In many fields, governments have a monopoly on the support of scientific research.
Ideally, they support the science because they believe objective research to be valuable.
Unfortunately, as anticipated by Eisenhower in his farewell speech from 17 January
1961 (the one that also warned of the military–industrial complex), ‘Partly because
of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute
for intellectual curiosity.’ Under these circumstances, when the government
wants a particular scientific outcome the ideal arrangement is vulnerable. However,
as I hope to show, the problem is not simply bias. Rather, the powers that be invent
the narrative independently of the views of even cooperating scientists. It is in this
sense that the science becomes irrelevant. This was certainly the case in the first half
of the twentieth century, where we just have to look at Lysenkoism in the former Soviet
Union,1 social Darwinism and eugenics throughout the western world,2 as well
as the unfounded demonisation of DDT in thr 1960s.3 Each phenomenon led to millions
of deaths. And, in each case, the scientific community was essentially paralysed,
if not actually complicit.