Date: 27 December 2002
Subject: Science General

Should belief in science go along with a belief that it will bring "social progress"? Does greater knowledge bring greater ethical commitment? With those questions we can end a year in which the world's only superpower is contemplating a technologically super war against a "rogue state".

Sir Howard Newby is a sociologist and former vice-chancellor, who was President of Universities UK from 1999 to 2001 and became CEO of HEFCE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England) in October 2001. As president of the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) he stated in this Autumn's report: "In the wake of September 11th, we've come to question our faith in social progress and in open human enquiry." Newby feared that the current climate of uncertainty jeopardises some of the key principles of the 18thC "Enlightenment" ie that the growth of knowledge produces social progress. He argued that the public and politicians need to accept that science can seldom give clear-cut answers eg on safety in genetically modified foods or the safety of vaccines, or whether cloning is ethical. They must understand that science has limitations. On the other hand scientists must vigorously reassert the value of open enquiry, and combat anti-intellectual and anti-science attitudes.

What are we to make of all this? Not all 18th century figures were optimistic about science and progress. Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) was a Dublin cleric who wrote Gulliver's Travels, showing a profound scepticism about the age of reason, the practicality of much of science, and human nature in general. Swift was no bitter recluse - writing powerfully in advocating Irish rights, satirising exploitation, and spending a third of his income on charities and founding St Patrick's hospital. So was he "pessimistic" or "realistic"? Perhaps the high point of belief that science and education would produce social progress and the eventual elimination of war and need was reached in the late 19th century. This optimism is contained in capitalist and socialist based versions of future utopia, from Christian "social gospel" advocate Henry Ward Beecher and from the likes of Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx (who after all claimed to be producing "scientific" socialism). A century or so on, their kind of optimism seems ridiculous. Certainly science and medicine have greatly improved the physical lives of most rich-nation and some third-world people. This, however, is still applied with wide inequality - the most expensive treatments being available to some whilst others lack basic medicines. On the psychological and social levels, moreover, "social progress" seems negligible. A wealth of psychological research (and with popular psychology writers for Penguin Popular science assuring us that we don't really exist and consciousness is an illusion anyway) does not seem to have produced well-adjusted people better able to develop close relationships. A century of sociology seems not to have enabled us to manage group dynamics any better than before. Even the experience of a major holocaust and avowals of "never again" did not prevent genocides in the late twentieth century - with foreign governments usually acting purely in self-interest and doing nothing unless their interests were threatened. The US government, having for years supported various terrorist groups including at one stage those in Afghanistan, only found its moral indignation against all terrorists post the tragic events of 0911. Saddam Hussein's brutal fascist regime has indeed used chemical weapons - though others within my lifetime bombed villages with napalm laced with phosphorous. Hypocritically, British and American leaders denounce as dangerous the existence of "weapons of mass destruction" in the hands of Iraq, and then assert their own right to use nuclear strikes (even "pre-emptive strikes" which is another word for unprovoked attacks) if it suits them. None of this is to judge whether, at the present time, UK and US leaders are right to press towards war, or the populations in these to countries to remain unconvinced of the need for it. It is simply to point out that the idea that all the modern fine talk of "the international community", "international law" and "human rights" should never blind us to the fact that "social progress" is a utopian myth. Though human individuals are, indeed, capable of acts of great altruistic self-sacrifice, in general world-systems seldom show any such "progress".

I myself work in a university science department, "believe" in science, and lament the fact that anyone currently embarking on a UK science research career is highly unlikely (unless they leave research to become a vice-chancellor) to reap as much reward as (say) a career in law or commerce. Our science departments (HEFCE notwithstanding) are generally underfunded. We should indeed reassert both the value and limitations of science. But it seems to be highly dubious to link the value of science and scientific research to any belief in social progress.