Augustin Fuentes has a letter in Science. It’s pretty good.
Science, both teaching and doing, is under attack. The recent US presidential election of a person and platform with anti-science bias exemplifies this. The study of climate processes and patterns and the role of human activities in these phenomena are at the heart of multiple global crises, and yet the scientific results, and the scientists presenting them, are attacked constantly. The dissemination of knowledge on health involving reproduction and human sexuality is increasingly marked for attack (in Russia, Uganda, and the USA), and researchers in these areas are often the target of extensive political pressure. The massive attack on the science and the scientists behind vaccines, pathogen transmission, and public health during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond is well documented, as are attacks on basic science education and the practice of science (for example, in Hungary and the USA). Even in the arena of biodiversity conservation, there is growing politicization of the data and political targeting of the scientists producing it. According to the US-based National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT), climate change, reproduction, vaccines, and other evidence-based scientific topics are being deemed “controversial” by school boards and state officials and are being removed from state-approved teaching resources across the country. Core research on health, climate, human biology, and biodiversity is being undermined by private foundations, governments, and anti-science ideologues.
Whether science is political, and if it should be, is an age-old debate. Some assert that scientific institutions and scientists themselves should seek to remain apolitical, or at least present a face of political neutrality. Others argue that such isolation is both impossible and unnecessary, that scientists are and should be in the political fray.
But…is there really a serious debate about whether scientists should be politically neutral? In my experience, the question is settled: scientists should be activists. I emerged from the University of Oregon in the 1980s; Aaron Novick was the chair of the department. He was a veteran of the Manhattan Project, who protested against the Vietnam War, and was on the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. I worked with George Streisinger for a year, and he was even more radical. His family fled Hungary as the Nazis came to power, also opposed the Vietnam War, and when I knew him, was campaigning against mutagenic pesticides and testifying for the Downwinders, and writing editorials on the dangers of radiation.
What debate?
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. We are up against people who make up their own facts, or don’t care about facts whatsoever. Among those we have to thank are the religious, who encourage evidence-free “reasoning,” which they consider a virtue.
Given that Science also published Marcia McNutt’s piece “Science is neither red nor blue”, I’d say some scientists want there to be a debate. Some choice snippets that got under my skin:
“For starters, scientists need to better explain the norms and values of science to reinforce the notion—with the public and their elected representatives—that science, at its most basic, is apolitical.”
What norms and values of science could she be referring to? Because I’m sure if she bothered to describe any of them, she’d have to contend with them being political and, in fact, quite partisan. That whole Belmont Report thing, for example. Not exactly a politically neutral and dispassionate document.
“For example, although science can affirm that climate change is happening and is primarily caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, science can only predict the outcome of the various policies that might be enacted to address the problem. It is up to society and its elected leadership to decide how to balance these options…”
Except science is part of society. And scientists are also voters too, and in some cases even appointed or elected leaders in political institutions around the world.
“At the same time, the scientific community must fight scientific mis- and disinformation as though lives depended on truth and trust, because they do.”
Some of the worst and most dangerous forms of scientific mis- and disinformation are coming from political actors. Race science, eugenics, climate change denial, anti-vaccine sentiment, AIDS denial, gun control, stem cells, opposition to gender-affirming care (which is, admittedly, part of eugenics but should be called out specifically), the list goes on. How can one remain politically neutral, neither red nor blue, when it is disproportionately one and only one political party in the United States that has gone all in on pushing disinformation about what science is and what science says? McNutt has no suggestions, just platitudes.
This isn’t a battle between politicized science and science, as I see it, but between fantasy and reality. I suspect that Americans would be screaming loudly and consistently if there was a movement to teach the stories of the Koran as factual in public schools, with politicians making the Muslim faith a big part of their campaigns and policies. How would this be any different?
One of my biology lecturers recounted a story from the Vietnam war era where women were working in a chemical plant manufacturing Agent Orange. He was among a group of scientists that knew it was teratogenic and raised their concerns with the relevant government ministers. They were told that information was classified and if they revealed it they would be charged. Naturally they leaked the information to the unions. They coppef a dressing down and were threatened with dismissal but no prosecution. It didn’t stop the production but women were moved off the production. Sadly it didn’t stop veterans and Vietnamese civilians being exposed with horrendous results.
kome @2
One of those things are not like the others.
@5 Walter Solomon
Sorry, I did mean “opposition to gun control” but apparently didn’t proofread carefully before posting. It is another topic in which there is legitimate empirical research that leads to pretty clear conclusions about the efficacy of this or that proposed regulation or law, and the denial of such research is stemming from one and only one segment of the political arena.
Thank you for catching that.
This about sums it up.
It’s also a battle between lies and the truth.
Some of the brighter among the right wingnuts know they are lying. They just don’t care.
You think all the GOP Florida elected politicians haven’t noticed that climate change is occurring as they get slammed every year by more and more powerful hurricanes and tropical storms and the sea levels keep rising?
The home owner insurance companies have noticed, which is why they aren’t insuring homes in Florida any more.
.1. The facts discovered by science aren’t political.
They are the best we can do at any given time using the methods of science, which includes numerous types of error control. Those being peer review, and replication by others.
.2. In the context of society, they can and are often politicized, usually by the right wingnuts these days.
That isn’t science’s fault, it is a social problem of our society.
It’s true that the left wing could also politicize science and they have in the past. Stalin and Mao promoted Lysenkoism and killed millions in famines due to agricultural failures.
These days the heirs of Stalin and Mao are the US GOP among others, right wingnuts. And…Orwell’s 1984.
.3. Scientists themselves are people and citizens.
They have every right of those classes to be active in society and politics.
I didn’t claim any special privilege to oppose George Bush’s Iraq II war or his policies leading up to the Great Recession.
My expertise on Climate change comes from a library card, the ability to read thanks to public education, and an internet connection. That, as it turns out, it a lot.
The political question of the day is “Do we go with the fascist option or a choice that’s better than that in every possible situation?” I’m pretty sure no one can afford to hang back and pretend they’re above the fray. Because of the fuckup earlier this month we’ll keep having to make that choice again and again for years to come.
Because science is (or is supposed to be) inherently an acknowledgement that we don’t already know everything worth knowing, it can’t help being seen as activist when opposing strong theocratic and similar political movements that proclaim the opposite. Eppur si muove, you ignorant bastards… and the earth isn’t flat, is orders of magnitude more than 4,000 years old, and is warming at a rate not completely explainable by “natural geological forces.” If advocating against ignorance is “activism,” count me in even though my “day job” is no longer very science-related.
Whether scientists are or should be “activists” is a harder, and more nuanced, question that depends in part on exactly what the scientist’s science-related job is, and in part on the scientist’s personality and preferences. However, those considerations are no different from anyone else’s: Some jobs and job titles, and some personal and family situations, are legitimate brakes on “activism.” For example, no judge (or “administrative law judge”) should ever be an “activist” outside the courtroom, and no military or police officer should ever be an activist regarding “the militia movement,” because both would create a clear conflict of interest. Our Gracious Host, however, appears to be in a position in which he’s free to be “an activist” should he choose to do so (without considering personal and family situations).
…The dissemination of knowledge on health involving reproduction and human sexuality is increasingly marked for attack (in Russia, Uganda, and the USA)…
It occurs to me that, at least on the English-language web, even the most click-baity science blurb sites have close to zero items from sexologists. The only plausible explanation I can think of has that whole branch of psychology holding each other to fearsome vows not to publish anything that would draw attention from bigots and/or tabloids (or to put it in incomprehensible jargon, just as their Victorian-era predecessors found it politic to write in Latin), but (given what we see from pop psych), that seems unlikely.
Anybody know what’s going on with all that?
Science is apolitical in the sense that politics doesn’t determine the outcomes of individual experiments. The litmus doesn’t turn red for some and blue for others in the exact same experiment. This is a simple and obvious but important point, I think. I fully agree that scientists, like all citizens, must fight and argue and vote for what is beneficial to humanity and against what is harmful. But by saying ‘science is political’ we do risk falling into the same category error as those who have ‘private facts’. Leaving open the possibility that the empirical results of the climate science, vaccine science and so on experiments turn out the way they do because the scientists are raging lefties is a dangerous possible side effect of accepting that science can be political.
Is political science politics or science? ;)
bravus@11
While it’s true the litmus doesn’t turn red or blue depending upon the beliefs of the test performer, the issue we’re facing in this age of scientific hostility is whether that test will be allowed to be performed at all. If those who control funding make it a political decision, heavily based upon ignorance and superstition, not to fund the tests, the litmus will never have a chance to turn red or blue and the boundaries of scientific knowledge will retract a bit.
Why do I feel like we’re heading towards the Dark Ages, Part II?
I am not a scientist, so I might be totally wrong about this, but I suspect one reason some scientists want to stay out of politics is the fear that if they take sides on any politically charged issue, the people who support the other side will turn hostile not just to them, but to science in general. This in fact seems to be what has happened in the USA. It’s a sad but true fact that many people would rather “shoot the messengers” who bring them news that contradicts their ideology, than accept that their ideology might be wrong.
bravus@11– Even litmus paper can give incorrect results due to a number of factors, including salts in solution and zwitterionic compounds. Yes, this is a matter of chemistry rather than politics, but these kinds of variabilities are exploitable if it so suits someone. For instance, it is a common scam for people selling fake gold jewellery to also use fake acid tests. Then there’s the history of IBT faking toxicology tests for large industrial clients over nearly two decades. The results were used to influence government policy and regulatory findings. There is nothing inherently political about toxicology tests, but here we are.
I was going through papers on gender-affirming therapy and found a study that was being quoted as showing that GAHT did not lower suicidality and included in several review articles. But the outcome was not how suicidal GAHT users felt but whether they had ever had suicidal thoughts. Of course, this can never go down no matter how effective a treatment is, and it doesn’t take much to figure out that the authors must have wanted to find this particular answer because of their political leanings. But from a litmus-paper point of view, the finding is correct, and perhaps more to the point, it is impossible to expose the flaw in the measurement without being political because the people who uncritically quote this paper will deem it a political act and make it a political act.
Suppose you’re a medical scientist, working in pharmaceutics. Nobody would call you ‘activist’ for wanting to cure diseases. Yet there is no real difference with a meteorologist wanting to prevent climate disaster, or an ecologist wanting to prevent biodiversity collapse. An ‘activist’ scientist is simply a scientist doing their job.
@16 Ah, but there is one very prominent nutjob that will call you an “activist”, and an activist specifically for drugging Americans, because he has openly stated that we need to stop focusing on, “making drugs”, and instead investing in real problems, like chronic diseases. Of course, this makes no sense, until you realize that he means treating them with “alternative medicine”, banning 5G, and who the F know what other pseudoscientific bullshit he believes in the, “real cause” of cancers, aging, and so on.
So, yeah, there very much is some moron who would claim this. Heck, given that the whole pharmaceutical industry is so profit driven that you need to be a billionaire (or close to that), just to afford an actual cure for some things we actually do have solutions for, like Hep-C (in the order of tens of thousands of dollars to cure, so most people just get symptom treatment), despite the drug used to do so costing almost nothing to make. Now, this is not at all the fault of the medical scientist, in principle (save that they choose to work for people that will hold back a cure, because its not profitable to disperse it), but actually leads to the sort of madness that conspiracy theorists spread. After all, if they are either not selling a cure, or they are selling it at insane costs, for X problem, they “must be” hiding cures for everything else (never mind that the whole damn reason those things are either not sold, or sold for stupid amounts, is usually because the percentage of people that need them is so low they don’t see profit in offering them to the general public, unlike.. you know, actual effective cancer treatments, which almost every person on the planet needs at some point in their life, and should, by the real logic of pricing/access used in Pharma, should be as popular as aspirin).
But, we are not dealing with logic here, we are dealing with people who either refuse to accept a problem exists, in the case of climate, or see a problem everyone has, then leap to the insane conclusion that someone doesn’t want anyone to have it (rather than the reality that, when such things are not available, its because so few people need it the companies who have a cure don’t see a financial benefit from offering it in the first place, to anyone, never mind the rich). Because, weirdly, the nutjob in question above is precisely the sort that would have the money, political clout, and importance, that if they where “secretly hiding a solution”, would be first in line to bribe someone to sell it to them.
Science is a process. Humans are political creatures who will show concern about the group based on what they know about the process of science and what is discovered with it.
Of course science has always been political. Galileo versus the church, Einstein versus the Nazis (anyone else remember the fly-by douchebag condemning ‘Jewish relativity’ some years ago?). It never ends.
Rob, science and scientists are different categories.
To claim that science is political is to reify it.
(To claim science can be a political issue is not the same claim)
(or, what Brony wrote)
I can go with science necessarily leads to activism as it informs what we know. Differently if you are a decent human or not. Attempts at political change at family or workplace levels due to group concerns seems like kinds of activism fem there. With different rules.
A friend was referred to as “the activist” by family at holiday gatherings. I’m not quite there with my parents yet but I’m doing things that will be useful later with disposition and such. They don’t want politics=issues and candidates in the house. So religious figures aren’t seen as “political”.
John @20:
Oh do fuck off, you disingenuous twit.
What did you find allegedly disingenuous about that, Rob?
(And why did you not react thus to #18, which basically says the same thing?)
Is there a reason these comments sections have turned as hostile as they have? Passion about important issues is one thing, petty personal sniping quite another. How about we aim to keep it issues-focused rather than taking up armed camps and lobbing grenades regardless of the substantive topic?
[meta]
I’ve been doing just that, bravus.
Topical, substantive, and not at all hostile.
So, I am not one of the malefactors to whom you refer, right?
John @25: Brony @18 is simply wrong. What humans know about the ‘process of science’ is irrelevant if it is counter to their political ends. The church knew Galileo was right. Any Nazi with basic mathematical skills knew Einstein was right. All but the most stupid Republicans have had their COVID shots. Science is always a target for opportunists. Thus, science is always political.
Well, I know I discussed this with SC, except her claim was a bit larger: everything is political.
(But it’s not political like a person is political, is it?
Or how an political association of people is political, is it?)
When you use the term as vaguely as that, it loses significance.
If everything is political, what’s the point in saying any particular thing is political?
@Rob Grigjanis 28
I don’t see how that makes me wrong. What science and politics is, is separate from what an individual human does with science politically. The process can be subverted by politics and helped by it too. But that process isn’t implicitly political without a human wanting to change the group as a result of a finding.
@John Morales 29
I think everything can be political and that is neither good or bad myself. I would just want to know if I like the politics or not in general, and that’s more likely than not with individual issues at this site.
Brony @30: What you left out is that some humans will lie about what they know about the process/discoveries of science. Lying, in my opinion, is quite distinct from ‘showing concern’.
@Rob Grigjanis 32
Liars are covered under people who aren’t decent. They do have concern about the group, getting a group to do what they want with lies. They aren’t necessarily concerned with more than their own enrichment or ends justifying means, but it’s still concern about the or a group. I wouldn’t call bigoted concern for a group good but it doesn’t change that it’s a concern.
The country has lots of people with irrational, political concerns.
@ 28 Rob Grigjanis
Sorry Rob but the Church did not know that Galileo was right.
Galileo was advancing one of several postulates about the “universe” that were all more or less plausible. At the time, there was not the knowledge nor the instrumentation to definitively decide between the conflicting ideas. His Copernican idea was controversial but quite possible. There were two or three competing ideas that looked just as good.
The story and related politics get very complicated quickly but in a madly abbreviated outline, , Galileo was warned by Cardinal Bellarmine in 1615 that, while he was free to discuss his ideas, he was not free to claim that they were ” the Truth”. He was free to discuss them as “what if’s,” or “thought experiments”. The concept of “free speech” did not really exist anywhere in Europe in those times.
Galileo did not seem to have totally grasped the idea of “what-if” only. In any case in the early 1630’s he did a number of astoundingly politically unwise things that among others infuriated Pope Urban VIII who thought Galileo was lampooning him in a new book and almost simultaneously challenged the Church’s right to define Church dogma.
Even then when summoned before the Inquisition, he might have gotten off very lightly, with a mild warning but his grand theory about the Earth rotating around the sun had at least one glaring hole in it. The theory predicted one tide a day. That was a no-go.
When going up against established “dogma” while infuriating a, by this time, rather paranoid absolute ruler, it is a good idea to have a theory that works or at least is plausible. In any case he was convicted of “Grave suspicion of heresy” and sent into house arrest in his home just outside of Florence. For someone in his 60’s, suffering from arthritis and going blind, it was probably not too bad.
He did manage to write two more books while under house arrest but took the precaution of having them published in Amsterdam.
jrkrideau’s #34 is right – in fact, if anything, understated: the majority of relevant (proto-)scientists rejected the Copernican version of heliocentrism at the time Galileo wrote his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems supporting it, and on good grounds. The popular tale of “Galileo and the Church” is nine-tenths myth – which does not, of course, justify his prosecution by the Church. See The emergence of modern astronomy – a complex mosaic: Part XXVII.
The minutiae of the back-and-forth, including Galileo’s gaffes (e.g. getting the tides wrong, ignoring Kepler) obscure the larger picture; geocentrism was on its last legs, with Galileo’s observations of the phases of Venus knocking the Ptolemaic model on its arse. That was not a death blow to geocentrism (the proposed hybrid models were what we might refer to as kluges), but I’m sure the more learned of the ecclesiastical scholars (they were not stupid) could see what was coming. Still, they were obliged to support the Church’s monopoly on “truth”.