What's it all about?
Bernard Dixon
A moratorium on undesirable re search — it's a beguilingly attractive idea, much mulled over these days by some advocates of ' social responsibility in science.' Certain lines of scientific research aie pregnant with such sinister consequences. or so vulnerable to malevolent exploitation (the argument runs), that they should be halted at once. Being reasonable people, members of a unique international brotherhood, the scientists involved should see the sense of a proposed moratorium and agree voluntarily to take part.
Such a solution has been proposed several times since Arthur Jensen published his now infamous paper in 1969 on the mental abilities of black and white Americans. Many 'progressive' critics believe that any work of this sort is so dangerous politically that it should be stopped.
Well-intentioned though it may be, this argument is not fully thought out. Comparative studies of mental skills are important and neeessary if educationists are to, adjust teaching methods to take advantage of special mental characteristics in different ethnic groups. Clearly, any such decisions should be agreed between the different groups involved: they should not, for example, be taken by a black or white majority in a community o the basis of research conducted by representatives of that majority.
Moreover, just as ability in such subjects as mathematics or languages varies from person to person in any school class, this does not imply that any one group is superior to another. Who is foolish enough to claim that the typical western IQ test is an objective universal arbiter? Who will rate IQ higher than other qualities?
What we can say is that in one context — when IQ tests are used to ' rescue' bright children in an educational system where their talents would otherwise atrophy — IQ tests are a progressive instrument; in another context, they are condemned as a weapon of elitist meritocracy. The alternative to soundly-based research on intelligence " by responsible scientists, exposed to open evaluation, is either continued ignorance (and thus continued prejudice and suspicion — the very worst brand of political dynamite) or research carried out by less capable or scrupulous individuals.
In any case, while it is practicable to proscribe a costly and highly sophisticated research project — in nuclear physics, for example — it is scarcely realistic to talk of preventing psychologists from conducting intelligence tests. Though there will be increasing public pressure behind the idea unless scientists show more evidence of social responsi bility for their work, a moratorium is rarely a satisfactory or even feasible answer. It is usually a way of avoiding social or political problems which are bound to recur, perhaps in a more acute form, at a later date.
Last year, for example, the Journal of the American Medical Association called for a moratorium on attempts to implant into a woman's womb an ovum fertilised outside the body. The journal did so largely on the grounds
that it is ' not a proper' goal of medicine' to enable women to nave children by a means which, being new, carries some risk and uncertainty. Surely the real answer here is to get down to solving the moral and technical problems raised by this newly feasible technique, rather than seek to ban entirely a method of helping otherwise infertile women to have children?
To attack the idea of selective moratoria on research is not to say that 'anything goes.' Quite the reverse. The logical consequence of opposing moratoria and censorship in science is that all scientific research should be exposed to open, critical scrutiny.
Bernard Dixon is the editor of 'New Scientist.' His column this week is adapted from his new book, 'What is Science For?,' to be published next week by Collins.
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