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Not only is science inseparable from ideology, but they idea that it can be separate is itself ideological. Let me explain, point by point.

1. When people say that science is above and beyond the realms of ideology they invariably point to a concentration on a detached observation of natural facts and make recourse to some universal scientific method as the distinguishing features. But there is some circularity and even hoodwinking here. Firstly, if the facts of science are the product of a detached observation, it doesn't follow that that which is being observed has a real existence in nature. In order to decide what to observe, never mind how to observe it, a series of value judgments must be made. Take evolutionary theory. While I am convinced of its truth and its intellectual power, I cannot see how one could possibly say that it was produced by detailed, clear, unbiased observation of natural facts. Nobody has ever witnessed in any real sense evolution by natural selection. Certainly, as a deductive assessment of how we have come to have myriads of different species is convincing. But we can ask why it came to the fore, independently by two scientists - Darwin and Russell Wallace, both of whom grew up in industrial Britain in the early nineteenth century, when it did and why it was formulated in the way it was. The context of these scientists lives shaped the way they viewed the natural world. To my mind, they couldn't do otherwise. Competition between distinct groups for scarce resources has a definite resonance with the period and place in which these theories came to the fore. Yes, you might say, but now we know better. But can we really say that? Aren't we as much products of our times as they were of theirs? To underscore this point one only needs to look at the metaphors which are currently used as observational categories for understanding the human mind. In the 1820s and 30s, when Darwin and Russell Wallace were formulating their theories, the mind was understood as a steam engine. Today, the metaphor is the computer. We all know why.Let's stay with metaphors a while. Natural selection is itself a very powerful metaphor. To select assumes that a judgment, somewhere along the line, has take place as to what is good or better and what is bad or worse. That is ideology in action. But selection also suggests a selector. Who or what does the selecting? Whatever you want it to be - God, genes, nature - it has selected; engaged in a moral action and

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