[gizmo686]

>I don't think the disagreement in the case of the memo is about facts.

Neither do I, see footnote 2. However, the article this thread is responding to was talking about factual decisions, so I stuck with that assumption.

>At this point, I think more and more scientists would prefer that science just be left out of politics.

By all means, leave politics out of science [0], but we need science to inform are politics. Otherwise, we just get more of the raw ideology that is the very reason you don't like politics.

Science should not be left to just the scientists. They do the hard work of collecting data and running experiments. But mostly, they end up answering very specific questions with varying degrees of confidence. Once they have those answers, they guess at broader implications. These are informed guesses, based on their knowledge of other highly specific results and thinking that others have done. However, this latter part of science is far more accessible than most people realize. So, instead of actually engaging with the science, they simply appeal to the scientists. This is made even worse because they are attempting to understand the conclusion without the argument, and so will tend to misunderstand. Further, since the general public almost never engages with the actual science, politicians and activists have near free reign to misrepresent the results.

[0] Mostly, the question of what to study should be a political one, but politics is so corrupting that I see no problem giving scientists a lot of insulation from it.

[xaa]

Right. I read your footnote, but if indeed the disagreement is based on "misunderstanding", it is a willful misunderstanding. Damore's opponents appear to me to not even have tried to understand his argument. They are not even attempting to engage the argument and failing; they're just not trying. The conclusion is heretical, therefore the reasoning must be wrong...somewhere. I say this as one who doesn't know and doesn't care about this argument, I just worry very much about the free speech implications.

> but we need science to inform are politics. Otherwise, we just get more of the raw ideology that is the very reason you don't like politics.

Well, I do like politics, in the sense that I think it is a fascinating window into the most irrational sides of human behavior. But politics is far more powerful as a cultural force than science is. Politics appeals to the most tribal instincts in humans.

Yes, it would be wonderful for science to inform politics. To have a president and Congress who would look at the facts and make decisions based on those facts, which neither a Democratic or Republican administration would really do. So the best we can hope for is for politics not to infect science while we wait for science to make these silly arguments irrelevant, if indeed it does.

For example, I will note that the Obama administration, despite all its lip service to climate change, never did realize the simple fact that modern civilization requires energy, and it will consume the cheapest form of that energy available, and therefore green energy will only win if and when it becomes cheaper than fossil fuels. When researchers make green energy cheaper, I predict Republicans will, as if by magic, lose all their skepticism and reservations about climate change, and the left will abandon their unrealistic talk about emissions caps, and it will all become a non-issue.