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Science has always been political, within itself and in relation to the rest of society. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment https://en.m.wikip
by danharaj 8y ago
Science has always been political, within itself and in relation to the rest of society.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment
- zorga 8y agoObviously, hence the word "too".
- whatshisface 8y agoYour link is not a story about politics, it's a story about psychological bias.
- pessimizer 8y agoJust because Feynman diagnosed the gradual charge drift as internal pressure doesn't make it internal pressure. The effect would be the same between fearing one was wrong and fearing one would be condemned and punished as wrong - changing the data to be closer to the official line.
- danharaj 8y agoAuthority is always political.
- whatshisface 8y agoIt's not a story about authority, either, if by authority you mean something narrow enough to always be political.
- danharaj 8y agoIf you don't think Millikan's authority as a scientist was not a factor then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- whatshisface 8y agoThat's a broad enough definition of authority that all authority no longer originates from politics. When scientists are behaving correctly authority is awarded on scientific merit irrespective of politics.
- danharaj 8y ago> When scientists are behaving correctly authority is awarded on scientific merit irrespective of politics. I suppose then one can conclude that scientists have behaved incorrectly since Aristotle's time.
- wpietri 8y agoPolitical has multiple meanings in English, and I think this use is legitimate. This could be just anchoring bias. But I think it's much more likely that people after Millikan did not want to look bad in front of their professional peers for fear of social and professional consequences. Which I think is something we can reasonably call political.
- whatshisface 8y agoBut I think it's more likely that the bias was internal, in which case it could not be reasonably called political. Without arguing further we can agree that the parent's claim was unfounded, because the linked article did not demonstrate that the motivation was social. (The reason I know we can agree is that unfounded is not the same as false, it just means it's a non-statement.)
- wpietri 8y agoWe cannot agree on that. Feynman's talk is mainly about social phenomena, so it's entirely reasonable to assume that this anecdote is also meant to illustrate a social point: http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm