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My problem with this article is that it doesn’t know how to draw the line between what is science and what is politics. Science absolutely exists as a thing on

by epgui 5y ago

My problem with this article is that it doesn’t know how to draw the line between what is science and what is politics. Science absolutely exists as a thing on its own, “pure” if you will. And alongside it and with it also comes politics, yes! But that’s a feature, not a bug— both play a role. A very different role. Science is for everything descriptive and inferential. Politics is for everything prescriptive.

jjcon 5y ago
Yeah this is one of my pet peeves - those of us in the science community should be saying: "if we do x, we will see y result" we should not be saying: "we should do x"
- epgui 5y ago
  Exactly! Unless of course we're up front about what our goal/premise is. Then it's absolutely appropriate. For eg.: "If we want to minimize the burden of disease from X in Y conditions, we should take Z course of action." Other eg.: rather than saying "you should not urinate on the electric fence", a good scientist will say "if you want to minimize the likelihood of unnecessary suffering, you should not urinate on the electric fence."
travisgriggs 5y ago
> Science absolutely exists as a thing on its own, “pure” if you will. Interesting. I thought it did a great job of illustrating that while the quoted is true, the quoted represents an "ideal" (or pejoratively put a "fantasy"), as the reality of doing any real amount of such ideal science coordinates with the real world, the context of doing so, means it never ends up anywhere near pure and unsullied. It's like the fact that adding an even number and an odd number will always produce an odd number.
- epgui 5y ago
  Well, science itself is independent of political motivations. Some alien civilization running the same experiments in a galaxy far, far away will get the same results and, eventually, reach the same conclusions about how the world works. Politics, being concerned with the allocation of limited resources, does two things to complicate this ideal picture: 1) It decides "which science" gets done right now, which means the progress of science may not be uniform in all areas. 2) It applies research findings improperly to serve non-scientific goals. Notwithstanding, the science remains just science. And crucially, trying very hard to stop or limit #2 from happening, in particular, is essential in making better _political_ decisions. Political decisions are inherently about how to manage conflict between social groups, and while it's not really my place to judge the quality of any given political decision, it's hard not to judge the quality of a political decision which is not based in the physical reality that we all share.

by epgui 5y ago

jjcon 5y ago

Yeah this is one of my pet peeves - those of us in the science community should be saying: "if we do x, we will see y result" we should not be saying: "we should do x"

epgui 5y ago
Exactly! Unless of course we're up front about what our goal/premise is. Then it's absolutely appropriate. For eg.: "If we want to minimize the burden of disease from X in Y conditions, we should take Z course of action." Other eg.: rather than saying "you should not urinate on the electric fence", a good scientist will say "if you want to minimize the likelihood of unnecessary suffering, you should not urinate on the electric fence."

travisgriggs 5y ago

> Science absolutely exists as a thing on its own, “pure” if you will. Interesting. I thought it did a great job of illustrating that while the quoted is true, the quoted represents an "ideal" (or pejoratively put a "fantasy"), as the reality of doing any real amount of such ideal science coordinates with the real world, the context of doing so, means it never ends up anywhere near pure and unsullied. It's like the fact that adding an even number and an odd number will always produce an odd number.

epgui 5y ago
Well, science itself is independent of political motivations. Some alien civilization running the same experiments in a galaxy far, far away will get the same results and, eventually, reach the same conclusions about how the world works. Politics, being concerned with the allocation of limited resources, does two things to complicate this ideal picture: 1) It decides "which science" gets done right now, which means the progress of science may not be uniform in all areas. 2) It applies research findings improperly to serve non-scientific goals. Notwithstanding, the science remains just science. And crucially, trying very hard to stop or limit #2 from happening, in particular, is essential in making better _political_ decisions. Political decisions are inherently about how to manage conflict between social groups, and while it's not really my place to judge the quality of any given political decision, it's hard not to judge the quality of a political decision which is not based in the physical reality that we all share.