Science, Cultured

Science Progress contributing editor Chris Mooney surveys the interactions between science, politics, and culture from Los Angeles, California. He is author author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.” (Photo: flickr.com/sarahfelicity)

There are probably as many ways of imputing meaning to Barack Obama’s presidential victory as there are pundits around to do so. But I’d like to start this column with an interpretation that isn’t exactly earth-shattering, and for that reason, probably true.

Obama’s election represented a mandate to cast aside an old way of doing politics, one that was divisive and superficial, and that throve on partisan attacks, culture warmongering, and the continual inability to find common ground. At a time of twin wars and economic calamity, Americans were sick of that breed of politics. They wanted change, of a sort that would usher in a new politics of unity, purpose, substance, and compromise. Or as President-elect Obama put it in his victory speech in Chicago:

Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers—in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people. Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Like so many people, I woke up the morning after the election with new inspiration and optimism, and my mind racing. I fired off a bunch of “let’s do this, let’s do that” emails. If they had any common theme, it was the drive to apply the mood of the moment to the stretch of politics and policy with which I’m most familiar: science.

We’ve been in a post-Sputnik mode of science politics since, well, Sputnik.

It’s an arena in which change, in the Obama sense of the term, has not exactly been a common occurrence. It’s a vast oversimplification, but in essence true: We’ve been in a post-Sputnik mode of science politics since, well, Sputnik. Scientists have most centrally been concerned with conducting research and securing funding (from the government or industry) to do so. The scientific community reaches out to politicians and the public, to be sure, but the goals of this outreach are not on par with the research imperative.

At the same time, divisiveness, and the lack of shared purpose, has been rampant in relation to science issues. There are two divides that chiefly concern me here, and they’re not unrelated. The first is the divide between the pointy-headed experts and everybody else, one where the experts want to lecture, and the citizens go “la la la” most of the time. The second is the divide between science and religion, where the atheists attack believers and claim science exposes a godless universe, and the creationists attack evolution and claim science is just thinly disguised atheism—and the middle gets polarized, or just drowned out completely.

Is it too much to hope that we in the science world, and we who care about it, might seize the momentum in the wake of Obama’s victory and try to heal these rifts? Is it even remotely possible that when Darwin Day rolls around on February 12, 2009—the 200-year anniversary of Darwin’s birth, which just happens to fall in the 150^th anniversary year of the publication of On the Origin of Species—we won’t use the occasion to fan the flames of another battle between the “new atheists” and the creationists? Rather, could we emphasize instead that science-religion conflicts are needlessly divisive and inflammatory and—as with culture war politics generally—not what most people really care about?

I’m hoping religious leaders and scientists will come together this February 12 with a strong statement to this effect. It is long past time that we heard from the vast middle on this issue.

Ask yourself this question: If Barack Obama was president of science, how would he govern? I think it’s obvious that he would emphasize common purpose, that he would seek to defuse tension, and that he would try to bring everyone along.

He would reach out to the entire public, and try to help it appreciate science—not through technical lecturing, but by emphasizing what science can do to improve our lives: create new energy innovations, new medical technologies, new jobs. And he would try to heal the divisive science-religion conflict, emphasizing how the two can and do coexist peacefully in so many minds, scientist’s and religious believer’s alike.

Of course, there is no president of science—it’s up to us to determine the ultimate direction of the nation’s scientific enterprise, and how that enterprise relates to the society in which it occurs. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” How’s that for a goal?

Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”

But those who wish to be our nation’s leaders need to consider the implications for the 21^st century power of a citizenry that lacks confidence in science and indeed is taught to denigrate its most basic precepts. History teaches that the most technologically sophisticated powers have vast advantages even over more numerous and desperate adversaries, from Spanish conquests of Central America to Israel’s victories over its Arab neighbors.

Our ability to defend our freedoms is directly tied to our longstanding scientific and technological advantages, not just in the military arena but also in our economy.

This reality has not changed. Our national security is thoroughly bound up with our ability to maintain our lead in understanding and managing the world that surrounds us. Long-term threats to Americans could result if our elected officials decide to pander to antiscientific tendencies among their most forceful constituents. As an adviser to national security and intelligence agencies, I am impressed at the concern repeatedly expressed by military officials and scientists that the gravest threats to our country, and the most promising defenses in the 21^st century, lie in emerging fields of science, especially those related to biology.

One concern is that an enemy state or a terrorist organization could genetically modify a biological agent that spreads silently until timed to achieve maximum lethality in a large number of very mobile hosts. Even if the plot is detected early it may be too late to impose measures that minimize the damage very much. In any case, the psychological, social, and economic consequences would be immense.

There are many other nightmare scenarios for the production of biological and toxin weapons that could give an adversary a distinct tactical advantage in the new kind of asymmetric global warfare we face. These weapons are far less costly and cumbersome to produce than nuclear weapons. Largely useless on a traditional battlefield, they may be most impressive to a civilian population that frequents countless soft targets.

And what, besides a modest set of materials, many commercially available, is required to develop such agents? The main requirement is advanced training in modern biology, the organizing principle of which is, of course, evolution.

The same knowledge base can defend against threats from emerging biotechnologies. It may be possible to modify warfighters’ brain cells so that they are resistant to currently untreatable infectious agents like prions. New vaccines manufactured on powerful biotechnology platforms could better protect both soldiers and civilians from traditional bioweapons such as smallpox or new, genetically modified bacteria.

But if policymakers really doubt that the DNA molecule evolves, then they should urge their followers to disregard their military commanders’ decision to inoculate their soldiers against bioweapons. In fact, these extreme conservatives should ignore their doctors’ recommendation to get a new flu vaccine every winter for themselves and their family—a vaccine needed because of the swift evolutionary changes experienced by the flu virus. But those decisions would be poor choices for a country wishing to protect its military and keep its people safe against pandemics and biological weapons.

Then there are the economic costs of teaching “intelligent design.” Already there are alarming signs of a decline in America’s relative strength in science research and development. Although most people don’t usually think about national security in this way, our ability to defend out freedoms is directly tied to our longstanding scientific and technological advantages, not just in the military arena but also in our economy.

The world is becoming a much more competitive place in the global economy of science. We need successive waves of primary, secondary and post-secondary students of science learning about the efficacy of evolutionary theory and its practical application in our increasingly biotechnology-driven economy. The 21^st century will be defined by the ongoing biotechnology revolution. Our nation cannot afford to handicap its international economic competitiveness or national security by teaching unrelated religious beliefs in science class.

The nation we all love preserves and protects its citizens’ right to believe pretty much whatever they want to believe, or disbelieve. But in defending that nation we cannot afford to handicap good science. The stakes are higher than a single political campaign. The future safety and prosperity of our nation are on the line.

Jonathan D. Moreno is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor and Professor of Medical Ethics and of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Editor-in-Chief of Science Progress.

The most disgusting thing about Expelled, though, is the craven guilt-by-association approach. Viewers are bludgeoned with the absurd argument that Charles Darwin is somehow to blame for Dachau, and that today’s scientific establishment has built the equivalent of a Berlin Wall to keep out threatening ideas (which makes Ben Stein, er, Ronald Reagan). The New York Times reviewer fulminated that Expelled “is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry” and shows a “contempt for precision and intellectual rigor.” I entirely agree.

From Michael Crichton’s State of Fear to Stein’s Expelled, there is nothing to prevent the most awful, misleading drivel from reaching and influencing mass audiences.

However, anyone who acknowledges the foregoing must also go further, in my opinion, and admit this: This disturbing film is has made a considerable splash already, at least when judged by typical standards for a documentary. Expelled came in number ten at the box office last weekend and raked in nearly $ 3 million dollars after opening at over 1,000 theaters nationwide. That means in one week, Expelled! already ranks as the 8^th highest grossing political documentary of all time.

In short, this dishonest film is being placed before mass audiences, and I’m afraid that most viewers are not going to have nearly enough grounding in the unending evolution-ID battles to see why it’s so deceptive. Instead, they’re going to find Ben Stein funny (I saw the film; he is), and many of the anti-religion evolutionists featured pretty off-putting (I certainly did, and I’m not even religious). The result? A potential public relations black eye for the world of science, and the evolution community in particular.

Here in Los Angeles, I had the privilege of going to see Expelled with Randy Olson, a pro-evolution documentarian whose 2006 film, Flock of Dodos, explains just how PR savvy anti-evolutionists can be (after all, it’s not like they have anything else going for them). In retrospect, Olson’s film seems like an unheeded warning that something like Expelled was coming. So as a Hollywood neophyte, I wanted to hear Olson react to the film. Also, I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

As we walked out of the show, Olson explained that really only one thing matters: Ben Stein is on a thousand screens, and no one in the science world can answer him on the same mass media level. I mean, sure, we’ve got the valuable ExpelledExposed website–but this is a whole different order of magnitude. Now, science might have tried to counter Expelled if it had been planning some kind of opposite response–a kind of Al Gore, Inconvenient Truth response. But as of now nobody in science even contemplates doing this kind of thing. And so Ben Stein has come along and exploited this substantial chink in the armor.

Who knows how much money Expelled will make, or how many minds it will influence. I suspect its strong opening will create additional buzz and attention, but even if not, this horrible but also damaging film ought to serve as a massive wake-up call to all who care about science in this media age. From Michael Crichton’s State of Fear to Stein’s Expelled, there is nothing to prevent the most awful, misleading drivel from reaching and influencing mass audiences. There are no standards. There is no filter. And the truth is not just automatically going to win in the competition of ideas when the playing field tilts against it.

In this context, it seems to me that we can all remain “dodos,” as Olson would put it, and go extinct–or we can evolve and adapt. Currently, I’m seeing plenty of dodoesque response–for instance, one ScienceBlogger recently labeled me a “creationist apologist” merely for pointing out Expelled‘s box office numbers. On my blog, another commenter claims that I’m “helping the anti-intellectuals.”

No, I’m trying to help the science people (although whether they want to be helped is another matter). And I won’t be quiet, because this is too important. This is far too big a mess, and it’s one we have to learn from.

Anyone wishing to do so, it seems to me, can begin by recognizing that our chief existing asset for answering Expelled in the genre of film is Randy Olson’s own funny and humane Flock of Dodos. So pass it on. Order a lot of copies. Until those who care about science start investing in a concerted way in mass communication, it’s all we’ve got.

Chris Mooney is a contributing editor to Science Progress and the author of two books, The Republican War on Science and Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming. He blogs on The Intersection with Sheril Kirshenbaum.

West conflated science with materialism and from there proceeded to attack scientific progress as a fool’s errand carried out by irrational optimists who deign to alter human nature and create a utopia. He came armed with quotes cherry-picked from James Madison and Alexis de Tocqueville about the inherently sinful nature of man and how mankind always teeters on the edge of barbarism with science poised to push us over.

West also decried the undue deference that 20th-century politicians showed towards scientific expertise. He claimed it was anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian to exclude non-scientific voices from the legislative process. He felt that this went against common sense and traditional values, proclaiming that we can’t let scientists rule because politics is a moral enterprise.

West next trotted out the traditional list of scientific failures: eugenics, sterilization policies, lobotomies. He compared these things to the current over-reliance of parents and schools on Ritalin for children. Of course, when schools and parents do decide that Ritalin is not an appropriate or effective treatment for children, they use scientific evidence to support that decision. This still constitutes scientific progress, but it is doubtful that Dr. West would characterize this instance of scientific self-correction as an example of science’s inevitable drive towards dehumanization.

According to West, the ultimate end of unfettered scientific progress is a relativism where morality flies out the window and experts regard it merely as a primitive survival tactic.

His solution: promoting free speech by not marginalizing scientists who question the conventional wisdom and considering scientific expertise on the same level playing field as other interests in the policy-making process.

It is condescending, elitist, and ultimately dismal that West—who insists that ID is not creationism—feels the need to conflate science with bastardized theology in order to motivate the general public to approach science critically.

Even more ironically, it is relativistic that West would like to see scientific expertise put on the same level as every other possible opinion simply because it is imperfect and uncertain. The beauty of the scientific process is that in spite of this imperfection and uncertainty, it keeps seeking out new evidence so that it can build upon itself, update itself, and correct itself. The only thing that can improve scientific evidence is more scientific evidence! Of course, ethics, religion, philosophy, and plain old common sense can put scientific evidence in its proper context, but to abuse religion to distort the scientific process itself is the most pernicious form of empirical relativism that those of us in the reality-based community can imagine. Our values may decide what goals we want to strive for and what trade-offs we are willing to make, but evidence—and only evidence—will tell us how to practically achieve those goals and what the trade-offs will be.

That being said, West did admit that elite scientists can get caught up in their own rhetoric and think that they are infallible and that all of their detractors are ignorant and superstitious. This is certainly true—scientists are far from perfect, and we cannot forget horrible practices such as eugenics and lobotomies when assessing the effects of science in a broader context—but after listening to West, one can’t help but think that those elite scientists may be on to something about some of their detractors.