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).