Under the Guise of Research

Since at least the 1605 publication of Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning, scientific curiosity has been regarded as a positive emotion. But there are obvious downsides. While “curiosity-driven research” or “pure science” may sound abstract and detached from the so-called real world, it tends to find application down the road. It’s what led to the atomic bomb, grotesque wartime medical experiments, and, closer to home, horrific nutritional tests in residential schools.

Whether positively or negatively directed, curiosity is inextricably bound up in the social and even the political. The field of genetics is a clear case in point. In the 1960s and 1970s, as struggles for racial equality became headline news, some scientists claimed that those of African descent were innately less intelligent and more prone to anti-social behaviour than those of European descent. Progressive social and public policy would therefore have little effect, the theory went...