Legislative, Executive, Judicial... and Scientific?

Is it time to update our separation of powers to include science?

I was reading an article (Discover, "Reasonable Doubt", July, 2006) and I got the idea that maybe we should create a new branch of government that would handle matters of science. Bear in mind this just now came to me, without much thought, so don't feel bad if you want to say it's stupid for some reason.

The article talks about how DNA lab results can be wrong. It states that the chances of matching a DNA profile against a random, unrelated individual is less than 1 in 10 billion. A problem apparently arises, though, because DNA samples aren't always complete. And it gives a quote from Robert Shaler, some forensics guy: "It's kind of like you know what you're looking for, and if it looks like it's there, you kind of convince yourself it's there." And, in reference to a specific case: "I think there was a huge amount of pressure on the lab to come up with an interpretation that was favorable to the prosecution." What I took from this is that DNA science is closely connected to those who use it: in this case, law enforcement.

Now, the whole idea of the separation of powers is that it's supposed to keep everyone in check. One set of people can make sure another set of people don't screw the country up. So, making science be a separate power would allow it to balance out the other powers when they try to manipulate facts to match their own agenda.

But how can facts be at risk for being manipulated, you ask? Facts currently come out of business, academia, the general public, or the government -- either directly or through funding of it.

• Business is motivated by money. If there's no money to be had, there's no reason to do it.
• Academia is good, but is limited by resources (time and brain power), especially when you exclude academic research funded by government or business.
• The general public has limited power and, I would say, does not always help the cause. For example, the general public is motivating science to find a cure for the bird flu, even though it's arguably not our biggest problem within the pandemic arena.
• Government is motivated by the need to stay around. They will usually only back what will keep a department funded or an elected official in office.
  

So, getting back to my point, science does not have much of a mind of its own because it's almost always controlled by some other force -- a force that usually has a motive behind it. What I'm focusing on, in this rambling post, is just that force due to our government.

In the last few years, for example, I seem to remember hearing of environmental studies that had been squashed because President George W. Bush didn't like how they would affect his policies. Another example goes back to what the article was talking about, where DNA science is being manipulated by the desires of law enforcement to provide a guilty verdict. You also have school boards trying to dictate policies based on loons who preach "intelligent design".

It would seem to me that facts deserve their own power. They have some inherent power, I suppose, but the problem occurs when facts are changed, or ignored, by the branches of our government. Facts should stand on their own and, at least in the USA, they don't always get that chance.

I should say that I realize this post hasn't at all addressed how a scientific branch would be run. I feel that something like the NSF (National Science Foundation) is probably pretty close to what we'd want, but that's a whole other topic.

In closing, I imagine our founding fathers didn't think to make Science a separate power of the government. They probably assumed facts would speak for themselves. But when you have instances where the legislative branch tries to redefine Pi to be 3.2, something needs to be done to protect the truth and keep our country on the leading edge of discovery and human advancement.

- Michael Krebs