Science is political and always has been (2024)

Science is not political and has never been.

Unfortunately, however, scientists today all too often allow themselves to be used by the powerful for their (unscientific) purposes, or they allow themselves to be tempted by improper advantages, or they are political activists themselves. However, science cannot be held responsible for this.

Funding or publishing scientific research is not science; it enables or hinders science. Consensus-making is not a method of science; scientists make theories, experiments and observations; whether a theory has been proven is decided on the basis of observations from experiments; opinions are irrelevant.

It is to be hoped that the students at the University of Toronto really do learn scientific work, and the article is not representative of the quality of education there.

Everything is political if you expand the term "political" to the point of being useless. When people complain about the politicization of science they are talking about forced "broader impact statements" or refusing to peer review papers that provide evidence that climate change might not be _quite_ as bad as the consensus. And while not the fault of the scientists, but rather journalists, writing about how the science was settled and there is no possible reason to believe the lab leak theory, or how masks are important, until there is a shortage, and then masks are only good if you've been through a medical degree and know how to put them on. I don't know what the proper word is for describing those examples in the narrowest way possible, but I use the term politicization of science.

As banal as saying "Mathematics has always been political". It's paradigmatic, the politics may surround or be an ulterior motive but "following the scientific method" (literally, doing science) is not doing politics. And notwithstanding that everyone has a bias, scientists ought to uphold the pursuit of truth above all, not jeopardize and cheapen that on the conceit that misconduct is virtuous if it's for the "right side".

both a mistake to believe something is not political in a general sense just as it’s a mistake to confuse different specific politics.

Every organization has its own politics. Diversity of opinions is good and enables progress and that’s the whole purpose of science if you think about it. However confusing national politics or petty politics with the main competing forces is a mistake.

To make it even more complicated, there’s not even a main political struggle within any organization. Simplified, there’s one of ideas around the scope of work and one about organization - and yes these are or should be intersecting, but things are in motion and can’t be perfectly intersecting.

So all is political and everything will mix, but there should be a ranking of priorities and a common sense of why extremes of any kind are deeply wrong. And firing people in science for national political reasons would be extreme and wrong.

Everyone should remember that Germany was leading in science before it decided that nationalism should be absolute and practically destroyed its scientific leadership and never recovered. Moreover all those kicked out found their place in United States and eventually built the modern scientific world from computers to the atomic bomb.

Most of these things have nothing to do with science. Anyone can ask questions, publish or form a consensus. The distinguishing feature of science is that two scientists studying the same thing should, in time, converge to the same opinion on the topic because they are guided by empirical reality and falsifiable hypothesis. Picking that up as a philosophy is very political, but after that it really isn't.

> Did you know about Einstein’s widely published views on socialism?

This is the very essence of the appeal to authority fallacy. A physicists opinions on socialism don't rank more highly than anyone else's. Might be right, might be wrong. He wasn't opining in a scientific capacity.