The next time you see Neil deGrasse Tyson chanting “holy, holy, holy” at the altar of science, re-read The 7 biggest problems facing science, according to 270 scientists by Julia Belluz, Brad Plumer, and Brian Resnick.
From the post:
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The scientific process, in its ideal form, is elegant: Ask a question, set up an objective test, and get an answer. Repeat. Science is rarely practiced to that ideal. But Copernicus believed in that ideal. So did the rocket scientists behind the moon landing.But nowadays, our respondents told us, the process is riddled with conflict. Scientists say they’re forced to prioritize self-preservation over pursuing the best questions and uncovering meaningful truths.
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Ah, a quick correction to: “So did the rocket scientists behind the moon landing.”
Not!
The post Did Politics Fuel the Space Race? points to a White House transcript that reveals politics drove the race to the moon:
James Webb – NASA Administrator, President Kennedy.
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James Webb: All right, then let me say this: if I go out and say that this is the number-one priority and that everything else must give way to it, I’m going to lose an important element of support for your program and for your administration.President Kennedy [interrupting]: By who? Who? What people? Who?
James Webb: By a large number of people.
President Kennedy: Who? Who?
James Webb: Well, particularly the brainy people in industry and in the universities who are looking at a solid base.
President Kennedy: But they’re not going to pay the kind of money to get that position that we are [who we are] spending it. I say the only reason you can justify spending this tremendous…why spend five or six billion dollars a year when all these other programs are starving to death?
James Webb: Because in Berlin you spent six billion a year adding to your military budget because the Russians acted the way they did. And I have some feeling that you might not have been as successful on Cuba if we hadn’t flown John Glenn and demonstrated we had a real overall technical capability here.
President Kennedy: We agree. That’s why we wanna put this program…. That’s the dramatic evidence that we’re preeminent in space.
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The rocket to the moon wasn’t about science, it about “…dramatic evidence that we’re preeminent in space.”
If you need a not so recent example, consider the competition between Edison and Westinghouse in what Wikipedia titles: War of Currents.
Science has always been a mixture of personal ambition, politics, funding, etc.
That’s not to take anything away from science but a caution to remember it is and always has been a human enterprise.
Tyson’s claims for science should be questioned and judged like all other claims.