What is so special about ‘science’?

It follows that science is as international an activity as it is possible to find. Its principal language is a universal one — mathematics — and its results are instantly understood in laboratories in every country. At its best it is both competitive and collaborative: scientists will be welcomed into competitors’ laboratories and shown what is being done; in return they will be expected to describe their own work. The prize goes to the most ingenious, the most creative, the quickest. The game is seen as being mostly one against nature, whose secrets are being unlocked, to use an old metaphor, rather than as a game against one another, though there’s a lot of that, too. Watson’s account of the discovery of DNA, in The Double Helix, is full of it.

The method of experimentation that is more characteristic of science than it is of other branches of learning leads to another principal difference, one that is of greatest interest to governments and those who run universities. Science is organised around research activities. These can require considerable numbers of people and lots of money. They also tend to produce a hierarchical structure of organisation. Science is not democratic in its organisational form, but autocratic. Heads of science departments and of research groups in other institutions are expected to direct what is being done by those subordinate to them; in return they are expected to provide the wherewithal to allow the subordinates to get on with their work. The amounts of money needed can be vastly greater than those needed to support the research of people in other branches of learning, and thereby flows much jealousy and anger. From the scientist’s point of view, however, such jealousy is almost irrelevant. He will say (it is usually ‘he’) that if you want good science that is competitive with that done in the best places overseas, you must be prepared to pay for it. That used to be something like a lay-down misère hand. It is no longer the case, as the amount of good research in science that might be done is now much more than governments are prepared to pay for.

Science has to its credit a high valuation for having won wars and having provided one of the bases for modern civilisation. It is hard to argue with the capacity of science to produce ever-more-effective weapons of destruction, and certainly contemporary governments have invested heavily in science as a basis for effective defence. Its contribution to modern civilisation is, however, much more a shared one. Without the linked emergence in the 18th century of the humanistic beliefs that one person’s political values are as important as another’s (which underlies representative democracy) and that one person’s wants are as valid as another’s (which underlies the market economy), public expenditure would be on a small scale, science would still be the preserve of gentleman amateurs, and the scientific profession as we know it today would not exist. The modern technologically-supported nation-state is the consequence of the innovative partnership of politics, economics and science, with none of the partners having the primary role. It is nonetheless true that science is generally given the greater credit not only by scientists themselves but by many of the wider community as well.

Finally, science is a belief system. It is not a religion, but it has quasi-religious elements, especially the belief in an ultimate purpose. And of course academics in all fields can hold to their views about things with a quasi-religious belief. Stephen Hawking concludes his A Brief History of Time with the thought that if (but he means ‘when’) science produces a unified theory "It should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God".

The belief in what they do impels many scientists to give up great amounts of their own time to support the interests of their disciplines and of science more generally. In particular they devote much energy and attention, and on a voluntary basis, to recruiting the young and to spreading the message (literally, ‘propaganda’). I have not seen anything like that devotion in the humanities and the social sciences.

In these respects science is quite unlike the social sciences and the humanities, which are sceptical in bent, suspicious of the possibility of general laws, and generally critical rather than collaborative. Those who lead the social sciences and the humanities tend to see science as having an undue influence over government. The reality is that in comparison with themselves natural scientists have far greater belief in the virtue and power of what they do, are accustomed to thinking on a large scale, find it relatively easy to work together, and will generally support each other rather than criticise. If all that is combined with the fact that some scientific research is or could be directly related to some community needs, it is plain that science can be a formidable player in public affairs. It is certainly not as effective as scientists believe it should be, but it is a great deal more effective than the organised social sciences and the humanities. It is likely to remain so.

Paradoxically, the leaders and senior politicians in all Western countries tend to have degrees in law or in the humanities and social sciences. Mrs Thatcher did have a degree in science, in her case chemistry, while Angela Merkel went one better with a doctorate in physical chemistry. I’m sure there will be others, but they are the only  two I can think of now.