Political Crabgrass

Most people know that crabgrass is a metaphor for unwanted things that creep into our lives and are hard to get rid of. Lately, I’ve begun to wonder if there is any crabgrass worse than politics. For a while I thought this was because I live outside of Washington, DC. But I’m becoming convinced it is creeping into almost every facet of our lives. 

It’s invading education, literature, child raising, economics, law, arts and humanities, and science and medicine. Let’s start with science. Phillip Ball asserts that “Science is Political, and We Must Deal with It.” He goes on to say that “History should in fact teach us to be wary of claims that science is and must be ‘apolitical.’” He cites the devotion of German scientists to their work in Nazi Germany to avoid making “hard moral choices” or the racist aspects of Darwinian theory and eugenics. It’s not arguable that science can lead to immoral choices. But choices about what to study are individualized and choices about what to do with science is policy. 

Upon observing his work manifested in the Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico in 1945, Robert Oppenheimer thought of Hindu scripture, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Perhaps he was unsure if, by doing his duty to his country, he had performed an immoral act. Many would disagree, noting that in that instance, he may have saved millions of lives. But it was his choice to lead the research and not his choice to drop two atomic bombs.

Science is politicized by politicians and businesses who hire, fund and decide what to publicize. Those are acts by political people, but scientists are in charge of the discovery process. As Janet Woodcock of the FDA says of science and scientists, “The whole strength of science is that people who have different ideological bents can do experiments, transcend their prior beliefs, and try to build a foundation of facts.” 

The editor of the Oxford Scientist disagrees that science is or should be political. “I think most people would agree that research should be published based on the merit of the work and not the political leanings of the authors.” We saw the coronavirus policies being extremely political but “‘Science’ will not tell you whether schools should remain open or whether certain sporting events should be allowed to take place.” Science offers data and “following the science” is irresponsible and misleading.”

Finally, there is medicine. Whether hydroxychloroquine or Remdesivir should have been prescribed to treat COVID-19 was a medical question and should have stayed between physicians and their patients. The fact that the science is uncertain in both cases opened the door for political pseudo-experts to sound off to their bases. 

When creating courses in risk analysis for food policies for USDA and FDA, (now taught at the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition), I encouraged students at the end of the classes to be concerned about getting their science or economics correct, and not caring about the decision. It’s hard enough to get risk assessment and economic analysis correct. But if they care about the decision, which always involves politics, law and other considerations, they may bias their analysis to try to drive the decision toward their preferred outcome. Because bias is difficult to detect, they will have failed to provide decision makers with useful information. In addition, if they do so, they are behaving exactly the same way as decision makers who try to influence the outcome of scientific research. Mixing science and politics (values) is “bad for politics, and it is bad for science.”

There is nothing that prevents individual scientists or other professionals from joining political parties, campaigning, writing op-eds, protesting or any other political activity. These are part of the valued freedoms that come with being an American citizen. 

But whether you get COVID, cancer or heart disease and whether you recover from them, will be the result of good science, not politicized science. And despite political junkie proclamations, there is no such thing as Republican or Democrat science.