Most people who know me might think that since I have a pretty strong view about what limitations on freedom of speech look like and don’t look like for government workers, and that I even blog about stuff related to government, I would likely tilt against the current windmill of supposed Government censorship or muzzling of “scientists”, as the argument is aptly captured in the press (Information watchdog to investigate policies that ‘muzzle’ government scientists | CTV News.)
The argument from other windmill-tilters is pretty straight forward:
- Science is pure, non-political
- Science research by the government is paid for by taxpayers
- Taxpayers should have access to science research they paid for
- Ergo, government scientists should always be able to talk to the press and all research reports should be readily available.
Well, let’s look at those premises a bit more closely.
Science is pure and non-political? Actually, it is not and never has been. What a scientist chooses to study and what they decide is relevant or significant is as fraught with a personal subjective choice as any field of endeavour. It’s why they teach courses like “researcher bias” for scientists and “policy myopia” for policy wonks. This is totally separate too from the internal politics of any organization, non-governmental or governmental, that researchers think their work is the most important and that they should be fully funded, no reason to budget or conserve resources or fund-raise.… Read the rest