It would be nice if scientists started being just scientists again instead of activists. Hopefully being cloistered on bluesky will bring the old vibes back
Scientists should embrace decentralization and use Mastodon in my opinion. Bluesky will meet the same fate as Twitter and X one day
Have you seen the state of scientific "computing".
But I think what the GP means is let's do science, let's not do hot-political-topics-as-science.
If you’re not actually involved in science you only see the scientists making news, which disproportionately selects for politically intersecting areas of research.
When I was working at a major US research university in the early 2000s, it was a big deal if the scientific publications got any mainstream press at all.
Countless papers push the boundaries of science in major journals and conferences every year and you never hear about them because they have no political implications and usually no immediate practical applications.
That's true, but the other professions don't tend to be associated with (or clearly vindicate) the “above-the-crowd/holier-than-thou” attitude – and I say that as an ex-scientist, for the same reason (among others) as the poster above.
Especially when they try to lean on their status as scientists in order to try and have their opinions be more influential.
The cdc for example saying it's ok to disregard their previous guidance in order to protest for black lives matter is one of these credibility damaging moments that is hard to undo.
No more athletes, musicians, artists, whatever. Everyone must be anonymous. Or is it strictly scientists who are not allowed to post if their profession is known?
That’s… not what they said? They said it was probably relatively safe to attend a protest because it was happening outdoors and Covid spread mostly through accumulated aerosols. It turned out to be good guidance: practically no one gets Covid that way unless a sick person is actively coughing on them.
How do they do that?
In general, it makes scientists look really naive and makes them lose credibility when they talk about actual science.
>And it’s usually some controversial thing that doesn’t have to do with science anyway.
What evidence do you have that most scientists are giving opinions about things unrelated to their expertise and then stating you should trust them more due to their expertise or position?
When these experts go into politics and activism, their biases show and consequently the credibility of them and their unfortunate colleagues who don’t go into politics get lowered.
> What evidence do you have that most scientists are giving opinions about things unrelated to their expertise and then stating you should trust them more due to their expertise or position?
I don’t live under a rock.
What if the issue is related to their expertise?
Veering out of the lane implies they start offering their opinion about a topic that has nothing to do with their field after discussing one that does without making a clear disclaimer
>credibility of them and their unfortunate colleague
It's wrong to judge all due to the actions of some. This is a huge flaw of people in general but I wanted to mention it.
NTA but I think one example which deserves far more scrutiny than it gets is all the public health experts[1] in the early months of COVID who were telling people to stay inside, don't gather in groups even if you're outside, don't go to church etc only to suddenly change their minds and say that gathering in large groups is actually very safe as soon as the protests surrounding the murder of george floyd happened. This is a topic they have expertise on (or at least they claim to) so it's certainly within their lane, but the abrupt change in policy was obviously motivated by their political leanings and it did *a lot* to hurt their personal credibility as well as perceptions of the pandemic in general.
[1] IDK how many of them should actually be considered 'experts' as this is not a field I follow, but they were presented as such in the media and so that is how they are perceived.
Yes. Which is what this discussion I replied to was about. The claim was experts using their status to claim expertise in opinions unrelated to their field, not whether they changed their opinions on subjects they are experts at.
March - The CDC publishes Covid guidelines on mass gathering in March “Interim Guidance: Get Your Mass Gatherings or Large Community Events Ready for COVID-19”
May 26th - The George Floyd protests start
June 4th - The CDC directory tells congress he fears the protests could be a Covid seeding event [1]
June 12th - The CDC publishes new Covid guidelines on mass gatherings [2] due to the protests
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You claim the change from the CDC was abrupt.
1. The CDC already had guidelines in place for mass gatherings before the protest started so new guidelines aren't abrupt and the new guidelines came out 16 days after the protests started
2. The Floyd protests were very emotional as indicated by rioting and arson in some cities. The CDC can't stop protestors but it can attempt to reduce the spread of Covid by offering updated guidelines that take into account the protests
For example, the director brought up tear gas as it would cause more coughing [same hearing as [1]] as something specific to protests
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You also claimed there was a political aspect to it, that it was convenient the CDC issued those guidelines.
1. The director specifically stated that the protests only increased the possibility of Covid spreading. by calling them a potential seeding event.
2. The director at the time, Robert Redfield, is a Republican appointed by Trump in 2018.
[1]“I do think there is a potential, unfortunately, for this to be a seeding event" [referring to the protests] Robert Redfield, House Appropriations hearing, June 4th 2020
[2] CDC "Considerations for events and gatherings"
Things like this is what most people saw at the time, resulting in public health officials losing credibility overall. Let’s not whitewash history here.
The difference here is about the reality of how the public views things as opposed to some ideal where everyone goes to the CDC website for guidance.
And it's not just the talking heads but the politicians who are making policy based around what they say. These protests and riots were being encouraged by politicians who had been banning outdoor gatherings just two months prior.
>is a Republican appointed by Trump
I don't know if you're under the impression that I would grant more credence to somebody on this basis but my criticism isn't based around a fundamental opposition to wokies. It should not come as a surprise that people fall into science denialism and conspiracy theories when rules can change based around who stands to benefit from them. It was blatantly obvious that in certain locations lockdown rules were being tuned for political benefit.
If they truly thought outdoor gatherings were safe they could have said so at the beginning and it would have prevented a lot of opposition, especially from the religious groups who had a very legitimate constitutional argument in light of the fact that they weren't being allowed to gather indoors or outdoors.
>16 days after the protests started
that is exactly what I am talking about. Those protests lasted all summer, I don't know why you think a two-week delay between when they begin and when the rules are modified to the benefit of the protestors would absolve them of anything.
Here's an example of what you are claiming. A chemist publicly states his opinion on the current illegal immigrant crackdown and implies or directly states that his opinion has more value because he is a chemist.
Alternative example the chemist is interviewed for his opinion on immigration by the news (except as a bystander when they want random people to chime in).
For example CNN is discussing Trump's crackdown and says "here to talk about what Trump is doing is Harvard professor of Chemistry and (other titles) Chemist John Bismuth"
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Can you provide an example of this?
Other than that, I don't think it's right to tell them not to use their status to influence politics and society towards what they perceive as making the world better. On the contrary, they might have some duty to do just that.
When did this happen?
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-hea...
Yep, there it is. You’re just upset that they don’t have your opinions.
Google+ had it right where you can follow just a community, and also you can selectively make your participation in certain communities visible in your public profile. I am not sure if Bluesky or Mastodon have something similar.
Literally true, perhaps. But have you ever noticed how reluctant non-scientist professionals are to voice opinions in their chosen fields? Lawyers preface everything with "not your lawyer", "not my area of practice...", "I'd have to look into the details of that case...", etc. Accountants similarly. Doctors similarly. Engineers similarly. Vs. it seems to be accepted practice for a nuclear physicist to speak ex cathedra about epidemiology, climatology, etc.
"Scientists say..." is becoming just another "studies show...". You can always find a scientist or a study or an "expert" to push whatever agenda the media outlet has.
Nothing about this is remotely scientific.
Asking them to “not be activists” is really a request for them to self police their speech in a way that fits their worldview.
This is not restricted to scientists by the way. Just look at the different response to how the NFL handled Charlie Kirk’s death with official moments of silence vs. Colin Kaepernick kneeing for police brutality. One is supported, one is suppressed.
Science, and facts themselves, are political now.
I’m fine seeing scientists arguing for the importance of science on social media. I don’t want to hear rants about LGBTQ+ people from geologists.
Build the filter bubble you want, not the one you've got.
Authors can still get reputation, recognition, and compensation for their papers, without people knowing who wrote what paper, via public/private keys and blockchain. Every time an author publishes a paper, they generate a new address and attach the public key to it. Judges send awards (NFTs) and compensation to the key without knowing who holds it, and if the same award type is given to multiple papers, authors can display it without anyone knowing which paper is theirs.
With LLMs even writing style can be erased (and as a side effect, the paper can be written in different formats for different audiences). Judges can use objective criteria so they can't be bribed without others noticing; in cases where the paper is an algorithm and the criteria is a formal proof, the "judge" can be a smart contract (in practice I think that would be a small minority of papers, but it would still be hard for a judge to nominate an undeserving paper while avoiding skeptics, because a deserving paper would match the not-fully-objective criteria according to a wide audience). Any other potential flaws?
2. Labs are specialized. You choose a lab to work at based on what they're working on. How are you going to choose where to spend your Ph.D or postdoc if you don't know what the lab is working on and how productive it is?
3. We are all still humans. We are wired to know the social systems around us. This would be an entire charade.
It doesn't solve all the issues, but it at least allows scientists to be "activists" (really just share their opinions like any other human) without affecting their credibility. Even if they're doxxed, they can eventually regain anonymity, because eventually other scientists with different views will publish papers on the same subject, and people can only distinguish who published what by its content.
Right now, scientists can share their opinions anonymously. This works well enough, except they can't share them in-person except to others they trust; and if they get doxxed, they can't remove their old posts from the name on their papers.
Right now I feel like there are a scientists who would hide or discard results if they contradicted their advocacy beliefs,which is a dangerous place to be imo.
It enacts no rules, laws, or regulations. That's done by policy makers who can listen to or ignore the guidance and data from the CDC at their discretion.
What is a scientist to do when they discover a vaccine or cure for something; say fuck it who cares if we change behavior? Are you saying a good vaccine advocate is someone who ignores the underlying science and acts dogmatically?
It just feels like you want to demonize this action of activism for… why? Just because there are lots of bad activists? There are a lot of bad scientists as well, to be honest the view of “good scientist” and “bad activist” feels dogmatic.
To answer your second point, science has a process for disseminating new findings. It's not perfect, but it works. Organizations that scientists work for do pay attention to those sources, discoveries do get patented and productionized. I encourage you to conduct some research: See how many people were talking about mRNA vaccines and gain-of-function research on social media before COVID vs after. The lack of social media coverage didn't affect the science or the scientists, who had spent the past decade conducting research on the subject.
I will maintain that Twitter/X/Bluesky are not part of the scientific process, nor should they be. These platforms do not encourage objective thought or reasoned arguments.
It would be a sampling bias fallacy to draw conclusions based on your lack of observations.
Eg: "mountains, never seen them, they don't exist."
It is funny then for a geologist to be considered an activist when they say the mountains most certainly do exist.
Your first paragraph is unfounded. (Fwiw, The other two I found interesting. )
And then that’s just to get money in your specific direction, getting money in your general direction requires more broad activism.
How so? It seems obvious that you can do science (that is: attempt to advance the understanding of how the natural world works) without being an activist for any cause.
Why? Which of these other jobs would you call "Activism" an essential part of:
- Fire fighter
- Elementary school teacher
- Auto mechanic
- ER nurse
- Professor of Medieval History
- School shootings
- Sure, they can shut up
- COVID
- Is this one serious?
Are you calling it "Activism" when someone shares the opinion of 99.9% of the population, and spends 0 time advocating for that opinion?
Professor of Medieval history: Lots of political discourse makes claims about history or things like "the dark ages" that turn out to be mis-interpretations or false. Note that I have a friend in that field who often writes gentle corrections to false historical claims in online discourse.
that's always been a fun conversation
So you've found a way to say "My job isn't at risk from a vindictive POTUS" in 14 words instead of 9. Great.
“Sure all the research shows X, but you can also believe y or even z because nothing really matters”
You're not interested in science but kowtowing to perceived authority
Bluesky is just the ideological opposite of whatever X is today, but with more blocking and censorship than even what Twitter had under Dorsey.
Or, do you some sort of systematic evidence that evaluates the politics across all of bluesky in comparison to X? I don't think there is such evidence to know that bluesy is the polar opposite of Twitter.
If you express an opinion, you’ll be blocked, and Bluesky has layers of blocking, and they love it.