Customer Reviews

Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best of the four books I chose to look into this topic, easily the most comprehensive and balanced, with a strong ethical component; it shows how the competition for money, rather than scientific progress, is diverting scarce resources and frustrating needed advances.

It does not, however, provide a complete picture. Three other books are helpful:

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney is the book that is the most compelling on the perversions of the extremist Republicans (I am a moderate Republican). Read this first or last, depending on your disposition.

Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress by Daniel Sarewitz, is an excellent counterpart to Greenberg as well as the other two books If science is corrupt on the one hand, it is also over-sold on the other, a point that Sarewitz addresses very methodically.

Finally, Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy That Works, edited by Lewis Bramscomb and James Keller, brings together a range of views crossing the environment within which scientific research takes place, evaluationg specific programs and policy tools, and making recommendations (all of which have been ignored by the current Bush Administration).

I take three bottom lines from these four books together:

1) We are spending too much on military science & research.

2) Neither Congress nor the Executive have a serious strategy for prioritizing problems, finding private sector partners, and providing seed money for innovative solutions.

3) Both Congress and the Executive, as well as the public and the media, are incredibly ignorant about what science can and cannot do, and where all the money is going to generally poor effect.

4) This is all so important that Science, like Intelligence, needs its own Supreme Court. I am persuaded we need a new form of hybid public agency that is fully independent of the Executive, receiving a percentage of the total disposable budget (say 3%) and hence not subject to Congression pressures.

If you buy only one book, buy this one--but you will be missing important alternative thoughts from the other three.

I'm one of those who believes that we have far more to gain from good science than we have to lose. Nonetheless, Greenberg's book brought me up short. This is a dramatic, readable, well-documented, and shocking exposé of the dirty back-door means by which much support for science research is secured in this country. Greenberg cites example after example of how undeserving or questionable projects are funded while, presumably, more promising work goes begging because it lacks powerful patrons. Greenberg also argues that the whole system is corrupt because universities depend on grant overhead for operating budgets, while congressmen and -women want money for their districts, and various scientific disciplines want to increase their clout and standing. Greenberg clearly is very angry, and his anger stems from genuine outrage that an enterprise such as science, which is so important, and so powerful, has participated in making itself an often-sleazy political tool. I hope university administrators and all the federal officials responsible for science funding will read this book--the fault lies less with scientists individually than with the ways in which universities, the federal government, and scientific organizations see their self-interest.

There are a couple of things about this work by Greenberg that struck me as significant, and added to the fact that the book is very well written, it makes for a very compelling read. Even after many years of scientific journalism and working within the industry Greenberg says that the scientific enterprise makes him "feel like a stranger in a strange land." This is no idle boast by someone trying to tout his credentials as an objective observer and skeptic. This is in fact precisely the perspective that Greenberg uses throughout; this arms-length approach allows him to come up with some rather perceptive insights and useful recommendations. The second point of interest, and something for which the scientific community should be commended, is that generally this book has been quite favorably received. Many times when an "outsider" reports on some subject, the first, and oftentimes the only point, aggrieved professionals focus on is that he's not an "expert", or he's a "non-specialist". That doesn't seem to be the case with most of the commentary on this book from the scientific community. And make no mistake, there's enough damning evidence here about the volatile mix of SCIENCE, MONEY, AND POLITICS and the resulting mess of "Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion", that it would be normal to expect self-defensive counter criticisms.

Greenberg traces the changing role of science and its relationship with politics, roughly since the period following WWII. Long gone is the era of the prominent presidential science advisors. Today it is money that dominates the scientific agenda. The chapter on the National Science Foundation (NSF) and its claim a few years ago that the country faced a shortage of tens of thousands of scientists is illustrative. Greenberg shows this lobbying effort for increased funds as a knowingly false issue pushed by a merger of institutional and academic interests. Greenberg quotes a US Office of Management & Budget Report which had this to say about scientists: "They are the quintessential special interest group..."

He has much to say on the inflated claims of many projects. Although he specifically mentions the aborted Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), it is clear he views more recent projects such as the Human Genome Project, and cloning, in the same light. Greenberg doesn't allow the book to end as a mere polemic though. He makes an interesting recommendation for the conversion of the NSF into a National Science, Engineering & Humanities Foundation. This is more in recognition of the need for a new "ethic" rather than as the desirability of conflating all knowledge to scientific methods as some scientists (E.O Wilson in CONSILIENCE) have recently called for.

Regardless of where you are in the sciences this book is sure to affect you. Many of the excesses and cases of influence and false claims are known about, and more importantly have already been condemned by well thinking professionals. Nevertheless by presenting it in such a readable format Greenberg will enjoy significant readership among the skeptical public. This at a time when science is engaged in the most far reaching issues for humanity, only means that scientists can expect more questions from an interested, and much better informed public.

This is the definitive book on this topic. The author has been reporting this subject for over 40 years and has personally interviewed most of the major players. Plenty of facts and figures but interestingly written. Neither "Gosh, how wonderful Science is" or an expose' of how tarnished Science is. Extremely objective and written by a man who knows as much or more about this subject as anyone around.Historians will use this as a reference for a long time.

Washington investigative journalist Daniel Greenberg fills the 500 pages of this book with stories of how science puts material concerns ahead of ethical concerns, resulting in that which is not always in the best interests of society. Indeed, ethical erosion in science, with a corresponding abdication of social responsibility, seems to be inversely related to the chase for money. For many scientists, the pursuit of money has become the primary motivation, with concern for the moral and social good largely ignored.

Science can be funded from governments, from industry, and from universities. Of course those who supply the cash flow can determine the type of research and in many respects the outcome of the research. One just has to think of the enormous budget given over to AIDS research, while other less glamorous (and less politically correct) diseases go begging for funding.

The life sciences (medicine, biotechnology, pharmacology, etc.) is a good case in point. For example, pharmaceutical firms often misrepresent and inflate scientific data for regulatory approval, and to influence physicians to prescribe their products to an unwitting public. One way to achieve this end is to duplicate publication of experimental data to give the impression of widespread scientific backing.

Greenberg offers other examples of bad ethics in human experimentation, and notes how the biomedical research community was aware of gross inadequacies in monitoring scientific experimentation and quite content to let the situation remain that way. The examples demonstrate that what is done in the name of science often seems to be above regulation, accountability and ethical review.

And it is not just science that gets tainted with money and corporate influence, but knowledge as a whole. Thus corporate greed and the limitless pursuit of profit seem to negatively effect everyone within reach, and it is not scientific objectivity alone that suffers, but learning as well. No wonder why certain bioethical debates seems to be so one-sided. The recent stem cell debate is just one example where Big Biotech is buying its way into science and the media, regardless of the outcome for the rest of society.

And Greenberg notes how the popular press acts mainly as a puppet of science, especially biomedical research. It routinely pumps out what is told to, without asking the hard questions it does of politicians and others. This is indeed the case with reports of scientific-medical progress. Greenberg calls this "may" journalism. Stem cells may do this. Cloning may do that. Gene therapy may deliver the goods. We are wowed by reports of potential medical breakthroughs, but they are just that: potential. However, the way the media presents them, it seems like a cure for Parkinson's disease will arrive next week. Thus we find a collusion between certain scientists, various industries (eg., the Biotech industry), and a gullible and/or subservient media.

And of course this collusion acts as a giant feed-back loop. Journalists need good news stories, and scientists and the corporations need people to think they are just on the verge of a major medical breakthrough, if only a bit more funding were forthcoming. The one feeds of the other, and a disease-weary public, believing that immortality is just around the corner, will go along with it. And governments also get into the act, claiming that if we over-regulate things like cloning or stem cell research, all the research will move interstate or overseas, leaving them behind. So there is a grand mingling of state, corporate and public interests taking place, making it even harder for science to claim any sort of neutrality and objectivity.

If religious leaders and politicians today are subject to intense scrutiny and ethical appraisal (and rightly so), then perhaps it is time to extend the same treatment to scientists. And one place to begin is by reading this important and timely book.

With a career's worth of insider observations, Greenberg reports on the modern reality of academic research and its bloated addiction to federal funding. As historically interesting as it is practically and morally discouraging, it should be required reading for all prospective graduate researchers. References are dissertation quality.

Daniel Greenberg, a Washington-based journalist, analogizes the American scientific activities after WWII as a metropolis dominated with academic cultures in its core. In contrast to the general conception that the budget for the basic research has been cut since the "golden age," or 1960s, the financial support to science enterprises actually has increased. He argues that the problems in the American science have not come from a deficiency of money but from a self-ghettoized, apolitical scientific enterprise of science itself which only competes for the public money but is ignorant of social consequences of what it does. He suggested more political involvement and enlightenment in the scientific communities as a prescription.

Recent study shows that there is a room for even the "self-ghettoized," "apolitical" enterprises of science, as called by the author, to be admitted to be raised as "the fifth branch" (Jasanoff, 1990) which bridges science and policy through the scientific advisory board. Although tons of conversational examples were presented in the book, many questions remain still ambiguous: for example, how political ignorance was gauged; to what other enterprises it can be compared (if possible); how the political ignorance negatively affected public welfare.

I admire the author's effort to incorporate all the transient newspaper articles and volatile dialogues among the congressmen and the heads of various scientific institutions into a 500 paged book. To read Introduction and Epilogue seems enough for this book, unless you have a plenty of time or historian-like interests in the episodes occurred in the Washington regarding the research policy and budgeting.