The Tyranny of Dogma

From Democratic to Zombie ScienceZombie science is science that is dead but will not lie down. It keeps twitching and lumbering around so that (from a distance, and with your eyes half-closed) zombie science looks much like the real thing. But in fact the zombie has no life of its own; it is animated and moved only by the incessant pumping of funds. If zombie science is not scientifically-useable- what is its function? In a nutshell, zombie science is supported because it is useful propaganda to be deployed in arenas such as political rhetoric, public administration, management, public relations, marketing and the mass media generally. It persuades, it constructs taboos, it buttresses some kind of rhetorical attempt to shape mass opinion. Indeed, zombie science often comes across in the mass media as being more plausible than real science; and it is precisely the superficial face-plausibility which is the sole and sufficient purpose of zombie science.-Bruce Charlton1Science used to be one of the most democratic of human activities. Good science was found in every region of the world, irrespective of political, religious, or ideological beliefs. Creative scientists tend to work best alone. Consequently, creative, democratic science is the activity of independent individuals and small groups of collaborators. Regrettably, institutional science has replaced the individual search for enlightenment and understanding-the true domain of science-with the limited, special goals and interests of government and industry. The deluge of trillions of dollars of funding since 1990 has decimated democratic science in the United States. But there is a deeper problem. The very legitimacy of government is threatened by the dysfunctional, malignant bureaucracies created by those trillions of dollars.At some point after the Second World War, science stopped being democratic.2 One crucially important result is that many private citizens and bureaucrats-including a number of scientists themselves-confuse science with technology. The confusion is easy to understand. Due to the exigencies of war, many of the world's most famous scientists worked on the development of the atomic bomb, which was primarily an engineering effort. Most likely those scientists would never have worked on an engineering project before the war.Using the Manhattan Project and the space program as his model, in 1971, Nixon declared a national "war on cancer," confident massive amounts of money and sufficient scientific talent would swiftly conquer the disease. The reason the war on cancer and numerous other essentially scientific efforts failed is due directly to treating them as technologically solvable problems. The expan- sion of science as technology was fueled by wishful thinking, unreasonable expectations, and a lack of understanding of what science is.3 The uncritical- often reverential-praise of institutional science by the New York Times, and virtually all American media, reinforces the prevailing misconception that science and technology are virtually interchangeable.Engineers dazzle us with what they construct. The average person can easily judge when an engineer has failed-the bridge collapses, the plane falls out of the sky, the phones do not work. But there is almost no way to know for sure when a scientific claim is more right than wrong. This is true of scientists themselves. It is crucial to understand that lasting accomplishment in science is much rarer and slower than dazzling technological achievements.2 Taking a quote from Star Trek, the purpose of science is "to boldly go where no one has gone before."Scientists ask questions. The best scientists ask the most penetrating questions. At least they used to. Important questions go unasked these days. Are there really cancer-causing genes? Did the universe really begin with a Big Bang? Does HIV really cause AIDS? Does HCV really cause hepatitis? Does HPV really cause cervical cancer? …