With all due respect to Marcia, I think it’s hard to communicate the nuance in that short a piece. We go to a bit deeper here and I think it makes a difference. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-024-00171-9
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Maybe it’s worth being more explicit. McMutt says that ‘science is apolitical’. What she probably means is that the NAS is happy to be commissioned by any party to assess scientific opinion on relevant topics (though there are some topics I’m sure they wouldn’t take up).
But the statement is not true on its face. Politics is how we adjudicate different values as a society. In science as well there are many values at play - what we deem interesting, what methods we deem ethical, what norms we employ to adjudicate contrasting claims etc.
Some (not all) of those values map onto the values that are being fought over in the wider world. Thus it can happen that the values that science (in the collective) has imbued may be more aligned with partisan politics outside of science.
When this happens I think it’s inevitable that you will find individual scientists (and sometimes science institutions) gravitating towards parties whose values are more aligned with scientific norms.
This has consequences, in that scientists (and scientific institutions) can be seen as partisan and thus become fodder for political attacks and abuse. But the alternative, which is basically for them to pretend to not have opinions is unsustainable.
Agreed. Marcia is conflating “political” with “partisan,” when the two are not the same. This is especially frustrating coming from the head of an organization that helps influence policy.
Thank you @katharinehayhoe.com! This is helpful especially for those of us who are still in reactionary pain from the election (also a political act) and not thinking as clearly as we might!🥹
It's important to be clear what is opinion, and what is science. For example, business at large has an agenda, and is largely responsible for the economic concensus that renewables reduce fossil fuel production. There are no scientific experiments in traditional economics; it is metaphysics.
I’m no scientist, but one thing I haven’t seen in the literature is a possible distinction in this regard between “regular old” science and science that quantifies and analyzes harmful externalities, which may simply necessitate change, which change people otherwise very much do not “want” (1/2)
I agree with these articles, but even if in general one doesn’t, I think the science of harmful externalities is “other.” We WILL change; it’s a question of how much harm will be done. This needs to be conveyed, by the experts, now. How to convey is very important, but whether to convey is clear
I find it useful to reflect on the range of scientific organizations in the policy space, from non-partisan ones prohibited from advocacy (like Urban) to those that do advocate, and how they see their roles. Both are very much values based, but behave quite differently. Both are important IMO.
University researchers have the wonderful freedom to situate themselves in the policy ecosystem but not the benefit of these kinds of organizational guidelines. In my own university career I would have benefited from more guided thinking on the these nuances.
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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