ALWAYS JUST A CHOICE OF VALUES:

We are left, then, with two options: to deny the authority of science, or to change our image of objectivity. The first option is exciting, but risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater: even if climate science or epidemiology involves some value judgments, it seems better for climate scientists or epidemiologists to play a role in policy than to leave everything to unqualified talking-heads. 

The second option, then, is to give up on the idea that objectivity is about the absence of values, and to say that it is about the presence of the right values.

The second option, then, is to give up on the idea that objectivity is about the absence of values, and to say that it is about the presence of the right values. This proposal may seem worrying. How could we know what the right values are? Is there even any such thing as the "right" values? Haven't we saved objectivity in science by entering into the even trickier area of objectivity in ethics?

These are difficult questions. Fortunately, in the context of policy-advice, we can largely sidestep them. In a democracy, the "right" values just are democratic values, the values which shape our political system and which are shared by most of the people. As long as the values which shape scientific practice are consistent with these democratic values, then science can be objective.

 

Susan Michie was wrong to draw a strong line between politics and science, because good science must be political. The Daily Mail was wrong to say that the fact she's a communist automatically undercuts her advice, because her advice can be guided by values other than her own. 

 Of course, it isn't easy or straightforward to make certain that the values which shape science are democratically legitimate. There's a fine line between respecting democratic values and pandering to the interests of the governing party. What matters is that scientists use the values which policy-makers ought to reflect, because they are the values of the people, rather than the short-term values of electoral success. This is hard, though, because it can be difficult to know what the people really want, and scientists may not be the best-placed people to know that anyway. Building an objective science may require greater public involvement in, and oversight of, scientific practice. It may require systems of contestation or debate. All of these systems can go wrong. Still, these problems are not unique to thinking about scientific advice; rather, they are problems which must be faced if we are to say that government can be democratically legitimate. No-one ever thought objectivity would be easy.

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