The relationship between science and politics has never been simple. For some, the two should never be mixed; for others, the two can never be separated. When the role of science in formulating public policy was discussed by two high-profile science communicators recently – physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince – there was a lively response. It’s very heartening to see how much engagement and argument this issue can provoke. But who’s got it right?

At face value, the recommendations for “good practice for the provision of scientific advice for public policy” offered by the Royal Society’s president, Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, seem hard to contest:

“Scientific advice should be based on the totality of observation and experiment, be based on rational argument, and reflect the consensus views of expert scientists, views which have been rigorously peer reviewed by other independent experts. If there is no strong consensus or if knowledge is still tentative, then these uncertainties should be reflected in the advice. As far as possible, the science should be kept separate from political, ideological and religious influence.”

That very much echoes the position put forward by Cox and Ince: let science do its job properly, and argue afterwards over what to do with its findings. But historians of science, among others, counter that science doesn’t work that way, and never has. The very agendas of science – what it chooses to study or ignore – are shaped by its sociopolitical context. One of the foremost proponents of this perspective is the historian Paul Forman, who in the 1970s argued that physicists in Weimar Germany in the inter-war years shaped early quantum theory to fit the zeitgeist, which was dominated by anti-materialism, anti-rationalism and an obsession with crises.

Forman’s thesis has been disputed, but is acknowledged as one of the most influential studies ever conducted in the history of science. He went on to explore the political influences on American research in physics between 1940 and 1960, arguing that military funding redirected even “basic” research into areas concerned with applications, in particular with military uses.

Even if there’s plenty of scope for argument here, such studies challenge the self-image of many scientists as seekers after truths untainted by grubby politics. Perhaps the most damning assessment of that belief came in Joseph Haberer’s 1969 study of physics under the Third Reich. Pointing out that two German Nobel laureate physicists, Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, had concocted the absurd and racist distinction of “Aryan” versus “Jewish” physics, Haberer commented that:

“The real issue involves how it was possible for men trained in the sciences, like Lenard and Stark, to become fanatical National Socialists. If Nobel laureates can be so infected, what protection does scientific training and practice provide against the excesses of irrational personal, economic, social or political conduct? Most scientists have tended to assume that they (more than any other professional type) follow the paths of rational, disinterested, and even humane conduct. The evidence increasingly demonstrates that scientists as a whole are no more immune to the ailments of political man than other men.” [J. Haberer, Politics and the Community of Science, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969]