Retorts

Science a Human Activity

I feel some sympathy for the dilemma that your correspondent feels s/he is in [Ethics and Politicised Science, Feb] but by the time I had finished the letter my sympathy was tempered by irritation.

The writer seems to feel that if it weren't for the machinations of "desk-bound executives" then science would be conducted by noble beings, unsullied by the usual human failings and social exigencies, all the while being generously funded from the public purse. Such a view of science is facile and spurious, and easily interpreted as self-serving. I believe it is therefore useless as an intellectual stand-point from which to argue against the deficiencies of the current system for the administration and funding of science in New Zealand.

I would be as critical of some of the inanities and inefficiencies of this system as anyone, but I believe that until scientists are prepared to own up to a more accurate picture of science as a human activity carried out by social and political beings, then they will make little headway against the views of science, and how it is to be conducted, held by those with political power.

Alan Hart, Palmerston North