Article by Zeynep Pamuk: “…What has always been missing in these debates is the idea that the public good of science goes far beyond the material benefits it delivers. Science certainly plays a key role in fueling economic growth, driving innovation, and improving health, but these functions do not exhaust its significance. On the contrary, science is the precondition of democratic government in modern societies. Unlike other public goods like public infrastructure or even art, science claims to provide fundamental truths that shape our most basic and objective understanding of the world, which in turn shape our ability to deliberate about political issues and hold policymakers accountable. Defenses of science that double down on its contribution to GDP or the treatment of disease miss this fundamental political function of scientific knowledge—something the Trump administration seems to understand.
It’s not just that claims to scientific truth are ubiquitous in policymaking, helping societies cope with uncertainty and change. Scientific claims can themselves drive new political agendas and become sources of uncertainty and change. Moreover, the way that scientists define problems and pursue solutions both offers political possibilities and restricts them. Whether the relationship between science and democracy is a productive one depends not only on the quality and reliability of knowledge a society produces but also on decisions about what types of knowledge are pursued and how. The power to fund science and decide on the distribution of funds is thus a fundamentally political power, and making science a truly public good requires giving citizens more say over its direction.
At first glance, the political review mandated by OMB’s recently proposed change to the federal grant system might seem to address these democratic deficits. But replacing the unaccountable judgment of scientific elites with the unaccountable judgment of presidential appointees—empowered to terminate research “for convenience” whenever priorities shift—is no improvement in democratic legitimacy. Neither is Kratsios’s recent report, Science: A New Golden Age, despite its embrace of mission-oriented projects. Heavy reliance on AI, increased emphasis on commercial incentives, and a reallocation of funding to the private sector will only further erode the public interest that publicly funded science should serve…(More)”.
