American sociologist Robert K. Merton once defined four norms that guide scientific research: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. Communalism holds that science should be done publicly, universalism that everyone should be held to the same scientific standards, disinterestedness that there should be no biases, and organized skepticism that scientific claims should be evaluated based on objectivity and rigor. For all four norms, open inquiry is fundamental. To practice the scientific method, we must have the freedom to discuss ideas. No claim should be ignored, only refuted, using available evidence.
The ideologization of science poses a constant danger to the Mertonian norms and the freedom of scientific expression. Extreme historical examples include the Soviet Union’s promotion of “socialist science” over “bourgeois science” and Nazi Germany’s forbidding political opponents or those of Jewish ancestry from working for the government. Communist and fascist governments handicapped scientific endeavors by restricting who could do science and what science could be done; in both the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany, all speech was regulated. The scientific method allows scientists to seek out truth about the world, without worrying about whether the truth will bother the government: free scientific inquiry can properly take place only in a society where freedom of speech is allowed, or better, encouraged.
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