The attack on science

From the World Socialist Web Site. The full article is available here.

An account of the attack on science in the US

By Joe Kay
9 February 2006

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, Basic Books, New York, 2005, 351 pp., US$24.95, CAN$34.95

There have been a number of books written in the past few years that deal with different aspects of the attack on science. Some of these are useful, bringing together certain material about the attempts by corporations and political organizations to undermine scientific conclusions. But most fail to make a serious analysis of what lies behind the attack on science.

Chris Mooney’s book, The Republican War on Science, falls clearly within this category. Mooney is a journalist who has written on scientific issues for publications such as Mother Jones, American Prospect and the Washington Post.

The fundamental flaw of his book is indicated by the title. Mooney sees the war on science, in the end, as simply the product of bad politicians—Republicans—who have to be reined in—by the Democrats. Such an approach, almost by definition, skirts over the more profound social and historical roots of the attack on science, as well as the Democratic Party’s own role in facilitating it.

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There are deeper roots to the attack on science that Mooney misses entirely. The rise of modern science during the Renaissance and Enlightenment period was intimately bound up with the rise of the bourgeoisie as a dominant social class in Europe. In its struggle with the old feudal classes, which were generally allied with the Catholic Church and its promotion of religious dogma, the rising capitalist class took up the banner of rationality, knowledge and science.

The development of science was necessary for the development of the means of production, including the introduction of new technologies and new forms of communication and transportation. These advances strengthened the hand of the bourgeoisie and increased its economic power relative to the landed nobility. The bourgeoisie was at that time a progressive class, in the sense that its own interests as a class corresponded with the development of the productive forces.

What has happened since that time, so that the same backward—as Mooney notes, pre-Enlightenment—conceptions that were once the purview of the feudal aristocracy are now championed by the president of the United States, the head of state at the center of world capitalism? The answer lies in the changing relationship of the bourgeoisie to society as a whole: from a progressive and revolutionary class, it has become the principal force of reaction—the main barrier to the further development of the productive forces and defender of a historically outmoded socio-economic system.

Of course, this is not a new situation. The historical bankruptcy of capitalism has been long in the making. Backwardness is hardly a monopoly of the US government. One need only recall the barbarism of the fascist movements of the last century.

At the same time, it is not accidental that the anti-rationalist conceptions that animated these movements share common features with those that form the bedrock of the Bush administration. The attack on science and rationality is characteristic of a society in mortal crisis.

This does not negate that fact that over the past several decades there have been immense technological advances, centered on the development of computer technology. There are certainly sections of the ruling class in the United States that are concerned about the consequences that the anti-scientific conceptions promoted by Christian fundamentalists and their allies have for the skill level of American workers and the general ability of American firms to compete on the world market. There is also concern that the major scientific advances, such as those associated with stem cell research, will be made in countries that compete with US capitalism.

However, the general relationship of the American ruling class to the development of the productive forces is an antagonistic one. The growth of these forces brings with it not a strengthening of its position, but rather an intensification of the contradictions of American and world capitalism—above all the contradiction between globalized production and the nation-state system, and between the social character of production and the private ownership of the means of production.

At the same time, the expansion of scientific knowledge to broad sections of the population can only serve to intensify opposition to imperialism’s promotion of militarism and social reaction. If during the period of the great bourgeois revolutions reason was a tool to be used against feudalism, it now facilitates the struggle against capitalism.

In a fundamental sense, the American ruling class is in conflict with truth. A figure such as Benjamin Franklin—who engaged not only in revolutionary politics, but also groundbreaking scientific research—represented that which was progressive in the emerging American bourgeoisie. Today, the American ruling class is aptly represented by a George Bush, who combines social reaction with intellectual poverty and cultural backwardness.

The inability of Mooney and similar writers to examine the deeper historical issues behind the attack on science reflects a definite political outlook. Ultimately, Mooney’s hope is that all the problems he outlines can be solved through support for the Democratic Party or even more moderate Republicans. He concludes his book by declaring that “we face a political problem, one that requires explicitly political solutions,” and calls for the American people to vote “today’s Right” out of office.