Science and democracy: a peculiarly British disease?

Two recent programmes on BBC Radio 4 highlight a worrying anti-democratic bias in discussions of science and technology.

A couple of experiences with BBC radio last week gave me a bleak impression of the current state of UK politics around research and technology. On Wednesday, I was invited to appear on Radio 4's Moral Maze. Recent calls by the Science Council for greater responsibility by scientists were framed as some kind of extremist effort to "choke off" science. The focus for the debate was that science is inherently morally and politically neutral - and so, effectively separate from democracy.

I pointed out it is simply a reality that science is steered by social and political forces. I mentioned the military, as the largest single area for public investment in research. I referred to the general bias towards reductionist kinds of science yielding intellectual property. This profoundly shapes research in health and agriculture. These are moral and social issues deep inside science.