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> I wish academia were more rigorous about not taking sides. I feel like they’ve been injecting their own ideology unnecessarily for a while. I don't think thi

> I wish academia were more rigorous about not taking sides. I feel like they’ve been injecting their own ideology unnecessarily for a while. I don't think this is true. I think academia is still pretty good (not great, but pretty good) at not taking sides. I don't see a ton of overly-ideological academics (if anything, Academia skews unnaturally conservative, simply out of fear). I think the 'problem' is that science is moving forward and settling debates that previously weren't settled, and therefore lived in the realm of "political opinion". But because people don't like the mostly-objective scientific results, and because it's being debated politically, they're simply accusing academia of 'taking sides', because that's how they picked their political views. Examples exist with things like Global Warming, or Human Rights, or LGBTQ+, or Vaccines, or so on. Global Warming is an obvious one -- while there's always more to learn, and we can't perfectly predict everything -- the base science has been 100% settled for decades now -- the earth is warming, human pollution is the primary cause, we know what we're doing to cause it, and our refusal to stop causing it is changing environments. We can argue about how much, or how long, or how badly, or the accuracy of models and projections and so on -- but there is no factual argument that Global Warming isn't happening, or that humanity isn't directly contributing to it. But people simply don't like that answer, despite it being true, so they debate it anyway -- and then flip around and accuse academia of 'picking a side' when Academia didn't pick or choose anything. If any academic could, in good faith, prove "yep, air pollution isn't causing global warming, in fact, Earth's orbit is falling into the Sun at a rapid rate, we can prove this with astrological/radiological measurements" or whatever, they'd be rushing to demonstrate this. They aren't, because they can't -- it's simply not true. I'm not saying it never happens, or that no one abuses academia to push political views (it does sometimes happen). But most academics aren't "picking" their stance on these issues, science and research is uncovering facts or evidence on a continuous basis, and academics usually just stick to what's been discovered or observed (and -- for the parts still unknown or missing -- make theories or educated guesses that are supported by science and do not contradict the objective discoveries. If new results or evidence arrives, they revoke or adjust their theory to fit with the new discovery). Some humans simply refuse to accept the things that have been discovered or learned through science. It requires a person to be willing to change their mind based on something they have learned, and a lot of people simply hate doing that ever (so much so, that their answer to hating objective results of science, is to simply defund all the science)

belorn 1y ago
There is a reason why meta studies that look at findings from different countries often has to account of cultural bias. Different objective truths can be found depending on how one look, including findings that give contradicting conclusions. The existence of Global Warming, or Human Rights, or LGBTQ+, or Vaccines is not the topic which academia (or people in general) debate. Outside of some very fringe places, there is practically no discussion of it. The thing people debate is the strategies. Different ideologies will have different answers to which strategies works, are effective, and what costs they are allowed to have (and to whom). A common topic that the green movement discuss, and which often comes into global warming research, is fair wages for minorities and the impact of global warming on that demographic. People and politicians will discuss that and not the factual argument that Global Warming exist. There is a similar argument over human rights as defined in Europe vs human rights as defined in the US. They both acknowledge human rights but with widely different interpretations. At a concept level, the idea of protected classes as a classification has very little to do with human rights as a theory but has everything to do with different strategies that involve human rights. Abolishing which demographic should be included, or including new demographics are hot topics of debate. What people debates most heated over and get most emotional about is not when people disagree with the facts, but rather when both sides of an argument agree with the facts but disagree with the best strategy to go forward. That is when science becomes politics.

belorn 1y ago

There is a reason why meta studies that look at findings from different countries often has to account of cultural bias. Different objective truths can be found depending on how one look, including findings that give contradicting conclusions. The existence of Global Warming, or Human Rights, or LGBTQ+, or Vaccines is not the topic which academia (or people in general) debate. Outside of some very fringe places, there is practically no discussion of it. The thing people debate is the strategies. Different ideologies will have different answers to which strategies works, are effective, and what costs they are allowed to have (and to whom). A common topic that the green movement discuss, and which often comes into global warming research, is fair wages for minorities and the impact of global warming on that demographic. People and politicians will discuss that and not the factual argument that Global Warming exist. There is a similar argument over human rights as defined in Europe vs human rights as defined in the US. They both acknowledge human rights but with widely different interpretations. At a concept level, the idea of protected classes as a classification has very little to do with human rights as a theory but has everything to do with different strategies that involve human rights. Abolishing which demographic should be included, or including new demographics are hot topics of debate. What people debates most heated over and get most emotional about is not when people disagree with the facts, but rather when both sides of an argument agree with the facts but disagree with the best strategy to go forward. That is when science becomes politics.