by Zack Beauchamp
Yuval Levin tries to play defense on the "right is anti–science" claims by reupping his argument that "environmentalism, and with it a worldview deeply at odds with that behind the scientific enterprise, has come to play a pivotal role in the thinking of the left:"*
In all of its forms, the environmentalist ethic calls for a science of beholding nature, not of mastering it. Far from viewing nature as the oppressor, this new vision sees nature as a precious, vulnerable, and almost benevolent passive environment, held in careful balance, and under siege by human action and human power. This view of nature calls for human restraint and humility—and for diminished expectations of human power and potential. The environmental movement is, in this sense, not a natural fit for the progressive and forward-looking mentality of the left.
Indeed, in many important respects environmentalism is deeply conservative. It takes no great feat of logic to show that conservation is conservative, of course, but the conservatism of the environmental movement runs far deeper than that. The movement seeks to preserve a given balance which we did not create, are not capable of fully understanding, and should not delude ourselves into imagining we can much improve—in other words, its attitude toward nature is much like the attitude of conservatism toward society. Moreover, contemporary environmentalism is deeply moralistic.
This won't do. The "anti-science" charge has little to with morality. When someone like Rick Perry – an avowed anthropogenic climate change and evolution denialist – is accused of rejecting science, it's an attack on Perry's epistemological beliefs rather than moral values. Even though the scientific consensus is clear on both questions, Perry refuses to accept both. By rejecting well-supported scientific truths on, say, theological grounds, he is implicitly denying that the scientific method (rather than, say, theological reasoning) is the best way to determine truths about the natural world. That's what being "anti-science" is. Given that basically everything we know about the natural world comes from natural science, we can't tell how Perry will evaluate basic scientific truths on a whole host of important issues. That's a big deal.
Levin thinks that being pro-science also means having a certain set of moral commitments – he says "modern science is grounded in a particular view of nature, both material and moral." This is his formulation of said values:
His desire for knowledge of and power over nature was not power-hunger, it was humanitarianism. Nature, cold and cruel, oppresses man at every turn, and bold human action is needed in response. Science arose to meet that need.
Being pro-science means being pro-controlling nature for human benefit and pro-widespread use of new technologies. Environmentalists don't want to control nature for human benefit and often object to new technologies due to their impact on nature. Therefore contradiction.
But that seems quite wrong. Being pro-science may mean being committed to the idea that advancing scientific knowledge is good for the world, sure, but that scientific knowledge doesn't always say we should try to control the natural world. Science is at its core is a reasoning process – we arrive at certain conclusions through experiments, peer evaluation, etc. So if the best scientific evidence suggests "humans do bad things when they mess with the natural world in fashion X" then the science is telling us not to mess with the natural world in fashion X! Indeed, scientific findings often serve as evidence in debates over the environmental impact of new technology, oftentimes on both sides. There's nothing intrinsic to scientific epistemology or practice that implies a moral commitment to increasing human control over the natural world or to widespread commercial use of the new technologies its discoveries enable. The mere fact of strong disagreement on these questions between contemporary bioethicists suggests that ethical commitments do not fall clearly from the scientific tree.
Another way to put it is that scientists have a goal of advancing human knowledge. They often do that with particular ends in mind (e.g., cancer scientists want to cure cancer), but there's no reason to believe that end is always increasing human control. It could be that a scientist might want to demonstrate the dangers of certain technologies or the limits of human ability to successfully interfere with the workings of the natural world. Would that scientist's research be fundamentally antithetical to the scientific endeavor? I doubt it, and I think that says a lot about Levin's thesis.
But, ultimately, it's not whether Levin's broader argument that's really important in this specific case. It's that he's is using obscure conceptual arguments to shield genuinely ignorant people like Perry from criticism. Even if every one of the above arguments is wrong, there's a huge difference between some subtle ethical conflicts and flat-0ut denying the theory of evolution or anthropogenic climate change. The former may result in occassional tension between environmentalists and scientists, but the latter involves denying the fundamental epistemological values that undergird the scientific project. Little things like "science tells us more about physical and biological truths than theology." Republicans needs to own up to their party's problem with science rather than unconvincingly shouting "you too!" across the aisle.
*Levin also makes some other arguments about how science refutes the justification for egalitarian values, which I may engage in the future. Suffice to say it involves pinning the justification for the left's commitment to egalitarian values squarely on the idea that all people are equal in some biological sense, which is the precise opposite of the case. Natural inequalities strengthen, not weaken, the case for a number of egalitarian views.
The Dish 