Navigating the Tensions between Science and Politics

Just like all people, scientists have their own morals and political ideologies. But how do those values influence their work? What are the potential ramifications of science mixing with politics? 

John Staddon is an emeritus professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and the author of numerous books. His works like Science in an Age of Unreason and Scientific Method: How Science Works, Fails to Work, and Pretends to Work examine the history of the scientific field and the challenges it faces today from becoming overly entangled with politics. 

John and Greg discuss the importance of distinguishing facts from values in scientific inquiry, how scientific consensus is often mistaken for truth, and the need for scientists to maintain objectivity despite societal pressures. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

Is modern society abandoning the distinction between balance and fact?

04:59: Science itself cannot be racist. A fact is either true or false. There’s no moral element to simply a fact. There are younger people now, who simply cannot accept that a fact is just a fact. Now, you may react to it one way or another depending on your value system, but the fact by itself is not racist or not racist. So, this is a very serious problem, I think, in modern society because a lot of people have completely abandoned this distinction between fact and value. And it's wrecking, not nuclear physics or electronics, but it's wrecking the human sciences. 

Suppressing a fact can be just a harmful as promoting a lie

07:04: Logic tells you suppressing a fact can be just as harmful as promoting a lie, and indeed, suppressing a fact will often lead to promoting a lie as a substitute for it. So, you've just gotta keep them [emotions and judgment of the truth or falsity of facts] separate.

When uncertainty is the only honest answer in science

13:54: One should be more skeptical of social science because it's much harder to obtain a definitive result. [14:13]: So the really only honest response is to say, "I don't know." The problem is that society doesn't want to say, "I don't know." 

Are there too many scientists and too many scientific journals, with too much effort invested in the sciences?

22:19: Success in science, a lot of it's luck. You happen to be in an area where there's a problem that can be solved, and the opportunity comes, and you solve it. But it's certainly not true that by sheer effort you can find a fertile area. So that's one problem. The other problem, well, there are a number of points to make. One other one is that science is not a manufacturing process. It's like widgets, you know. If you want to double the number of people making widgets, you've got to double the number of widgets. Science is not like that. It has to be solvable problems. But if you double the number of scientists and the number of available problems is not doubled, you've got a problem because they've got to find something to do, and so on, and you're liable to generate as much noise as knowledge. 

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• J.D. Bernal 
• The Art of Scientific Investigation by William Ian Beveridge
• The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
• Trofim Lysenko
• Jerry Coyne
• Richard Dawkins
• Alvin Weiberg
• B. F. Skinner
• Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey 
• Alan Greenspan

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at Duke University

His Work:

• Science in an Age of Unreason
• The New Behaviorism: Second Edition 
• Scientific Method: How Science Works, Fails to Work, and Pretends to Work
• Unlucky Strike: Private Health and the Science, Law and Politics of Smoking
• The Englishman: Memoirs of a Psychobiologist
• Adaptive Dynamics: The Theoretical Analysis of Behavior 
• The Malign Hand of the Markets: The Insidious Forces on Wall Street that are Destroying Financial Markets – and What We Can Do About it