Is Science Political? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Science Political?

#11

Post by dr_dshiv » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #6

Interesting article. I have a slightly related idea to mention. The application of empiricism is suspect by the nature of perception, cognition, and the complexity of reality. This is not to say that empirical activity is not critical to science. It's just that scientific theories by necessity exceed the scope of local observation and are biased by worldview, especially as predictions become grander in scale.

I don't understand. Empiricism is based on shared perceptions, and scientific theories exceed these?

Re: Is Science Political?

#12

Post by james_s_tayler » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

pharke wrote: post #9

james_s_tayler wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics arises when 3 or more people decide on who gets what and how much of it. Life is political all the the way down.

By that definition of governance you could argue an individual must engage in politics when dealing with only his own choices. Surely there is a line between direct negotiation and political governance. I'd argue that line is drawn when representation comes into play.

The line is drawn at the point it's possible to form coalitions to overpower another party. Hence at minimum 3 people have to be involved otherwise it is just direct negotiation.

Most of life is deeply political in this sense.

Re: Is Science Political?

#13

Post by monster99 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 5:56 AM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #11

ilaksh wrote: post #6

Interesting article. I have a slightly related idea to mention. The application of empiricism is suspect by the nature of perception, cognition, and the complexity of reality. This is not to say that empirical activity is not critical to science. It's just that scientific theories by necessity exceed the scope of local observation and are biased by worldview, especially as predictions become grander in scale.

I don't understand. Empiricism is based on shared perceptions, and scientific theories exceed these?

The truth already exists without our perception of it. Think about this - if there was no absolute ground you couldn't have so much as a single perception.

The problem becomes the human minds limitations, aka the problem isn't with the universe but the minds of human beings and their relationship to what actually is.

Re: Is Science Political?

#14

Post by roenxi » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #7

No. Stop it. Funding is, science isn't. There's an effective debate tactic where attackers DDoS the other side with innocent questions about their premises. As defenders drown under these reasonable-seeming queries, onlookers wonder if the deluge might indicate a hidden fundamental flaw in the defenders' argument.

Some science is clearly political and other science is clearly not. It is important to keep as much original evidence in the open as possible (without abstracting it away behind rules and principles) so it can be challenged.

That all being said, I'm not sure this really goes to the article; which seems to be more about how the capitalists were more effective at managing a complicated relationship with truth and reality than the communists, and that was an advantage for them.

Re: Is Science Political?

#15

Post by scoobyyabbadoo » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 6:06 AM UTC

nikofeyn wrote: post #10

mLuby wrote: post #7

No. Stop it. Funding is, science isn't. There's an effective debate tactic where attackers DDoS the other side with innocent questions about their premises. As defenders drown under these reasonable-seeming queries, onlookers wonder if the deluge might indicate a hidden fundamental flaw in the defenders' argument.

how exact do you separate the two? without funding, science doesn’t happen? and this article is covering a specific viewpoint, but how people do science can certainly be political (and is).

People can still do science on their own. Grant giving institutions as a driver of science is a relatively recent phenomenon. There's nothing wrong with a garage laboratory to test your ideas so long as you document your methodology so it can be repeated by others and scrutinized for following the scientific method.

Re: Is Science Political?

#16

Post by bigtrakzapzap » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 6:52 AM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #2

The article is about the Cold War and the history of scientific funding, not so much about recent politics. It's interesting! But the title could be misleading. Judging from the last para, maybe that's intentional. Just warning that this could be RTFA bait. Step lightly brave commenters!

;)

Speaking of history and the Cold War, a worthy docuseries to face some uncomfortable facts of the US' post-WW2 behavior: Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States. Even Gorbachev wrote an opinion on the subsequently-released book.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80127995

Re: Is Science Political?

#17

Post by aeturnum » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 7:08 AM UTC

Science is very political! Though as others point out this is about the history of the cold war more than colloquial forces. Scientists are people first and people live in the world, hold views and their views influenced what makes sense to them. All research is aligned with politics in some way, though not all topics are equally engaged.

Re: Is Science Political?

#18

Post by atoav » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 7:15 AM UTC

nikofeyn wrote: post #10

mLuby wrote: post #7

No. Stop it. Funding is, science isn't. There's an effective debate tactic where attackers DDoS the other side with innocent questions about their premises. As defenders drown under these reasonable-seeming queries, onlookers wonder if the deluge might indicate a hidden fundamental flaw in the defenders' argument.

how exact do you separate the two? without funding, science doesn’t happen? and this article is covering a specific viewpoint, but how people do science can certainly be political (and is).

I think discussing a tangential discussion is enlighting: Is there such a thing as unpolitical art?

You will find the intuition to consider art with political statements as political and art without as unpolitical. But art operates in an status quo, so can it even be unpolitical? Are the shiny baloon-like sculptures produced by questionably paid interns of Jeff Koons unpolitical? Is a painter who depicts the most idyllic sceneries in a starving country apolitical?

You quickly realize, that trying not to taking part in political things is itself political in a way.

But what about science? Is it political to speak the truth? Yeah, quite much. People have been killed for telling the truth. It takes a very nasty social climate for the truth to become political, but it can become political and when it does, speaking truth becomes as political as denying it.

We have this reflex to say: “but if it is political it is less legitimate”, but forget that any action that shapes society in a meaningful way is political — be it intentional or not.

You can do the most neutral climate science in the world and base everything on proof and facts and your words will still be political in a world where some fractions deny it.

Your goal just isn’t power then, but to speak truth.

Re: Is Science Political?

#19

Post by goto11 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 7:30 AM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #7

No. Stop it. Funding is, science isn't. There's an effective debate tactic where attackers DDoS the other side with innocent questions about their premises. As defenders drown under these reasonable-seeming queries, onlookers wonder if the deluge might indicate a hidden fundamental flaw in the defenders' argument.

Maybe in a very strict sense that the data points observed from a properly setup scientific experiment are not political per se. But even what experiments scientists decide to perform and what to observe can be political, and this is definitely also a part of "science".

Re: Is Science Political?

#20

Post by atoav » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 7:33 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #14

mLuby wrote: post #7

No. Stop it. Funding is, science isn't. There's an effective debate tactic where attackers DDoS the other side with innocent questions about their premises. As defenders drown under these reasonable-seeming queries, onlookers wonder if the deluge might indicate a hidden fundamental flaw in the defenders' argument.

Some science is clearly political and other science is clearly not. It is important to keep as much original evidence in the open as possible (without abstracting it away behind rules and principles) so it can be challenged. That all being said, I'm not sure this really goes to the article; which seems to be more about how the capitalists were more effective at managing a complicated relationship with truth and reali…

> Some science is clearly political and other science is clearly not

So the politicalness of something is based on the intention? I’d like to challenge that idea. Imagine you are a nuclear scientist in the brink of cold war. Your interests are purely scientific and you don’t care about all that political talk. You got a nice life. If you decide to work on nuclear fission you aid the government and are thus political if you don’t want to aid the government you are political as well. In that situation every choice is political because your actions have a huge impact on society.

Other example: you work on image recognition algorithms used in CCTV cameras, which are used in different ways around the world and nudge societies they are used in into certain directions. Even if you don’t know where these societies are nudged into and your single goal is truth — is what you do apolitical? The person I write about here would say “Yes” without hessitation, but is that really so?

As long as you science/art/etc impacts society in a meaningful way, you will have that question. Confirming the status quo is just as political as questioning it.