guardian | It's as clear and chilling a statement of intent as you're likely to
read. Scientists should be "the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in
the public arena". Vladimir Putin? Kim Jong-un? No, Professor Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser at the UK's Department for Environment.
Boyd's
doctrine is a neat distillation of government policy in Britain, Canada
and Australia. These governments have suppressed or misrepresented
inconvenient findings on climate change, pollution, pesticides,
fisheries and wildlife. They have shut down programmes that produce
unwelcome findings and sought to muzzle scientists. This is a modern
version of Soviet Lysenkoism: crushing academic dissent on behalf of bad science and corporate power.
Writing
in an online journal, Boyd argued that if scientists speak freely, they
create conflict between themselves and policymakers, leading to a "chronically deep-seated mistrust of scientists
that can undermine the delicate foundation upon which science builds
relevance". This, in turn, "could set back the cause of science in
government". So they should avoid "suggesting that policies are either
right or wrong". If they must speak out, they should do so through
"embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason,
rather than dissent, in the public arena".
Shut up, speak through
me, don't dissent – or your behaviour will ensure that science becomes
irrelevant. Note that the conflicts between science and policy are
caused by scientists, rather than by politicians ignoring or abusing the
evidence. Or by chief scientific advisers.
To be reasonable, when a government is manipulating and
misrepresenting scientific findings, is to dissent. To be reasonable,
when it is helping to destroy human life and the natural world, is to
dissent. As Julien Benda argued in La Trahison des Clercs, democracy and civilisation depend on intellectuals resisting conformity and power.
A
world in which scientists speak only through minders and in which
dissent is considered the antithesis of reason is a world shorn of
meaningful democratic choices. You can judge a government by its
treatment of inconvenient facts and the people who expose them. This one
does not emerge well.
