Have you ever been to a niche scientific community conference? It’s always been 90% politics.
The Magellanic Cloud community collectively decided that they didn’t want to study objects named after someone who had subjugated the communities of ancestors studying it, so they agreed to call them the Milky Clouds. A pop science article went out about it and people complained that it wasn’t science, it was politics. But unless you’re a part of that community, you don’t get to decide on the names of the objects that these people understand better than literally anyone else alive or dead. They’re doing more science regarding these objects than anyone else has ever tried, they get to decide what’s best, even if it appears political.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Science is a highly political process.
The real actual science, just ask petroleum, cigarettes, sugar, mosanto glyphosate, lysenkoism, grant allocation, DDT, lead gasoline and paint, amiante, IQ, operation paperclip, nuclear testing, SSRIs, opioid crisis, covid 19, gain-of-functionr research, psychology replication crisis, trans fats, usda food pyramid, even cold fusion and the latest entry in this list PFOA/PFAS.
Scientific truths and regulatory actions often “become allowed” only when they are no longer economically threatening to the incumbents.
Gladaed@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Some of the examples are not shown to work. They are however still good examples since going down a dead end can be a good example. Deciding where to explore is deeply political.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Here is an excellent retelling of the cold fusion saga
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn92eWhGG14 www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbfJFPVApu8 www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWlBZT7L1qM
Basically, as soon as the scientist had one anomalous reading, the political and academic machine got into overdrive, huge money started getting thrown around and the scientists got under huge amount of pressure and paranoia.
fishos@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think you’re confusing “politics injected into science” with science. Science is data and analyzing it. Pretending someone didn’t invent something is removing data points and I’m pretty sure science calls that fraud, just like we call the studies that found cigarettes healthy to be frauds, or the oil companies to be frauds. 2 wrongs don’t make a right.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
“No True Scientist” would say cigarettes don’t cause cancer or co2 emission don’t cause global warming, or glyphosate isn’t bad for the environment. Yet, it did, for multiple decades.
You have to consider “actually existing science” with it’s political and financially directed function, choosing what questions get asked and who will answer them. You can say “oh that wasn’t science it was fraud” which is all well and good now but it wasn’t for those decades when they served to obscure or bury the truth rather than discover it.
Actually existing science is a really troubled institution
fishos@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes, and I’m here criticizing “actually existing science”. That’s exactly my point. It’s not “real science” when it’s injected with politics and emotions like that. It’s biased in a way science shouldn’t be.
into_highest_invite@lemmygrad.ml 2 weeks ago
all due respect, you have no clue what you’re talking about. choosing what to honor in the current day has nothing to do with “revisionist history” or “removing data points”. not when they’re making statues and not when they’re naming galaxies. leave that shit to the museums.