Over the last few decades it has been considered normal in Science and Technology Studies (STS) that a researcher of science should suspend judgment about which scientific theories are actually correct and which are wrong. The reasons for this are methodological: assuming that Einstein’s theory of relativity was accepted simply because it was correct makes us blind to much of the work that had to be done to make it accepted. It also means giving up any chance of seeing the assumptions shared by the current scientific paradigm. Instead, STS scholars usually assume (if only for methodological reasons) that scientific theories win or lose for social reasons.

This argument was radical and liberal back at the time when science was associated with Cold War and things like that. More recently, however, this same argument has been adopted by Intelligent Design advocates, who now challenge conventional science from this angle. More interestingly, here we face cases where it is not obvious whether decisions are made because of anti-evolution sentiments or for sound methodological reasons. In a recent story, a researcher in Canada who applied for a grant “to study how the rising popularity in the United States of ‘intelligent design’… is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada.” His grant was rejected due the lack of “adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent-design theory, was correct.” Needless to say, the media is interpreting this as a sign of Bushies taking over Canada’s federal government. At the same time, one can easily read this statement as pointing out a real methodological shortcoming of the proposal. I don’t know what the actual motivation for the rejection was. It may have been a case of the proposal being judged by STS standards (perhaps inappropriately, since Alters does not appear to be an STS scholar), or a case of anti-evolution bias masquerading as STS. What’s interesting is how the two have managed to come together.