Today's New York Times Magazine includes an article by Jim Holt subtitled: "How did science become so contentious and politicized?"
The article, though worth reading, is pretty much the same old same old: Holt wrings his hands over Americans' general skepticism about science, and he sniffs a bit at politicians who fail to embrace scientific evidence about global warming.
Holt reveals the real problem when he gets into this paragraph:
In fairness, resistance to the authority of science can sometimes be detected even within the scientific community, and in its more progressive precincts, no less. Take the issue of race. One of the most durable sources of evil in the world has been the idea that humans are divided into races and that some races are naturally superior to others. So it was morally exhilarating to discover, with the rise of modern genetics, that racial differences are biologically trifling - merely "skin deep," in the popular phrase. For the last three decades, the scientific consensus has been that "race" is merely a social construct, since genetic variation among individuals of the same race is far greater than the variation between races. Recently, however, a fallacy in that reasoning - a rather subtle one - has been identified by the Cambridge University statistician A.W.F. Edwards. The concept of race may not be biologically meaningless after all; it might even have some practical use in deciding on medical treatments, at least until more complete individual genomic information becomes available. Yet in the interests of humane values, many scientists are reluctant to make even minor adjustments to the old orthodoxy. "One of the more painful spectacles of modern science," the developmental biologist Armand Marie Leroi has observed, "is that of human geneticists piously disavowing the existence of races even as they investigate the genetic relationships between 'ethnic groups.'"
What Holt is ignoring here is that "science" has always adapted its inquiry, and its findings, to current orthodoxy about race. Science has been used to define and justify the concept of racial differences, to debunk that concept, and now, to examine the extent to which it might be useful to rehabilitate the concept in the interests of public health.
Without getting into this interesting and worthwhile discussion--engaged, recently, by Joseph Graves and by Leroi--Holt's use of the phrase "resistance to the authority of science" illustrates a common misconception that science can be used to settle cultural and political issues, rather than to stimulate and advance public discussion.
When Holt, or anyone else, writes of the "authority of science" they are really speaking of the authority of scientists. When they decry that science has become "contentious and politicized," they are really decrying popular challenge to the authority of scientists.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of science in a democratic society. Science only works if it is challenged. Further, it is fair and necessary to use moral and value-based arguments to challenge scientific conclusions. The alternative--to aquiesce to the "authority of science"--undermines both science and democracy.
Let the contention and politicization continue, I say.