Science & Tech Quote by John Desmond Bernal

Bernal is trying to puncture the lab-coat myth: the idea that science floats above society like pure reason in a vacuum. His phrasing does two things at once. “Imagined position of complete detachment” is a polite way of calling neutrality a comforting fiction, one that flatters scientists and reassures funders that knowledge emerges untouched by money, power, or ideology. Marxism, in his framing, isn’t being sold as a partisan lens so much as a demystifying tool: it drags science back down to earth and makes you look at who pays, who benefits, and what problems are considered worth solving.

The subtext is a defense of accountability. By insisting science is “a part… of economy and social development,” Bernal implies that research priorities, institutional prestige, and even what counts as “objective” can be shaped by labor conditions, industrial needs, and state competition. Yet he’s careful to protect science’s status: it’s not merely another commodity; it’s “critically important.” That qualifier matters. He’s arguing for a materialist reading without surrendering to cynicism. Science is embedded, but not irrelevant; conditioned, but still capable of genuine insight and transformative power.

Context sharpens the intent. Bernal wrote in an era when “big science” was becoming inseparable from war, industry, and national planning, and when Marxism offered a rival vocabulary to liberal stories of progress. The line reads like an attempt to recruit scientists to political consciousness: not to abandon rigor, but to stop confusing rigor with innocence.