Value-Free or Value-Laden Science

The idea of value-free refers to “social, ethical, and political values should have no influence over the reasoning of scientists, and that scientists should proceed in their work with a little concern as possible for such values” Douglas (2009, 1).

From the statement of value-free science above, what I understand is that reasoning of scientists should be free from any influences from society, ethics, and politics. Reasoning is defined as “the process of making inferences from a body of information” (Mohanan 2011). He further gives an example of Zeno. When we say that Zeno is a spider, then the reasoning is that Zeno has eight legs. How this reasoning is free from influence of society, ethical, and political values? There is a rule of reasoning, [(1) information (premises) à (2) reasoning à (3) inference (conclusion)] (Mohanan 2011). From the rule mentioned, I see that the reasoning is logical. Let me refer to Mohanan’s (2011) good and bad reasoning example as follows:

Good reasoning	Bad reasoning
All humans are mammals. Mohanan is a human. Therefore Mohanan is a mammal.	All humans are mammals. Mohanan is a mammal. Therefore Mohanan is a human.

The good reasoning follows the logical structure whereas the bad one does not appear as logical. Therefore, reasoning needs to be “logic”. Now what I would like to point out is that why “we” see this reasoning as “good” or “bad”. Is that our “values” assigned to the reasoning of the scientists? If a scientist has only information, “Mohanan is a mammal” and he reaches a conclusion of “Therefore Mohanan is a human”. What would our value judgment on the reasoning of the scientist? Bad reasoning! Therefore, I would say that science is not value-free.

Then, when it is not value-free, it must be loaded with values or value-laden, according to Lekkha-Kowalik (2010). Among the three aspects of value-ladenness, I would like to point out one aspect: connection between costs or funding sources and the science. A scientist seeking a funding from a tobacco company might be loaded with values from underlying wish of the tobacco company. The company may wish to see the there are no relationship between smoking and cancer. When the scientist accepts the money/funding, he may have agreed findings to support the desired relationship. Recently, I had attended a lecture of a speaker from Arizona Department of Health who claimed that there were many tobacco studies that were funded by the companies and their findings reveal no relationship between smoking and lung cancer.

Since there cannot be a value-free science, we see the science is value-laden. Douglas (2009) points out that value-free or value-neutral are impossible and they have limited implementation. Therefore, the best alternative would be searching for “unacceptable” values. Well, I would argue that “unacceptable” values are also value-laden. Whose unacceptability is that? Who is going to make decision on “unacceptable” values based on whose value judgments. The only answer I have is “I do not know”.

References

Douglas, H.E. 2009. Science, policy, and the value-free ideal. University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, Pa.

Lekka-Kowalik, A. 2010. Why Science cannot be Value-Free Understanding the Rationality and Responsibility of Science. Science and Engineering Ethics 16(1):33-41.

Mohanan, K.P. What is Reasoning? 2011. 3-15-2011.

Autonomy and Authority

Douglas opens the book with what I think is one of the most concise critiques about what is makes the relationship between modern science and politics so contentious.

A fully autonomous and authoritative science is too powerful, with no attendant responsibility, or so I shall argue. Critics of science attacked the most obvious aspect of this issue first: science's authority. Yet science is stunningly successful at producing accounts of the world. Critiques of science's general authority in the face of its obvious importance seem absurd. The issue that requires serious examination and reevaluation is not the authority of science, but its autonomy. Simply assuming that sci­ence should be autonomous, because that is the supposed source of authority, generates many of the difficulties in understanding the relationship between science and society.

That image of fully autonomous and authoritative science haunts my dreams: scientists in white lab coats issuing command and re-ordering the world, the common people reduced to washing bottles in a shining, anti-humanistic nightmare cityscape. This is the mere product of a a fevered imagination which has watched too many bad science-fiction films, but it struck me, what is it that we find so disturbing about an authoritative and autonomous science?

The world has seen rule by many groups who consider themselves autonomous. Any petty tyrant who rules by force is relatively autonomous from the demands of the population. Capital, in an oligarchy, might be similarly autonomous. Authoritative rule is also nothing new, at least in the limited respect that in a feudal system, no commoner would consider becoming the king, the social ordering was authoritative to that degree. A more specific example of an authoritative government might be the bureaucratic theocracies of ancient Egypt, or the Chinese Middle Kingdom. But these governments had to balance power between the priesthood and the monarchy. A fully autonomous and authoritative government would be the theocracy qua theocracy, the kingdom of God where His representative speak with absolute force. It is a totalizing force, which regulates every aspect of an individual's life with more exactitude than even the most intrusive secret police force. Rule by scientists would be much the same; through the mechanisms of biopower it would be similarly all encompassing. The technocracy would exercise the utmost normative and coercive force.

Modern America is not a technocracy, it is a state ruled by law and by a pluralistic sharing of power. But because of science's stunning success in revealing truths about the natural world, it is the final arbiter over major policy claims. The para-scientific disciplines of economics, history, and the social sciences have similar, if lesser authority over other matters, like the success of a policy. Rational policy-making must have a respect for truth, the alternative is to turn control of government over to spin doctors and those who directly use values to reach judgments, a situation that will eventually lead to disaster as aspiration hits reality.

The value-free ideal was created as a way to allow scientific knowledge to inform policy-making, while avoiding a technocracy, which is anathema to values of liberty, self-governance, and balance of powers enshrined in the Constitution. Yet, instead of insulating scientists from criticism, it has merely made criticism of science an endemic part of politics, and lead to a wholesale abandonment of rational/scientific policy-making (see global warming is scientific conspiracy). How then can science be brought back in line? We can't abandon the authority of science, but we can eliminate its autonomy, and have scientists recognize that they are political actors as well. Oddly enough, internalizing these debates may lead to better, less politicized science, as people make explicit their values and reasons for believing what they believe.

do no harm

Science and Values

The idea of value free science is refuted thoroughly in closing the Douglas book, Science, Policy and the Value Free Ideal, and proposed to be replaced with a moral imperative on science that guides their actions to be ethical. This sense of idealism for science and the people who perform it sound a little utopian, and does not consider enough the consumers of science who take the information and utilize it. If the idea of value free science or its moral successors are to be implemented, the policy makers and champions of the science must be equally vested in the ethical application of the science. The technologists that will create products and processes using the science and guide its transition out of the laboratory and into the factories, farms and battlefields of the world must also embrace these principles.

In many cases today, such as the example of breast cancer research, where studies are showing that many mammograms and biopsies are done unnecessarily, science struggles to prevent harm from coming to the most people. But implementation of such knowledge by the medical community, insurance industry, and even public oversight is contentious and conflicted. The lack of trust and epistemic views between patient and provider, beneficiary and insurer, all take the relatively neutral science and cast allusions and intention onto the relatively straight forward statistics of the results of testing.

Considering the moral and ethical implications of science is not a burden on science, as suggested by Bridgeman in the reading, but a necessary part of the review process. If the science does not create enough value to overcome simple questioning, does it represent a high enough return on investment to benefit society? And this should not stop at the basic science, application science, technology and markets must also be continually evaluating their positions to ensure that the nature of technology being spread into the world is not doing more harm than good. The precept of medicine to “first, do no harm” is a good analogy for the moral imperative scientists and engineers and even marketers should embrace in their works.