Are the sciences value-free?

Are the sciences value-free? Although this looks like a simple question,
the answer has severe consequences. Why? Because science, whatever it is,
is one of the biggest discoveries of humankind. Science has arrived to the
human understanding of reality and has changedalmost everything that we
know. By answering the question, are the sciences value-free or not, we
could get a better understanding of social values. It is important to approach
this theme because science touches most of the thingsthat we know. The
consequences of scientific discoveries have serious repercussions in the life
of human beings. History can testify to that. For instance, scientific
discoveries have had an significant role in our contemporaries’ wars. Science
also, has been one of the causes between the enrichment of the richest
country of the world and the impoverishment of the developing countries as
well. Let´s add another question to the issue; which further repercussions
would the morality values of science have, if any, in the understanding of our
world? But, before continuing we can ask; what is science? In a restricted
definition science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on
scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained
through such research. Science is quantifiable, telling us what is empirically
true; it is about data and facts. Some scientist would say that science cannot
discover values, because facts have no values: facts just are. Is that totally
true? Could sciences be considered to have some kinds of values in spite of
the objectivity that that discipline claims to have? More questions arrive to
our essay; is the science free from political interests or any kind of evil power
which would want to dominate the world? That question could look like the
first line of a Hollywood movie. However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Awtzwitch, Word War I-II, and so on can testify that the question is more than
justifiable.
For a better understanding of our prompt let´s take a look to the follow
news. The report is about the financial aid that Obama´s government will
give to the research in embryonic stem cells.
WASHINGTON (March 2009) - Reversing Bush policy, President Barack
Obama cleared the way for a significant increase in federal dollars for
embryonic stem cell research and promised no scientific data will be
"distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda." Obama's action reverses
Bush's stem cell policy by undoing his 2001 directive that banned federal
funding for research into stem lines created after Aug. 9, 2001. Fox News.
Why do we have two different political decisions about the financial aid
on scientific research? Why does president Obama claim that those
researches won´t be used or concealed for the government? What is the
polemic behind that kind of scientific experiments? Why do two different
governments have very different opinions about the same topic? If the
science is value-free why does the government have to intercede in this kind
of situation? As we can see the issue here is not only about financial aid, but
about two different perspectives in relation to a specific experiment. If the
science only focuses itself in empirically true data and facts, why should we
have to be worried about what our scientists do in the labs? For some
groups, scientists for instance, we only need to discover what is true. It
doesn´t matter the consequences of the discovery because that is not the
field of science. Other groups such as religion, politics, philosophers of
science,and so on, believe that each scientific discovery has its
consequences. For instance, Harold Kincaid, professor at University of
Alabama says: “Science is a human enterprise, so values inevitably come
into play.” How can that be true? If it is true, is there not a contradiction
based on the own definition of science? Let´s bring another perspective. Dr
Robin Craig, Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of NSW believes
that one of the shortcomings of science is that it “cannot give us values, or
worse, it destroys the basis of values.” Moreover, Michael Crichton in his
book Jurassic Park says something very interesting:
"Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world... But
science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live.
Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it.
Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it ... And [the power
science gives] will force everyone to ask the same question - What should I
do with my power? - which is the very question science says it cannot
answer."
Let´s take a look to other news. Few days ago, precisely, on April 13
2009,
The UN security council condemned North Korea's rocket launch on 5
April, demanding an end to further launches and saying it will expand
sanctions against the reclusive communist nation. North Korea carried out the
launch in defiance of intense international pressure, claiming it had put a
satellite in orbit which is allowed under a UN space treaty. The United States,
Japan and South Korea claim North Korea was really testing long-range
missile technology, which Pyongyang is banned from doing. Associated Press
(2009).

Who has the last decision about scientific experiments? Who decides
whether a scientific experiment should be allowed or not? Does science
itself, scientists, or governments have the answer if a morality value judge is
needed? Can we take some morality values from science or do we have to
ask the political community about that? Is it true that science is just one of
the best weapons of humankind? If that is true, and science is independent
of morality values; who and how will we avoid that a scientific experiment
destroys humankind? If science is a human enterprise, could we affirm that it
is inevitable that values come into play?
 From my point of view, as I quoted before: “Science is a human
enterprise, so values inevitably come into play”. Yes, it is true that in the
hard sciences is naïve or incoherent to talk about values. However, what is
the main goal of those subjects. We shouldn´t forget that our researches,
facts, and experiments are not disassociated from our main goals. What are
our main goals? I will talk later about it. The fact that science is most related
with the empirically word doesn´t imply that the way that the results of an
experiment are interpreted are not affected for some kind of values. The
result of every kind of experiment is stained with our preconceptions. Values
and agendas most of the time compromise scientific objectivity. When the
result of an experiment compromises the pocket of the sponsor the results
must be changed. For instance, advances in the use of green technology
have been hidden for many years in the automotive industry. After decades
avoiding the use of alternatives sources of energy, General Motors, for
example, have accepted, under the pressure of Obama´s Government, to
change its system of production.
In many situations scientistsbring their assumptions and biases to the
lab or even more, to the final result of the experiment. Science is not only
empirical data, facts or numbers but the result of sensitive data affected with
humans values. Our contemporary progress, thanks to science, is always
trying to define itself. Each era has its own definitions of values and who is
valuable as well. Four centuries ago people who doesn´t look like a
European person, weren´t considered human. One century ago our definition
about who was human being and who deserved respect changed. Thanks to
science the ideals and utopias which come from ethics values are having a
strong support. If it is true that hard sciences: physics, math, astronomy, and
so on, do not say anything about ethic and morality values, it is also true
that our knowledge, our reason and our capacity to understand the world,
have addressed us to a better comprehension of our human rights. Science
is about reason, and our reason most of the time let us know what is the
correct direction to gain our dreams of a better world. Our knowledge has
been used to sustained horrible causes. However it is more what we have
gained in the progress of our civilization than the things that we have loose.
It is true that science doesn´t let us know by itself what is good or evil.
Nevertheless, science, as one of the most perfect projections of what a
human being is, has a rational basis for values. As professor Kincaid says,
rational thought which comes from science is “the prime virtue…from which
the other virtues such as integrity, justice, productivity and pride are
derived.”
Some ideas come against my opinion about science and its connection
with values. For instance, there are people who believe that science cannot
help us decide what to do or how to live with values. Those people sustain
that the main purpose of science is no more and no less than to learn facts
about reality, and values are not reality.
 Additionally, in the scientific community, there are certain sorts of
pessimism which sustain that science itself has destroyed any root of values.
I want to share Bryan Appleyard´s ideas as an example of that kind of
thought. Mr. Appleayard is a British journalist author of the book
Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man. This
summary appeared in the Weekend Australian of June 6-7, 1992, Weekend
Review 4):
The oddest thing about the science I have been describing is not
simply that it creates a cosmic machine that does not need us, but that
science only actually works on the assumption that we do not exist ... The
scientific world view has denied us an external anchor for our values ...
Science implicitly denies the self its place in the world and its source of
values. So the self resorts, finally, to a pagan art devoted to its own
cultivation and worship ... If you do not believe in any ultimate mystery in the
world, then there can be no ultimate mystery in the human self...
From this perspective science seems to be a creation of human beings,
a grown up monster that hasabandoned its creator. The point of view above
presented, doesn´t only affirms science as value-free, but even more also
claims science as destructive of values.
To defend my arguments against those who considerer science as
value-free I will use Habermas´ ideas. Habermas, in his book Knowledge and
Human Interests, shares the thought that knowledge is rooted in universal
human interests. According to Habermas every kind of interests, and each
type of knowledge – natural science, human science, criticaltheory – should
do their job working in harmony with each other. Habermas considered that
all problems begin when knowledge is reduced to the knowledge of nature
that we get from the physical and natural sciences. “It is the abuse of the
physical and natural sciences and their technological model of rationality
that causes our social problems”: says Habermas. According to this
philosopher the fact that science and technological rationality have been
abused and misused, as Marcuse, Nietzsche, and Heidegger believe, doesn´t
imply that science and technology are inherently dangerous through society.
Science still has a liberating potential. Habermas believes that the potential
of science is based upon the beneficial dimensions of science application for
the improvement of human life.
Moral and ethical values do not belong only to the metaphysical world.
The reason and all the knowledge of human being, you can call it science,
technology or whatever you want, have a main value from where other
values are derived. That value is the human life. The virtue of that life is the
rational thinking from the other “virtues such as integrity, justice,
productivity and pride are derived”. It is up to us to deny or to accept what
our reason is calling us to do. The respect of human life and the search for
the ideals of humanity, directly or indirectly, are the main goals of all the
sciences. We should keep trying and never give up on making those goals
reality.