The Revenge of Athena Science, Exploitation and the Third World The Revenge of Athena

Part One

What's Wrong with Science?
1

Science and Ideology
The Marxist Perspective

Glyn Ford

For anyone brought up in an advanced capitalist country, the importance of science would seem difficult to deny. People learn about science in schools and places of higher education, they rely upon its manifestations in their everyday lives, checking the time on digital watches, cooking in microwave ovens, watch­ing videos   and they may sometimes worry about its getting 'out of control', as may be witnessed in the ongoing debate in Britain and America over the freezing of human embryos. It may therefore seem surprising that a large proportion of the political left in the West, perhaps even a majority, have shirked the task of analysing the relationship between science and society. In Britain this has been largely undertaken by a small group of Marxist scientists and academics working in the fields of the history and sociology of science for which the analysis is seen as politically fundamental. Believing, in many cases, that science in the West is somehow unresponsive to the needs of people, they have been motivated to understand its specific form of operation under capital­ism and to formulate proposals for its transformation.

The 1930s witnessed the first real interest in a radical analysis of science in Britain. Influenced to a degree by Soviet views   the 1931 Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology, held in London, represent­ing a significant landmark   a group of socialist scientists at Cambridge Uni­versity are widely acknowledged to have initiated the radical science movement in this country. Their writings, particularly those of J.D. Bernal, were arguably of profound importance in shaping the 1960s Labour Party policy of the 'white hot technological revolution'. Others such as Christopher Caudwell, G.D.H. Cole and Michael Oakeshott from the Communist, Labour and Conservative political parties respectively, also considered the role of science in society but their ideas were not as influential as those of the Cambridge scientists.

Subsequently the belief grew in radical intellectual circles that the view of science espoused by the Cambridge writers was providing the left with a grossly distorted picture, involving dangerous prescriptions for the transformation of science which the new radicals believed had found their way into the Labour Party.

There are several issues involved in this continuing debate. For example, is science autonomous, developing independently of the socio economic context? Is it disinterested and progressive, furnishing an increasingly accurate and objective picture of the world about us? Or might it not be impregnated and even saturated by (capitalist) ideology? Should a 'scientific attitude' be elevated to a uniquely privileged position? And how can science are used for the benefit of society as a whole?

This debate may appear fairly negative, but it by no means exhausts Marx's thoughts on science. Time after time he alludes to the 'social advances which scientific work permits', a point most strikingly made when he writes of 'the historical significance of capitalist production in its specific form ... the devel­opment of the social forces of the production of labour'. The point would seem to be that it is not science itself which is an 'evil' force   quite the contrary, for Marx's respect of 'science' is luminously apparent. Nor is it really the applica­tion of science to production that is the problem. It is rather the capitalist mode of production that fetters the benefits of science to humanity, rendering it a mere tool for the extraction and appropriation of profit. Ironically, though, even the exploitation of scientific work under capitalism ultimately benefits society as a whole, Marx's well known thesis propounds the idea that the development of the productive forces in capitalism is an essential step along the road to socialism. Finally, he believed, scientific advances and their application to production would be enjoyed by all.

Soviet interpretation and development of Marx's and Engel's perspective on science and technology were conveyed for the first time to British scientists by a delegation to the 1931 Congress. Scientists were regaled with glowing reports of scientific achievements in the Soviet Union together with assertions that these were possible only in a socialist society. Specific papers challenged the cherished beliefs of those, perhaps even including Marx himself, who viewed science as a disinterested pursuit and the history of science as a study of the successes of great men. The 'Social and Economic Roots of Newton's Principia' presented by Boris Hessen was especially critical, displaying Newton's theories not as disinterested knowledge but as a response to the technical needs of the seven­teenth century bourgeoisie. This in effect introduced British scientists to the idea that capitalist ideology permeates the content of science and suggested that there were two kinds of science   a bourgeois and a socialist variety.

Some participants at the conference dismissed these views as incorrect and even dangerous; others, however, were profoundly affected. This was espe­cially true for the group of Cambridge scientists, notably J.D. Bernal, J.B.S. Haldane, Hyman Levy, Lancelot Hogben and Joseph Needham, who went on

to develop some of the most influential views on the relationship between science and socialism. They had immense respect for science and believed that its application in production would be fully enjoyed by all people only in a socialist society. But more in the spirit of Marx rather than Soviet writers, they adopted a use/abuse model of science, that is, scientific knowledge is intrin­sically neither good nor evil and external pressures account for its destructive aspect. This view allowed them a degree of reformism. They believed that there was no need to wait for the advent of socialism to change the role of science within capitalism. Hence they all attempted to formulate and popularize pro­posals for transforming science in the existing society. Where they differed among themselves was in their vision of a socialist society and in their attitude to science. This can be clearly seen by comparing J.D. Bernal's views with those of Joseph Needham.

Needham took great pleasure in illustrating how some Chinese scientific achievements preceded those in the West. The 'soul of the mechanical clock', for example, was not, Needham tells us, the invention of an unknown artist in Europe around 1280 but rather that of a Tantric monk and mathematician, I Hsing and his collaborator Lsiang Ling Tsan in China in 725. By exposing similar myths in the history of science Needham was able to demonstrate the racist attitude of Europeans to non westerners. Western historians, he argues, continually refer to 'our' science and 'our' modern culture assuming that all great scientific advances are European in origin.

Needham's message was an important one. There have been further illustra­tions that scientific achievements in other non western countries have been similarly neglected. George Sarton, for example, has provided solid details of Islamic achievements in An Introduction to the History of Science (three vol­umes, 1927 1948). Seyyed Hussein Nasr in Islamic Science: an Illustrated Study (London 1976) shows how Muslim scientists contributed to scientific knowledge within the dar al Islam. In Professor Nasr's work the link between science and Muslim culture is apparent. The Muslim quest for knowledge was guided by the Qur'an. This influenced both the problems which the Muslim scientist tried to solve and the types of solutions that were offered.

The Cambridge scientists continued to popularize their views on science and socialism. In the 1960s, some helped to found the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science at a time when science was coming increasingly under attack. At this time science was popularly believed in the West to be 'out of control'. Many scientists in Britain, the USA and also in France, Italy, Belgium and West Germany became concerned that their findings were being used for destructive purposes. The war in Vietnam and the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as the degradation of the environ­ment, confirmed their fears.

Although the protests were different in every country, there were two main kinds of responses to this seemingly worsening situation. Many scientists con­cerned to protect the name of science argued that it was being misused

(the use/abuse model)and that scientists had a responsibility to agitate outside their laboratories to ensure that the results of their experiments were not applied to the destruction of people or the environment. The other response was not to see external pressures as the problem but science itself. There were also developing among radical intellectual circles at this time new critical analyses of the role of science in society. In Britain left wing scientists centering in and around the British Society for the Social Responsibility of Science and The Radical Science Collective played a prominent role in formulating these critiques. Their analyses drew upon contemporary studies in the philosophy and sociology of science from the English speaking world and were very different to those offered by their predecessors.

The Roses have extended this analysis to other areas in science. In a critique of neurobiological sciences they argue that many theories and associated tech­nologies of neurobiology, from drug therapy through to IQ testing, are funda­mentally biologistic. Biologism, in their opinion, takes one part of the explanation of the human condition, excludes others and then claims that it provides the explanation for aggression, war, love and hate. This implies that it is absurd to attempt to change ourselves or the world. Biologism, however, for all its claims to be scientific, is ideological in the sense that it helps to legitimate the status quo. Moreover, the reductionism inherent in a biologistic approach, originally a tool for examining specific problems under rigorously defined conditions, becomes saturated with ideological connotations and at the same time obscures the ideological bias within science.

Others have taken up the themes of ideology within and of science and revealed that science is sexist and racist. One of the themes, for example, in Brian Easlea's book on Science and Sexual Oppression (London, 198 1) is that physicians during the nineteenth century promulgated the belief that women are unpassionate, an idea legitimized and reinforced by subsequent medical ideas and practice. Hilary Rose and Jalna Hamner (in H. Rose and S. Rose (ed.), The Political Economy of Science, Macmillan, 1976), have also argued that sexism is ingrained in the current developments of reproductive technology from genetic engineering to hormone time capsules. This characterization of science is opposed to that of radical feminists who see technology as essentially neutral.

While many socialists would now concede that there is capitalist, racist or sexist ideology in science, they would claim that some science, even under capitalism, is objective. This view, however, is rejected by some sections of the Radical Science Journal Collective, in particular by Robert Young who argued in 'Science is Social Relations' (Radical Science Journal, no. 5, 1977) that all science is ideological. In so doing, Young effectively denied any objectivity to science   in other words, science does not provide a view of the world which corresponds to reality. This also implies that objects do not exist but are merely manifestations of social relations, an implication that is thus the antithesis of the traditional Marxist position where science was seen as possessing at least a degree of relative autonomy.

It is possible that Young's main contribution was

to stimulate interest in the question of the objectivity of science among radical scientists. A whole series of articles appeared in various socialist papers on the subject, some directly addressing Young.

The Roses were especially critical, arguing that he mistakenly believes that the social determinants of science completely dissolve the phenomena itself. Restating Marx's position, they argue that science is relatively autonomous and that materials have properties which are open to analysis, despite the intrusion of ideology into scientific discourse.

Allen Callincos, writing in 1979 in the January issue of Socialist Review put forward a related view. He stated that science is not neutral but is able to provide us with knowledge of reality. Moreover, science cannot simply be reduced to an ideology that reflects what happens in class struggles because, as the history of science tells us, science is continually transforming conceptually. It is this process, he argues, that gives science its relative autonomy. Yet another view on the subject was provided by Dave Albury in the same issue of Socialist Review. He argued that there is an objective reality but our conceptual tools for trying to comprehend it are determined by 'socio economic imperatives' that are operating in society. Science therefore provides us with partial truths but not the whole truth.

While there may be disagreements about the extent to which science is imbued with ideology, most of those participating in the debate would agree that it is politically necessary to expose the myth of scientific neutrality. By this they mean the ideology in and of science, or more generally, that science is not divorced from society. Showing that science is not neutral is an essential step in their attempts to make the discipline serve the needs of the people.

For Marx, the term science referred to the natural sciences (such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and geology) and mathematics. He described it as 'the general intellectual product of the social process' which, while presupposing 'a certain level of material development' in order to flourish, seems to have been regarded as possessing at least a relative degree of autonomy in its evolution. The crucial distinction was between sciences per se and its application to the production process in the form of technology. Science, Marx tells us, is pressed into the service of capital. This is most glaringly apparent in the case of machinery, which necessitates 'the replacement of the rule of thumb by the conscious application of natural science', although the utilization of scientific knowledge is much more pervasive than this, revolutionizing the materials of production, facilitating greater economy in the use of physical productive resources and, in the sphere of agriculture, permitting enhanced crop yields via the use of fertilizers.

Of course, in Marx's analysis of the situation capitalists do not make use of science in these ways for socially philanthropic reasons. They do it for profit and in so doing the workers suffers. Take the case of machinery. With its intro­duction, the innovating capitalist enjoys a competitive advantage over rivals in the same sphere of production, the point being that unless this was so, there

would be no incentive to be innovative in the first place. The capitalist knows, however, that this situation will not persist indefinitely. His or her competitors will sooner or later. Be compelled to introduce the new technique themselves  the 'coercive wind of competition' ensures that this is so. To get the most of the temporary advantage over rivals, and guard against what Marx calls 'moral depreciation'   the possibility that competitors will introduce even more advanced techniques   production is speeded up and a shift system enforced. Moreover, the effect of introducing machinery may well render obsolete the skills of particular workers, thus depressing wages within the factory, as well as making work dull, repetitive and dehumanizing. As Marx puts it, the introduc­tion of machinery   the application of science   transforms the worker into 'part of the detail machine'; mental and physical labour are disunited and the worker becomes a 'crippled monstrosity'.

The application of science in the service of capital need not be confined to the development of machinery. For example, Marx discusses advances in chemistry which enable waste to be recycled. Again, this benefits the capitalist in the form of increased profitability but, with equal predictability, workers may suffer financial hardship if the process of innovation renders partially obsolete existing techniques of production, for then the capitalists will try and compen­sate by forcing them to work longer hours, preferably with lower wages.

There is also a general cost to those working in the field of scientific applica­tions, for applications of their work take place 'in isolation from the knowledge and abilities of the individual worker'. This creates further mystification of the social relations of production and, indeed, of the nature of science itself, which takes on the appearance of being 'the direct offshoot of capital' rather than something which is used by capital.

Bernal's main analysis of science and socialism is to be found in his 'Social Function of Science' published in 1939. He argued that science was inherently progressive but would reach its full potential benefit only in a socialist society. Looking to the Soviet Union he agreed with Marx that science required a certain level of material support and also some degree of planning. He then offered a dismal vision of socialism in which a rationally planned and organized science would be the chief means of technological transformation. Most of his writings reflect an overwhelming respect for the authority of science. He elevates the role of scientists in society by arguing that only a trained scientific elite could ensure that the application of science meet peoples' needs, and at times he tends to see science as the agent of change rather than the people.

Bernal's views were certainly taken seriously. In 1953 he was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize and in the same decade joined a group of scientists bent on changing the Labour Party's perspective on science and technology. These meetings were regularly attended by Hugh Gaitskell, James Callaghan, Harold Wilson and Richard Crossman and out of the discussions arose a new commit­ment on the part of the Labour Party to modernize its image and fight the 1964 general election on the basis of a 'white hot technological revolution'.

Bernalism, some argue, still exists today in the Labour Party in the belief that science will become a force for liberation providing there are more funds and better management.

The embryologist Joseph Needham completely altered his view of the history of science after the Soviet visit. In 1931 he had written an internalise account of the history of embryology where he recorded the intellectual advances of 'great men' in the field. By 1938 he had rejected this way of representing history, arguing that scientific thought should always be studied in relation to the social and economic context of the time. He was, more than Bernal, worried about scientific development in the Soviet Union. After the Lysenko affair, when whole areas of genetics in the Soviet Union were obliterated because they were perceived to be ideologically unsound, he argued that there were dangers in the ruthless application of central planning in science. He also had reservations about Bernal's rationally planned society and respect for the authority of science, arguing that too many Marxists were dangerously intoxicated by the 'scientific opium'.

Needham's rejection of excessive scientific authority was related to his continuing interest in religion. As a Christian Socialist who had passed through Anglo Catholicism, a variety of modern western religions and Quakerism, his ideal society was one where human beings possessed both scientific pride and religious humility. Rather than looking to the Soviet Union for his ideal social­ist society, he turned instead to China where he believed people had not fallen prey to the idea that science represents the only valid way of understanding the universe and where science satisfies all the peoples' needs. His studies on Chinese scientific traditions have been published in several volumes of Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge, 1956 1965).

Before discussing some of their perspectives on scientific objectivity, trans­formation and ideology, it is necessary to mention briefly three studies in the philosophy and sociology of science which have arguably informed the radical scientists' positions. In the 1960s, Thomas Kuhn, a sociologist of science, pub­lished the Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962). This book ques­tioned the objective nature of scientific knowledge and its development as a continuous, linear process unlocking the secrets of the universe. In his account, scientific progress closely parallels the Marxian dialectic, alternating between 'normal' and 'revolutionary' phases in which scientists (respectively) make piecemeal advances, or choose between rival grand systems. Hence the genuine 'progress' of science becomes impossible to account for or guarantee in 'revolu­tionary' or 'normal' science. This aspect of Kuhn's work has been used to rebut the idea of an objective universal basis of scientific knowledge. M. Anis Alam, for example, argues in 'Science and Imperialism' (Race and Class, 1978) that as subjective, personal and partisan considerations play a decisive role in the acceptance of a new paradigm science can hardly be said to be objective.

Paul Feyer bend, an American philosopher of science, writing in the 1960s and 1970s, denied any special status to science as a branch of knowledge. One of

the themes of his book, Against Method (London, 1975) is that for any rule or method enunciated by philosophers of science there has been an important occasion where it was broken by some great scientist, thereby allowing the authority of science to be questioned. In Science in Free Society (London, 1978) he claimed that (scientific) 'rationality is one tradition among many rather than a standard to which all traditions must conform'. Moreover, in a free society, science would have no claim to status at all. He called for the removal of science from its dominant position. 'This volume has one aim; to remove obstacles intellectuals and specialists create for traditions different from their own and to prepare the removal for specialists [scientists] themselves from the life centres of society.' His views therefore had the declared liberator intent of making knowledge and power more accessible.

If we examine the debates among the radicals of the 1960s and 1970s, it is clear that one concern has been to demonstrate that science is impregnated with capitalist ideology or, as some would argue, it is ideological. The idea that capitalist values penetrate scientific knowledge was, as noted earlier, intro­duced to British scientists by the Soviets in the early 1930s. The Cambridge scientists, with the exception of Hagen, never went on to explore the relation­ship but the issue was taken up by Stephen and Hilary Rose in the early 1970s and subsequently by others.

For the Roses, science is an ideologically laden activity. It is done in a particu­lar social’ order and reflects the norms and ideology of that order. Moreover, it is part of an interacting system in which internalized ideological assumptions help to determine the very experimental designs and theories of scientists them­selves. They are able to demonstrate this by comparing how the language and central metaphors changed in the biology of the 1930s and 1940s and in the biology after the mid 50s. In the 'Myth of the Neutrality of Science' (Fuller ed., The Political Economy of Science, Rutledge & Kegan Paul, 197 1), they argue that in the later period the central metaphors of cybernetics were used   con­trol, feedback, regulation etc.   whereas in the earlier period pre Keynesian metaphors such as currency, energy bank, deposit account were common. In their opinion, this clearly shows that when scientists are puzzling over problems in biology, they use values which they have internalized from the wider society.

For the Roses, the socialist strategy of making science and information avail­able to the working classes and other oppressed groups is meaningless because what is being offered is 'bourgeois science'. But they do nevertheless believe that this strategy would gradually transform science for the better. They argue, with Robert Young, that socialists should not separate theory from practice and suggest that more collective rather than elitist ways of organizing work should be the norm in universities and scientific laboratories. Above all, they argue in the 'Radicalisation of Science' (Socialist Register, 1972) that to radicalize scien­tists, the critique of science must be integrated in a general political analysis and to achieve this, scientists must bring their work into the area of activity of Marxist groups. Of course,
scientists are a long way from being 'radicalized' and

while the Roses are disillusioned with this state of affairs, they remain optimistic that with the increasing industrialization of science, more scientists will become politicized as they become alienated.

For others, a truly socialist society would need to transform science and seek alternative technologies. David Dickson argues in 'Technology and the Con­struction of Social Reality' (Radical Science Journal, 1976) that socialism involves not just the adaptation of new relations of production to a productive base developed under capitalism, but rather a fundamental transformation of the techniques of production and the products themselves. To create alternative technologies would, in itself, be a political struggle.

What criteria should be used in judging whether a technology is acceptable? Euro Communists, revisionists who distance themselves from Russian and Eastern bloc experiences, offer some suggestions. Fred Steward, representing their position, suggests in Marxism Today (February 1981), that we should reject as the main criterion conventional economic considerations and the effect on Britain's international competitiveness. Instead, much greater emphasis should be placed on developing civilian rather than military technology as well as products that are ecologically sound, non polluting, resource conserving and non hazardous. At all times we should aim to fulfil important social needs rather than those of an elite and consider what impact technology may have on the labour force's skills and work satisfaction and on the civil liberties of the population.

To achieve these ends, Steward argues that the left, with the trade unions and labour movement, should intervene politically to control and direct technology. This requires some appreciation of how technology has developed in the post war era, extensive state intervention and an enhanced role for scientific and technical expertise. Steward's vision is that there should ultimately be a co ordi­nated policy for technological change which overcomes the existing frag­mentation among government departments, with industrial enterprises and new democratic structures at national and local levels where people choose from alternative technical options.

Political intervention to control technology is also the theme in shop floor worker Mike Cooley's socialist strategy. He argues that fragmentation of skills, increased work speeds and shift work began in the nineteenth century in the chemical sector but now affects computing, architecture, engineering and other areas involving scientists. He maintains, however, that the sectors are differ­entially affected and it is possible for workers to intervene at vulnerable points in this process so that they make sure technology is introduced on their terms rather than management's.

The strategies presented here to ensure that all the people in society receive the full benefits of science and technology are by no means exhaustive, and, like the discussion of scientific ideology and objectivity, are part of a continuing debate. Moreover, the issues are relevant for people of the Third World. As Anis Alam argues in the aforementioned article in Race and Class,

underdeveloped countries like India have similar elitist systems of science that promote prestige areas such as nuclear, particle, solid state and space physics. Science in these countries all too often serves the needs of the ruling elite and does not relieve the misery of the population. In these countries, developing an analysis of science and imperialism and a political strategy to transform science and technology may be the first step towards ensuring that society is changed for the better.