Geek Manifesto: Why Science Matters

Citation

Sodha, S. (2013), "Geek Manifesto: Why Science Matters", Journal of Children's Services, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 78-79. https://doi.org/10.1108/17466661311309808

Mark Henderson's Geek Manifesto is not just a devastating critique of the way in which politics downplays the importance of scientific evidence in policy debates; it is also a stirring call to arms to “geeks” – pro‐science people around the world – to get more involved in politics and hold politicians accountable for the way they use scientific evidence. More than that, it is a very enjoyable read for all the non‐geeks out there. And it has important implications for children's services.

Much of the book is spent eloquently describing the way in which politicians and the media have abused scientific evidence. Henderson illustrates how modern‐day politics is too often guilty of three important fallacies. First, there are some politicians that just flat‐out ignore scientific evidence – for example, US Republican Michele Bachmann regarding climate change as a hoax. Second, politicians too often take decisions that have a negative impact on the study of science – for example, the UK Government's immigration cap, which risks damaging the quality and quantity of scientific study in our universities. Lastly, politicians are not true to the principles of scientific enquiry, too often going for policy‐based evidence making rather than evidence‐based policy making.

Henderson develops a typology of evidence abuse that politicians engage in, including shopping around for evidence that supports a particular policy, manipulating advisers to provide the advice they want, and – perhaps the most flagrant abuse of all – if the evidence does not exist, simply imagining it into existence. This is something we are unfortunately all‐too‐familiar with in children's services, where popular fads and the desire to announce new initiatives can sometimes over‐rule the evidence.

Henderson's diagnosis is that there is a lack of scientific knowledge and understanding amongst the political community: just two MPs in the UK House of Commons have PhDs in science. He argues that more scientists in politics would be a good thing, but that all scientists have a responsibility to increase awareness of science in the politics by taking actions such as writing to their MPs, lobbying and “outing” those MPs who abuse the evidence.

The book's practical focus on what people who care about science can do to change its impact on politics is very refreshing. But although the book begins to explore the trickier question of what to do about the institutional causes of evidence abuse, the answers are less clear.

It is not always the case that politicians are unaware of the evidence or the principles of scientific enquiry – sometimes the incentives to abuse and manipulate the evidence are just too strong. The short‐term electoral and media cycles and the god complex we impose on our politicians, where every U‐turn is decreed a sign of dismal failure, all conspire to ensure that sometimes it is strongly in a politician's interest to ignore the evidence. Henderson is right that a “geek mobilisation” might go some way to increasing the political cost of ignoring the scientific evidence. As laudable a goal as it is, however, it is difficult to envisage that it could ever make science enough of an electoral issue to change the culture of how science and evidence are used in politics.

For that, we need institutional reform that creates incentives for more long‐term policy making and heeding of the evidence. Henderson points to one possibility – in the same way as we now have a UK Office for Budget Responsibility, could there be an independent office for scientific responsibility that publishes an opinion on whether there is evidence to support the introduction of particular policies? Another important possibility the book does not consider would be long‐overdue reform of our generalist civil service to ensure more specialists and experts can move in and out of policy‐making in Whitehall. At the moment, the civil service functions as a notoriously closed shop to people with professional and academic experience.

Henderson does acknowledge the limits of evidence and science, noting that they are just one factor alongside many that need to be taken into account in policy‐making. He also acknowledges that evidence rarely provides an unambiguous answer, and that science is about uncertainty and risk rather than predicting outcomes with complete confidence – something that those of us working in fields like social policy and education will recognise. This raises an interesting tension, however: Henderson's book is about selling the benefits of science, and those benefits rightly include better‐quality policy‐making. But combining this message with one that is clear that evidence needs to be mediated and will not always provide an unambiguous answer is a tricky path to take. But science is certainly the better for having Mark Henderson as an advocate.