Science v Politics: The Moral Maze

Radio 4's Moral Maze debated the relationship between science and politics. It's worth a listen. Some of the points were:

• funding of what scientific evidence is to be gathered, adds a political bias
• scientists are human and therefore corruptible
• science its self is a process for gathering hard evidence which has no morality
• the media can sensationalise scientific reports
• lay people aren't often equipped to understand science
• there's more to politics than science (e.g. morality)
• scientists may consider their evidence as more important than debate
• debaters may reinforce their arguments with narrow scientific studies to try to quash debate

I think democracy should be informed by science. I would like to see a publicly funded scientific institution, honour bound to report hard, morally incorruptible, evidence. The meta studies they carry out should be instigated by Parliament (within the ID process) and not funded by pressure groups. This can then form one aspect of the debate about future policy.