We hosted a private seminar at Ramsay Garden last month with Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas. Her topic was the vexed question of the relationship between science, evidence and politics.
Claire ran through a number of examples from her recent experience in which science or ’scientific evidence’ has come to be deployed in discussion and debate as a trump card, apparently conclusive and unarguable.
Statements of the obvious, such as children from dysfunctional families have more to overcome than others, or that love is important in children’s lives, are now backed by reference to the latest neuroscience. And this discipline has percolated now not only into economics (through behaviourism), but far wider into all aspects of public life (see eg RSA ’social brain’ project).
Claire lamented the fact that nobody can say anything today in political debate without reference to scientific evidence. Witnesses on The Moral Maze come bearing sheaves of evidence and are unable to engage in moral debate at all. Even the Catholic Church was recently to be heard defending marriage on the basis that it tends to extend life and improve mental health.
Previously heated moral arguments have become technical. The abortion argument, for example, used to be about the sanctity of life, and is now conducted (by both sides) in the technical language of foetal viability and precisely when viable life begins.
Claire saw this recourse to the authority of science as to some extent a response to the loss of natural authority that has impacted not only government, but other institutions like the church, the BBC, the monarchy etc. And now that the global capitalism bubble is burst, politics lacks any ideological or other inspirational message to rouse us to action - and so defaults to scientific evidence as the justification for policy.
Claire pointed to a number of dangers in this trend.
First, the policy debate, particularly with the public, is muzzled. ‘Policy should be decided by mass debate and passionate argument’ - on the foundation of the evidence but not determined by it.
Second, the reliance on evidence can skew the research community to produce what the government wants to hear. The examples of the ‘dodgy dossier’ on WMD, .and the ‘climategate’ emails increase public scepticism that we have policy-based evidence making rather than the reverse. This is a danger for science as much as for government.
Third, scientists might start to get above themselves in the democratic order. Claire cited eg Richard Wilkinson berating politicians for not acting on the evidence about inequality assembled in The Spirit Level; or Jim Hansen lamenting that the elected leaders of three of the world’s most powerful nations had not followed his instructions on coal-fired power stations. Science has become sanctified, scientists become priests. But who are they accountable to?
In conclusion Claire contrasted ‘The science’ (as in ‘the science shows that… ‘) with just plain ’science’. Science is sceptical, cautious, prudent, admitting of doubt. ‘The science’ is the opposite - it is used as a blunt instrument to suppress discussion and condemn divergent views as heresy or ‘denial’. Evidence-based policy rigidifies politics and severely limits the scope of political debate. But it also does science no favours at all.
This naturally sparked a lively discussion, including the following points:
- science and politics are extremely uncomfortable bedfellows. Science cannot give the kinds of answers that politics requires. Harry S Truman once said: ‘give me a one-armed scientist, who will not say on the one hand and on the other’. Science is not a search for the truth: one of its greatest achievements is to show that this is not possible. There are no unambiguous answers. And there is no room for ‘compromise’ between this reality and politicians’ demands for certainty;
- there is a distinction in law between ‘evidence’ and ‘proof’ which seem to have been elided in policy circles;
- quantification has become a fetish. Why is it the National Audit Office, for example, that is tasked with opining on the effectiveness of all government policy?
- we might increase the category to read ‘evidence and argument’, to acknowledge that the evidence is arguable and only one element in a much wider debate;
- there is no time allowed in our political system for reflection. The media and the public demand instant answers. In that context lazy politicians pressed for time use the science to justify decisions;
- time to think, time for reflection, is utterly missing from our processes. There is no time to make better use of the complex evidence and discussion available from scientists and researchers;
- if policy is not based on evidence then it will be based only on the views of the accountants. Advocates for different policies are better citing scientific evidence than having the economy of money as the sole arbiter.
- we must have evidence. Better that than the ‘ill-informed ranting of ignorance’. But the evidence will always be partial. It will suggest trade-offs. And it will not make those trade-offs for us. An example is the current alcohol debate in Scotland, where people are using very slender pieces of evidence around pricing to determine a highly complex debate. We need to put evidence in its place.
Tags: governance, policy-making, science