In The boundaries of science post I argued that science connects with other fields such as politics or the military through issues or institutions that reside between both science and the adjacent field and depends on both. An example of one of these ‘intermediate entities’ between science and the military is the atom bomb.
In the case of David Nutt and Alan Johnson the intermediate entity between science and politics is drugs. Having looked at many similar disputes I expected this to fit a familiar pattern, but it doesn't. If it were a 'normal' boundary dispute we would ask the following questions: do drugs belong to science or to politics? Where does the authority of Nutt end and authority of Johnson begin? In which directions might the boundary shift? But Alan Johnson's boundary work is of a different type altogether. It involves redefining science itself in such a way that he can claim to be 'arguing from nature' just as much as David Nutt.
I call it the 'public relations definition of science'. It is deliberately imprecise and allows you to borrow the connotations of science: rigour, confidence, impartiality, naturalness, etc. and attach them to anything you want. The public relations definition has two symmetrical parts: 1) science is any idea that is right; 2) any idea that is right is scientific. In the public relations definition both science's connection to the world and the social structure that validates it are glossed over. Its vagueness is what allows it to work in public relations. According to the public relations definition, everything should be scientific - it is an insult to suggest that something is 'un-scientific'. Although in the public relations definition science is inherently 'good', it devalues science by disguising the actual qualities that make it good.
Science is important in public relations for this reason: if something is 'scientific' it is its own justification - you don't have to make a case for it and others can't argue against it. If for instance you declare that your drugs policy is scientific then you don't have to explain your decision in terms of the interests it serves and nor do you have to explain the ways in which it is an improvement on alternatives. The implication of 'evidence-based policy' is that it is as natural as the law of gravity. You wouldn't try to argue the toss about the law of gravity (e.g. from now on, in the interests of public safety, objects will fall with an acceleration of 4.9 m/s2 instead of 9.8 m/s2) and we are similarly inhibited about messing with evidence-based policy. Science has huge rhetorical weight and that is what lazy politicians like about it.
This is why Alan Johnson's behaviour worries me – it's lazy. He is seeking an alternative to political leadership. Rather than doing politics (his job) he's looking for the easy route, which is to argue from nature (claim that his policy is its own justification, like the law of gravity). When he is thwarted because nature won't conform, he responds by accusing his scientific advisors of being political. This is boundary work that works not by establishing the ownership of intermediate entities (drugs) but that works instead by replacing science with an impoverished pastiche of itself.
Johnson knows that a ridiculous pastiche of evidence-based policy carries almost the same rhetorical force as actual evidence-based policy. He knows too that newspaper columnists and television journalists can't challenge him. But here's the scary part: it's not a conspiracy. Johnson himself can't recognise the poverty of the public relations definition of science. He has no firm understanding of where the authority of science comes from in the first place, just that it means he doesn't have to do politics. Politician’s incompetence in this area is regrettable in the case of drugs policy but catastrophic when it comes to climate change and other pressing issues.