And now we have an infallible science?
The First Vatican Council in 1870 gave us an infallible pope. Protestant Fundamentalism in the 20th century gave us an infallible Bible. Now the media row over the role of government scientific advisors seems in danger of creating a new form of infalliblity – science.
Many of the issues raised by the dismissal of David Nutt are matters of serious public concern, and are properly being debated in the media. The request from a number of scientific advisors for a new Code of Practice which would acknowledge the academic right to express views that challenge government policy and for scientific advice to be taken seriously seems entirely proper. So too the request that government should be required to publish reasons if they choose to reject expert scientific advice.
But some of the reactions in the media seem to be going too far. Science, like every other academic discipline, is as much a human activity as any form of enquiry. Scientific ‘facts’ are just as open to analysis and debate as philosophy, theology, history, art, literature and the human sciences. Applying the adjective ’scientific’ does not make anything infallible. It only means that it claims the right to be tested and evaluated in exactly the same way as any other form of evidence.
There is a proper division of labour in all this: scientific advisors advise, and governments make policy. The whole affair may have been mishandled in an extraordinary way, but let’s watch the rhetoric. Claims to any form of infallibilty are infallibly wrong.
