PalMD has a post, Science is politics. I would respond that science is normative. Or, more precisely, the practice of science intersects naturally with our normative presuppositions. There's a big universe out there, and the stuff we study is skewed toward topics which interest humans. For example, there's a whole science, anthropology, devoted to humans. Why? Well, because we humans think we're mighty important. This isn't a scientific assessment. You could reply that we are important in terms of how we impact the biosphere, but privileging the biosphere of the third planet in the Sol system is also showing your value cards!
In sciences with a very applied human focus such as medicine the normative dimension looms large. That's why there's a whole field termed bioethics. In contrast, though Spinoza attempted to derive ethics from physical and mathematical principles, it seems that physical and mathematical ethics is a much more constrained field (usually it is to the effect of "Does experiment X entail a small chance that the universe will explode?"). It wasn't always so, as the apocryphal tale of the drowning of the individual who proved the existence of irrational numbers illustrates.
Some science is purely abstract and intellectual, for example String Theory (at least for now, there is a tendency for "pure" science to become "applied" science after a latency of several decades). But as the NIH, DoD and DoE can tell you much of science has utility in terms of the human condition. And because of this it ultimately speaks to what our conception of the Good Life is. And of course our model of the Good Life is a normatively charged construct.
There are differences in political orientation by scientific discipline. But I don't think this has much direct causal relationship between the nature of a science and the nature of an ideology. Rather, as the data which shows that geologists are likely to be Republican illustrates there are more banal social and economic variables which can explain the associations.
Note: You're a fucking retard if you think any of the above implies that science is just another superstition or story :-)
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I sense that the final note is a preemptive effort to keep the "retards" from clogging up your comments. Good luck, and you might recommend the technique to PZ Myers; Pharyngula seems to be a magnet for clueless commenters these days.
I sense that the final note is a preemptive effort to keep the "retards" from clogging up your comments
well, i know some people will take the post as an excuse to go on a masturbatory rant against post-modernism. there are places for such flatulence, but i'm not interested in the subtle flavors of other people's verbal farts.
I appreciate the post. Mine wandered off a bit and ended up becoming rather, er, controversial, but not because of the philosophical implications.
ah, sorry about the misattribution. fixed. just got used to denialism being all mark all the time :-)
Don't worry, i don't care about attribution. I just like to see cross blog talk.
well, i'll talk if i have anything to say :-) to be honest i tried to engage in more blog cross talk when there were fewer scienceblogs, but kind of overwhelming keeping track of it all now aside from peaks as the front page.
Your post and PaIMD's do not contradict one another though. Science is both politics and normative.
However, surely the practice of science is predetermined by our normative presuppositions. We humans are pretty important and interesting to humans so we try to study humans scientifically. We study and invent sciences for human emotional reasons but what we learn from those sciences applies universally.
Incidentally, is string theory yet scientific? Is something so purely abstract and intellectual that it cannot be tested a scientifc theory?
Your post and PaIMD's do not contradict one another though. Science is both politics and normative.
yes. politics ⊂ norms.
e study and invent sciences for human emotional reasons but what we learn from those sciences applies universally.
"reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions"
-hume
Incidentally, is string theory yet scientific? Is something so purely abstract and intellectual that it cannot be tested a scientifc theory?
if math is science, then it is science. if not, then it is debatable IMO.
In my eyes, until string theory has experimental verification (or at least experimental claims), no it's not science, or at least not physics (whether math is science is another question). Doesn't mean we shouldn't keep working on it in the hopes of getting some type of experimental verification on it, but that needs to be the goal. The problem is that it's been a few decades and it hasn't happened yet. There are now seemingly some string theorists who now claim that they don't need that experiment thing after all, which would make it pure math. But what do I know I'm just a grad student in phys hehe.
I'm not sure I agree with your final assesment that seems to imply that scientist's political affiliation is determined by and large by political self-interest. While for geologists I guess it makes sense to be republican (oil, mining), or for a biologist to be democrat (anti-creationism, stem cells), what about mathematicians or physicists? I don't think either of them have any more of a stake then any other middle-class american, since their science isn't directly impacted by repub/democratic policies (at least in theory, neither of them are anti-science, unless it's evolution). And yet I'm pretty sure most math/physics people are liberals, and certainly voting for obama this election.
Could it be the infamous liberal bias towards reality? :)
I can't see how science is normative in the sense you indicate (by pointing that Wikipedia section).
Outside the medical sciences, I suspect very few scientists regard their job as a moral duty. I believe the major impetus behind science is plain old curiosity. You've got an irritating little riddle called "The Universe" (or, more often, some obscure, minuscule component of it), and you're trying to solve it.
To me, it's about as "normative" as scratching an itch.
I have to agree with toto, and to expand on it, I think we have to first establish what we're talking about as "science," a difficult question. I think that science ends with the results and a statement on their interpretation. Any further comment on their moral implication or policy prescription is not science. Of course, humans are normative in pretty much everything they do--as Razib is arguing, and science is something that humans do, but is does not follow then that "science is normative." Science can make no comment on what is "the good life." Even for something like smoking, which science has demonstrated increases risks for lung cancer, heart disease and death, the scientific results do not imply that "smoking is bad." Science makes no moral pronouncements, only statements on what we think is reality. It is up to the human element to make those normative decisions about whether we should stop smoking or even whether lung cancer--or death!--is something to avoid.
Could it be the infamous liberal bias towards reality? :)
since engineering is the most abstract and least reality-based scientific discipline that might explain why it is far more republican than the natural sciences, huh?
guys, i wrote: Or, more precisely, the practice of science intersects naturally with our normative presuppositions.
That shows about a 10% difference between physics and engineering, it's hardly a major shift. I think that much is easily explained by the much closer connection in general between engineers and business (which for obvious reasons is more towards conservatism), compared to physics.
And interestingly, if anything mathematicians are actually more conservative (although also a bit more liberal) than physics. Are we now also going to claim that math is less abstract and reality-based then physics? I don't see arguments over this much of a difference in attitudes as all that relevant.
I put that last bit a bit tongue-in-cheek for fun, but my basic argument is that there is a propensity towards liberalism in academics which it seems is not explained through rational self-interest, like you seemed to claim.