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how exact do you separate the two? without funding, science doesn’t happen? and this article is covering a specific viewpoint, but how people do science can cer

how exact do you separate the two? without funding, science doesn’t happen? and this article is covering a specific viewpoint, but how people do science can certainly be political (and is).

scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
People can still do science on their own. Grant giving institutions as a driver of science is a relatively recent phenomenon. There's nothing wrong with a garage laboratory to test your ideas so long as you document your methodology so it can be repeated by others and scrutinized for following the scientific method.
atoav 7y ago
I think discussing a tangential discussion is enlighting: Is there such a thing as unpolitical art? You will find the intuition to consider art with political statements as political and art without as unpolitical. But art operates in an status quo, so can it even be unpolitical? Are the shiny baloon-like sculptures produced by questionably paid interns of Jeff Koons unpolitical? Is a painter who depicts the most idyllic sceneries in a starving country apolitical? You quickly realize, that trying not to taking part in political things is itself political in a way. But what about science? Is it political to speak the truth? Yeah, quite much. People have been killed for telling the truth. It takes a very nasty social climate for the truth to become political, but it can become political and when it does, speaking truth becomes as political as denying it. We have this reflex to say: “but if it is political it is less legitimate”, but forget that any action that shapes society in a meaningful way is political — be it intentional or not. You can do the most neutral climate science in the world and base everything on proof and facts and your words will still be political in a world where some fractions deny it. Your goal just isn’t power then, but to speak truth.

how exact do you separate the two? without funding, science doesn’t happen? and this article is covering a specific viewpoint, but how people do science can certainly be political (and is).

scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago

People can still do science on their own. Grant giving institutions as a driver of science is a relatively recent phenomenon. There's nothing wrong with a garage laboratory to test your ideas so long as you document your methodology so it can be repeated by others and scrutinized for following the scientific method.

atoav 7y ago

I think discussing a tangential discussion is enlighting: Is there such a thing as unpolitical art? You will find the intuition to consider art with political statements as political and art without as unpolitical. But art operates in an status quo, so can it even be unpolitical? Are the shiny baloon-like sculptures produced by questionably paid interns of Jeff Koons unpolitical? Is a painter who depicts the most idyllic sceneries in a starving country apolitical? You quickly realize, that trying not to taking part in political things is itself political in a way. But what about science? Is it political to speak the truth? Yeah, quite much. People have been killed for telling the truth. It takes a very nasty social climate for the truth to become political, but it can become political and when it does, speaking truth becomes as political as denying it. We have this reflex to say: “but if it is political it is less legitimate”, but forget that any action that shapes society in a meaningful way is political — be it intentional or not. You can do the most neutral climate science in the world and base everything on proof and facts and your words will still be political in a world where some fractions deny it. Your goal just isn’t power then, but to speak truth.