I do not claim that scientists, because they are
scientists, are more honest or broadly educated than politicians. In the realm
of science, however, the honesty system operates much more strongly and rapidly
than in the realm of politics, mainly because this system typically involves
anonymous review of scientific work before that work is made public, and it
does not involve public decision-making. If you are doing experiments on the
sex life of some tiny worm, and try to publish your results, i.e., make them
public, then some well-educated scientist will scrutinize your methods,
including your experimental design, your statistical analysis, your rationale
for doing the project in the first place, your interpretations of the results,
the extent to which you have taken existing knowledge into account, and even
the quality of your writing. All this review does not necessarily make you an
honest person, but it does tend to pick up flaws in your thinking and mistakes
in your actions. But if you go to a cocktail party filled with attorneys and
elected city officials, the main question you are likely to be asked about this
research is: “Why is this kind of stuff important?” The question really means:
“Why are you wasting time and money, maybe even tax money, on this kind of
activity, and why do you seem to be so interested in sex?”
There may be a thousand good reasons why you are
studying the sex life of obscure worms, but these reasons probably involve the
fundamental nature of science itself. The worms could, potentially, become a
model system for the study of hormone action at the cellular level, thus
serving to help explain developmental anomalies in humans, livestock, and
companion animals. The worms might be extraordinarily beautiful creatures under
the microscope, thus quite attractive to students who in turn could easily
become internationally renowned scholars studying some global human affliction
but who remember fondly their carefree undergrad days back in the lab when all
they had to talk about was worm sex. The worms’ reproductive biology could
easily shed light on the origin of sex itself, or the evolution of pheromones,
both subjects of enormous interest to the scientific community. Pheromone
action, as you might suspect, also could be of substantial interest to the
cosmetics industry. When a scientist hears that another scientist is studying
the sex life of obscure worms, then all of the possibilities mentioned in this
paragraph usually come to mind because scientists typically understand how science
itself works on a grand scale. Politicians, however, like their constituencies,
rarely get past the issues of time, money (especially tax money), and sex,
although sometimes, if not often, there is a hidden disdain for people who
would spend their lives studying microscopic creatures with no immediate
economic importance.
In our example of the worms, politicians’ focus on
time, money, sex, and utility is not necessarily stupid, evil, or dangerous,
although it has the potential for being all three. In the previous paragraph,
I’ve actually revealed all the reasons why in order to remain economically
competitive in a technologically competitive world, a nation needs to have a
strong, healthy, broad, and active scientific enterprise. Flourishing scientific activity, sustained largely by curiosity about
the natural world, breeds scientists, models, new ways of studying nature, and
new applications of existing technology. In other words, it is the human resources that are of prime
importance to a highly developed nation, not the discoveries themselves. Given
enough human resources engaged in research, techniques for studying heretofore
mysterious aspects of nature will be developed and the discoveries will be made.
Furthermore, breadth of research interest tends to produce transferable
technologies, a critical factor in sustaining a technology-based economy.
Feel free to check my website for all my books available in electronic and print format. Cheers.
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