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We can absolutely separate science from ideology. The matter becomes much simpler once I tear down the stumbling block that confuses the issue: science' is not by any means homogeneous. From economics to psychology to physics to library science, there is an infinite range of study that can be defined as science. I can grant that some areas are forever entwined with ideology: An experimental physicist may work only from the knowledge and concepts that is to say, the ideology lavished upon her by years of schoolwork and tutelage from an expert. Later, her work will add to that ideology for future generations. An economist working on a new model for taxation is still concerned with the ideology of education, but he is further driven by an ideology not quite peculiar to economics money.

My argument seems to have come full circle; if education and finance both constitute ideologies, how can any science, which requires much of both, be separate? My proposal is this: there are two situations where science separates from ideology. Firstly, the most fundamental of the sciences are largely separated from ideology. That is, in mathematics and theoretical physics, a scientist must sometimes separate himself from previous conceptions in order to allow new possibilities. This in turn could be defined as an ideology but allowing for that quickly creates a nomenclature trap in which anything can be an ideology, which would mean nothing could ever be separate from ideology. The other situation occurs in every branch of science, whether fundamental or applied: breakthroughs must necessarily be independent of the ideologies of the field. To truly push a science forward, a scientist needs the gifts of intuition and imagination as well as the ability to put on hold deeply held convictions. The very fact that we have democracy, refrigerators, and equations describing curved space-time gives proof that, at least for brief moments, science has taken a break from ideology.

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