The relationship between Science and Society has been an ongoing subject in our previous articles in Natural Selections. This relationship seems to follow a story as old as life itself. It is a story that sees lovers’ attentions constantly shifting in an eternally self-fulfilling dance. One partner showers the other with gifts that eventually become taken for granted as attentiveness wanes and other interests call. The first partner, unexpectedly jilted, becomes cold and withholding. The other, suddenly feeling the loss, once again becomes attentive. Renewed intentions restore and affirm the relationship and favors and gifts flow freely as the partners go round again. We consider that this simple metaphor may also describe the relationship between Science and the Public, who also appear to revolve in similar codependent cycles.

As with any relationship, the liaison between Science and the Public is based on a social contract, a contract where federal funding favors are received in exchange for Public benefits. Just as many partners make promises, Science claims not only that more basic research means “more jobs, higher wages, shorter hours, more abundant crops, more leisure for recreation, for study, for learning how to live without…the burden [of] ages past”¹, but also on the basis of its capacity to contribute to the value of political decision making that it is “key to democracy”². In turn the Public promises that, in return for the Public benefit, US federal investment in Science will be true. This vow was maintained during the Cold War with the major recipients of federal research funding being the physical sciences. Subsequently, the vow has been renewed with the biomedical sciences.

As no relationship exists in a vacuum, the Public-Science affair has been strongly influenced by its historical milieu. Based on a strong commitment by the Public to Science during the Second World War, the history of this relationship describes a spiraling game driven in turns by either the Public’s shifting concerns or Science’s financial need. Thus, Science most satisfied its curiosity in fields of basic research linked to the Public’s changing priorities, both political (Cold War, war on terrorism) and economic (the Internet)³.

The Public’s lack of concern about how Science actually delivers the benefits leaves Science remarkably free to choose its goals and methods albeit within the Public’s constraints. However, Science tells a tale that gives the opposite impression⁴. All who would listen have been regaled with stories of henpecking by Public intrusion (via government) and willful neglect in the face of Public hostility and ignorance. Science was so convincing that, for example, the total federal research spending in universities has gone up every year without fail, in both good and bad economic times. This spending started at $253 million in 1953 and rose to $26.3 billion in 1998 (2001 dollars)⁵. However, the long-term record of Science and the Public’s relationship shows that a greater and greater Public research allowance predictably goes hand-in-hand with more complaints of inadequate support. Further, Science gives dire warnings of the urgent need to avert serious damage to the relationship, and to the future of Science’s research programs⁶. The Public gives and gives, while Science continually complains of never having enough.

The stability of the relationship has been based on the truthiness of Science’s funding pleas that have never really coincided with the Public’s concerns or political intent. When Science needed funds, Science would wring its hands and plead with the Public to prevent the inevitable negative outcomes of any shortfall. The Public answers, for example, by first doubling Science’s NIH allowance, but ultimately leveling it and then reducing it.

One might ask if such a relationship can really be healthy and if so, can it go on, or is there a way to improve what has always been accepted as a fruitful balance? Currently, the real question is whether for all of Science’s claims of importance (“key to democracy”), can it survive a collision between its vow to provide benefits and the Public’s meandering political interests and desires?

References:

¹ Bush V (1990) Science the Endless Frontier, 40th Anniversary Edition. Washington, DC. AEI Press. p. 5.

² Paul Nurse on The Open Mind, an interview with RD Heffner, 01/20/06.

³ Sarewitz D (1996) Frontiers of Illusion. Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress. Philadelphia, Temple University Press. p. 39.

⁴ Greenberg D (2001) Science, Money, and Politics. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. p. 4.

⁵ Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences (1999) Research and Development FY 2000. Washington DC. AAAS.

⁶ Greenberg (4), p. 80.