Via Spencer, this Post article on the Pentagon's new program to fund social science research makes academics opposing it look foolish. Look, a huge complaint about the Department of Defense and our foreign policy apparatus in the last few years has been that they've ignored expert information, much to the country's detriment. And now that Robert Gates has the good sense to decide to try and improve that situation, some academics are criticizing the program, suggesting that those who work for the DoD will be liable to bias or have their research misused. One of the program's critics, David Fine, said he will be applying for a grant to study "how [U.S. overseas military bases have] damaged our international reputation and how they've damaged the lives of people around the world." Lord knows that overseas military bases have their problems, but for a guy who'se concerned about bias he seems pretty, well, biased.
I understand that there is some reason to be leery, but it's also clear that the academics themselves are designing their own projects, so hopefully the potential for bias, etc., will be limited. Of course, any knowledge gained about other people can be used for good or evil -- consider that U.S. interrogators would use the knowledge of specific cultural practices to humiliate Muslim detainees. But the response to that problem isn't to stop learning about other cultures, or to try and hide that information from the government. It's to elect politicians who will enforce international law and appoint humane civil servants.
--Tim Fernholz
