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I wondered about that. ... science is political, always was and always will be. As we humans are biased and driven by politics and beliefs so is the science we

I wondered about that. ... science is political, always was and always will be. As we humans are biased and driven by politics and beliefs so is the science we do. In most debates I see here on hacker news both sides believe the science is in their camp (masks, nuclear power etc.) We should acknowledge that. Science is a process and never right. .. all models are wrong, yet some are useful. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03067-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03067-w

thephyber 5y ago
People are political. Science is a method of confirming/ dis-confirming / finding truth. You are conflating the problematic statements of people who believe truth is on their side (using scientific finding to confirm their biases) and the process itself. I suspect you are correct except in your overloading of the word “science”
- kgarten 5y ago
  Truth is a tricky word. Science is not about finding the truth. Science can help you find evidence for a hypothesis you formulated. Yet, you still formulated the hypothesis. The scientific methods help you to be more evidence based. Yet,they don't take away any bias that came in over the research question or hypothesis you formulated.
  - thephyber 5y ago
    You are making an argument about a single scientist and a single experiment. I am making an argument about the aggregation of knowledge created by all scientific experiments since at least The Enlightenment. Admittedly truth is difficult to pin down, but science has been the best engine for helping humankind overcome myths and superstitions and give tools for people to use evidence to come to a common understanding of a common objective truth.
    - kgarten 5y ago
      My point is more that "being human" limits any type of knowledge acquisition, as we are tribal/political beings. Check the nature podcasts I linked to, they go into quite some detail and give good examples. I don't think, we as humans can understand an objective truth. A concept of knowledge makes only sense if we as species can comprehend it. This means knowledge and intelligence need to be embodied. Yet, if they are, they must be limited by the embodiment. Foucault makes some interesting arguments around that.
goatlover 5y ago
The models themselves aren't political. They're not right, left, green, fascist or anything. They're just explanations and successful predictions of some part of nature. Politics comes into play with funding and what to do with technology. But that isn't the science itself.
- TuringTest 5y ago
  > The models themselves aren't political. It depends on what you are modelling. If you're modelling human populations and behavior, they may become loaded with extreme political assumptions embedded in the model; and not all of those will be wiped out by the scientific method.
- teorema 5y ago
  The models aren't political. That is true. But the models do not exist without humans generating them and interpreting them. The idea that science is somehow apolitical is dangerous. It's no more true than the idea that journalism is apolitical. You can try to take more of a metaperspective with both, but to assume politics doesn't enter into the endeavors is dishonest. In many ways the position that science is apolitical is itself political.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    > The idea that science is somehow apolitical is dangerous. It's no more true than the idea that journalism is apolitical. The alternative is propaganda, which we already see enough of with journalism, and has happened in science when the government dictates the science. Science and the news should be held to an objective standard independent of any political considerations, even though humans are fallible and have biases, including political views. > In many ways the position that science is apolitical is itself political. This is like saying that atheism is religious. If you say everything is X, and I tell you that Ys are not Xs, then your rebuttal that my statement is X is abusing language and conflating X with Y. I could turn around, "everything is political", to be, "everything is scientific", and then claim that your statements to the contrary are scientific. But that would be collapsing meaningful distinctions, and potentially violating the law of identity, since it doesn't make sense for all political things to be scientific.

thephyber 5y ago

People are political. Science is a method of confirming/ dis-confirming / finding truth. You are conflating the problematic statements of people who believe truth is on their side (using scientific finding to confirm their biases) and the process itself. I suspect you are correct except in your overloading of the word “science”

kgarten 5y ago
Truth is a tricky word. Science is not about finding the truth. Science can help you find evidence for a hypothesis you formulated. Yet, you still formulated the hypothesis. The scientific methods help you to be more evidence based. Yet,they don't take away any bias that came in over the research question or hypothesis you formulated.
- thephyber 5y ago
  You are making an argument about a single scientist and a single experiment. I am making an argument about the aggregation of knowledge created by all scientific experiments since at least The Enlightenment. Admittedly truth is difficult to pin down, but science has been the best engine for helping humankind overcome myths and superstitions and give tools for people to use evidence to come to a common understanding of a common objective truth.
  - kgarten 5y ago
    My point is more that "being human" limits any type of knowledge acquisition, as we are tribal/political beings. Check the nature podcasts I linked to, they go into quite some detail and give good examples. I don't think, we as humans can understand an objective truth. A concept of knowledge makes only sense if we as species can comprehend it. This means knowledge and intelligence need to be embodied. Yet, if they are, they must be limited by the embodiment. Foucault makes some interesting arguments around that.

goatlover 5y ago

The models themselves aren't political. They're not right, left, green, fascist or anything. They're just explanations and successful predictions of some part of nature. Politics comes into play with funding and what to do with technology. But that isn't the science itself.

TuringTest 5y ago
> The models themselves aren't political. It depends on what you are modelling. If you're modelling human populations and behavior, they may become loaded with extreme political assumptions embedded in the model; and not all of those will be wiped out by the scientific method.
teorema 5y ago
The models aren't political. That is true. But the models do not exist without humans generating them and interpreting them. The idea that science is somehow apolitical is dangerous. It's no more true than the idea that journalism is apolitical. You can try to take more of a metaperspective with both, but to assume politics doesn't enter into the endeavors is dishonest. In many ways the position that science is apolitical is itself political.
- goatlover 5y ago
  > The idea that science is somehow apolitical is dangerous. It's no more true than the idea that journalism is apolitical. The alternative is propaganda, which we already see enough of with journalism, and has happened in science when the government dictates the science. Science and the news should be held to an objective standard independent of any political considerations, even though humans are fallible and have biases, including political views. > In many ways the position that science is apolitical is itself political. This is like saying that atheism is religious. If you say everything is X, and I tell you that Ys are not Xs, then your rebuttal that my statement is X is abusing language and conflating X with Y. I could turn around, "everything is political", to be, "everything is scientific", and then claim that your statements to the contrary are scientific. But that would be collapsing meaningful distinctions, and potentially violating the law of identity, since it doesn't make sense for all political things to be scientific.