner seems to assume are common knowledge and need no definition.

2. Intelligent Design:  Since Leshner deems this subject hardly worth discussing, he dismisses it with a wave of the rhetorical hand:
   

   And, of course, the scientific community is enmeshed in a continuing battle to keep the nature of science clear in debates about whether schools should be allowed to teach non-science-based “intelligent design theory” [quotes in original] alongside evolution in science classrooms.

Leshner explains what these two examples reveal:

The common thread linking these examples is that science and its products are intersecting more frequently with certain human beliefs and values.  As science encroaches more closely on heavily value-laden issues,  members of the public are claiming a stronger role in both the regulation of science and the shaping of the research agenda.

So what does he recommend?

Independence and objectivity in the shaping and conduct of science have been central to our successes and our ability to serve society.  Still, our recent experiences suggest that the values dimension is here to stay, certainly for a while, and that we need to learn to work within this new context.  Protesting the imposition of value-related constraints on science has been the usual response, but it doesn’t work because it doesn’t resonate with the public.
    An alternative is to adopt a much more inclusive approach that engages other communities assertively in discussing the meaning and usefulness of our work.  We should try to find common ground through open, rational discourse.  We have had some success with programs such as the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Ethical, Legal and Social Implications program.  Another example is the AAAS’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, which brings scientists together with religious leaders and ethicists to discuss scientific advances and how they relate to other belief and value systems.

He continues his advice: “Simply protesting the incursion of value considerations into the conduct and use of science confirms the old adage that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.”  Instead, “Let’s try some diplomacy and discussion,” he says, “and see how that goes for a change.”

¹Alan I. Leshner, “Where Science Meets Society,” Science, Vol 307, Issue 5711, 815, 11 February 2005, [DOI: 10.1126/science.1110260].

For fun, reread his comments, and replace each instance of science and scientists with elitism and elitists.
    Leshner’s attitude toward his fellow citizens, and toward his fellow members of the human race, is disgusting.  He assumes what he thinks is sensible makes sense to everybody else.  He assumes that whatever he believes is science, and what anyone else believes is stupidity.  Irritated by having to spend an ounce of energy considering what anyone else thinks, he feels obligated to patronize them briefly enough to appease them, then get back to the business of “science” – i.e., complete freedom to do anything he wants, at taxpayer expense.  He has no idea what the “limits of ethical conduct” are, other than perhaps a vague recollection that some guy named Mengele did a few things he maybe should not have, a long time ago.
    Instead of talking about Mengele, let’s look at what is going on in North Korea, as reported by Priya Abraham in World Magazine Feb. 5.  Read and shudder at the horror of science gone berserk:

For one experiment, officials told her to hand out liquid-soaked cabbage in white buckets to 50 women.  “After the women ate it, blood came out from their mouths and their rectums,” she wrote.  “It looked like something had exploded inside them.  In just a few minutes, they were all kneeling and falling forward.  The blood that came out of them went for five to six feet.  There was pandemonium and screaming.”
    Officials did similar tests on other men and women, in all about three times a year, Ms. Lee said.  Other experiments involved poisonous gas once or twice a year.  Officials donned protective suits and threw what looked like paintballs on the ground, forcing 30 to 200 prisoners to walk through the gas they emitted.  The prisoners fell over and cramped up.
    Eventually the death toll from the experiments was killing off too many prisoners and hampering camp officials’ ability to meet work quotas.  When the director complained to the state security bureau, they sent a terse reply, Ms. Lee said: “‘It is a Kim Jong Il directive: The chemical and biological weapons are needed for the battlefield.  It is meaningless to conduct these experiments on animals.’  The head of the camp was left speechless.”

Undoubtedly, such science would cross the ethical line in Leshner’s mind.  But how so?  Are not humans just animals?  What’s the essential difference between experimenting on fully-grown humans and on human embryos that have the full complement of human genes?  Where in the continuum of life and growth do you draw the arbitrary line?  To think that “science” knows but “religious conservatives” do not is the height of arrogance.
    What might “resonate with the public” is a little humility, for a change.