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> Authoritarianism denies objective science while Democracy can only exist with it. Does this mean China, which leads the world in published scientific papers,
by blix 6y ago
> Authoritarianism denies objective science while Democracy can only exist with it.
Does this mean China, which leads the world in published scientific papers, is the model democracy? What about the Soviet Union, which definitely assigned a lot of value to objective science?
I feel these axes are mostly orthogonal. The modern ideals of science and democracy arose at about the same time but they are hardly inseparable.
- nemo44x 6y agoExactly right - a fascist or reactionary government could indeed be driven by objective science and even more so than any democracy today. Democracy doesn’t really have to rely on objective science. In our form today in fact it rather doesn’t in many ways. And in fact calls many things “science” which aren’t at all.
- efa 6y agoYeah, I'm not sure how science is ascribed to either end of the spectrum. Nazi Germany also had some damn good scientist who they looked to to give them dominance on the world stage. I'm guessing he's trying to stamp Trump as an authoritarian given his supposed anti-science views.
- NumberCruncher 6y ago> ...China, which leads the world in published scientific papers... Try to publish in China a scientific paper with real COVID numbers and you will see how democratic the country is. > ...the Soviet Union, which definitely assigned a lot of value to objective science... Unless the objective science throw a threw a bad light on the soviet system in which case science was dismissed. Just take a look at the story behind Chernobyl. You won't find objectivity in a totalitarian system.
- blix 6y agoAre you meaning to imply that no democracy has ever tried to suppress information that was unfavorable to it? I think you simply won't find objectivity in politics.