Daniel Sarewitz argues that yes, it is, and we're better off first hashing out value disagreements first. But shifting from arguing about facts to arguing about values is equally difficult.
interesting argument, i’m curious to check out Sarewitz’s article. i’m also wondering if, in addition if to reform political institutions, maintaining an image of scientific neutrality is really worth it. debates around trans identity and the covid vaccine are recent peak moments that undermined public faith in scientific objectivity, and the ease of access to both legitimate and illegitimate information through the internet will only make it worse.
while it is expected for scientific papers to name potential conflicts of interest, perhaps the anthropological tendency to name more personal authorial biases early within the research would diminish the heat of skeptic’s criticism—or else some normalized acknowledgement of trade offs in applying the researchers findings, and the extent to which research’s scope may be too narrow to be used for broad political purposes. perhaps my faith in transparency is naive, but continuing a facade of neutrality seems moreso.
Thanks for the comment! Sorry for the late response.
I think Sarewitz would say (or I would say, I guess) that the whole controversy over gender-affirming treatments for minors and the COVID vaccine is precisely because we have ended up scientizing the controversy. The science can't bear the weight of the controversy; and then we get scientists who seem to be doing politics under the guise of science but also a disproportionate amount of scrutiny of the science. It would have been much better to negotiate over values but that's kind of what I was trying to say in the post: negotiating over values is just as difficult.
I agree that both politics and science are going to get even more difficult with the ease of access to legitimate and illegitimate information through the internet. It's already happening.
I also agree that scientific papers could do a lot more than just disclose conflicts of interest -- I would be for that -- but I think the real change has to come from how institutions are designed: where and how the science happens, where the value negotiation happens and how, how the science feeds into the politics.
interesting argument, i’m curious to check out Sarewitz’s article. i’m also wondering if, in addition if to reform political institutions, maintaining an image of scientific neutrality is really worth it. debates around trans identity and the covid vaccine are recent peak moments that undermined public faith in scientific objectivity, and the ease of access to both legitimate and illegitimate information through the internet will only make it worse.
while it is expected for scientific papers to name potential conflicts of interest, perhaps the anthropological tendency to name more personal authorial biases early within the research would diminish the heat of skeptic’s criticism—or else some normalized acknowledgement of trade offs in applying the researchers findings, and the extent to which research’s scope may be too narrow to be used for broad political purposes. perhaps my faith in transparency is naive, but continuing a facade of neutrality seems moreso.
Thanks for the comment! Sorry for the late response.
I think Sarewitz would say (or I would say, I guess) that the whole controversy over gender-affirming treatments for minors and the COVID vaccine is precisely because we have ended up scientizing the controversy. The science can't bear the weight of the controversy; and then we get scientists who seem to be doing politics under the guise of science but also a disproportionate amount of scrutiny of the science. It would have been much better to negotiate over values but that's kind of what I was trying to say in the post: negotiating over values is just as difficult.
I agree that both politics and science are going to get even more difficult with the ease of access to legitimate and illegitimate information through the internet. It's already happening.
I also agree that scientific papers could do a lot more than just disclose conflicts of interest -- I would be for that -- but I think the real change has to come from how institutions are designed: where and how the science happens, where the value negotiation happens and how, how the science feeds into the politics.
I'm hoping I can do a future post on this!