Politics and science don’t mix. Never have, never will. The former is driven by ideology, the latter by fact. There’s nothing wrong with either, but conflating the two can be a danger to those governed by a politically based government and to the pursuit of scientific knowledge. In recent years, the United States has had few effective rules to keep science funded by federal funds free of political bias. Now, finally, the nation is moving in that direction.
The White House recently issued a memo on scientific integrity that provides the framework to separate politics from science at the federal level. It is not a finished document. Each of the agencies and departments within the government involved in scientific research still will have to craft policies specific to its needs. There no doubt will be some foot-dragging, about the 120-day deadline to do so, but the administration should insist the deadline be met.
Barack Obama long ago understood the need for policies that would allow scientists to pursue their work without fear of political interference. He made it part of his campaign platform. Once elected, he acted to give meaning to his words. One of his initial acts in office, for example, was to end the ban on federally funded research on stem-cell lines. That didn’t stop political controversy, but it did allow science to move forward in pursuit of facts.
The new guidelines say that government scientists are now free to talk to the media about their research. They say, too, that the federal government can no longer order them to remain quiet or edit or censor their research reports. And it urges that scientists be hired for their “knowledge, credentials, experience and integrity,” not their political sympathies. All that is a positive change from past policies.
During the George W. Bush administration, for example, some government officials more concerned with political ideology (in their case, conservative orthodoxy) worked diligently to keep scientists with views that contradicted their own quiet.
Thus, a scientist like James Hansen of NASA apparently was told not to speak to journalists about climate change because his views, based on years of carefully vetted research, were in conflict with those of the administration and its conservative followers.
Under the new policy, that sort of action will be more difficult to justify and to sustain. The administration has met the president’s pledge to prove that transparency is as vital to good science as it is to democratic government.
The guidelines should make it more difficult for politicians and government officials to censor researchers or to compromise the scientific process. The creation of well-defined boundaries between pure politics and genuine science builds a strong foundation for scientific integrity in government. The policy changes are long overdue and especially welcome when partisan politics continues to color every sphere of public life.