Science and Society: From Academia to Policy

The Republic of Scholars

In the 17th–18th centuries, the “Republic of Scholars” (Res Publica Litteraria) emerged—a transnational intellectual community connected through correspondence, journals, and academies. The first scientific academies—the Royal Society of London (1660), the Paris Academy of Sciences (1666)—institutionalized science: they created mechanisms for peer review, publication, and recognition.

The norms of this republic were described by Robert Merton (1942): universalism (the truth does not depend on the personality of the scholar); communism (knowledge is public property, discoveries are published); disinterestedness (scientific activity is conducted for knowledge, not for personal gain); organized skepticism (all statements are subject to critical scrutiny).

This is an ideal, from which real science often deviates: disputes over priority (Newton vs Leibniz—who invented calculus?), classified military research, commercialization of science (patents, corporate funding). But the ideal sets a normative horizon.

Science Funding and Its Consequences

Big science of the 20th century (atomic project, space exploration, the human genome) required state funding. This created a close relationship between science and the state—and raised the question of scientific autonomy.

Commercialization: pharmaceutical companies fund clinical trials of their own drugs—this creates a conflict of interest and systematic distortion in publications (positive publication bias). Tobacco companies in the 20th century funded “science” casting doubt on the link between smoking and cancer. Oil companies—“science” denying climate change.

Reproducibility crisis: in the 2010s, psychology, medicine, and economics faced a crisis—many “classic” results failed to reproduce in independent studies. Systemic problems: the “publish or perish” pressure stimulates questionable practices (p-hacking, HARKing—hypotheses after results). This is not a crisis of science as a method—it is a crisis of scientific institutions.

Science and Politics: Climate, Vaccines, Evolution

Science creates knowledge about the facts of the world; politics makes decisions based on values. These are different tasks—but in the modern world they inevitably intertwine.

Climate change: scientific consensus (IPCC: >97% climatologists)—anthropogenic warming is real and dangerous. This is a scientific fact, not a political position. What political response—cutting emissions, nuclear energy, adaptation, carbon tax—these are political decisions based on values.

“Science denial”—a phenomenon where political or economic interests motivate rejection of scientific consensus. This requires a distinction: science (what is?) and politics (what should be done?). Denying climate science to avoid difficult political choices is an epistemic crime.

Vaccines: the anti-vaccination movement is based on a falsified study (Wakefield, 1998, retracted in 2010) and fueled by distrust of the medical establishment. Scientific consensus is unequivocal: vaccines are safe and effective. But when trust in institutions is destroyed, consensus is no longer perceived as an authoritative source.

This is a fundamental problem: science as an institution depends on trust, which is built over years and destroyed quickly.