The recent News stories and Correspondence on the relationship between politicians and academics (Nature 430, 595; 431, 1; 431, 627; and 431, 1036; 2004) missed a central issue: will politics ignore the scientists?
Nobel laureates in the United States and Taiwan have recently felt compelled to become involved in presidential politics. The explanation most frequently offered for this phenomenon is simply "It's their right as citizens", but the reasons often go deeper than that. Modern scientific and academic research has become so costly that little of the most cutting-edge research can be accomplished without government approval or support, providing a strong motivation for politicking. To be ignored would be a disaster.
Furthermore, in less democratic societies (such as Taiwan was in the recent past) control over intellectual freedom is well documented, providing a strong reason for resistance.
Only 13 years ago, I was told by one of my students that a teacher-officer had asked him whether I had "talked about politics" in my lectures. Teacher-officers were military officers, stationed at Taiwan's universities in those days to work closely with the then-ruling Nationalist Party on a variety of duties, which included keeping an eye on political activists on campus.
The recent democratization process in Taiwan has led to a major change in teacher-officers' duties. But the old political atmosphere remains much in evidence. It is no wonder that your correspondent M. J. Hsu, who is currently at Taiwan's National Sun Yat-sen University (Nature 431, 627; 200410.1038/431627c), should wish that we could all just ignore politics.
