While it is true that corporate and other vested interests will define research priorities and may give reductionist interpretations of scientific findings, you cannot dismiss scientific discoveries or theories simply on the basis of which interests were behind them. You need to look at the content as well. Thus in your long account of the interests/emotionalism/corruption behind some of the stem cell research, you say nothing about whether such technology actually works, what its benefits might or might be (in a different, more equal society).

This points to a difficulty: a democratic science means that there needs to be a “public view” of the content of some scientific theories. Red Pepper apparently contains an interview with Mae-Wan Ho, of the Institute for Science in Society (ISIS: see their web site). Now ISIS does some interesting work, but it is mixed up with quasi-mystical stuff that I don’t think the left should associate itself with, like (bizarre) attempts to provide scientific backing for homeopathy (pretty corporate, if you ask me – see who owns Holland and Barrett – and “Royal” too) or HIV/AIDS denialism.

Mae-Wan Ho says we should back the mavericks who go against the mainstream, but I think that is wrong when they are selling snake-oil as much as Big Pharma. The public needs to be able to discuss and contest the content of these people’s scientific claims – the sort of thing done by Alan Sokal, Ben Golracre, The Quackometer and David Colquhoun etc.

ISIS calls for democratic accountability in science, but I’ve never seen a critical comment at the bottom of the articles on their web site. The ones I’ve sent have never been published. Doesn’t seem very democratic to me.