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I didn't read the article in its entirety and this comment isn't directed at the content of the article. Science itself has been politicized where the pursuit

I didn't read the article in its entirety and this comment isn't directed at the content of the article. Science itself has been politicized where the pursuit of truth has become secondary to the pursuit of funding and the alignment with the political agendas du jour. When I was younger my faith and trust in science was quite high. As I have aged and seen more of humanity and how it permeates all aspects of our existence I don't trust science like I did when I was younger. Now all I see are the motivations of those who are doing the "research". Having studied statistics in college with the express intent of how it is used for scientific studies I am well aware that with enough data you can get any statistical result you want. Even better vaguely word it so it resonates with main stream media and still gives the authors an out with their peers.

PerkinWarwick 5y ago
While I see that funding will tend to constrict the research around the desires of the funders, it's worth considering that 'science' has also expanded into areas that don't deserve the title. The softer disciplines are particularly susceptible to the style of the day but lust after the cloak of correctness (and status) that hard sciences wear.
dahart 5y ago
> Even better vaguely word it so it resonates with main stream media This explanation doesn’t resonate with me. Research most often has incremental results that need to be carefully qualified. Isn’t the far bigger problem that mainstream media takes subtle research results and “simplifies” them for the public by adding certainty and often mis-interpreting the results completely? Political agendas have been recently systematically trying to erode trust in science. (Because science and truth does threaten some politicians.) The idea that science can’t be trusted as the high-level summary is exactly what some people want, and it seems to be working. But what is the alternative? We have nothing better. The point of science is to try to protect against motivation and agenda, and it does work sometimes. Even when people are motivated, when the methods are reproducible and the results are peer-reviewed, that does help filter out some of the badness. And if it’s not enough: what should we do to improve it?
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  Media distortion is definitely a problem too, but it's not the only problem. Solar geoengineering is the hobbyhorse I usually use as an example of this. It's an open secret (see e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01243-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01243-0) that most scientists in the field won't research it, partly due to safety concerns but partly because they think that decarbonization is the right policy and they don't want to risk "detracting from efforts to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions". Maybe that's the right judgment, but it's hardly free from motivation and agenda.
  - michael_j_ward 5y ago
    Apparently a small scale version of that is being used to protect the Great Barrier Reef https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02503-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02503-9
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
I don't see it as politicized science, but as abuse of science by politics. Just as when religious speakers abuse science for their purpose, science doesn't become religious, analogously when politicians abuse science for their purpose, science doesn't become political. And this abuse isn't new, politicians did it for ages, it just hit the fan now.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
epistasis 5y ago
I think that you will find that science has been pretty much that way since the beginning. Can't do science if you don't have funding. If anything, this is simply more transparent these days. Grant review sessions most definitely have some amount of cronyism, and that famous luminary in a field will almost certainly get funding even if their grant application is worse than that of somebody with fewer citations or younger and with less of a track record. But there's awareness of it at least. And you'll find scientists on Twitter being very open about it, whereas before you'd mostly only find it at the pub during conferences. There's a great passage from ET Jaynes that I'm having difficulty finding right now. He was a physicist from the 1940s on, and as a young graduate student he talks about how he had to be very careful about what he studied, because if it had the potential to contradict one of the big names of the field, then it could tank his entire career before getting started. If he hadn't "played ball" early on, we'd never have gotten his later Bayesianism. Science is always a human process, there will be politics to some degree. Politics can only be minimized, not eliminated completely.
- im3w1l 5y ago
  Science used to be a self-funded hobby of the upper classes. Then after that came the tenure system, where people had at least had safe and stable emplyment. Nowadays there are legions of precariously employed scientists desperately trying to hawk their science.
  - im3w1l 5y ago
    Replying to myself, I think I got the first part of that wrong. Patronage used to be important for a long time.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      Right, and the current situation is much better, and less political, than having to find a patron before you can even really get started.
XorNot 5y ago
> Having studied statistics in college with the express intent of how it is used for scientific studies I am well aware that with enough data you can get any statistical result you want. Just doing what a good pseudoscientist does: first dismiss any rigorous logical tools...
everdrive 5y ago
There's also just an extreme naivety when it comes to the definition of "politics." If you genuinely think that your position is morally and factually correct, you'll pursue that position. Now, imagine that your position truly is objectively factually and morally correct. (I understand things generally don't work this way, but stick with me for sake of example.) All you have to do is find a vocal group of people who disagree with the morally and factually correct position, and you can now call this "political stance" which someone can be "biased towards." (a simple example might be flat-earthers.) Now of course, this same process can work out in nearly any permutation: the mainstream group could be pursuing an idea which they believe is morally and factually correct, but of course simply be wrong. And then the protesting group, calling out the politicization of the issue, could then be the correct group. It must also be stated that the closer you get to the hard sciences, the less any of this politicization works. It's worth noting that things such as semi-conductors and computer chips all rely on science, and no one is politicizing whether they exist, or work. What is politicized is a bit more predictable: Questions of the cause of the ills of society, (ie, social sciences) questions about the role of men and women, questions about public policy. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that it's quite easy to call one man's truth a "political" ideology. If you poll enough people, nearly anything is "just a point of view" which could be construed as political.

PerkinWarwick 5y ago

While I see that funding will tend to constrict the research around the desires of the funders, it's worth considering that 'science' has also expanded into areas that don't deserve the title. The softer disciplines are particularly susceptible to the style of the day but lust after the cloak of correctness (and status) that hard sciences wear.

dahart 5y ago

> Even better vaguely word it so it resonates with main stream media This explanation doesn’t resonate with me. Research most often has incremental results that need to be carefully qualified. Isn’t the far bigger problem that mainstream media takes subtle research results and “simplifies” them for the public by adding certainty and often mis-interpreting the results completely? Political agendas have been recently systematically trying to erode trust in science. (Because science and truth does threaten some politicians.) The idea that science can’t be trusted as the high-level summary is exactly what some people want, and it seems to be working. But what is the alternative? We have nothing better. The point of science is to try to protect against motivation and agenda, and it does work sometimes. Even when people are motivated, when the methods are reproducible and the results are peer-reviewed, that does help filter out some of the badness. And if it’s not enough: what should we do to improve it?

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
Media distortion is definitely a problem too, but it's not the only problem. Solar geoengineering is the hobbyhorse I usually use as an example of this. It's an open secret (see e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01243-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01243-0) that most scientists in the field won't research it, partly due to safety concerns but partly because they think that decarbonization is the right policy and they don't want to risk "detracting from efforts to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions". Maybe that's the right judgment, but it's hardly free from motivation and agenda.
- michael_j_ward 5y ago
  Apparently a small scale version of that is being used to protect the Great Barrier Reef https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02503-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02503-9

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

I don't see it as politicized science, but as abuse of science by politics. Just as when religious speakers abuse science for their purpose, science doesn't become religious, analogously when politicians abuse science for their purpose, science doesn't become political. And this abuse isn't new, politicians did it for ages, it just hit the fan now.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

epistasis 5y ago

I think that you will find that science has been pretty much that way since the beginning. Can't do science if you don't have funding. If anything, this is simply more transparent these days. Grant review sessions most definitely have some amount of cronyism, and that famous luminary in a field will almost certainly get funding even if their grant application is worse than that of somebody with fewer citations or younger and with less of a track record. But there's awareness of it at least. And you'll find scientists on Twitter being very open about it, whereas before you'd mostly only find it at the pub during conferences. There's a great passage from ET Jaynes that I'm having difficulty finding right now. He was a physicist from the 1940s on, and as a young graduate student he talks about how he had to be very careful about what he studied, because if it had the potential to contradict one of the big names of the field, then it could tank his entire career before getting started. If he hadn't "played ball" early on, we'd never have gotten his later Bayesianism. Science is always a human process, there will be politics to some degree. Politics can only be minimized, not eliminated completely.

im3w1l 5y ago
Science used to be a self-funded hobby of the upper classes. Then after that came the tenure system, where people had at least had safe and stable emplyment. Nowadays there are legions of precariously employed scientists desperately trying to hawk their science.
- im3w1l 5y ago
  Replying to myself, I think I got the first part of that wrong. Patronage used to be important for a long time.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Right, and the current situation is much better, and less political, than having to find a patron before you can even really get started.

XorNot 5y ago

> Having studied statistics in college with the express intent of how it is used for scientific studies I am well aware that with enough data you can get any statistical result you want. Just doing what a good pseudoscientist does: first dismiss any rigorous logical tools...

everdrive 5y ago

There's also just an extreme naivety when it comes to the definition of "politics." If you genuinely think that your position is morally and factually correct, you'll pursue that position. Now, imagine that your position truly is objectively factually and morally correct. (I understand things generally don't work this way, but stick with me for sake of example.) All you have to do is find a vocal group of people who disagree with the morally and factually correct position, and you can now call this "political stance" which someone can be "biased towards." (a simple example might be flat-earthers.) Now of course, this same process can work out in nearly any permutation: the mainstream group could be pursuing an idea which they believe is morally and factually correct, but of course simply be wrong. And then the protesting group, calling out the politicization of the issue, could then be the correct group. It must also be stated that the closer you get to the hard sciences, the less any of this politicization works. It's worth noting that things such as semi-conductors and computer chips all rely on science, and no one is politicizing whether they exist, or work. What is politicized is a bit more predictable: Questions of the cause of the ills of society, (ie, social sciences) questions about the role of men and women, questions about public policy. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that it's quite easy to call one man's truth a "political" ideology. If you poll enough people, nearly anything is "just a point of view" which could be construed as political.