The Boston Globe reported last Sunday weekend that science and political advocacy are becoming increasingly conflated — “This dual role of advocate/researcher is becoming more common, especially as advocacy groups realize they can sway more opinions by asserting that their research is based on science, rather than simply on personal belief.”

Readers of this blog will know that this is a subject that we’ve been concerned with for some time now. The Globe article focuses on a few conservative advocacy groups that “use scientific research to justify their opposition to abortion, the morning-after birth control pill and homosexuality,” but using science to advance political agendas knows no ideological boundaries. It seems to me that while it is entirely appropriate to watchdog special interest advocacy groups that hide behind science, the area where we should have the most concern is when organizations supposedly working for common interests start advancing special interest agendas behind the fig leaf of science.

Two organizations that we have highlighted in this regard are the President’s Council on Bioethics and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Interestingly enough, the reactions I’ve received to our discussions of these subjects fall pretty much into predictable political categories, with just a few exceptions (Iain Murray at TCS is one such exception, and here.). Those whose political leanings are in the same direction of the advocacy agendas put forward by the Council or the IPCC find little wrong with the advocacy stances taken by these institutions, and those opposed to their advocacy agendas find it improper. So it appears that not only are one’s views on science a function of politics, but one’s views on science in politics are also a function of political expediency. Too few proponents of action on climate change are willing to engage in discussion on the role of the IPCC in climate policy, and too few supporters of a conservative agenda on bioethics issues are willing to do the same with respect to the Bioethics Council. The result? Unprincipled relativism on science policy, and a general message from experts to the public and policy makers that, in the end, all that really matters is politics, not science, which opens the door for a continued politicization of science.