[HN Gopher] The Peril of Politicizing Science [pdf]
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The Peril of Politicizing Science [pdf]
Author : vikrum
Score : 99 points
Date : 2021-08-22 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (iopenshell.usc.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (iopenshell.usc.edu)
| dluan wrote:
| > "In modern terms, Hughes was canceled. For a few months, the
| city was called Trotsk (after Leon Trotsky), until Trotsky lost
| in the power struggle inside the party and was himself canceled
| (see Figure 1)."
|
| lol
| ardit33 wrote:
| This is a sign of being of too many people studying social
| sciences and other useless/pseudoscientific majors, that have
| nothing else to do but create moral panics and problems that are
| non-existent. If you are not useful, the only way to feel some
| sense of importance by creating noise.
|
| Taxpayers should not be funding these idiocies
| dang wrote:
| This comment breaks the site guidelines by calling names (lots
| of them) and adding flamebait (lots of it). Please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to
| the rules when posting here. Note this one: " _Comments should
| get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets
| more divisive._ "
|
| Agree or disagree, the OP is substantive and thoughtful and
| deserves much better than what you posted here. Not only that,
| but threads are sensitive to initial conditions. Rushing into a
| new thread with a denunciatory quickie risks destroying the
| entire thread and is therefore particularly bad.
| xmprt wrote:
| People working in these areas are why we have things like 5 day
| work weeks (instead of having to work 6 or 7 days) and human
| rights. Why do you find them useless?
| bena wrote:
| The peril of noting the peril of politicizing science is that
| that itself will be politicized.
|
| There's going to be some number on either side of the issue that
| genuinely don't believe they're politicizing the issue, they're
| just right.
|
| If I were to say the sun rises in the east, that would be just
| objectively correct. If the Penguin Party were to say that it
| instead rises in the west and not accepting their belief is
| politicizing the issue, then what are my options here?
|
| Sure there are probably those in the Penguin Party who know the
| sun doesn't actually rise in the west. But toe the party line,
| because it antagonizes the other party. And they know that there
| are those out there who actually believe it. And now they join
| the Penguin Party because here's a major group that is validating
| their existence.
|
| But there are both Democrats and Republicans who believe the
| other party is the Penguin Party. They believe they are right.
| And they believe the other party is led by people who are telling
| people lies just to garner support.
|
| Which leads all of us, down here, back to where we started.
|
| And as long as there's support to be had for pushing a fantasy,
| there's going to be some unscrupulous people who are going to do
| it. I don't think it can be avoided.
| umvi wrote:
| For some reason I thought just the living conditions in the
| Soviet Union were bad; I didn't realize 1984 (the book) is
| _literally_ modeled after Stalinist Russia. I always assumed
| thought policing was just a theoretical construct of a
| technological dystopian future, I didn 't know the Soviet
| government actually did it for decades - and to their best and
| brightest scientists and thinkers! Interesting article, and
| interesting parallels to our day. Luckily most of the parallels
| in modern society are reflected in social media mobs and not the
| government itself (or we would be in _very_ deep trouble), but it
| 's still a bit disturbing how much power said social media mobs
| seem to wield over corporations and politicians.
| ardit33 wrote:
| Orwell was initially a socialist sympathizer (went to spain
| during the spanish civil war), but after the Soviet Union went
| through major purges in the 30s, and the USSR (bad) treatment
| of other countries and major ethnic forced relocations inside
| USSR, he might have had a change of heart later on. He opposed
| totalitarianism in general, and after the defeat of nazism, he
| started seeing communism as evil/bad.
|
| He worked for communications in the BBC during WW2, and had
| first hand experience with the language censoring of the time,
| especially of communication towards British colonies at the
| time.
| spats1990 wrote:
| >had a change of heart later on.
|
| He certainly did. Toward the end of his life he produced a
| list of notable people in the UK and US whom he believed to
| be Stalinist sympathizers, foreign agents, communists, etc,
| and passed it to a British Foreign Office employee. Charlie
| Chaplain was on it, among others.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list
| nickff wrote:
| My understanding is that the NKVD's purges of Republicans in
| Spain was what first alarmed Orwell. I believe that he had to
| escape 'warrants' out for his assassination on his way out of
| Spain.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Right. Read "Homage to Catalonia" for Orwell's own story.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I'm curious how the thought policing parallel escaped you. Are
| you younger or just didn't really get taught/research what
| happened? Not intended as a critique- just genuinely curious.
|
| As for today's problems, why are you so sure the social media
| mobs aren't in some instances government controlled? Certainly
| we have clear evidence of this happening at least partially in
| the 2016 US election. Lots of investigative journalism has done
| good work uncovering how the industry around this kind of stuff
| is financed. In fact, the KGB 100% exploited social divisions
| in the past for political gains (eg supporting both white
| nationalists and the black power movements to encourage more
| political violence and destabilize US politics). Why would you
| think that a ruthless politician like Putin who came from t be
| KGB would be so opposed to leveraging those same tools again?
| In fact, it seems like they've learned their lesson about how
| to engage in such warfare more effectively.
| pcrh wrote:
| There are plenty of contemporary parallels in political parties
| (who become government).
|
| The distinction with 1984 might be that the media is not
| _entirely_ controlled by the government of the day, but that is
| not for want of effort.
| wffurr wrote:
| Who exactly are the totalitarian rulers sending people to the
| gulag or executing them for continuing to say "strawman
| argument"?
|
| What an incredibly strained analogy this all is.
| umvi wrote:
| The author is pointing out parallels between the way our
| society is trending in terms of ideological control, and
| similar things that happened in the USSR. Your argument amounts
| to "the US government hasn't rounded up political/ideological
| dissidents and murdered them yet so this article is flawed"
| which seems a bit dismissive. Two triangles can be similar even
| if one is an order of magnitude bigger than the other.
| dluan wrote:
| Using someone's preferred pronouns is not "ideological
| control".
| isitdopamine wrote:
| Using them it's not, forcing people to use them it is.
|
| It's the argument Jordan Peterson was making, and probably
| one of his most misunderstood points.
|
| He's fine with people asking to be called in a certain way,
| and he would most likely oblige. He's not fine with a state
| law dictating how pronouns should be used.
|
| I think it makes sense.
| dluan wrote:
| > Jordan Peterson
|
| uhhh ok sure
| watwut wrote:
| In USSR, there was massive Civil War with around 6 different
| parties struggling to gain power via violence. The victor
| turned out to be violent. Nothing similar is going on in west
| now, you could compare Islamic regions.
|
| And incidentally, both Russia and those regions were
| destabilized by wars prior that.
| wffurr wrote:
| The author is essentially saying that being asked to use
| respectful language makes her university administrator Joseph
| Stalin. Cherry-picking a few examples, stating "I am not
| personally offended by these so obviously no one could be",
| and using that to claim "Social Justice (note the capitals)
| has gone TOO FAR", does not a good argument make.
|
| It's a bit beyond "similar triangles".
|
| First they ask us to stop saying "master/slave architecture".
| Next it's FORCED FARM LABOR. It's a non-sequitur.
| etangent wrote:
| The next step isn't "forced farm labor," that would indeed
| be a non-sequitur. A most likely next step is putting
| someone in jail over a tweet (already happening in the
| United Kingdom). It takes three or four more steps to get
| to forced farm labor.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Seriously asking: How can putting someone in jail over a
| tweet be closer to forced farm labor when the united
| states already has forced farm labor (see below for
| link)? How can we simultaneously be approaching something
| and also already there?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_farm
| mturmon wrote:
| Strong agree. Similarly, the OP's jocular use of the word
| "canceled" when referring to Soviet assassinations during
| the Stalin years. No, Stalinist political execution is not
| comparable to losing your job because you have groped women
| at work.
| i_love_limes wrote:
| I am just an interested layman, but I have found Historians as
| prime examples of academics who get this balance right. This, to
| me, seems to be because they have to squarely level with their
| own biases and preconceived ideas of what they are studying from
| the outset.
|
| Once that is addressed upfront (whether it is personal
| preference, or cultural bias/context), the authors are able to
| both express themselves more freely as well as be more critical
| of their own perspective.
|
| I think other social sciences researchers are more OK with this
| idea, and unfortunately STEM researchers seem to go out of their
| way to assume they have no perspectives or biases, as the
| assumption is that 'pure research' is unable to be tainted by
| such things.
|
| To expose my own personal bias, I find this article to be very
| heavy handed and reactionary.
| dluan wrote:
| Yeah this is a meme that surfaces every few years spontaneously
| irregardless of the field or discipline. "Oh no we are being
| oppressed for not following the [current mainstream boogeyman
| idea], only we the true freethinkers are aware of the danger
| and must warn blah blah". Usually too it is some former soviet
| person.
|
| > Whereas in 1950, the greater good was advancing the World
| Revolution (in the USSR; in the USA the greater good meant
| fighting Communism), in 2021 the greater good is "Social
| Justice" (the capitalization is important: "Social Justice" is
| a specific ideology, with goals that have little in common with
| what lower-case "social justice" means in plain English).
|
| It's just astonishing that it's so reliable even in 2021, so
| far removed from the cold war, that the journal editors still
| feel the need to stir the pot this way. Younger scientists
| don't care about this, lmao.
|
| Science is inherently a political process, and this author
| seems to lack the self awareness of how her own bias has
| influenced her.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Science is a process of measuring cause and effect. What you
| decide to study using the scientific method might be
| political, but to call science political seems like a lazy
| use of language.
| dluan wrote:
| Yes, hmm, let's use this consensus algorithm called "just
| producing data". Look up the information deficit model
| please.
| fatcat500 wrote:
| The people who are currently successfully utilizing science to
| legitimize knowledge are doing so off of the moral, social, and
| cultural capital accrued by previous generations of scientists.
|
| The assumption that the general public will always perceive
| science with a reverent and trusting eye is wrong: once the
| capital runs out, science will be perceived as just another
| tentacle of the establishment. Politicizing scientific language
| is a surefire way of accelerating this process.
|
| This is what has already happened with the MSM, of course.
| jchw wrote:
| The biggest problem from my PoV is that people seem like they are
| always absolutely sure that the contemporary understanding of
| morals is actually correct, unlike the primitive beliefs of the
| past, and that there's nothing left to challenge. Convincing
| people that this is what people _always_ believe and yet it has
| _never_ been true seems impossible. It seems difficult for people
| to imagine that there 's more left to discuss.
|
| What I'd rather do is try to convince people that it's wrong to
| apply this kind of ideological control regardless of whether or
| not you _think_ it 's correct. But that's hard, because if it was
| correct, and people do earnestly believe it is, then what do they
| have to lose?
|
| I also think that dishonest portrayals of even recent history are
| a huge problem for understanding that a lot of the moral
| conundrums we have today _are not new_. It 's mostly the
| sensationalism and moral panics that are always changing.
| exporectomy wrote:
| I think part of it is that different conditions that different
| societies exist in affect what's morally right and wrong. For
| example, in a secure stable country, the need to fight wars may
| seem unimportant and you might even think war is morally wrong.
| But in a country that's constantly under threat of being
| destroyed by enemies, war is essential to survival, and a
| conscientious objector would reasonably be seen as morally
| wrong.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _The biggest problem from my PoV is that people seem like
| they are always absolutely sure that the contemporary
| understanding of morals is actually correct, unlike the
| primitive beliefs of the past, and that there 's nothing left
| to challenge._"
|
| If they claim to be on the left, point out to them that that
| type of worldview is actually a form of conservatism. Quoting
| from Wikipedia, " _Traditionalist conservatism places a strong
| emphasis on the notions of custom, convention, and tradition._
| " and note that "customs [and] convention" is the same as the
| "social norms" argument trotted out by the modern left to
| defend their activities.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| What do you do if they claim to be on the right? Or if they
| claim that they're not political at all, they're just stating
| facts? (Genuinely asking!)
| [deleted]
| burnished wrote:
| I don't get it, what is that supposed to do?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "Owning the libs", in a way that won't actually change
| their minds, but will make the speaker feel smarter and
| righter.
|
| In other words, nothing useful.
| roenxi wrote:
| The logical conclusion of this train of thought is ... not to
| make policy based on science. Just make the science available,
| and let people do what they like.
|
| If the plan is to create policies based on "the science", then
| people will lie about what the science is in order to get their
| policies into play.
|
| It is hard to convince people with that opener, but the
| evidence is that it works quite well. One of the interesting
| tricks about Western democracies is that it channels the
| fleeting madness of crowds in the most productive direction
| without trying too hard to suppress it.
| watwut wrote:
| Both past societies and current ones contain contradictory
| points of view. There was always conflict between people of
| opposing opinions. They were always people who broke
| contemporary moral codes, either for money, power or profit or
| idealism.
|
| There were always sociopaths or people who were cruel for fun.
|
| As in, here you are attacking strawman.
| isitdopamine wrote:
| > and that there's nothing left to challenge.
|
| Also, I would add that history is not linear, it's not the
| progressive challenging of old prejudices.
|
| Sometimes, in our efforts to strive for better morals, we make
| terrible mistakes. Phrenology come to mind, but there could be
| many other examples.
| dmingod666 wrote:
| The science and societies of the past were always flawed, and
| mistaken, they just didn't know better. The science and
| societies of the present never are wrong or flawed in their
| thinking.
|
| Always was true always will be.
|
| I think it's cause: 1. Arrogance 2. Dead people take blame very
| well, and can't really argue back.
| api wrote:
| Or maybe it's always true, at least on average over long time
| spans.
|
| I've always thought that if your children think they are
| wiser than you it means you have been an excellent parent. If
| they look back with awe at your superior wisdom, it means
| things got worse and you perhaps failed to leave a legacy.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Yes and 3. There's an element of group belonging in a
| collective righteousness. And that's definitely not unique to
| the present.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| > The science and societies of the past were always flawed,
| and mistaken, they just didn't know better. The science and
| societies of the present never are wrong or flawed in their
| thinking.
|
| That's also the reasoning the communists and the National
| Socialists used in their reasoning; turns out they were faced
| with the same problems their predecessors had to deal with
| but they didn't really have better solutions. In the end the
| people paid because it was more important to save face than
| to admit being wrong.
| just_steve_h wrote:
| This article begins with the clearly implied belief that
| "Science" is not political, and degenerates from this false
| assumption into a paroxysm of wounded cries over the renaming of
| buildings and other, may I say, even less weighty matters -
| comparing them to the gulag and mass murder.
|
| "Science" is not a singular object, nor a single method, nor even
| a set of ideas; what we must concern ourselves with is Science as
| it is practiced in our society.
|
| Can one do Science without funding? Certainly! Any child with a
| simple telescope can observe celestial bodies in motion, reason
| about observations, make conjectures, and test them against more
| data. But this is a toy example, and this young scientist's
| influence may extend to a handful of child peers, and perhaps an
| interested parent.
|
| The "Science" that concerns us almost always includes published,
| peer-reviewed research. And thus, it is inherently and obviously
| political. First, and most obviously: how does one become
| recognized as a peer whose work is eligible for publication? It
| necessarily requires many years of study, apprenticeship, and
| supervised practice. Admission to these ranks requires scholastic
| and social preparation, and is literally subject to the vote of a
| committee. That we pretend this process operates entirely on
| "merit" is but one of the many delusions and useful fictions we
| tell ourselves when we speak of a "Science" that is somehow "not
| political."
|
| Second, consider not the training of new scientists, but the
| actual conduct of research. All research must be "sponsored" by
| someone, in rare cases, by the wealthy scientist themself - the
| exception that proves the rule. The sponsoring entity always has
| a material interest in the science it is funding, whether it is
| to extend the shelf life of canned goods, to more cheaply deposit
| thin strips of metal onto a substrate, or to meaningfully improve
| the accuracy of a weapon system guidance module. It is left as an
| exercise to the reader to discern the various ways that this
| process is clearly and nakedly "political."
|
| I feared the worst upon viewing this article's title, yet held to
| a slender hope that the author might address the real threats of
| using science to achieve political ends, such as that posed by
| eugenics, or by nuclear weapons research. Reader, my hope was in
| vain.
|
| We appear to have here another member of our society's
| establishment who has become too accustomed to unquestioning
| deference, yelping like a hit dog because, for instance, a
| presumptuous collection of students and faculty has dared suggest
| that perhaps UC Berkeley's $70,000 annual grants from the
| Genealogical Eugenics Institute Fund might be not only better
| named but more prudently distributed.*
|
| One wonders if there is a corollary to Godwin's Law that
| stipulates that the first person to draw a comparison to Stalin
| has already ceded the argument?
|
| *(this happened in October of 2020, you can look up the fund by
| name).
| kurthr wrote:
| It seems like this has been with us since there has been science,
| certainly Galileo paid a certain price and many others paid a
| price for Lysenkoism. It's certainly sad what can be done "in the
| name of science" and in denial of science (or service of
| psuedoscience).
|
| I agree with the author's discussion of the complexity of
| individuals, their beliefs, and their contributions. The desire
| to simplify a narrative about a person's value or intent common
| and even effective, but still dangerous. That can be a
| simplification mores over different times or cultures. One of the
| best cures I've seen is travel (outside your cultural sphere),
| but that's not likely to be universally available any time soon.
|
| What I don't really see is that scientists themselves share a
| greatly disproportionate responsibility or blame for the current
| situation, which seems historically fraught. Media (social and
| otherwise), "news", and advertising on the other hand...
| cgrealy wrote:
| There are undoubtedly massive dangers to politicising science.
|
| But personally, I am far more concerned with lobbied interests
| persuading politicians that climate change is a hoax, or with
| idiots deciding that masks and vaccinations are something you can
| make your own mind up about.
|
| These are real problems with substantial negative outcomes.
|
| Whether we stop naming things after Nazis or pedophiles is lower
| on my list of priorities.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| One follows from the other. If you politicize science, then I
| have no reason to listen when you claim that science supports
| your position.
| dluan wrote:
| Do you actually think science isn't political?
| cgrealy wrote:
| Given that a lot of science gets funded by the government,
| of course it's political.
|
| Was just listening to a podcast yesterday about the
| attempts to develop an AIDS vaccine. It was definitely not
| prioritized in the early days because it was viewed as a
| "lifestyle disease".
|
| https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-
| vs/dvhkd5k/presenting-...
|
| Obviously the decision as to what gets researched is going
| to be at least partially political.. there's a finite
| amount of money to split between NASA and the CDC for
| example.
|
| But it would be really nice if results weren't politicised.
| wffurr wrote:
| It's amazing that someone could write an essay titled "The
| Peril of Politicizing Science" and not once mention the actual
| civilizational peril we are in due to the political
| polarization over climate change and the coronavirus.
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