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Technology

The Mithology of Science and Technology: Prometheus or Science is in Trouble

by Fred L. Smith

Portrayed by the doomsayers as too risky, science and scientific change (we are told) must be controlled by political agencies. A potential disaster is suggested, the media raises the battle flag, and eager politicians rush in to save mankind.

There was a time when ignorance of the nature &endash; or even existence &endash; of such threats, their causes and remedies, would normally block action. But that was before the politicization of science. Today, politicians pass a bill but mandate that studies be undertaken prior to implementation. The politicians are then free to act, in full confidence that any mistakes will be caught in the later policy review.

However, science is poorly equipped to resolve political confusion. This reliance on science as a tool of politics now threatens science itself. "Politically correct" thinking dominates the press releases, the executive summaries, and the policy reports- if not yet the core substance &endash; of such once respectable "scientific" institutions as the National Academy of Science, the Office of Technology Assessment, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Science policy is increasingly anti-scientific.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, with the help of many of the groups and individuals we work with, examines the "science" behind numerous environmental concerns (acid rain, global warming, ozone thinning, dioxin, biotechnology). Science, we have found, provides weak support for government policies that seek to "protect" us from these manufactured risks. Nonetheless, the public is frightened into the belief that thousands die every year from exposure to trace amounts of pollution. Of course, the empirical evidence for such purported deaths does not exist.

People look to reality to vindicate values, not to determine them. Those values are being shaped daily in political committees, where protestations and pronouncements are highly critical of Western society &endash; particularly of such institutions as technology and the market. Indeed, the very pretext for convening most such bodies is that something is wrong and government must fix it. It should be no surprise, then, that most of those who testify claim that technology is out of control, that profit-seeking men threaten the survival of the planet, etc.

Thus, in a politicized information market, the answer as to why the majority believes any given proposition can be traced to politics, and the incentives that characterize politics &endash; a desire for control coupled with an aversion to responsibility. When government assumes control of risk assessment and management, those political incentives are brought to bear.

As MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen has said regarding predictions of catastrophic global warming: "There are statements of such overt unrealism that I feel embarrassed; I think it discredits my science...[and] by ruining our credibility now we leave society with a diminished resource of some importance."

Ideally, the value of science is to advance technologies that benefit mankind and block technologies that would reduce human welfare. The challenge is to determine whether that task is best achieved by allowing individuals freedom to act and holding them responsible for their actions, or whether this process should be subject to the political control of regulatory bodies.

The problem with government decision making is that a vast asymmetry exists. There is a regulatory bias toward control, a political bias toward emphasizing catastrophe and a psychological bias against change. There is nothing new about the fear of change &endash; politics merely gives more power to those wishing to block change.

One way of understanding bureaucratic incentive structures is to recognize that regulators are entrepreneurs, too. The bureaucrat who errs on the side of caution, the side of stasis, does not suffer from his mistake; the bureaucrat who errs on the side of permissiveness, the side of progress, may not advance. Similarly, agencies that tend toward passiveness, that fail to justify their need, don't get budget increases. The EPA, for example, has every reason to convince the public that they alone stand between the citizens and environmental disaster. Indeed, it appears that EPA has hired Stephen King to write press releases.

Competing Myths: Prometheus vs. Dr. Frankenstein

Myths matter. They summarize the concerns that we have about change and, like stereotypes and shibboleths, they frame the debate. Two myths are helpful in understanding science policy. On the one hand, there is Prometheus: the scientist as entrepreneur, as the innovative individual willing to challenge the reactionary ruling orthodoxy to introduce beneficial technology to mankind. On the other, there is Dr. Frankenstein: the scientists as villain, as the arrogant individual insensitive to his fellow Man's concerns, releasing monsters into the world with self-serving abandon.

Dr. Frankenstein epitomizes the prevailing view of non-government scientists. Under this view, if entrepreneurial science is dangerous, we must find ways of keeping science leashed and controlled. Gatekeeper agencies are created and charged with deciding whether a new technology (or a new application, or a larger use of an old application) should be allowed. In an ideal world, such agencies would get it right &endash; always. Dangerous products would be blocked; beneficial products would be approved.

However, this is not an ideal world. An agency can make two type of errors: classifying a dangerous product as safe, or classifying a beneficial product as dangerous. These two risks &endash; the risks of technological innovation and that of technological stagnation &endash; are both serious. But a political agency won't see them that way. Victims of mistaken bureaucratic approval are visible; victims of mistaken disapproval are not. As a result, agencies all to often only respond to the former.

The policy question is should Man have fire? Zeus and the other status quo political bosses of the day thought not. Why, they asked themselves, should we spread our privileges? "Let humans eat their flesh raw!", the gods roared. Besides, fire was risky &endash; there had been no double blind controlled tests on the tendency of fire to get our of hand. Moreover, mankind (then, after all, an illiterate cave-dweller) was hardly an informed risk-taker. The gods had to continue in their paternalistic role.

Prometheus disagreed. Mankind, he believed, faced many risks worse than those posed by fire (weather, wild animals, etc). Prometheus decided to violate the regulatory guidelines and provide mankind with fire. He recognized that fire (i.e., technology) was inherently neither safe nor risky &endash; harm would be contingent on how it was used.

Of course, having violated bureaucratic fiat, Prometheus was punished. The political authorities seized him, and chained him to the side of a mountain where an avenging vulture would feast upon his liver every day for all eternity. Such was the price for pursuing technological progress.

Historically, modern government has not treated scientists as harshly &endash; Galileo got off light. America has been strongly supportive of the Promethean view of technology for most of its history. Indeed, America was the society of change; it was Europe, still struggling out of the Dark Ages, that had suppressed beliefs, endorsed orthodoxies, and forced Galileo to recant.

But America has moved decisively away from the Promethean paradigm. Many now act as if they believe that the risks of change are massive, that the risks of stagnation are minimal. America seems to have adopted the once-orphaned Dr. Frankenstein view, that scientists are dangerous and technology is destructive.

If the world is to become safer, the Promethean myth must again gain prominence and supplant that of Dr. Frankenstein. We must remove the restraints from those who can and will, if allowed to do so, make the world safer. In short, we must object vociferously to government's regulation of risk, and make it known that there are also risks of regulation.

The myth of Prometheus had a happy ending. Prometheus suffers for eons at the hands of the vengeful regulatory vulture until mankind, now fully aware of his great contribution, petitions Zeus to free him. Their petition is granted and Hercules, as mankind's agent, slays the regulatory vulture and unbinds Prometheus.

The Promethean myth is paradigmatic. If our challenge is to restore science to its proper role, to find ways to once again legitimize private regulation of technology, our vision is Prometheus unbound.

Fred L. Smith Jr. is the President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington DC that focuses on scientific and environmental issues.