new blog post on a question that has become increasingly urgent for me: the relationship between science and politics.
All comments welcome!
https://write.as/ulrikehahn/science-politics-activism-and-the-dilemma-of-public-engagement
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@Daniel_Hoffmann Daniel, thanks for these thoughts! and, yes, reconciliation of the two is possible in as much as the “maximalist” option whereby we make our political action more compatible with a ‘scientific’ mode of engagement is available
and your example of Lysenko is a well-chosen one because one place we need the distinction is the weaponisation of science, and increasingly pseudo-science, which requires not just political actors but also scientific accomplices (and that has very much been part of my thoughts), so strong agree there!
the only bit where I would maybe slightly diverge is that I might replace ‘power’ with ‘influence’ or an even more neutral term, just because I think we can fail in this tension (‘knowledge’ vs. ‘power’) when (and because) we are trying to do good (i.e., it’s an outcome we are trying to empower not necessarily ourselves).
@UlrikeHahn "The relevant norms are about process (action) not about outcomes." Exactly! And both respective norms depend on your metaphysical beliefs and ethics, which are in turn influenced by what scientific knowledge you have and accept about the world. Modes of engagement define the different roles you play within this tangle of beliefs and practices. They may be distinguishable, but cannot be disentangled.
@yoginho entirely agree except that the point is important to me that we can nevertheless identify instances where our actions fail by those norms. “Can’t be disentangled” doesn’t mean everything goes
@UlrikeHahn Yes. You're right, of course. You can always be judged by different norms, depending on what suits the context, even if everything is connected.
👆political action and science involve different modes of engagement with arguments and evidence -
activism is (and may often need to be) selective in ways that science shouldn’t be
by design, current online social media don’t work well for science
"Modes of engagement" is a helpful concept - but I think I disagree that all activism is / needs to be selective.
For example, a climate scientists can acknowledge and even explain in detail the role of solar cycles, of model uncertainties etc; but still emphasize the main conclusion: that climate change is real, overwhelmingly anthropogenic, and reversing course requires cutting emissions.
@HansZauner I ‘m not trying to claim it always is (and making activism less selective is indeed one way of reducing the tension). In your climate example the scientist’s activism and science are perfectly aligned precisely because the underlying evidence for climate change is overwhelming.
Yes, and maybe my example is a special case; and a sign of our absurd times, where in some areas (climate, vaccines, ...) publicly presenting the broad scientific consensus is already perceived as "activism" because the topic is so highly politicized.
@HansZauner will change phrasing above because I see it’s misleading about what the blog post is actually trying to say
@UlrikeHahn Thank you for your essay! It feels right to me, the different modes of engagement are important. However, I think that they are not necessarily distinctive features. A politician can be successful by using the scientific mode of engagement and consider all evidence, and a "scientist" may bulldoze competitors (Lysenko). The key difference seems to be what counts as success: power in politics and knowledge in science. These two different aims are of course not independent of the two modes of engagement. This is true especially at a time of increasing political polarization, when the tension that you discuss in your essay matters a lot and politicians are tempted to gain power by deviating from the scientific mode of engagement.
My feeling is that the whole system becomes unsustainable if politics deviates too much from what is known. Producing good science and infusing the public discourse with good science then seems to be useful.
I have tagged this post as my opinion. This is not really a solution to the problems addressed towards the end of your essay, but it may help to convey that this post lacks scientific rigor. I am confused as well.
#myopinion