It seems that another politicized and deceptive article about science funding appears every day. This AP article published by Wired News is an example. This one complains about a change in personnel on the President's Council on Bioethics. Two of the eighteen members changed. The two who left were outspoken advocates of stem cell research funding by the government.

The AP article quotes the ever vocal Union of Concerned Scientists as critics as well as opposition presidential candidates. The UCS is an organization of politicized scientists with such prescient members as Paul Ehrlich, the buffoon who spent his life predicting doom for the world and being publicly humiliated by the failures of his predictions which are all long past their sell-by date.

What makes this politicized flap so silly is that nothing is at stake but federal funds. It isn't as if stem cell research is inhibited. Non-federally funded institutions are proceeding with stem cell research and new research centers are springing up. Harvard recently announced plans for a new stem cell research center, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Research in private labs proceeds as fast as possible.

This is good for science, particularly stem cell research. Insulating such research from the distorting influence of federal subsidy and associated politics allows it to proceed in private with greater freedom before the public debate concludes. This is far better than delaying progress until the necessarily time consuming process of public digestion of a complex issue completes. It insulates science from political demagoguery such as that of UCS and candidates for political office. Science should not be held hostage by politics. Politics doesn't lead, it follows, and needs the advice of science to make useful policy.

It is difficult to have informed public debate of contentious issues due to the degenerate and politicized state of the media. They don't inform the public so that good decisions can be made, they skew information in order to persuade the public. Everyone knows this but can't imagine an honest and even handed information source. Inept pundits fumble the difficult task of communicating necessarily complex and uncertain scientific information. What is needed is clear and understandable communication of the issues and choices but what the media produces are their own conclusions presented as certainty. Understanding the issues and choices requires the public to deconstruct the premature and amateurish conclusions of competeing pundits. The pundits make it harder for the public to form opinions and have a voice in policy.

Reducing the involvement of government in research funding will help researchers avoid the politicized muddle and accelerate scientific advances. The quality of both science and politics will improve. Scientists can make discoveries unimpeded by sterile political battles and the public can focus on policy decisions informed by sound science about deployment of technologies. Stem cell research can proceed to answer questions about what is possible and the public can then decide about what is desirable.

Update: 03/02/2004

David Bernstein at VC posts:

To those who have supported massive government subsidies for science and social science, and are now tearing their hair out as government plays fast and loose with the scientific process and threatens scientific progress, I say, "Well, d'uh, what exactly did you expect?" Or, more productively, "How about starting a movement for the separation of science and state?" Scientific progress is likely to be the better for it.

Bernstein is making a libertarian case but it isn't just libertarians that should favor such separation. Anyone who looks closely at political subsidy and attempted control of science by states should object.