There is nothing new about state support for science. From the seventeenth century
onwards, scientists have been directly employed as government officials to chart the land, the
seas and the skies, to check weights, measures and many other technical jobs. The
industrialization of society as a whole has merely enlarged the responsibilities of every
government for the welfare and security of its citizens, and correspondingly increased the
scale and sophistication of the scientific work that has to be done by the government
apparatus.
Government patronage of pure science also goes back a long way into history. In
Britain, the royal society and other learned societies were institutionally independent of the
state, but were sufficiently close to the centers of authority to extract occasional subsidies for
major scientific projects. The absolute monarchies of France, Prussia and Russia went much
further, by setting up national academics whose members were paid a personal stipend to do
full-time research. Whatever the level of financial patronage it received; pure science was
valued by the state as a culture ornament, a sign of national superiority, and as a potential
source of economic and military benefit.
Contemporary society is so permeated with science that many general political issues
are really connected with scientific questions. But the main topics that get discussed under
the heading of science policy are quite specialized, and do not loom large on the political
science. The headlines under which political journalists write on this subject fall into three
mains groups.
Science this book does not pretend to be a general text on science, technology and
society we restrict ourselves here to a study of the direct financial and administrative
relationship between science and government. Even within this restricted definition, science
policy is complicated subject. To understand it in practice, and obstinately refuses to conform
to universal principles. Nevertheless, certain types of problem are met with in all countries,
and must somehow be dealt with by whatever sociopolitical devices are available. Generally
speaking, science policy involves the problems of choice, patronage and control. Although
these problems are all closely connected it is convenient to consider the separately, in
somewhat schematic form.
Criteria for choice
Decisions on the allocation of resources between competing R & D projects are the
basic building blocks of science policy. This problem of choice arises at every level in
industrial, governmental and academic science; indeed, it is implicit in the notion of decision-
making in all human affairs, shall we construct a proton accelerator or an electron accelerator
to look for zeta particles? In the ‘war against cancer’ should we give priority to research on
viruses or on environmental carcinogens? Should we buy more tanks for the army, or more
ships for the navy? Whatever considerations may govern policy in principle; this is form in
which policies have to be put into practice.
One of the major questions in the theory and practice of science policy is whether
there are any general criteria by which such decisions could, or should be taken. As we have
seen, economics criteria are appropriate in the final stages of technological development,
although the canons of financial accountancy are seldom strictly applicable. But quantitative
calculations of costs and benefits are totally unreliable in relation to basic and strategic
research, and provide little guidance in mission-oriented R & D relevant to non-economic
benefits such as health and national security. Are there any unquantifiable but rationally
ordered principles by which to choose between comparable scientific projects?
The criteria for scientific choice proposed by Alvin Weinberg in 1963 fall into two
sets. For external criteria one should try to answer the following questions:
When politicians and civil servants add up the sums spent by the state on science and
technology, their attention fastens on the large fraction that goes into mission-oriented
research and technological development. The modern state incorporates a variety of R & D
organization to conceive and develop warlike weapons, to protect public health and the
natural environment, to support industry and commerce, to foster agriculture, forestry and
fisheries, to improve housing and transport, and to monitor education, justice and other social
services. To a large extent the problems to be studied by such organizations are defined by
the circumstances of real life, and R & D designed to deal with them can be planned and
managed in the traditional style of applied science.
State support for basic science is caught in the dilemma of patronage. The traditional
definition of academic science is that it is done ‘for its own sake’. In practical terms, this can
only mean ‘whatever research the scientists thinks worth doing’. It implies autonomy in the
choice of research problems for individual scientists or the heads of research teams. If this
principle is accepted, the state can only take part as a benevolent ‘patron’ of science,
providing funds to a special group of people without any strings except some vague promise
to ‘further knowledge of basic principles’. But the state cannot behave like an idiosyncratic
millionaire; patronage of science and other individualistic cultural activities is incompatible
with the accountability for actions and expenditure that is a hallmark of responsible
government. And yet, another hallmark of responsible government is forethought for the
collective welfare over the immediate horizons of action, which means strong support for
basic science.
A major thesis of Marxist met science is that science and technology are ‘super structures’
whose form and content are governed by the class relation in society. According to this
thesis, knowledge advances in a manner that serves the material and ideological interests of
the ruling class.
This supposition is not, by any means, fallacious. A determined R & D effort can usually
make some progress in clarifying the nature of a problem, and a suggesting some of the paths
along which a solution might be found. But this process cannot be forced. Where the
‘problem’ involves human behavior, there may not even be a conceptual framework within
which it can be located and defined; social scientists are the first to admit the litnitarions of
their knowledge when it comes to social action. Even in fields which seem straightforwardly
material and practical, there are distinct limits to the deliberate control of science and
technology by public policy.
These limits are most evident in basic science, which evolves by the initiatives of individual
scientists; mostly working in narrowly specialized problem areas, concerned with what
results might be obtained to solve their cognitive problems, rather than with what knowledge
is desirable for other reasons. The knowledge that is already available is so vast, so abstruse
in detail, and yet so interconnected epistemologically that is simply impossible to calculate
where to put the extra effort in order to achieve a desired outcome. As the failure of President
Nixon’s ‘War on Cancer’ demonstrated, this process cannot be hastened unless the basic
knowledge to be put into practice already exists in exploitable form.
The best that science policy can surely achieve is to accelerate or brake the final stages of
development that lead up to the introduction of a technological innovation. This is not an
insignificant achievement. Thus, it was massive government support for the relevant R & D
that brought a nuclear power industry into being in several countries, before there was any
economic incentive for it. On the other hand, renewable energy supply systems, such as solar
electricity generators, languished for several decades because they did not seem worth
developing during the era of cheap oil. Serious attention to the potentialities of immature
technologies is now a major duty of all responsible government.
Science in government
General political theory casts science as an instrument of political power, and thus gives it a
subordinate part in the action. But scientific knowledge, scientific, methods, scientific
personnel and scientific organization have come to have great influence in governmental
decisions and other public affairs. To what extent should ‘science’ be considered a distinct
institutional factor in national life, on a par with such traditional institutions as the Army, the
law and the Church?
The scientific community has never been alienated from the State, and has seldom shown
more than token opposition to the policies of the government of the day.
The traditional elite of the scientific community have not, therefore, been openly opposed to
the collectivization on science, and the virtual incorporation of large parts of it into the State
apparatus. In this process, of course, many of them have been given considerable managerial
or administrative responsibilities, as directors of government laboratories, advisers to
government departments, chairman of research councils, and other leading posts in the R & D
system. For a few this path has opened the way to some of the highest positions of power in
the nation, at the head of a major nationalized industry or large industrial firm. Although it is
very rate indeed for an experienced research scientist to be elected to parliament, or any
corresponding legislative assembly in any other democratic country, a number of eminent
scientists and technologists in Britain are life peers, and exert an active influence on
legislation and government policy. There is no doubt at all that science has moved closer to
the power centers of society, and the that scientists now form a recognizable segment of the
political ‘Establishment’ in most advanced countries.
Dukungan pemerintah terhadap ilmu
Ilmu Politik
Dilema Perlindungan
Tesis utama dari ilmu pengetahuan bertemu Marxis adalah bahwailmu
pengetahuan dan teknologi adalah
'struktur super' yang bentukdan isinya diatur oleh hubungan kelas
dalam masyarakat. Menuruttesis ini, pengetahuan kemajuan dengan cara yang mela
yanimaterial dan kepentingan ideologis dari kelas penguasa.
Anggapan ini tidak, dengan cara apapun, keliru. A R ditentukan &upaya D biasanya dapat
membuat beberapa
kemajuan dalammenjelaskan sifat dari masalah, dan menyarankan beberapa jalursepanjang
solusi yang mungkin ditemukan. Tetapi
proses ini tidakdapat dipaksa. Dimana 'masalah' melibatkan perilaku manusia,tidak
ada bahkan mungkin suatu kerangka
kerja konseptual dalamyang dapat ditemukan dan didefinisikan; ilmuwan sosial adalah yang
pertama mengakui litnitarions pengetahuan mereka ketika
datang ke aksi sosial. Bahkan di bidang yang tampaknya materiallugas dan praktis, ada bata
s-batas yang berbeda untuk kontroldisengaja ilmu pengetahuan
dan teknologi dengan kebijakanpublik.
Terbaik bahwa kebijakan ilmu pasti dapat mencapai adalah untukmempercepat atau
rem tahap akhir pembangunan yang mengarahke pengenalan inovasi
teknologi. Ini bukan suatu prestasi yangtidak signifikan. Dengan demikian, itu
adalah dukungan pemerintah besar-besaran untuk relevan R & D yang membawa
industri tenaga nuklir menjadi ada di beberapa negara, sebelum
ada insentif ekonomi untuk itu. Di sisi lain, sistem suplai energiterbarukan,
seperti pembangkit listrik tenaga surya, mendekamselama beberapa
dekade karena mereka tampaknya tidak layakberkembang selama era minyak
murah. Perhatian serius terhadappotensi teknologi sekarang belum menghasilkan
adalah tugasutama dari semua pemerintah yang bertanggung jawab.
Science in government
Teori umum politik gips ilmu sebagai instrumen kekuasaan politik,dan dengan
demikian memberikan suatu bagian bawahan dalam
tindakan. Tetapi pengetahuan ilmiah, ilmiah, metode, personililmiah dan organisasi il
miah telah datang untuk memiliki pengaruhbesar dalam keputusan pemerintah dan u
rusan publik lainnya.Sejauh mana 'ilmu' harus
dianggap sebagai faktor kelembagaanyang berbeda dalam kehidupan nasional,
setara dengan lembaga-lembaga tradisional seperti Angkatan
Darat, hukum dan Gereja.
Komunitas ilmiah tidak
pernah terasing dari negara, dan telahjarang menunjukkan lebih
dari oposisi token ke kebijakanpemerintah hari.
ketua dewan penelitian, dan posting
terkemuka lainnya dalam sistem R & D. Untuk beberapa jalur ini
telah membuka jalan ke beberapa posisi tertinggi kekuasaan di negara ini, di kepala industri
nasional besar atau perusahaan
industri besar. Meskipun sangat suku memang untuk seorang
ilmuwan penelitian berpengalaman untuk dipilih ke parlemen, atau majelis legislatif yang
sesuai di negara demokrasi lainnya,sejumlah
ilmuwan terkemuka dan teknologi di Inggris adalah rekan
hidup, dan mengerahkan pengaruh aktif pada undang-undang danpemerintah kebijakan. Tid
ak ada keraguan pada semua ilmu yang telah bergerak lebih dekat ke pusat-
pusat kekuatan masyarakat,dan bahwa ilmuwan sekarang membentuk segmen dikenali dari'
Pendirian' politik di negara-negara maju sebagian.