NationStates Jolt Archive

Yes and No

The poll is there.

The issue under debate is this.

Something like 40% of the worlds scientists research in the US.

Under the recent Bush administration spending on science has increased while the staffing of scientific posts has become politicised.

Some 19 postions of national repute have yet to filled due the BUsh administratoin blocking the recomendations of the scientists peers.

Rules for the debate -

No deviation from the issues above

Keep it civil.

One of the keys to scientific experiment and discovery is the avoidance of outside factors that could cause a shift in results. So this is an easy yes.

Yes, do keep politics out of science

My argument: the current debacle over stem-cell research

no, we need sciencists in the politic.
like the ones who tell that bush and her actions, ruin the earth and make hole at the atmosphere.
or the analists who tell that he the worst thing to the US economy in the last hundred years.
lets listen the sciencists. don't vote bush.
maybe the sciencists can rule better than the idiots who rule now. or at least, do an intilegence test for the ones who become politicians.
sure, we need to replace about half from them, but this worth it.

no, we need sciencists in the politic.
like the ones who tell that bush and her actions, ruin the earth and make hole at the atmosphere.
or the analists who tell that he the worst thing to the US economy in the last hundred years.
lets listen the sciencists. don't vote bush.
maybe the sciencists can rule better than the idiots who rule now. or at least, do an intilegence test for the ones who become politicians.
sure, we need to replace about half from them, but this worth it.

Yes, we need scientists in politics, but that wasn't the question.

The question was, should politics influence science. And the overwhelming answer is no, as this destroys the scientific method.

Politics should not influence science.

Since you can't copyright nature, the results of scientific work are in public domain and there's no financial incentive for private investments into science. That leaves the government as the primary source of money for scientists. The results of our experiments are not affected by politics but the yes-or-no decision to do an experiment is affected by politics.

Since you can't copyright nature, the results of scientific work are in public domain and there's no financial incentive for private investments into science. That leaves the government as the primary source of money for scientists. The results of our experiments are not affected by politics but the yes-or-no decision to do an experiment is affected by politics.
You can't copyright nature, but apparently you can patent it, if you can find a specific use for it. Genetic patterns have been patented, and that's scary in my view.

As to the original question, political ideology should never trump or influence scientific investigation. That's not the same as having government control over scientific investigation that could affect the public good--there's a reason that only the government does experimentation on things like the Ebola virus or nuclear weaponry, after all.

No, but keep religion out of it.

As a previous poster said, politics shouldn't influence the reporting of results or the method used to find them, but big science is too important and too expensive these days to exist in isolation. If scientists aren't prepared to play the political game, they'll get turned inside out.

Politics is the realm of bullshit and it should not touch science. Example: Bu$h and stemcells

Look, science is political. You cannot get around it. Meanwhile, trying to pretend that it is not, that it is unbiased or objective, just obscures the politics so that we can no longer deal with it.

Positivism itself, the dominant mode of 19th and 20th century science, is inherently conservative. While this is not much of an issue for the natural sciences, since physical laws are pretty much unchanging anyway, it is a HUGE problem when positivism is applied to the social sciences. In what sense is it inherently conservative? Well, its insistence on stating results in terms of predictions creates a bias, within the scientific community itself, for stability in human psychological and political nature. While human nature itself may be malleable, scientists -- whether they will admit it or not -- secretly hope to STOP it from changing... because if it does, all their predictive models go right out the window.

In my opinion, however, there is a worse political trend in the social sciences, in the form of what political scientists call "the behavioral revolution." Ironically, its conservatism -- and it is conservatism -- has a tendency to whittle away at the most noble features of human nature, replacing them with an emphasis on the sort of economic rationality that any self-respecting conservative should hate (although in the U.S. they somehow manage to get around this).

It may help if I provide an example to illustrate the point. In the sub-field of my discipline that we call "public law," research for most of its history has centered on the United States Supreme Court. Now, scientists in this field used to study case law and precedent to understand the evolution of law as law. As many of you already know, toward the beginning of this century the legal realist movement pointed out -- correctly -- that plenty of things besides the search for "good law" influence judges' decisions. In its most extreme statement, legal realism asserts that there is no "law," that precedent does not matter, and that justices are essentially free to do whatever they want.

Now, I have already said that this theory is correct -- it is foolish to think that judges are not influenced by personal interests and motives. However, the question of how much remains up for grabs. The first attempt to take the basic insight of the legal realists and apply it to the problem of prediction was the attitudinal model, which very simply states that a judge makes decisions based on his personal attitudes toward policy, law, etc. It is, in a way, a "dumb judge" model, in that it asserts that the judge will vote his policy preference regardless of circumstances.

Anyway, initial tests of this model showed that it has some predictive power (although it can be rightly criticized on a matter of circularity of argument, but I won't get into that). What is interesting from a political point of view, however, is that the Supreme Court seemed to become more attitudinal over time. From the early Courts, we have only anecdotal evidence of occasions when "policy mattered." By the middle of the twentieth century, after the attitudinal model had become popularized, it seemed that only policy mattered!!

What accounts for the shift? The legal realist theory and the attitudinal model themselves. How? Well, think about it. The old understanding of law emphasized a thorough knowledge of precedent and a certain skill at creating convincing legal arguments. Students go to law school, and they learn to win cases by continuous difficult study and practice in law as an art... and in a world like this, talent mattered--a lot. But as scientists began to realize that judges attitudes matter, they provided an immediate technique, a science of winning cases, viz. figure out a judge's policy preference and play to that. Note that it does not matter how big an influence on the judge his attitude might actually be, in order for using it to give a lawyer an edge. Note, moreover, that this technique is easier than the older legal arts.

So, lawyers begin to self-consciously play to judge's preferences, which in itself makes the preference a bigger factor in the decision. Further, these lawyers eventually became judges themselves... and understood law to be a matter of policy-making, so that this would be an even BIGGER influence on their own judgments. Behaviorism, in this way, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Briefly, the other political problem involved is the reduction of all motivations to the lowest common denominator. This is especially problematic in rational choice theory when approached from the scientific-realist approach--but mostly only because this approach is not treated honestly. Many rational choice theorists claim that ANY behavior can be explained as a rational choice between preferences. If someone does something selfless, or for the public good, they assert that the person must have a greater "preference" for such things than for personal interests. But since epistemological claims in the scientific realist approach are inherently non-falsifiable, they must be compelling to other people! The problem is that these RCT theorists are dishonest in their epistemology, and try to base their claims on the predictive power of RCT... which they cannot do, because they have already abandoned the epistemological position that makes this possible!! The result is that they degrade those noble intentions whose very nature, as we all know, is not one of "preference," but rather one of right or duty.


I have gone on for too long. To conclude, the point is that these inherent problems of the scientific method, when applied to social science, can only be solved by treating them as the political, ethical, and philosophical problems that they are. The solution is not less politics in science, since the social sciences are necessarily political. The solution is more and more honest politics in science.

yep scientists should be able to speak their mind, wheter politicians like it or not. Otherwise u've recreated the sovjet-union

Thanks for the posts so far...

Seems to me that there is a thought that politics ought not to be involved in science. That somehow it debases science.

Can those who are of that frame of mind provide examples?

I am glad that someone mentioned 'big science'. Yes those projects are huge, costly, and will have little direct impact on humanity. So how can one operate projects like that? Through government? Business? Or both?

How can such projects exist in each 'frame' (gov, biz, both) and what benefits would be gained compared to the costs. For example biz might not be interested in super massive particle accelerators but would be interested in gene mapping of species that could derive medicenes. What controls need to be placed on science? Politics? Law?

As for the really long post by AnarchyeL...

You say science is political and then procede to make a very good post that deals with social politics and thereby missing the point entirely. What is under debate is the interaction of elected officials of government and science, scientists and scientific institutions.

Politics should not be excluded from funding decisions. Taxpayers, via the political process, should have a say on how their money is spent.
But the relationship should be arms length: when politics starts dictating what scientific theories are acceptable you get bad science. Lysenkoism in the USSR was a disaster.
The current administration has a bad habit of politicising and dictating conclusions outside the sphere of their expertise, whether it be to the sciences, or to the CIA. This reduces the utility of the intelligence and scientific institutions.
Now the arms-length stance should go both ways. Political decisions are not scientific conclusions (though they may be informed by scientific conclusions), and they should not be treated as scientific conclusions. For example, whether genetically modified crops should be grown is not a scientific question. What sorts of threats, and to what degree do GM crops pose them, is a scientific question that is certainly relevant to the question of policy. But it is not the place of scientific institutions to dictate GM policy.
(From a pragmatic standpoint however, it is sensible for politicians to defer to scientists on some questions. Not every question merits a public debate).

Thanks for the posts so far...

Seems to me that there is a thought that politics ought not to be involved in science. That somehow it debases science.

Can those who are of that frame of mind provide examples?

I posted a link to the report on Bush's issues. Basically, anything where politics causes scientists to ignore relevant data to give a specific wanted result is no longer science.

I am glad that someone mentioned 'big science'. Yes those projects are huge, costly, and will have little direct impact on humanity. So how can one operate projects like that? Through government? Business? Or both?

What projects are we talking about? Many projects are huge and costly, but often will have quite a bit of direct impact on humanity.

Basically, projects funded by the public can obviously be voted on by the public. However, only politicians willing to be well-informed should be included in the vote. Thus, those that stick their fingers in their ears and say "Lalalala, scientists are evil" shouldn't vote.

However, politicians *cannot* vote on the conclusions that come out of these projects, not should they attempt to push the conclusion one way or another. This is tampering with the scientific process and will never end in good results.

Scientists already have political agendas, don't fool yourselves. Politics is embedded in science.

Doesn't mean I don't want to see it out of science, however--just like any religion.

I have gone on for too long. To conclude, the point is that these inherent problems of the scientific method, when applied to social science, can only be solved by treating them as the political, ethical, and philosophical problems that they are. The solution is not less politics in science, since the social sciences are necessarily political. The solution is more and more honest politics in science.Fascinating. On some thought, I would have to agree. I'm more familiar with the natural sciences, where most of these problems are not an issue. (Non-falsifiable claims do pop up. But modern physical theories are so philosophically unsettling and weird, that physicists are taking a very pragmatic approach, and many will ignore philosophical questions like "are electric fields real?" It helps that there tend not to be political or ethical problems in physics.)

Scientists already have political agendas, don't fool yourselves.Oh absolutely, no question. And that's appropriate: scientists are members of society, and have an important role to play in society.
Politics is embedded in science.Hmm. I'd agree with this, but there does appear to be an effort on the part of scientists to differentiate politics and science.
Doesn't mean I don't want to see it out of science, however--just like any religion.That may not be possible. Objectivity has really taking a beating in the past century: in mathematics with Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and with non-euclidean geometry, in physics with quantum mechanics, and earlier with equivalent formulations of physical theories that are superficially quite similar, and in politics. Intellectual honesty is probably the best you're going to be able to get.

In my opinion, however, there is a worse political trend in the social sciences...

The thing is, social sciences are inextricably combined with politics. Social sciences deal with people, their emotional development, and psychology before dealing with the nuts and bolts of things. I believe the thread here meant to refer to natural sciences, the nuts and bolts. I think that when we start talking about human motivations we move into what most people call "soft science". It's "hard science" that needs politics removed from it. Hard, scientific discoveries should not have to vie with some politician's agenda in order to study and discover something.

You say science is political and then procede to make a very good post that deals with social politics and thereby missing the point entirely. What is under debate is the interaction of elected officials of government and science, scientists and scientific institutions.

As if they are not related?

Politicians telling scientists what to do... well, that's what politics is. In a democracy, one hopes that the decisions somehow reflect a general consensus. But given that science itself is hopelessly political, it would be inherently undemocratic to let scientists simply do what they want. Why should scientists, and not the democracy, make such important decisions?

The thing is, social sciences are inextricably combined with politics. Social sciences deal with people, their emotional development, and psychology before dealing with the nuts and bolts of things. I believe the thread here meant to refer to natural sciences, the nuts and bolts. I think that when we start talking about human motivations we move into what most people call "soft science". It's "hard science" that needs politics removed from it. Hard, scientific discoveries should not have to vie with some politician's agenda in order to study and discover something.

Do you really think "discoveries" are non-political? Politics is a part of science, no matter how you look at it. It just happens to be much more obvious in the social sciences. But the physical sciences are no better. The entire experimental method is political, in that it both requires and justifies instrumental power over nature. (While Foucault concentrated on the human sciences, you cannot escape his insight, in Discipline and Punish that experimental science is linked to authoritarianism and absolutism in politics.

Politics must play a part in the roll of science... Otherwise what limitations would there be? I doubt the world of science is quite ready for self regulation. What would there be, without the intervention of politicians and governments, to prevent people from cloning humans? What would limit testing on humans and animals on the name of scientific research?

Those of you who voted yes are effectively giving science free range ;)

Equally, (I am diverting but it counts as an addition ;) ) science is needed in politics and society (I mean this in a social science level, not general science) such as sociology.

Three forces will always be needed to govern a country;

Government
Science
Religion

There are occasions where either science of religion are outlawed, or where religion is government, but lets face it, that is generally how things must be.

-Phil.

Some good stuff here.

I would like to say though that science is or should be completely objective.

Politics is subjective.

This is where the problem lies. Rather than allowing free reign to investigate, politics is a limiting factor.

Politics is sometimes necessary in science, but religion never is.
Science should be regulated by ethics, not morality. 'It's wrong because it can leads to needless suffering' is a much better reason to put a hold on certain research than 'It's wrong because god says so.' Stem-cell research potentially holds the key to curing all manner of diseases, such as Parkinson's, and the treatment of damage to nerve tissue in the body. A cure for paralysis; isn't that a goal worth pursuing? People like Bush are a threat to progress, willing to impede research on the basis of a flawed religious ideology based on conjecture and outdated morals that should have been abandoned long ago. The man is a zealot and a fool.
If science was still dictated by religion, we'd still be in the dark ages, believing we all descended from Adam and Eve and that the universe revolves around the Earth.

Politics is sometimes necessary in science, but religion never is.
Science should be regulated by ethics, not morality. 'It's wrong because it can leads to needless suffering' is a much better reason to put a hold on certain research than 'It's wrong because god says so.' Stem-cell research potentially holds the key to curing all manner of diseases, such as Parkinson's, and the treatment of damage to nerve tissue in the body. A cure for paralysis; isn't that a goal worth pursuing? People like Bush are a threat to progress, willing to impede research on the basis of a flawed religious ideology based on conjecture and outdated morals that should have been abandoned long ago. The man is a zealot and a fool.
If science was still dictated by religion, we'd still be in the dark ages, believing we all descended from Adam and Eve and that the universe revolves around the Earth.

I was hoping that ethics would come up in this thread.

Trying to explain the difference between ethics and morality is quite possibly one of the most difficult areas that I have encountered.

How does one balance ones morals and ethics in science....assuming that morals = politics?

I was hoping that ethics would come up in this thread.

Trying to explain the difference between ethics and morality is quite possibly one of the most difficult areas that I have encountered.

How does one balance ones morals and ethics in science....assuming that morals = politics?

Ethics are based more on our humanity, and our compassion. If something causes suffering, like cloning humans with our current level of technology could lead to terrible birth defects, it's considered wrong. Another human is suffering from it. However, cloning a human embryo to allow it only to develope into a small bundle of stem cells isn't considered ethically wrong, because it is not considered a life. It is just a bundle of cells, less cells in fact than you shed when you scratch your arm. Morality is calling this wrong because a human life is 'sacred.' There is no scientific reason to believe this, it is just based on a religious belief.

Hmm. I'd agree with this, but there does appear to be an effort on the part of scientists to differentiate politics and science.

Intellectual honesty is probably the best you're going to be able to get.

I don't think you're going to get intellectual honesty, even. Scientists are some of the worst people to be reading themselves and their own drives (even psychologists). They're not going to be able to discern if they're trying to discover or invent or prove something for their own gains, or for the sake of pure knowledge and human advancement.

They don't know how to differentiate between politics and science, when their own circles have their own politics. It's embedded, and they can't separate it. They may say that's what they're doing, but in reality, the scientific community's politics stay, even when trying to remove the national politics.

The issue under debate is this.

Something like 40% of the worlds scientists research in the US.

Under the recent Bush administration spending on science has increased while the staffing of scientific posts has become politicised.

Some 19 postions of national repute have yet to filled due the BUsh administratoin blocking the recomendations of the scientists peers.

Yes it should be.

My question-- is science any more politicised than before?

Ethics are based more on our humanity, and our compassion. If something causes suffering, like cloning humans with our current level of technology could lead to terrible birth defects, it's considered wrong. Another human is suffering from it. However, cloning a human embryo to allow it only to develope into a small bundle of stem cells isn't considered ethically wrong, because it is not considered a life. It is just a bundle of cells, less cells in fact than you shed when you scratch your arm. Morality is calling this wrong because a human life is 'sacred.' There is no scientific reason to believe this, it is just based on a religious belief.

Well call me a moron and cover me in feathers...

I looked up the definition of Ethics on Dictionary.com and it says that Ethics is the study of morality.

Yes it should be.

My question-- is science any more politicised than before?

No questions allowed :)

If we say yes then what is the impact upon objectivity?

If we say yes then what is the impact upon objectivity?

Or is it politicised in a way that runs contrary to accepted politics within the community? Hmmmm....

Or is it politicised in a way that runs contrary to accepted politics within the community? Hmmmm....

Like the Rennaissance? I believe the Catholic Church rather hated that....and they were the ruling political party at the time.

Sounds rather similar.

It seems to me that science is no more politicised than it was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Science and politics should interact, but the interaction should go one way only. If a scientific fact has an impact on policy then policy should take it into account. If politics tries to suppress or change science then science should be protected. Science deals with reason and objective fact. It's what separates us from the animals. It gives us the information we need to thrive. It must be protected and promoted.

There are inherent dangers when SCIENCE is CORRUPTED by IDEALOGY(politics).


Social Darwinism was introduced into the German scientific community at the end of the 19th century. Proponents of this theory contended that medical care had interrupted the natural struggle for existence by preserving the weak and that "defective" persons were reproducing faster than healthy ones (9, 10). Biologist Ernst Haeckel wrote that humans are not always bound to prolong life and proposed the establishment of a commission to determine which of the chronically ill should be put to death by poisoning (11). In 1915, psychiatry professor Alfred Hoche described the end of atomistic individualism and the transformation of the nation into a higher organism, the Volk (12, 13). This quasi-mystical image, later incorporated into Hitler’s world view, portrayed society as an organism with its own health and identified human beings as functional or dysfunctional parts of a larger whole (14, 15).

The political, social, and economic turmoil that followed Germany’s defeat in World War I radicalized many German professionals and created popular support for the idea of the Volk (15). After the war, eugenicists focused their concern on costly welfare programs, the care of injured veterans, the loss of valuable genetic stock through war, and the decline in birth rates among the elite (16, 17). In 1921, the German Society for Race Hygiene advocated a eugenics program in which voluntary sterilization was favored (18).

Nazi Transformation of the Medical Profession

Soon after rising to power in 1933, Hitler asked the German medical profession to address the "race question" (19). He took control of its professional organizations, restructured the medical schools and the Public Health Department (purging them of non-Aryans), and centralized the insurance and payment systems (20). Many physicians were attracted to Nazi ideology, and the medical profession had one of the highest rates of party membership of any profession (21). By 1936, 31% of Berlin’s non-Jewish physicians had joined the Nazi party, and rates of party membership were similar elsewhere in Germany (22, 23).

Financial incentives encouraged physicians to support the Nazi government. From 1927 to 1932, physicians’ average annual income had fallen by 27%, and many were unemployed (24). The inability of the preceding Weimar government to address this problem was countered by Nazi promises to restore the lost status of physicians (25). By 1935, physicians’ average taxable income had increased by 25% (21). Physicians were also induced to join the Nazi party because a spotless Nazi record was required for a government-sponsored practice (26).

Academic appointments and salary support in German medical schools depended on loyalty to the Nazi party, and Nazis of dubious professional attainment were appointed as rectors and deans (27). Instruction in eugenics became compulsory for medical students, and by 1935, students were required to wear Nazi uniforms and undergo Nazi indoctrination. Nazi medical propaganda was also directed at practicing physicians (20).

The Nazi Eugenic Sterilization Program

Although eugenic thought was easily appropriated by Nazi ideology (28, 29), the early eugenics movement was disengaged from party politics. Existing German law did not support eugenic sterilization, and before 1933, physicians who performed sterilizations for other than therapeutic reasons were sporadically prosecuted (30, 31). In 1932, before the Nazis took power, discussions among the German medical associations, the Reich Minister of the Interior, and the Prussian Health Council addressed the urgent economic need for compulsory sterilization (32). Five months into their rule, the Nazis enacted a law allowing the involuntary sterilization of persons with diseases thought to be hereditary, including schizophrenia, epilepsy, alcoholism, manic depression, hereditary deafness or blindness, severe hereditary physical deformity, Huntington chorea, and congenital feeblemindedness (33). The diagnosis of "feeblemindedness" was left largely to the discretion of the examiner (34). Although the law did not provide for sterilization on racial grounds, healthy Jews (35) and Gypsies (36) were nonetheless targeted.

Sterilization could be requested by physicians, guardians, or institutions and was authorized by hereditary health courts (29, 37). From 1933 to 1939, 360 000 to 375 000 persons were sterilized; of these operations, 37% were voluntary, 39% were involuntary (done against the person’s will), and 24% were nonvoluntary (consent was granted by a guardian for persons who could not choose or refuse sterilization) (38, 39).

Sustained resistance to the sterilization program by the medical profession was scarce and was largely organized by small groups of Marxist physicians (40). Although some physicians were moved by Hippocratic or religious principles to resist the program (41), others indiscriminately sought sterilization for some of their patients (21, 34, 42). The Roman Catholic church in Germany took a strong stand against the sterilization law. To avoid conflict, the Nazis decreed that Catholic judges would not be asked to preside over hereditary health courts, Catholic surgeons would not be required to perform sterilizations, and Catholic citizens deemed defective would be exempt from sterilization if they were institutionalized at the expense of family or church (43).

From Eugenic Sterilization to Involuntary Euthanasia

In 1920, Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding (a retired jurist and widely published legal scholar) published Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life as a solution to the economic burden of institutionalized mentally handicapped patients. "Unworthy life" referred to "those irretrievably lost through illness or injury" and the "incurably insane." They dismissed the Hippocratic oath as a vestige of "ancient times," insisting instead on the "standpoint of a higher civil morality" that considered the health of the state and abandoned the unconditional preservation of valueless lives (44).

The Nazi regime first discussed involuntary euthanasia in 1933 (45, 46). However, it was not until 1 September 1939 that Hitler ordered a program of involuntary "mercy killing" to commence with the start of World War II; he knew that the upheaval of war would diminish public resistance (47). Never sanctioned by law, this program was executed in relative secrecy by using such methods as starvation, injection of morphine, and asphyxiation by gassing (48). After strong opposition by Protestant and Catholic church leaders (49, 50), the program officially ended in 1941—after 70 253 persons had been put to death—but it continued in a limited manner until the war’s end (51). Karl Brandt, Hitler’s personal physician and the supreme medical authority in the Third Reich, testified at the Nuremberg trials that the euthanasia program to eliminate disabled children was a natural outgrowth of the 1933 sterilization law (52).

http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/132/4/312?

Psychologists funded by the US government, already wary of congressional meddling in peer-reviewed federal research grants, say they are now concerned that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), their primary source of federal support, is curtailing funding for social and behavioral sciences, areas traditionally considered integral to basic research in the field.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040930/03

Politics must play a part in the roll of science... Otherwise what limitations would there be? I doubt the world of science is quite ready for self regulation. What would there be, without the intervention of politicians and governments, to prevent people from cloning humans? What would limit testing on humans and animals on the name of scientific research?

Those of you who voted yes are effectively giving science free range ;)

Equally, (I am diverting but it counts as an addition ;) ) science is needed in politics and society (I mean this in a social science level, not general science) such as sociology.

Three forces will always be needed to govern a country;

Government
Science
Religion

There are occasions where either science of religion are outlawed, or where religion is government, but lets face it, that is generally how things must be.

-Phil.

Regulation is not the same as politicization. If regulation is based in fact, it is simply that, regulation. However, politicization often involves regulation based on emotive pleas that are not based in fact. It also involves making policy based on fringe science simply because the politicians like what those with less evidence are saying.

When a president fires scientific advisors because he wasnts his scientists to tell him that pollution doesn't hurt anyone, despite what the evidence shows, that is politicization. When an administration tells scientists that they cannot publish on certain things for reasons other than national security (in this case the only reason can be to keep the population ignorant of the truth), that is politicization. *This* is where politics should stay out of science.

Politics is a science of government. But science is something you learn through experience(mistakes, what works what does not). Societies have not been up to par on learning from their mistakes imho.

No, politics should not be excluded from science. If the anyone is conducting Nuclear Research that has the inevitable effect of creating more nuclear bombs, it the obligation of the polititions to either stand for or agaisnt allowing that. (hopefully agaisnt that last thing we need si privately own nucs)

Yes and No

The poll is there.

The issue under debate is this.

Something like 40% of the worlds scientists research in the US.

Under the recent Bush administration spending on science has increased while the staffing of scientific posts has become politicised.

Some 19 postions of national repute have yet to filled due the BUsh administratoin blocking the recomendations of the scientists peers.

Rules for the debate -

No deviation from the issues above

Keep it civil.

Politics and science are a great mix :rolleyes: unfortunately, the result is not science but scientific politics purported as science.

only scientists who are democrats, republicans,
libertarians, even socialists, independents, etc, etc.
so we can have a real smart inteligent government.

Ooh.. Too subjective.

I would go for no. Politics should be included in Science, based on ethics. If you consider politics meaning being having ethics. Because there's always some madman in a basement trying to make a supervirus.

Religion, well, there's both ways as well. There's the Albert Einsteins ' Religion without science bla bla ' and the backward Amish.

IS there any SCIENCE on political agendas?

I have seen these studys, but they are rather one sided and perhaps biased:



Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 22 July 2003 (revised 7/25/03)

BERKELEY – Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

Fear and aggression

Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity

Uncertainty avoidance

Need for cognitive closure

Terror management
"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml



Suicide rises under conservative rule.
Alienation may run higher in societies driven by competitive market forces.

A nation's suicide rate increases under right-wing governments according two studies that have looked at Australia and Britain over the past century.

Alienation and isolation may run higher in societies driven by competitive market forces, suggest the teams behind the findings. Left-wing rule, focusing more on equality, might put people under less pressure.

Governments should consider their role in public health beyond spending, says social scientist Mary Shaw of the University of Bristol, UK. "We need to look not just at the immediate biomedical factors affecting health, but also how we organize society," she says.

In New South Wales, Australia, suicides soared when federal and state governments were Conservative, a team at the University of Sydney has found1. They were lowest when the Labour Party ruled both.

The researchers accounted for the effects of drought, both world wars, and the availability of sedatives. Even so, men and women were 17 and 40 per cent more likely to take their own lives, respectively, with conservatives in power.

http://www.nature.com/news/2002/020916/full/020916-17.html

No, politics should not be excluded from science. If the anyone is conducting Nuclear Research that has the inevitable effect of creating more nuclear bombs, it the obligation of the polititions to either stand for or agaisnt allowing that. (hopefully agaisnt that last thing we need si privately own nucs)
Let's separate pure science from technology. If a scientist is doing research into physics that could be used to make nukes, but also holds insight into the laws of physics and the origin of the universe he should not be stopped by politicians. If he plans to use that knowledge to build a bigger bomb, and the government doesn't want that, then they can step in to halt construction.

No, politics should not be excluded from science. If the anyone is conducting Nuclear Research that has the inevitable effect of creating more nuclear bombs, it the obligation of the polititions to either stand for or agaisnt allowing that. (hopefully agaisnt that last thing we need si privately own nucs)

And again, regulation is not the same as politicization.

Politicization would be George Bush only listening to scientists who said that nuclear war wouldn't wipe out most of the life on the planet so that he could justify building more nukes.

Saying "only scientists who pass x security checks and don't share technology with unauthorized people get to work on this very dangerous technology" is regulation, not politicization.

Scientists already have political agendas, don't fool yourselves. Politics is embedded in science.
Perhaps some, but you're obviously not familiar with science then. Many scientists research just for research's sake. There is a thrill in sceintific study that drives true scientists on. Sure, politics must influence science in the fact that funding must some from somewhere, but politics is not "embedded in science". And, I swear, when I get out of school and go into the science field, I'm not going to have a political agenda. Science is more influential in politics than vice versa. What scientists can and can not do determines what the government can and can not do in many cases. Take the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples. Take chemical control of pests as an example. There are so many ways that science influences politics and government that people don't normally realise, and I can barely even get into them now.

In order that politics be fully excluded from influencing the scientific community, the government should discontinue all funding of scientific research. It is a corrupting influence.

But politics does have a role in determine how scientific results are to be used.

Perhaps some, but you're obviously not familiar with science then.


I'll disagree with you on that point, since that's what I used to do--physics.


Many scientists research just for research's sake. There is a thrill in sceintific study that drives true scientists on. Sure, politics must influence science in the fact that funding must some from somewhere, but politics is not "embedded in science". And, I swear, when I get out of school and go into the science field, I'm not going to have a political agenda. Science is more influential in politics than vice versa. What scientists can and can not do determines what the government can and can not do in many cases. Take the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples. Take chemical control of pests as an example. There are so many ways that science influences politics and government that people don't normally realise, and I can barely even get into them now.

I did mention in a later post that national politics may be pushed aside in scientific circles, but their own politics won't. Publish or perish, remember? Scientists try to prove what they want to prove, and a great many times don't release information that could prove the opposite (or some other result) of what they're trying to prove. The ethics question pops up a great deal with science.

In order that politics be fully excluded from influencing the scientific community, the government should discontinue all funding of scientific research. It is a corrupting influence. Your point seems to me to be a bit EXTREME. There are better solutions than such a reactionary approach. You might be surprised to know that GOVERNMENT funded research is secondary to INDUSTRY funded research...

But politics does have a role in determine how scientific results are to be used. YES but political views are NOT scientific and should NOT be allowed to EDIT scientific conclusions such as when the Bush administration has modified several scientific reports including those pertaining to Global Climate Change. This trend is DANGEROUS.

The new cases released by the Union of Concerned Scientists detail incidents of suppression and distortion of scientific knowledge on issues ranging from mountaintop removal strip mining to endangered species. Included in these additional cases are numerous new accounts of political interference with independent scientific advisory panels, most notably at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under the Department of Health and Human Services. The new cases are available at www.ucsusa.org/rsi




ADDITIONAL REFERENCE:
Report says questioning scientists about politics and policy is 'inappropriate'



It is "inappropriate" to ask scientists being considered for federal government advisory committees their political affiliations, voting records, or positions on particular policies, according to a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report released yesterday (November 17). Scientists, engineers, and health professionals nominated to serve on government advisory committees "should be selected for their scientific and technical knowledge and credentials and their professional and personal integrity," said John E. Porter, chairman of the NAS panel.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20041118/02

When a president fires scientific advisors because he wasnts his scientists to tell him that pollution doesn't hurt anyone, despite what the evidence shows, that is politicization. When an administration tells scientists that they cannot publish on certain things for reasons other than national security (in this case the only reason can be to keep the population ignorant of the truth), that is politicization. *This* is where politics should stay out of science.

I think politics in the broadest sense of the word is inseperable from science. What I mean by this is that the squeekiest wheel (the most calamitous prediction) gets the grease (research dollars and media attention).