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As a scientist, I think this piece completely misses the point. "Science is political" because most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value f

As a scientist, I think this piece completely misses the point. "Science is political" because most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for society. If you read the cited articles, the point is to remind scientists to consider how their poorly posed questions (limited as always by fundamental limits in how confounding factors can be controlled and/or resource limits on things like group sizes) will be interpreted by non-scientists in formulating policy (or attempting to, in the cases of crazies). Said another way, while it is possible for science to be less political, it explicitly requires that the questions being posed are as far removed from policy decisions as possible (i.e., useless). I would challenge the author to articulate an alternative in which [(a) scientists desire to have a positive impact on society (beyond simply increasing knowledge) and (b) they recognize the limitations of their capabilities] but do not need to think carefully about how the results of a resource or technical limitation of their work might lead it to be misapplied to bad policy. Saying "remember science is political" is no different than saying "remember that if you decide to always check PSA levels you'll mess up more people's urinogenital loves with unnecessary tests than you'll save from cancer. Note: many scientists (like me!) gravitate to "basic" science so they won't have to worry. But I don't think that makes us better.

UIUC_06 4y ago
> scientists desire to have a positive impact on society (beyond simply increasing knowledge) That's where you're off into Error Land. Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. If you wanted to benefit society, you should have gone into a different line of work.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  > Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. If you wanted to benefit society, you should have gone into a different line of work. And who are you, so wise in the ways of science, to decide what the only legitimate goal of science can be? Science, technology, none of these exists in a vacuum. People, even academics, have a life outside of their work. What affects that life affects what they work on as well. It's only natural.
- 317070 4y ago
  > Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. According to some, not according to others. There is no consensus on what science is. Prominent philosophers like Foucault say science is a power-confirming tool first, and therefore definitely political.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    Makes sense, but isn't this bad? Shouldn't we aspire to have science not be what Foucalt says it is?
    - 317070 4y ago
      Foucault would say yes, but I'm not so sure. I follow more Graeber's point of view that scientists are essentially shamans, and that you probably want to be a good or useful shaman. Whether that means political or apolitical is hard to assess. I would say that the aspiration either way might be good for your own work, but shouldn't be used to judge the scientific work of others.
  - nyokodo 4y ago
    > Foucault say science is a power-confirming tool first Can you summarize why Foucault thought the application of the scientific method to empirical questions is “power-confirming first?” If that’s not what he meant by science then what was he specifically referring to?
    - ARandomerDude 4y ago
      I've read some of Foucault's work, and this is my honest take: He was an actual communist who thought of everything in terms of "the struggle." Scientists (etc.) are respectable? They must be oppressing people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
      - bowsamic 4y ago
        A large portion of philosophers are “actual communists”, since they actually read Marx EDIT replying to sub comment (I am once again rate limited) Indeed he literally wrote an essay called “On the ruthless criticism of everything existing” which argued against the French socialists who came up with prescriptions rather than solid critiques. Marxism isn’t about communism, it’s about criticising capitalism. That’s why he spent so little time talking about communism. That would be like a slave or a serf wondering what might come next. A strong scientific (in the German sense) critique was his project
- adrianN 4y ago
  Why is applying knowledge not a legitimate goal of science? When you learn that action X results in more suffering than the alternative action Y, should you not put that knowledge to use for political policy?
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    You should, and I don’t think the author would disagree. But it’s important to maintain a distinction between science your potentially science-informed political advocacy. If you don’t, how can anyone who disagrees with you on the merits of action Y trust what you have to say?
    - adrianN 4y ago
      They could for example look at the papers that I published that explain my reasoning and show my data.
      - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
        Can they trust that you've explained your reasoning honestly and showed all your data? In the political arena proper, it's very common to see politicians fail to mention inconvenient data or present unsound arguments which don't actually describe how they came to their conclusions.
        adrianN 4y ago
        There is no complete trust in life, no matter what. I can't trust myself that the data I collected myself and the conclusions I drew myself are correct. That's why we have scientific discourse, where other scientists read your papers, think that it's hot garbage and do their own investigation.
- arise 4y ago
  > Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. Should we build a super collider in Texas or a space telescope at the sun-earth L2 point? There are many factors when considering what science to fund, but if society is footing the bill then the expected benefit to society should be a big part of the decision.
- sweetpdz 4y ago
  Scientist here. A scientist who fails to have a positive impact on society is a failure. There are lots of failures in science.
- pksebben 4y ago
  how do you define legitimacy, in this case? feels like an odd term to use in a discussion about objectivity
raisin_churn 4y ago
As a non-professional who attempts to adhere to scientific forms of knowledge, I think this is a far better (and shorter) analysis than the article. The word "politics" has a very ugly connotation right now, and probably for much of history, but at its root, it's the process by which we make decisions as groups of people. Without "politics" we can't maintain social structures bigger than dyads, so we should never neglect politics. If someone is publishing research on a topic that is hotly contested in our society, being ignorant or indifferent to the impact that their publication might have is not a virtue. That isn't to say scientists should only publish findings that perfectly accord with their political beliefs, but perhaps they could spend more effort trying to present their findings in such a way as to limit the inevitable attempts to draw totally wild conclusions or take them completely out of context. And, for the love of all, don't write abstracts that make it sound like you've made some sort of revolutionary breakthrough or stumbled on hidden fundamental truths! Non-specialists (absolutely including myself) will often read abstracts at best, more likely articles written from other articles written by someone who skimmed the abstract while grinding their proverbial axe. People educated in science are aware of the limitations, non-scientists on the other hand...
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > ... If someone is publishing research on a topic that is hotly contested in our society, being ignorant or indifferent to the impact that their publication might have is not a virtue. If a topic is hotly contested in our society, publishing plenty of high-quality, reliable scholarship about it is one of the best available ways of gradually turning it into a less-hotly contested topic. This applies even to things like climate science, where people sometimes like to remark that "the science is settled". So yes, we should always be mindful of impact but undervaluing the benefits of that impact would be just as wrong.
photochemsyn 4y ago
I think a better title would have been 'science funding is political, and that's a bad thing'. Perhaps it should be political, to some extent, assuming a well-educated public that understands why studying infectious disease outbreaks, earthquake seismology and patterns, historical drought/flood patterns, etc. is important. However, if control of funding of scientific research is taken over by specific sectors - fossil fuel interests, established depression treatment interests, mortgage security interests, etc. - then one can expect low-quality science resulting in an academic system where the willingness to fudge data to please one's corporate owners on their next-quarter stock profile becomes more important than scientific rigor, in terms of career advancement. That's how Soviet biological academics worked under the control of Lysenko for about three decades... just replace Lysenko with Wall Street and you have the current American research program.
Natsu 4y ago
> "Science is political" because most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for society. There are other ways for science to be political than that: Source: https://libguides.umn.edu/antiracismlens https://libguides.umn.edu/antiracismlens === Learn the racist history of statistics Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and Ronald Fisher are three of the statisticians who established the fundamental basis and techniques of modern statistics, and they were all eugenicists. There is a modern discourse on the racist history of statistics and data collection methodology, and a number of books published: Thicker than blood: how racial statistics lie (sociology) Weapons of math destruction (mathematics) White logic, white methods: racism and methodology (sociology)
- oq_computer 4y ago
  'Discriminating Data' by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is a really interesting read about the impact and influence of the eugenic origins of statistics to new fields like network and data science too. Highly recommended.
pdonis 4y ago
> "Science is political" because most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for society. Let me rephrase the last part of this slightly to help illustrate the problem: Most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for people. Scientists have discovered all kinds of fascinating stuff that has vastly improved people's lives. For example, all the discoveries that made possible the medium in which we are having this conversation. But there's no reason any of that has to be political. Scientific discoveries have greatly empowered people in all kinds of ways that don't require any politics to work. The reason science is political is that some people want to use it as a tool, not to empower all people, but to empower themselves at the expense of other people. They want science to give them an excuse to tell other people what to do or what not to do. That is the difference between "value for people" and "value for society". If it's "value for people", then each person can judge that for themselves, and use the tools of science as they choose to improve their lives. But if it's "value for society", then who gets to judge that for "society"? That is where the problem lies. To the extent that there is a valid point lurking in this article, I think that's it.
- orwin 4y ago
  But no? I mean, does it have value for society that scientists recovered old administrative documents about the French revolution? Not really. But as a society, we can now decide to continue to be wrong about most beliefs we held about that time period or to correct those beliefs. Did those researcher knew what they would find? Yes, probably. Were those finding aligned to their political views? Probably yes, i doubt there is a lot of Furetien left, and they probably wouldn't have searched those documents. (i wanted to use the verb seek and not search, but couldn't remember if it was irregular) Does it really have value for people? Not really. I will now get internet points everytime someone talk about the French terror for the foreseeable future. That's it. But maybe, if our civilization last long enough, our history myths will match our real history and everyone will be less wrong. And that's the best science can do.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > scientists recovered old administrative documents about the French revolution History is not a science, although it can make use of tools that science has developed. > And that's the best science can do. Again, you must be joking. Even leaving aside my comment above, science has done a huge amount more than discover some old historical documents.
atoav 4y ago
Also: In what political landscape will science being political be a bad thing? If you have harmony in your political landscape with the biggest differences between your political parties being about topics like taxes, whether privatization is good and how much to spend on social issues — given such an environment wouldn't it be the case that nobody cared if science was political? So if science does what it always does (trying to find truth in hard questions that matter) and suddenly someone starts complaining about it being "political", one should also consider that it might not be science that changed, but the relationship political actors have with the truth. Example: If you are the head of the flat-earth party any science reporting the earth as sphere-like would seem political (or even criminal) to you. But this would have nothing to do with science — and all to do with the mismatch between your believes and the reality out there.
throwoutway 4y ago
> it explicitly requires that the questions being posed are as far removed from policy decisions as possible (i.e., useless). This is far from accurate. Sure you can pick a strawman example, but in reality questions can be posed and useful irregardless of what the politics are at the time.

UIUC_06 4y ago

> scientists desire to have a positive impact on society (beyond simply increasing knowledge) That's where you're off into Error Land. Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. If you wanted to benefit society, you should have gone into a different line of work.

polygamous_bat 4y ago
> Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. If you wanted to benefit society, you should have gone into a different line of work. And who are you, so wise in the ways of science, to decide what the only legitimate goal of science can be? Science, technology, none of these exists in a vacuum. People, even academics, have a life outside of their work. What affects that life affects what they work on as well. It's only natural.
317070 4y ago
> Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. According to some, not according to others. There is no consensus on what science is. Prominent philosophers like Foucault say science is a power-confirming tool first, and therefore definitely political.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  Makes sense, but isn't this bad? Shouldn't we aspire to have science not be what Foucalt says it is?
  - 317070 4y ago
    Foucault would say yes, but I'm not so sure. I follow more Graeber's point of view that scientists are essentially shamans, and that you probably want to be a good or useful shaman. Whether that means political or apolitical is hard to assess. I would say that the aspiration either way might be good for your own work, but shouldn't be used to judge the scientific work of others.
- nyokodo 4y ago
  > Foucault say science is a power-confirming tool first Can you summarize why Foucault thought the application of the scientific method to empirical questions is “power-confirming first?” If that’s not what he meant by science then what was he specifically referring to?
  - ARandomerDude 4y ago
    I've read some of Foucault's work, and this is my honest take: He was an actual communist who thought of everything in terms of "the struggle." Scientists (etc.) are respectable? They must be oppressing people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
    - bowsamic 4y ago
      A large portion of philosophers are “actual communists”, since they actually read Marx EDIT replying to sub comment (I am once again rate limited) Indeed he literally wrote an essay called “On the ruthless criticism of everything existing” which argued against the French socialists who came up with prescriptions rather than solid critiques. Marxism isn’t about communism, it’s about criticising capitalism. That’s why he spent so little time talking about communism. That would be like a slave or a serf wondering what might come next. A strong scientific (in the German sense) critique was his project
adrianN 4y ago
Why is applying knowledge not a legitimate goal of science? When you learn that action X results in more suffering than the alternative action Y, should you not put that knowledge to use for political policy?
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  You should, and I don’t think the author would disagree. But it’s important to maintain a distinction between science your potentially science-informed political advocacy. If you don’t, how can anyone who disagrees with you on the merits of action Y trust what you have to say?
  - adrianN 4y ago
    They could for example look at the papers that I published that explain my reasoning and show my data.
    - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      Can they trust that you've explained your reasoning honestly and showed all your data? In the political arena proper, it's very common to see politicians fail to mention inconvenient data or present unsound arguments which don't actually describe how they came to their conclusions.
      - adrianN 4y ago
        There is no complete trust in life, no matter what. I can't trust myself that the data I collected myself and the conclusions I drew myself are correct. That's why we have scientific discourse, where other scientists read your papers, think that it's hot garbage and do their own investigation.
arise 4y ago
> Increasing knowledge is the only legitimate goal of science. Should we build a super collider in Texas or a space telescope at the sun-earth L2 point? There are many factors when considering what science to fund, but if society is footing the bill then the expected benefit to society should be a big part of the decision.
sweetpdz 4y ago
Scientist here. A scientist who fails to have a positive impact on society is a failure. There are lots of failures in science.
pksebben 4y ago
how do you define legitimacy, in this case? feels like an odd term to use in a discussion about objectivity

raisin_churn 4y ago

As a non-professional who attempts to adhere to scientific forms of knowledge, I think this is a far better (and shorter) analysis than the article. The word "politics" has a very ugly connotation right now, and probably for much of history, but at its root, it's the process by which we make decisions as groups of people. Without "politics" we can't maintain social structures bigger than dyads, so we should never neglect politics. If someone is publishing research on a topic that is hotly contested in our society, being ignorant or indifferent to the impact that their publication might have is not a virtue. That isn't to say scientists should only publish findings that perfectly accord with their political beliefs, but perhaps they could spend more effort trying to present their findings in such a way as to limit the inevitable attempts to draw totally wild conclusions or take them completely out of context. And, for the love of all, don't write abstracts that make it sound like you've made some sort of revolutionary breakthrough or stumbled on hidden fundamental truths! Non-specialists (absolutely including myself) will often read abstracts at best, more likely articles written from other articles written by someone who skimmed the abstract while grinding their proverbial axe. People educated in science are aware of the limitations, non-scientists on the other hand...

zozbot234 4y ago
> ... If someone is publishing research on a topic that is hotly contested in our society, being ignorant or indifferent to the impact that their publication might have is not a virtue. If a topic is hotly contested in our society, publishing plenty of high-quality, reliable scholarship about it is one of the best available ways of gradually turning it into a less-hotly contested topic. This applies even to things like climate science, where people sometimes like to remark that "the science is settled". So yes, we should always be mindful of impact but undervaluing the benefits of that impact would be just as wrong.

photochemsyn 4y ago

I think a better title would have been 'science funding is political, and that's a bad thing'. Perhaps it should be political, to some extent, assuming a well-educated public that understands why studying infectious disease outbreaks, earthquake seismology and patterns, historical drought/flood patterns, etc. is important. However, if control of funding of scientific research is taken over by specific sectors - fossil fuel interests, established depression treatment interests, mortgage security interests, etc. - then one can expect low-quality science resulting in an academic system where the willingness to fudge data to please one's corporate owners on their next-quarter stock profile becomes more important than scientific rigor, in terms of career advancement. That's how Soviet biological academics worked under the control of Lysenko for about three decades... just replace Lysenko with Wall Street and you have the current American research program.

Natsu 4y ago

> "Science is political" because most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for society. There are other ways for science to be political than that: Source: https://libguides.umn.edu/antiracismlens https://libguides.umn.edu/antiracismlens === Learn the racist history of statistics Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and Ronald Fisher are three of the statisticians who established the fundamental basis and techniques of modern statistics, and they were all eugenicists. There is a modern discourse on the racist history of statistics and data collection methodology, and a number of books published: Thicker than blood: how racial statistics lie (sociology) Weapons of math destruction (mathematics) White logic, white methods: racism and methodology (sociology)

oq_computer 4y ago
'Discriminating Data' by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is a really interesting read about the impact and influence of the eugenic origins of statistics to new fields like network and data science too. Highly recommended.

pdonis 4y ago

> "Science is political" because most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for society. Let me rephrase the last part of this slightly to help illustrate the problem: Most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for people. Scientists have discovered all kinds of fascinating stuff that has vastly improved people's lives. For example, all the discoveries that made possible the medium in which we are having this conversation. But there's no reason any of that has to be political. Scientific discoveries have greatly empowered people in all kinds of ways that don't require any politics to work. The reason science is political is that some people want to use it as a tool, not to empower all people, but to empower themselves at the expense of other people. They want science to give them an excuse to tell other people what to do or what not to do. That is the difference between "value for people" and "value for society". If it's "value for people", then each person can judge that for themselves, and use the tools of science as they choose to improve their lives. But if it's "value for society", then who gets to judge that for "society"? That is where the problem lies. To the extent that there is a valid point lurking in this article, I think that's it.

orwin 4y ago
But no? I mean, does it have value for society that scientists recovered old administrative documents about the French revolution? Not really. But as a society, we can now decide to continue to be wrong about most beliefs we held about that time period or to correct those beliefs. Did those researcher knew what they would find? Yes, probably. Were those finding aligned to their political views? Probably yes, i doubt there is a lot of Furetien left, and they probably wouldn't have searched those documents. (i wanted to use the verb seek and not search, but couldn't remember if it was irregular) Does it really have value for people? Not really. I will now get internet points everytime someone talk about the French terror for the foreseeable future. That's it. But maybe, if our civilization last long enough, our history myths will match our real history and everyone will be less wrong. And that's the best science can do.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > scientists recovered old administrative documents about the French revolution History is not a science, although it can make use of tools that science has developed. > And that's the best science can do. Again, you must be joking. Even leaving aside my comment above, science has done a huge amount more than discover some old historical documents.

atoav 4y ago

Also: In what political landscape will science being political be a bad thing? If you have harmony in your political landscape with the biggest differences between your political parties being about topics like taxes, whether privatization is good and how much to spend on social issues — given such an environment wouldn't it be the case that nobody cared if science was political? So if science does what it always does (trying to find truth in hard questions that matter) and suddenly someone starts complaining about it being "political", one should also consider that it might not be science that changed, but the relationship political actors have with the truth. Example: If you are the head of the flat-earth party any science reporting the earth as sphere-like would seem political (or even criminal) to you. But this would have nothing to do with science — and all to do with the mismatch between your believes and the reality out there.

throwoutway 4y ago

> it explicitly requires that the questions being posed are as far removed from policy decisions as possible (i.e., useless). This is far from accurate. Sure you can pick a strawman example, but in reality questions can be posed and useful irregardless of what the politics are at the time.