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.