Governments don’t belong in religion, arts, or the sciences.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, highest paid person in government

Governments don’t belong in religion, arts, or the sciences. The Constitution only gives the government a referee role with patents, outright orders the government to stay away from religion, and doesn’t even mention the arts. Unfortunately, politicians with an authoritarian bent can’t leave these realms alone because they compete for power and messaging. Typically, autocrats repress religion, co-opt art, and decree science. Sound familiar?

What’s the worst that can happen? Let’s look at how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manages science. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is a galactic-class arbiter of research, collaborations, and communication about all things scientific. CAS funds pure and applied scientific research throughout China … and the rest of the world. It comprises over one hundred institutions that directly employ over sixty thousand researchers. With royal benevolence, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has given CAS permission to build independent sources of income. CAS owns or holds shares in more than thirty enterprises. For example, CAS is the largest Lenovo shareholder, one of the three major personal computer companies in the world

Externally, CAS presents itself as wealthy enough to thumb its nose at CCP apparatchiks. Only the gullible believe this. No organization important to the Chinese state is allowed an iota of independence. Several members of the executive board are CCP members, and one even is a member of the Presidium. He carries the title, Head of the Discipline Inspection Team. (Wonder what that could be.) CAS muckamucks have twice been subjected to harsh re-education, so with watchdogs underfoot, the Academy dutifully adheres to CCP wishes.

Nature wrote a glowing editorial titled “The ChineseAcademy of Sciences at 70.”  More interesting, the journal published a letter-to-the-editor from Qingquan Zhang, the CAS Chief Public Information Officer.  He found several things in the article “quite misleading.”

CAS is not run independently of government, as you imply.  The establishment and development of CAS have been entirely based on the wisdom and support of the central government.

Contrary to your headline, CAS has never sought or achieved financial autonomy.  Over the past 40 years, half of its income has come directly from central-government investment; the rest has been from competitive funding or technology transfer.  CAS could not develop without the funding and support of the central government.

In carrying out its scientific and technical mission, CAS stands firmly with the central government and with the people.  We reject any such false allegations with disruptive intentions and are strongly opposed to biased judgments of China’s internal affairs, and to any unnatural linking of political or ideological positions with our mission.

Most Americans would consider the editorial a puff piece. However, Nature did state that during the Cultural Revolution:

Torture was commonplace and, according to CAS’s own records, 229 scientists were either killed or took their own lives in this time.

The Chinese Communist Party does not accept criticism, even when embedded in an otherwise positive portrayal. 

What does this portend for us? Is science in the United States unduly influenced by government?  We don’t bundle our scientific institutions under a single umbrella organization; however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is our best-known government funded medical institution.  It offers guidelines that other government agencies seem to treat as if they have the force of law. That makes the CDC a powerful and unchecked arbiter of American life.

Could CDC “science” be biased by politics? CDC communications have often shown more loyalty to the Democratic Party narrative than to the underlying science. This is especially obvious in report summaries which frequently promote a theme not found in the detail findings. Since 2015, all but 5 of 8,000 political donations made by CDC employees went to Democrats or left-leaning organizations. China could send home their political officers if they could achieve this level of groupthink.

Science is the opposite of politics. Science is rational, objective, orderly. Everything that politics is not.  In science you not only have to prove your hypothesis, but others must replicate your experiment and achieve the same results. In politics, not so much. Yet, politicians love to meddle in this space.

Make no mistake, politicians want to control science so they can use the discipline as a public relations tool.