[BRIEF NOTE] Why Science Needs Better PR
Apr. 16th, 2005 01:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe Focus section of last Saturday's issue of The Globe and Mail prominently featured an article examining what it identified as the Bush Administration's hostility towards science. This hostility isn't a generalized hostility, since the Bush Administration is interested in funding missile defense researches and supporting the development of biotechnology. Rather, the Bush Administration's skepticism towards science is directed towards fields like sexualiy and the environment, areas of active research which produce results that call into question the accuracy of conservative ideologies. Climatologists who study the consequences of the greenhouse effect find themselves being ignored and their studies denigrated; scientists studying any form of sexual behaviour, particularly behaviour that isn't missionary-position heterosexual intercourse between married partners, must be careful to draft their funding proposals so as not to trigger the alarm bells of Christian conservatives with keyword-search capability.
Trying to ignore reality in favour of ideology is always a bad call. Tristan Taormino, writing for the Village Voice, is only one journalist of many who notes that not only does the abstinence-only sexual education favoured by Christian conservatives do little to discourage teenage sexual behaviour, but it encourages them to distrust condoms entirely, leaves them incapable of dealing with STDs, and inspires them to experiment with various dangerous sexual positions in order to avoid pregnancy like bareback anal sex. There's a reason, I fear, that the United States has some of the highest rates of STD infection and teenage pregnancy in the developed world. Denying reality never makes for workable policy.
I admit that I do sympathize with these conservatives since I share something of their kneejerk reaction. For me, the trigger product of science is human genetic engineering. I agree with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dryaunda's astute observation that those parents who, in a decade's time, might want to biologically engineer their children to perfection aren't so very different from contemporary parents who might culturally engineer their children to perfection. I remain skeptical that we've enough knowledge of the human genome to make the sorts of changes that parents might want to make, never mind that we know enough about the ways in which environment interacts with the genome to produce individual characteristics, and the decided weakness of the global regulatory framework. Horrors will be inflicted by inadequately knowledgeable but sufficiently adventurous biotechnicians upon the first generation of genetically engineered children, I'm sure. And I'm a person who is cautiously in favour of human genetic engineering, mind. Imagine what someone predisposed to be hostile to the concept would think of the technology.
Sometimes, scientists are arrogant, even (especially?) when they're right. I don't see genetically engineered crops as being different enough from crops produced by selective breeding to merit that much extra concern. I think that GM foodstuffs can be good things. I also think that the businesses which have been trying to push for the unlimited and unlabelled introduction of GM crops into Europe, without bothering to assuage legitimate public concerns about knowing the contents of the processed foodstuffs they eat, are arrogant idiots who deserve to lose the business that they have lost. Simply labelling GM foodstuffs would go a long way towards removing fears. Surely, if GM foodstuffs truly are superior to non-GM foodstuffs, and are perceived to be superior by customers, labelling GM foodstuffs wouldn't harm their market share.
I'm rather fond of the products of science. Science's representatives need to make better arguments in its favour. Is nuclear fission the only green alternative for power? Are genetically modified foodstuffs potential boons? Might human genetic engineering, suitably controlled, do good things for humankind? Then make cases for each of these theses, taking care to address the authentic--if, perhaps, not well-grounded--fears of the people who will be effected by these shifts. Certain arguments are beyond disproof, for instance the opposition of many conservative Christians to sex ed. At least as many aren't. It's time to at least pretend to fight the battles compentently, people.
Author's Note (1:01 AM) : This is the fourth time I've tried to post this but the first time I've done it from home, the first and third times failing because of the computers and the second time failing because of Livejournal. I'm fond of my Semagic LJ client, truly I am.
Trying to ignore reality in favour of ideology is always a bad call. Tristan Taormino, writing for the Village Voice, is only one journalist of many who notes that not only does the abstinence-only sexual education favoured by Christian conservatives do little to discourage teenage sexual behaviour, but it encourages them to distrust condoms entirely, leaves them incapable of dealing with STDs, and inspires them to experiment with various dangerous sexual positions in order to avoid pregnancy like bareback anal sex. There's a reason, I fear, that the United States has some of the highest rates of STD infection and teenage pregnancy in the developed world. Denying reality never makes for workable policy.
I admit that I do sympathize with these conservatives since I share something of their kneejerk reaction. For me, the trigger product of science is human genetic engineering. I agree with
dryaunda's astute observation that those parents who, in a decade's time, might want to biologically engineer their children to perfection aren't so very different from contemporary parents who might culturally engineer their children to perfection. I remain skeptical that we've enough knowledge of the human genome to make the sorts of changes that parents might want to make, never mind that we know enough about the ways in which environment interacts with the genome to produce individual characteristics, and the decided weakness of the global regulatory framework. Horrors will be inflicted by inadequately knowledgeable but sufficiently adventurous biotechnicians upon the first generation of genetically engineered children, I'm sure. And I'm a person who is cautiously in favour of human genetic engineering, mind. Imagine what someone predisposed to be hostile to the concept would think of the technology.Sometimes, scientists are arrogant, even (especially?) when they're right. I don't see genetically engineered crops as being different enough from crops produced by selective breeding to merit that much extra concern. I think that GM foodstuffs can be good things. I also think that the businesses which have been trying to push for the unlimited and unlabelled introduction of GM crops into Europe, without bothering to assuage legitimate public concerns about knowing the contents of the processed foodstuffs they eat, are arrogant idiots who deserve to lose the business that they have lost. Simply labelling GM foodstuffs would go a long way towards removing fears. Surely, if GM foodstuffs truly are superior to non-GM foodstuffs, and are perceived to be superior by customers, labelling GM foodstuffs wouldn't harm their market share.
I'm rather fond of the products of science. Science's representatives need to make better arguments in its favour. Is nuclear fission the only green alternative for power? Are genetically modified foodstuffs potential boons? Might human genetic engineering, suitably controlled, do good things for humankind? Then make cases for each of these theses, taking care to address the authentic--if, perhaps, not well-grounded--fears of the people who will be effected by these shifts. Certain arguments are beyond disproof, for instance the opposition of many conservative Christians to sex ed. At least as many aren't. It's time to at least pretend to fight the battles compentently, people.
Author's Note (1:01 AM) : This is the fourth time I've tried to post this but the first time I've done it from home, the first and third times failing because of the computers and the second time failing because of Livejournal. I'm fond of my Semagic LJ client, truly I am.
