3 ms·
> 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,
by 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 agoWell, 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.