Should Scientists Be Silent on War and Peace?

There is a largely unspoken credo among scientists that politics is something you stay away from, unless of course you are sufficiently famous or have a Nobel Prize. In those cases, you can take on the aura of a sage, drifting into matters political with a whiff of wisdom. Albert Einstein’s political diversion into what humanity was to do with its newly discovered powers of nuclear destruction didn’t tarnish his scientific reputation; somehow it seemed fitting.

However, the origin of this, in my view erroneous, tenet, is rooted in a confusion about how we do science and the extent to which scientists should take an interest in the consequences of their discoveries.

The first requires the objectivity of theoretical and experimental discipline, the second requires a person to engage in sometimes more subjective arguments about human ends and the means to reach them. In pursuit of the first, people tend to rebuke those who dabble in the second. In taking this position, we may lose a great deal.

Doing science needs political detachment

On the nature of science. It is true that the scientific method has no place wallowing in politics. The scientific method is the phrase used by scientists to describe how they acquire knowledge about the universe. In general, although there is always room for flashes of imagination, brilliance and the odd hunch, scientists construct a hypothesis on the way something works and then they design experiments to test that idea. If they find evidence against it, the hypothesis is falsified; they may also gather substantial evidence in its defence.

The details of the scientific method are something about which books have been written. Some people, Karl Popper among them, devoted much of their career thinking about it. But whatever the intricate subtleties, one simple point remains unyielding. Human affairs and politics play no role in structuring the fundamental phenomena of the universe into which scientists seek to pry. Protons have no interest in whether the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused the First World War. The DNA double helix cares not one iota for the causes of Serbian nationalism. Therefore, politics should not inform the essential processes by which we go about doing science.

This political disinterest within the scientific method is sacrosanct since it allows for a necessary detachment in unravelling the behaviour of Mother Nature. Fail to stick to this principle and your scientific conclusions will quickly go awry.

However, it is easy to confuse the scientific method with the uses to which the products of science are put.

The uses of science require political engagement

Returning to nuclear matters. The scientific insight that atoms can be split apart can be applied to realizing the protean possibilities of civilian nuclear power or vaporizing cities, or indeed both. Once we have new knowledge, there is every reason for scientists to engage in a fulsome discussion about what we do with that knowledge, since it is not uncommon that armed with new information, individuals and states find themselves with the capacity to reach new vistas of human improvement or great depravity. One could list genetics, artificial intelligence, and all manner of other technologies used in warfare that have this Janus-faced character.

Having clearly separated the politically free process of scientific work from its uses, does it still make sense that to demonstrate professional virtue, scientists should eschew getting involved in discussions about politics and the direction of society, for example about Ukraine?

There is one reason why they might think so. If scientific institutes start to take on certain political shades, or are run by individuals with strong political views, those associated with these opinions may open themselves to reprisals by opposing political powers. If you want to be left in peace to study DNA, it makes sense to keep politics not only out of the test tube, where it can provide nothing of any value, but also out of your paycheck which you need in order to get into the laboratory in the first place. Scientists reasonably think that the scientific environment, as well as the scientific method itself, should remain neutral.

However, much may be lost when an objection to an involvement in politics keeps scientists quiet. Scientists are a part of the population that is trained to think critically, examine evidence, and assess new ideas as objectively as possible; the nature of their quest often makes them particularly good at this. Without their involvement, political decisions, especially on technological priorities, may become shrivelled. Worse still, a dissociation from politics and the consequent veil of mystery that envelopes science may cause those outside science to begin to mistrust it.

Lessons of history

Terrible things can come from a studied disconnection between the scientific and political communities, from an environment where scientists, avoiding all political involvement, allow the malevolent to fill the vacuum. One of the most tragic historical examples was the commandeering and manipulation of the Soviet genetics community by Trofim Lysenko.

Lysenko had his adversaries imprisoned (many of them died in the gulag) and silenced in the face of his campaign to reject Mendelian genetics and replace it with his own pseudoscientific theories on crop growth. His ideas became state doctrine and his influence cast a shadow over the whole of Soviet science.

Here was an example, writ large, of science becoming subverted by the state to awful cost. And let us not forget that the precursor of East Germany’s notorious secret service, the Stasi, began life in 1951 as the Institute for Scientific Research.

It would be easy to conclude from these examples that this is precisely why scientists should utterly renounce any involvement in politics.

However, rather than draw the inference that scientists should keep away from the state, which only makes them vulnerable to later domination by it, perhaps it would be more sensible to conclude that involvement with it might give them a greater chance of heading off danger. The more vibrant the chorus of scientific opinion on the direction of society, the less chance there is of a single deranged voice dominating it.

With respect to the type of societies that we inhabit, the political environment in which science sits, matters. Liberal democratic societies are, all things considered, generally less inclined to twist science to nefarious ends than totalitarian states. They seem to more effectively nurture the independent mindedness of scientific thought which can draw on financial and material support from non-profit organizations and the private sector, and not merely the state. In this way, they are less likely than highly autocratic societies to fill the world with the ‘lights of perverted science’ as Winston Churchill once framed it. If this is the case, then it may be a good choice for scientists to defend the underlying values of democratic deliberation out of an interest in protecting science itself.

Although scientists, quite reasonably, may be reticent to become drawn into the messy world of political relationships, the impressive number of possibilities for the immoral uses of science probably requires that they forgo some of their idealistic desire for an amoral life in order to discourage the realization of disastrous ends.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.