Did the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser just tell me to be a dick? Last week, ResearchResearch revealed comments made by Sir John Beddington at the Annual Conference of Scientists Working in the Civil Service on 3 February 2011:
“We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality…We are not–and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this–grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method”
I really would urge you to be grossly intolerant…We should not tolerate what is potentially something that can seriously undermine our ability to address important problems.
It’s difficult to get a clear view of Beddington’s rationale when relying on second- or third-hand reports. The unscripted remarks came at the end of the night, and it seems that Beddington was moved to make them having grown frustrated by the misuse of scientific evidence by the press. A video of the conference, briefly available on the BIS website, has since disappeared, and it seems unlikely that Beddington will expand on what were supposed to have been private comments. That’s a shame, because there’s a lot of interesting ground to be explored here, some of it treacherous in places.
Beddington isn’t the first high-profile figure to have off-hand comments make it into press, he certainly won’t be the last, and I’ve no interest in holding him to account for words warmed by brandy. Predictably, though, he elicited a chorus of approval from skeptics and science fans across the spectrum, and it’s worth pointing out what’s wrong with the Beddington programme of intolerance.
The comparison of bad science to homophobia or racism is particularly problematic. For a start, these are moral absolutes, and we can afford to be intolerant of them because of this. There’s precious little room for doubt over what is racist and what is not. Certainly there is not going to be a discovery tomorrow that will throw doubt on our notions of equality. That’s not the case for science. Science by its very nature is about uncertainty, and the march of progress into previously unknown areas means that science will always, forever, be a tide lapping on the shores of uncertainty. Science that tries to establish an absolute position, and is intolerant of dissent, is not worthy of the name.
The factual landscape is constantly shifting thanks to scientific inquiry, and what is today might not be tomorrow. If we are going to treat bad science like racism or homophobia, does that mean we’ll be prosecuting those falling short of what we expect? Who decides where that consensus lies, and how far from that does someone have to go before they commit a crime? I don’t think anyone wants to see scientific positions decided in the court room. It didn’t work well in Tennessee in 1925 and it won’t work well now.
Edzard Ernst is right to be frustrated by the media’s flawed attempts at providing balance by giving a stage to a scientist with 100 years of research backing them up on one side, and a lobby group or lone idiot on the other. I don’t like that practice any more than he does, and I think it is damaging to public understanding of scientific issues. But trying to dismantle that practice could backfire terribly. The science that matters will always be political. As a culture we are accustomed to hearing a variety of viewpoints on factual issues and being given the choice to make our own minds up. Anything presented to us in a single, immutable voice of authority, especially from the government, feels like propaganda. To someone without the skills to unpick the subject, it is indistinguishable from propaganda.
So what’s the alternative? Perhaps it is to shift the debate in news media from what is (which only science is qualified to answer), to what should be done (for which anyone can make a case). But then, newspapers are not apolitical regurgitators of facts, they are political weapons. In a world where the science that matters is political, you cannot expect it to pass through the lens of the press without distortion. Which brings me on to the next point.
Beddington expresses a desire of intolerance toward bad science, a sentiment echoed by his supporters. But if bad science reporting should be treated like that which is homophobic or racist, would we notice the difference? We already have laws in place regarding hate speech. The Press Complaints Commission includes the following guidelines in its Code of Practice:
i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability.
ii) Details of an individual’s race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.
None of the above prevents regular articles attacking Muslims, homosexuals, or a pantheon of other perceived enemies appearing in tabloid or broadsheet press. Would adding a third clause about respecting the veracity of scientific fact improve our science reporting at all?
While I sympathise wholeheartedly with Beddington’s frustration, I’m not sure how much can be achieved by attacking bad science where it presents itself. Targeting falsehoods, even with a big hammer, simply breeds better liars. The roots of bad science lie beneath the surface, and weeding them out require a deeper understanding of why there’s a market for peddlers of pseudoscientific nonsense in the first place.