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Science, Power and Politics (Interview with John Horgan)

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http://iainews.iai.tv/articles/science-p...s-auid-542

EXCERPTS: We believe science is rational. But, like the church it once fought, it has its own established power structures and its own politics to defend. Has it become the new church, with beliefs tended by the faithful and heretics excluded from publication? Or is this a travesty of an institution that has brought so much advance? John Horgan is a science journalist and director of the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He was a senior writer at Scientific American from 1986 to 1997, and has also written for The New York Times, National Geographic, Time, and Newsweek. Horgan’s most recent book is 2012’s The End of War, which argues that war should be viewed as a scientific problem to be solved like any other.

Here, he speaks to the IAI about the power of science and the twin threats of politics and postmodernism....

We are repeatedly told that scientific developments and technology will be able to solve all of our problems. For example, Macmillan the cancer charity claims that through advances in chemistry we’ll be able to abolish cancer. Do you think we rely on science too much to answer all of our questions?

Well, science has improved our lives in many, many ways, especially applied science. [...] But there are many problems that science has a very hard time solving and that science is even contributing to: pollution, global warming, inequality, warfare etc. So we’re constantly trying to weigh the benefits of science with its downsides and point out the problems and try to get science to be more beneficial. I think we’re in a period right now, at least in the US, where science is particularly affected by the militarism and capitalism of the culture in which it’s embedded in ways that scientists themselves are loath to discuss. That’s one of the biggest issues; not that science is becoming like a religion, but that science sometimes is perpetuating some of the problems it’s trying to solve.

You’ve alluded to one of the major anxieties of the 20th century – that scientific and technological advances can have catastrophic consequences such as the development of nuclear weapons. Do you think scientific enquiry should be more guided by ethical values?

I have become more moralistic in my old age and I originally thought that asking science to be moral is like asking artists to be moral – it’s too restrictive. But now because I see all these huge problems that we’re struggling with and because science is so powerful and has contributed to some of these problems, I think it’s essential for scientists to take on more ethical responsibilities than they have.

One specific area that concerns me is how neuroscience in the United States has become quite dependent on the Pentagon for funding. In 2013, Barack Obama announced the BRAIN initiative, which is funnelling hundreds of millions dollars into neuroscience. Most of that money comes from the Pentagon through the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency. But virtually nobody in neuroscience is talking about that or why the Pentagon has its own interest in neuroscience: it’s interested in neuro-weapons, and in possibly enhancing the capability of American soldiers.

After covering science for thirty years now, I’ve never seen a period when scientists were so careerist, were so focussed on just getting the next grant, just on getting attention from the media and from the public, more focussed on making money and less focussed on the ethical dimensions of science. That really worries me.

You’ve mentioned that science is an incredibly powerful tool. Could you elaborate on where it is that science gets its power from? Is it simply because it’s so instrumentally valuable, or does science really show us how the universe works, how things really are out there?

I am not a postmodernist. Some of my best friends are postmodernists – I’m not, I’m what some of my postmodern friends would call a naïve realist. To me it is crushingly obvious that science has revealed deep truths about nature, about the universe, embodied in theories such as the Big Bang theory and general relativity and quantum mechanics and evolutionary theory and DNA-based genetics. Science has helped us create this map of the entire universe and the history of the universe and of life on earth that is extraordinarily powerful. The power of these theories is demonstrated by all their applications that have transformed our world.

I’ve been involved in many debates about the relationship between science and religion, including recently with British mathematician and Christian John Lennox. Some religious people say that science is just another faith, but that’s bullshit. There is nothing in the realm of religion and religious faith that comes close to nuclear weapons or the internal combustion engine or GPS receivers. These technologies are based on scientific principles and are demonstrations of the power of science.

But then you get to some of the deepest questions of the universe, like where the universe came from in the first place and how life began. That’s a different matter. Recently there has been some overreaching by scientists who have arrogantly suggested that they’ve figured out the mystery of the universe, and there are no significant problems left....
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