(November 13, 2020 at 1:18 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: The question: Should there be any separation between science and government (synonymous to church and state)? What should the relationship between science and government be? Are there any dangers in that relationship?
Reasonably one would want a close relationship. But two points make me question this:
1. Similar to the Inquisition (the poster boy of the evils that church and state can create), you also have the evils that science and state can create (The Tuskegee syphilis experiment; water-boarding and interrogation tactics; and whatever experiments the Nazis did).
2. Their influence on each other is less than ideal: When politicians use science for political purposes, they tend to butcher it. For example, California passed a law requiring officers to be screened using the Implicit Bias test (IAT), despite the inventors of the test being clear it is not diagnostic. And on the flip side, when science is influenced by politics, it shapes the kinds of questions scientists ask and the types of answers that emerge. The field of behavioral genetics has struggled because it is not politically correct.
No because science is not a religion despite how some atheist treat it. Science and reason should be tools that are used to guide society. Also, just because some group misuses science does not invalidate the usefulness of science on shaping public policy. Science is an amoral tool that can be used for good or evil thus how to use it lies outside of science in the realm of ethics.
On your second point, I would argue that the California law is non a good example of the government using science because implicit bias testing comes from the social sciences rather than the hard sciences.
