Science Out of Touch

When science became a profession instead of an avocation, there were some unintended consequences.  Scientists began to lose touch with the public.  When a scientist goes to work doing science for a living, he or she sometimes takes public support for granted, thinking the work is justified for its own sake.  Recent articles, however, warn scientists and scientific institutions to re-think their presumed authority.  They need to start acting more accountable to the public who expects a return on investment.
    Part of the need for scientists to re-evaluate their status comes from mistakes and surprises.  Society looks to scientists to understand the world, but often, they are caught off guard or backtracking on previously well-established theories.  In today’s news, for instance, the BBC said that astronomers are “mystified” by high-energy gamma rays seen coming from the Crab Nebula.  Space.com says this burst “defies explanation.”  Many of the findings from the Cassini Mission to Saturn, like the Enceladus geysers and the lack of an ethane ocean on Titan, contradicted predictions and still have no explanation.  PhysOrg reported that the discovery of hot Jupiters (gas giants orbiting near other stars) orbiting backwards “so obviously violates our most basic picture of planet and star formation.”
    Another embarrassment comes when the public comes to believe, or scientists admit, that their projects were not worth doing in the first place.  For instance, the political push for biofuels is well known, but PhysOrg reported on a study that shows that conventional fossil fuels are sometimes greener than biofuels, when their entire carbon footprint is measured.  Remember the promises of artificial intelligence (AI)?   PhysOrg reminded readers that back in the 1950s and 60s, “hopes were high that tools emerging from the new science of computation would soon unravel the mysteries of human thought.”  Since then, AI research has had to dramatically reduce its aspirations; “As the computational complexity of even the most common human cognitive tasks became clear, however, researchers trimmed their sails,” the article admitted, quoting one researcher who couldn’t imagine building a robot able to reach into its pocket for its keys.  Embryonic stem cell research has yet to produce one actual treatment despite soaring promises, and the Human Genome Project, while generating a great deal of knowledge, similarly failed to simplify our understanding of human diseases.  Last week, Science News reported that “Evolutionary literary criticism” (see 01/27/2006) has flopped, remaining unpopular in the university.
    To be sure, any investigation of the unknown is going to have problems and setbacks.  But when the public pays for it, or when parents pay big bucks to have their children sit under science professors, they have reason to expect some return on investment.  This was emphasized in a Nature editorial this week,¹ “Value judgements.”  Members of the public are stake-holders in science, the editors admitted; their values cannot be ignored.  Scientists cannot just assume that the old canard of “knowledge for its own sake” will sell.  A recent symposium published by the journal Minerva raised awareness of this:

Policy-makers, funders and scientists should take note.  For example, a paper by Ryan Meyer, also a policy scientist at Arizona State University, focuses on the failure of the US government’s Global Change Research Program to deliver broad public value (Minerva 49, 47�70; 2011).  Basing his studies on public statements and private interviews with researchers and political decision-makers, Meyer says that US climate programmes have in the past two decades benefited from public investment of more than US$30 billion, but have largely failed to produce information and participation in the forms that policy-makers and the public wanted.  The notion that society considers any advance in knowledge to be inherently good – even if the science fails to meet the objectives and priorities it was meant to address – cannot be sustained, says Meyer.

The editorial reflected on post-normal science: “Science becomes ‘post-normal’ when facts are uncertain, stakes high, values in dispute and decisions urgent; in such cases, societal needs must be taken into account to avoid costly mistakes.”  The controversies about climate science come to mind.  The editors pointed to climate science as an example; “But, according to the workshop participants, most climate researchers continue to act as if purely scientific values are, and will always be, adequate to set the agenda.”  The editors of Nature agree with the scientific consensus on climate science, but realize that scientists have lost the public trust on the matter.  This pointed up another unintended consequence of the professionalism of science: scientists became a special-interest group, seeking their own priorities instead of those of society:

More importantly, these studies highlight a significant deficit in current typical appraisals of science and technology outcomes.  They should serve as cautionary tales about the danger of scientists’ interests, deliberately or otherwise, becoming too dominant in determining outcomes.  And they introduce ways to assess failures in social returns on investment that, one can only hope, will help to improve science’s public value.

How did science become professionalized in the first place?  The Scientist presented an essay by historian of science by Laura J. Snyder.  “In the 19th century, four friends changed the way scientists viewed themselves,” the subtitle of her essay begins.  She believes, “It’s time for another shake-up.”  Those four friends, featured in her new book The Philosophical Breakfast Club (Broadway Books, 2011), were William Whewell (who coined the term scientist), Charles Babbage, John Herschel, and Richard Jones.  “Each of the four men was brilliant, self-assured, and possessed of the optimism of the age,” Snyder said.  It was these four, who met for “Philosophical Breakfasts” to discuss the status of science, who were most influential in transforming science “from the province of the amateur—the clergyman collecting fossils or beetles in his spare hours, or the wealthy gentleman conducting electrical experiments at his country estate—to the career of the professional: trained at the university, published in specialized journals, and admitted to associations open only to fellow professionals.”  Darwin, for instance, rode the wave that elevated the scientist to the revered professional.  But then Snyder pointed out that the achievement of these four philosophers led to a serious problem plaguing science in our day:

One of the unintended consequences of the revolution wrought by the Philosophical Breakfast Club has been that the professional scientist is now less interested in, and perhaps less capable of, connecting with the broader public, sharing the new discoveries and theories that most excite the scientific community.  Although there are some notable exceptions, today’s researcher has been less adept than the Victorian-era natural philosopher at engaging the public—and this estranged the general public from science.  In part this is because the scientific establishment discourages its members from writing popular books and articles, considering these projects unserious, even frivolous, diversions from the real work of research.  But this attitude has to change in order to mend the ever-deepening rift between science and the rest of modern culture.  Today’s scientist should strive to be more like the 19th-century natural philosopher—ironically, more like those very men who created the modern scientist.

1.  Editorial, “Value judgements,” Nature 473 (12 May 2011), pp. 123�124, doi:10.1038/473123b.

The points are well taken, but Snyder and the editors of Nature ignore a couple of realities: one, that many members of the public are just as informed, intelligent, and worthy of being heard as professional scientists, and two, that not all sciences are epistemically equal.  Much in biochemistry is testable and repeatable, for instance, but theories of the origin of the universe or the evolution of life are not.  A third oversight is that information flows one way: from scientist to public.  There needs to be a two-way dialogue.
    The label scientist is an honored badge that attracts many who do not deserve to wear it.  We would include evolutionists as among the worst who take on the label but provide no return on investment to society – in fact, who do much to misuse and harm society while bragging about their status as scientists.  A PhD confers no more authority on a scientist than a real estate license does on a realtor; it depends on what the indivdiual person does with the skills and learning they acquired.
    The legacy of the Philosophical Breakfast Club is interesting history; clearly, however, much has happened since then.  It would be unrealistic, if not ridiculous, to expect science today to go back to being a part-time hobby of clergymen and wealthy gentlemen, not just because many scientists these days are female.  The complexity of science has grown enormously since the days of Babbage, Herschel and Whewell (Scientist of the Month for Nov 2010).  It takes money and large teams to do spacecraft, giant telescopes and genomics.  We’re stuck with big science and professionalism.
    There’s something to be said though, for more private involvement in science.  Consider the benefactor-funded origin of the Palomar Observatory, and today’s private-enterprise space projects.  Look, too, at the good work being done by citizen scientists (PhysOrg).  If the root meaning of science is knowledge, any human has the freedom and obligation to increase it.  Better a field amateur with years of observations than an armchair professor pontificating from his PhD microphone.
    Even if the professionalization of science has had unintended consequences, those consequences are not insurmountable.  Increased scrutiny, accountability, and humility by scientists are worthy steps.  We mean no insult to the many honorable scientists using their position for good, doing honest work each day, and providing society with a good return on investment.  Professional scientists need to realize, though, they they must earn their wings each day.  Not everything they do is scientific, and not everything a non-scientist does is unscientific.  A scientist speaking outside his or her area of knowledge can have opinions no better than those of anyone else.
    One of the best correctives would be to have the media get out of the lap of scientific institutions and turn their critical-thinking scopes on science with the aid of philosophers, ethicists and taxpayer-watchdog groups.  It’s time to doubt the presumptive authority of science and call scientists to reveal their assumptions, justify their methods, face their critics honestly, and serve society rather than preach to it.