The following is an editorial published in New Scientist, 5 June 1999 <http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990605/editorial.html> Control is all Who needs crude censorship when corporate bodies call the shots in research? YOU ARE UNLIKELY to have come across a slim, bimonthly publication called Index on Censorship. But perhaps you should have. Its contents, dedicated to freedom of expression everywhere in the world, are often disturbing. There are reports of journalists being locked up, editors shot and reporters fleeing abroad in fear of their lives from various unpleasant nations around the world. And the Index reports that this kind of nastiness has been going on for a long time: the Roman Emperor Domitian was apparently so annoyed by one book that he not only had its author killed but also crucified the bookseller, too. Now for the first time the Index has turned its attention to censorship in science (www.indexoncensorship.org) with some mixed but interesting results. Currently, not too many scientists are actually being locked up. Where the Index's writers seek evidence of outright persecution, they quickly find themselves drawn towards those two famous examples of Galileo and Nikolai Vavilov. One annoyed the Catholic Church and the other fell foul of Lysenko and the communist line on genetics. If there is censorship in science, the Index makes plain that it is a lot more subtle than being sent to a Soviet labour camp -- not lying, but failing to tell the whole truth. Where censorship may now be powerful is in the non-publication of awkward data, or, as one Index author puts it, "It is the facts removed from debate that can colour black as white." We know only too well that tobacco companies hid their knowledge of the dangers and addictiveness of tobacco and even provided research funds that helped deflect researchers' interest elsewhere. More and more science is corporate -- which includes government funded -- science, and more science affects the food we eat and the lives we live. Does that mean we will never be able to know the whole picture about discoveries that affect us intimately, especially as more diverse sources of funds dry up? Corporate science has, of course, no choice but to serve corporate needs which, as another Index author points out, tends to force the world to fit the corporation rather than the other way around. Agriculture becomes monoculture, wildlife vanishes, and we eat only what is convenient to vast vertically-integrated producers. Science then comes to be seen not as Frankenstein, unleashing unpredictable forces, but worse, as a Strangelove bent on complete control. Which perhaps goes a long way to explaining why in Europe, where the links between big organisations and social change are always regarded with deep suspicion, there has been such an outcry against genetically modified foods. Perhaps it is not so much in the food as in the way it was forced onto our plates. <end quote> ------------------- WD "Bill" Loughman Berkeley, California USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
