Traditional political discourse undermines scientific progress

Science and politics have been at war since their institutional origins. For centuries, each side has tried to carry on in isolation, but in the 20th and 21st centuries, politics seem to have taken science prisoner. 

Over the decades, science has been at the mercy of political discourse that has shaped the federal budget. Research and medicine rely on governmental agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health as primary sources of funding. 

Political actors, however,  utilize science to win political campaigns and to provide platforms for social control and power. It has now become commonplace for politicians to skew, falsify and invent statistics and scientific findings, thus undermining science to mere rhetoric.  

Consequently, politicians have introduced bias to a field that relies solely on unbiased findings. Worse, politicians have cast doubt on the science that propels society forward. 

Take the tobacco industry, for example. Historically, the politics and science involving tobacco have intersected countless times, and each time, politicians successfully cast doubt on the scientific data for fear of it undermining their political aspirations.

Tobacco products were pushed under microscopes in the early 20th century when a dramatic increase in smoking was thought by epidemiologists to be linked to mental disorders and physical deformities. Scientists and physicians began heavily investigating the link between tobacco, smoking and disease in the 1930s.

After 20 years of intensive research, scientists and physicians established a confident link between cancer and smoking. But it was not until June 1957 that the then-surgeon general, Leroy Burney, released an official statement that “pointed to a causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer.”  

Organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the American Public Health Association felt that the surgeon general’s statement did not heed proper warning about the severity of smoking’s health affects and joined forces to persuade President Kennedy to enforce strict regulations on smoking in 1961.

President Kennedy was reluctant to respond. Despite the data, the president still felt it necessary to convene his own “committee of experts” to review the science and carry out further research. It took another decade for the government to mandate that health warnings appear on cigarette boxes and regulate advertising for cigarettes nationwide.

The reason for an almost 80-year delay between scientific discovery and a real political response to it is simple — the tobacco industry was a major source of financial income for the U.S. government via the tobacco tax. 

Not only would restrictions on tobacco trade be a major economic hit for the country, but individual politicians also did not want to portray smoking in a negative light, since the use of tobacco products by their constituents was so commonplace — 67 percent of men and 44 percent of women used tobacco products in the ‘60s. Therefore, for their own sakes, politicians could not afford to demonize tobacco, even though, according to scientific data, it was clearly detrimental to public health. 

A more modern example of the battle between science and politics is stem cell research. 

According to the National Academy of Sciences, “harnessing the capabilities of stem cells could then help repair damaged and diseased organs or provide alternatives to organ transplants.” Embryonic stem cell therapy has the potential to cure millions of currently incurable and rare diseases such as spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer’s disease and genetic disorders by replacing diseased cells and synthesizing new human tissue. 

But pro-life politicians argue that stem cell research is immoral and unethical because it involves the “murder” of embryos a few days after their conception. “Murder” has become a buzzword that not only strengthens their stance, but also stirs up passions in their constituents, passions that ignore fact and embrace rhetoric. 

For instance, during his first term in office, President Bush banned stem cell research, stating in 2007 that “destroying human life in the hopes of saving life is not ethical.” While his policy on the research was highly debated among the Democratic and Republican parties alike, President Bush’s opposition to “murder” coincidentally became a major talking point during his reelection campaign — which was, of course, successful. 

It turns out buzzwords mean more to voters than scientific research. 

Still, no matter your opinion on when human life starts, President Bush’s involvement in the field of stem cell research not only delayed successes and advancements of modern medicine, but may have potentially cost millions of Americans their lives and lifestyles, due to his denial of funding for the revolutionary field because of stubborn party lines. 

If the entanglement of science and politics continues, a bleak outlook for science could result as too many American citizens take political rhetoric as fact, rather than learning the unbiased, evidence-based science. If American citizens doubted the scientific findings about smoking and disease in the 20th century, they will certainly continue to dispute human involvement in discoveries about global warming and medical issues such as vaccines or global issues like nuclear weaponry. 

It is scary to think of a static world where science is overpowered by politics. Science will not be the only casualty of that war — the billions of lives saved by medical research and the American society that has relied on scientific inventions and advancements for survival and evolution will all be jeopardized by political goals. 

A standoff between science and politics has proven to have detrimental side effects, but both a functioning political system and a belief in science are imperative to the survival of the nation. 

If each party played its part — the American voter becoming more educated about science and politicians allowing the scientists to speak about science, rather trying to filter the information between the scientist and the American people — science and politics might begin to reconcile. 

Until then, science will have to take a back seat to partisan politics.

Write to Jessica at jnc34@pitt.edu