Time to raise the silent voice of science, says Ian Gibson

Big science-related issues have recently dominated Parliament.  From the possibility of building more nuclear power stations to the furore over banning smoking in pubs, the parliamentary agenda has never been so ripe for scientific contribution.

But where is the scientific voice?  Science as usual sits on the benches and is called upon only when a selective use of ‘facts’ is needed to back up half-baked arguments.

As usual, I have been musing about science and the way it speaks to the world around it. 

Science is a quest for truth, and therefore the key to ending dilemmas posed by hard political decisions. Yet this very quest for truth has made it the unwitting handmaiden to all sorts of unsavoury masters.

How is science to free itself? Or is it inevitable that science will always be the megaphone, the tool that others use to amplify their own voices?

Science and the Republican right
In Britain, we are fortunate that science has not been abused to the extent it has been in the United States.  And it is to the USA that I have looked for lessons on how we could bring science out from the background in this country.

The Republican war on science by Chris Mooney has been causing a storm across the water. It details how an unpleasant alliance between government, industry and religious fanatics has enabled science to serve the political cause of the Republican right. It is has led to a situation in which big businesses fund supposedly objective think tanks and scientists to conduct research which invariably backs ‘evidence’ which questions the need to do anything about climate change or second hand smoke. 

Add to this cauldron the lobbying of powerful religious conservatives to get intelligent design cemented into school curricula, halt stem cell research, reverse the emphasis of sex education in favour of abstinence: the list goes on and on.

Laughable statements
There is nothing new per se about the position of these groups (the ‘denial lobby’, as Mooney aptly describes them), but what is worrying is their use of ‘science’ to back up their nefarious claims.

When religious conservatives take issue with the distribution of condoms, they do not argue that extra-marital sex is against God’s will. Instead, they point to ‘evidence’ which claims to show that condoms are ineffective in preventing HIV. Such statements would be laughable apart from the fact that it is a stance that the American government has adopted in its dealings with the developing world. 

Aids NGOs and charities who receive US money increasingly have to advocate HIV prevention strategies which back abstinence in order to receive aid.

One must also note that, as Mooney suggests, it is a war, and as in all wars, there are two sides. There is a less powerful, but no less engaged, left-leaning side, which has also behaved towards science in the same disingenuous manner (one only has to think of the furore over GM foods) and has its own arsenal of think tanks and public relations specialists.

New think tank
I have no wish to turn the UK into a land in which the left and right use science for their own ends. In order to avoid the US’s mistake, in which science is used as a megaphone, we need to turn the politician into the megaphone and amplify the voice of science through him or her. No easy task – but we have the dubious advantage of not having attempted it before.

I believe that, for all their potential pitfalls, think tanks are a splendid idea. Whatever one may think of those in the US, one cannot get away from the fact that they have teeth and know how to get their message out. I am more and more convinced that we need such bodies here and I am in the process of setting up one myself. Interested individuals should contact me at gibsoni@parliament.uk. 

It’s time that science went to war against those who seek to silence or abuse it. Get in touch.

Dr Ian Gibson is MP for Norwich North