A BIO 2003 Headliner: Mastering the tools of science and politics
Posted by Dean Kleckner
Too many people think science and politics don’t mix. That’s wrong - but too many people think it anyway.
That’s why I was so encouraged so hear that the title of Carl Feldbaum’s address at the annual BIO convention in Washington, D.C., was “The Politics of Science vs. the Science of Politics.”
“Lobbying for science might seem an easy job,” said Feldbaum. After all, who’s against research and development? The federal government already spends more than $100 billion on R&D each year. The budget for the National Institutes of Health has doubled in the last five years. That’s a pretty big pie--enough for everybody, it would seem.
But it isn’t an easy job. Science can be controversial because it can be political. Sometimes the politics are mundane, such as when a congressman is trying to secure extra dollars for a research institution in his district and a taxpayer organization objects to it as “pork-barrel” spending (which it may very well be). Other times the politics are white-hot, especially when science intersects with moral matters, as we’ve seen in the ongoing debates over human cloning and embryo research.
We farmers know better than most folks that science and politics mix because we’re forced to be both scientists and politicians. We’re scientists every time we practice the science of agriculture, which is to say every day of our lives. We’re forced to be politicians, too, because so much of our business involves the politics of international trade.
President Bush made the point nicely in his own speech at the BIO convention. With biotechnology, he said, farmers have developed a powerful weapon in the war on starvation. “We should encourage the spread of safe, effective biotechnology to win the fight against global hunger,” he said.
Yet the science of biotechnology has plenty of political enemies. “Acting on unfounded, unscientific fears, many European governments have blocked the import of all new biotech crops,” said President Bush. “Because of these artificial obstacles, many African nations avoid investing in biotechnology, worried that their products will be shut out of important European markets. For the sake of a continent threatened by famine, I urge the European governments to end their opposition to biotechnology.”
That is a necessary first step. We’ve witnessed the horrible spectacle of African countries, with starving people, turning away free food because some was derived from biotechnology. They aren’t scared of biotechnology. Instead, they’re scared of what European politicians say about biotechnology, and therefore feel compelled to operate under a perverse theory of “better dead than fed.”
This is inhumane--and yet we’ve seen it happen in southern Africa within the last year.
How can this be? Feldbaum has the answer: “In politics, passion can triumph over logic and numbers.”
Indeed, all the logic and numbers are on the side of biotechnology. It’s a sensible scientific tool that boosts crop yields, allows smarter use of the chemicals that are applied, and helps conserve land by reducing soil erosion. And best of all – it’s safe.
And yet the other side musters so much passion. Much of it comes from misguided activists who don’t know the first things about farming or science. Some of it comes from organizations that have found a continuous “cash cow’ in contributions from a gullible public. A lot of it also comes from special interests that want to close their markets and shut off competition. They’re fomenting fears of biotechnology to advance protectionism.
“We must master the art of politics as well as we master our science,” says Feldbaum.
He’s absolutely right about that. Politics is how we counter our opposition--by embarking on public-information campaigns to let people know the truth about biotechnology and legally challenging unfair practices through the World Trade Organization.
I wish that science weren’t so political. And yet that’s the sad reality. But just as biotechnology is a tool we use to advantage on our farms, politics is a tool we can use to advantage off of them.
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Too many people think science and politics don’t mix. That’s wrong - but too many people think it anyway.
