Its not about how science is devolving, its about the politicization of science: people using science as a lever for an end goal without caring much about the actual science. Political ideology, left or right is not particularly helpful in the current debate on climate change.
Being a social construct science can not exist in a society w/o being socially influenced. When science is politicized and used to support ideologies supported by the polity (state), it in turn decides what "science" is taught and often funded. In most Western democracies the basic education system is state run and therefore politicized by default. Universities, even departments have there own "politics" which if you deviate from enough you don't get a job. When the researchers being hired in a field are filtered out by their politics it undermines a basic premise of science. Perhaps I'm wrong but I think we mean mostly the same thing but are just saying it differently.
Most people view the left and right as a linear scale. I see it more like a circle with communism on the extreme left and fascism on the extreme right ending up being much the same thing in a different guise. In both cases the world of politics and economic endeavor are completely controlled by one group. They hate each other so much because they are exactly the same and thus occupy the exact same niche. They are both equally unsustainable.
The best is when there is some sort of balance of power between the 'left' social and the 'right' economic/business. The Scandinavian countries seem to do this balancing trick the best and have both strong social programs and strong economies.
I agree completely, but would add that it doesn’t have to be and usually isn’t a dichotomy. We’re just use to seeing it that way.
That is not a failure of science, but a failure of the application of science. There are also branches of every scientific area that examine large scale systems.
Sometimes, very simple science can quite elegantly explain seemingly complex things. Robotics have done some really cool things in understanding some basic bug behavior by putting together robots with as little as 6 simple pieces of decision making logic.
We as a species have a bias toward the simple and immediate that leads to a failure in the application of things discovered by 'science'.
I agree with everything but the first part. I agree that science is misapplied for various reasons however, I don't see it as just a misapplication but rather an inherent "flaw" in that science by it's nature is deconstructionist. Science must deconstruct the universe to understand it since it's improbable that one could understand everything all at one. So I see no other way for science to operate than to dole out "knowledge" as it becomes available even when some might want it suppressed. The result is sometimes unintended consequences that the level of research had yet to uncover.
Again, this is the politicization of science, this time by the left.
The political left has seized upon CO2 as its big stick and has chosen it as its primary weapon in the war-on-climate. The world of science has known about the risks/issues of methane as a greenhouse gas for quite a while.
The short term suppression of 'contradictory' evidence in the scientific community is a short term issue that deserves to be brought to light and corrected. The right wing claim that it is 'smoking gun' proof that all climate science is false is yet another politicization of science. The right's next big stick in the war.
I agree that this is the politicization of science but much of this politicization is being done by "scientists" themselves when they sign public policy petitions, and speak or publish advocating policy.
It is a tool. No more, no less. It needs to be applied properly and judiciously to help us better understand our place in this world and how to best manage it. Pure science is the best tool for figuring out the how of things. Applied science is an art that requires pulling together multiple disciplines to achieve a goal or objective.
I find the tool analogy of science wanting. It presupposed that science inanimate like a hammer and it's the wielder who imparts intent. However, science is not inanimate it's social and can not by it's nature exist outside a social/cultural context of it‘s wielders. So there is IMO (and the opinion of sociologist who study science) that no such thing as a pure science devoid of cultural/ideological biases can exist.
Science can only be declared the "best tool for figuring out the how of things" if one defines what is "best." That's just a sort of circular reasoning. Since we don't know what the outcome of our "scientific" societies is, it's hard for me to quantify what's best. In the short run science rocks my living room with 9.2 sound and 134" screen, but if I'm dead or living underground with a few other survivors 5 years from now because the atmosphere passed some unknown tipping point we've missed I might want to re-evaluate what is “best.”
Truth seems to be a hard concept to grasp. We all seem to want a 'hard' truth that will stay with us forever. That only works for a limited few things like, say, dead.
For most things, the truth is a moving target. At times it can change radically based on new information or dicovouries.
Truth is also often a filtered perspective on reality. Your position affects the nature of a 'truth'.
There was a really interesting article in Scientific American a couple of years ago on what the universe looks like. Our view of it is often very limited by our visual bias.
I’m in complete agreement.
