In the wake of the U.S. election, Natl Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt has authored a spot-on editorial in Science, stressing the apolitical nature of science and how it remains vital to informing a lot of public policy. Best read all week!! https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu4907
#scipol 🧪
#scipol 🧪
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It becomes partisan when people object to the policy implications on ideological grounds.
https://bsky.app/profile/jlazarus.bsky.social/post/3lazxzgnj2k2b
McNutt's OPED has a tone of #VictimShaming rather than confronting the ideological (and other) interests and developments fostering #Lysenkoism -like anti-science and the GOP's embrace of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
https://bsky.app/profile/asiegel.bsky.social/post/3lb2zjodmwk2k
Only one party is anti-science, it doesn't help to ignore that reality.
As Colbert says: reality has a well-known liberal bias.
There were lots of smart Nazis, education helps but it isn't a cure-all.
Science educators aren't the problem, right-wing media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch in particular, are the problem, not teachers.
This is shifting the blame.
The only real solution to weaponized disinformation is to eliminate the sources - propaganda works, even against smart, educated people.
Education helps, but it isn't sufficient; to combat weaponized disinformation you have to remove the sources.
Bad actors pushing agitprop are the problem, not failed educators.
and the biden administration really soft-pedalled on the problem...
These people weren't just bamboozled, they were brainwashed for decades and now are largely impervious.
It will take more than information to shock them out of the cult-like transe because part of the...
This seems like a time when the scientific method could be applied.
Russia saw their opportunity when Obama was elected.
The core of racism and misogyny has been exploited masterfully over the past decade
Non-Partisan? Maybe. But one of the parties is explicitly anti-science. So what are you supposed to do about that? Just not do science? I don’t get it.
Science is practiced by humans. Humans are political. Therefore science cannot be apolitical.
And I’m doing everything in my power to ensure it stays that way.
https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/149/4/151/94866/Less-Talk-More-Walk-Why-Climate-Change-Demands
💯%!
The "apolitical" lie will not save you.
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.”
Capitulating in advance and willful submission to fascism are political acts that lead to scientists participating in fascism and genocide.
This isn't to say that scientists cannot be advocates, but they risk becoming biased. It takes strength of character to resist the temptations that lead to bias.
Now, I operate a company that develops technologies to store excess atmospheric carbon in mining waste.
I am hardly neutral about this.
I am not arguing against scientists becoming activists: on the contrary, I encourage it. It is the only way to preserve our humanity.
This is just waving a white flag to right-wingers, from the both-sides conflation while talking about covid to the soft peddling of climate change.
She's in for a rude awakening, is all I can say
This is where that path leads:
Science is a human activity, therefore it is always political. Whether it's where governments or research institutes choose to put their money or effort, or simply deny scientific accomplishments or goals, it will never not be political.
But data is of the world, and when the data directs an unbiased scientist to support one policy position over another, it’s honest and right to say so.
Pretending science shouldn’t be involved in politics is counterproductive.
“Make science apolitical” is fundamentally impossible.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/revealed-international-race-science-network-secretly-funded-by-us-tech-boss
But it’s just a tool. Saying “make it apolitical” is like trying to make a screwdriver “apolitical.” People can still choose to use it either to build a house, or stab their neighbor. The label doesn’t change that.
"Putting CO2 in the atmosphere makes it warmer" is a fact of nature. Choosing to study global warming, and advocate for action to stop it, is inescapably a political act.
"As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I've never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that...I would believe him over other people."
The very field she comes from - Oceanography- has its origins in a desire to improve the efficiency of the slave trade. Maybe she can explain the apolitical nature of that.
Without understanding this, the scientist can be co-opted, used, and discredited, without ever realizing that the partisan had planned each step of that beforehand.
Ask Red, and they’ll tell you “science is a Vast Blue Conspiracy of Lies and Demons and I will Culture War you for asking”
To declare being Three Monkeys (see, hear, speak no ...) about how a(ny) political party/movement embraces and promotes disinformation and science denialism is, in itself, a highly political.
https://bsky.app/profile/jlazarus.bsky.social/post/3lazxzgnj2k2b
Is Lysenkoism apolitical?
You can pretend not to do politics but that won't stop politics doing you. In this case Red is definitely and blatantly anti-science. Anyone failing to say so loudly and clearly is harming scientific endeavour.
The winning party this election is nominating a FUCKING ANTI-VAXXER for the position of Secretary of Health. He has already killed people with his anti-medicine, anti-science views, and if he is unchallenged, he will kill many many more.