It would be nice if scientists started being just scientists again instead of activists. Hopefully being cloistered on bluesky will bring the old vibes back
X is not politically neutral, Elon openly talks about recalibrating Grok whenever it says something too liberal like recent discussions about gun violence.
Scientists should embrace decentralization and use Mastodon in my opinion. Bluesky will meet the same fate as Twitter and X one day
Well, in Europe you get stabbed. Or hit deliberately by a car. Or just thrown before an incoming train.
Shit happens everywhere... what's the difference?
And we also have school shootings in Europe. Less than USA, granted! But they exist.
The typical political axis is liberty/freedom on one end vs. safety/security on the other end. And this is exactly one of those cases where having the liberty to bear arms reduces safety.
Words have never had stable definitions in politics. Thucydides wrote about that over two thousand years ago, and nothing has charged or will change in that regard.
It’s basically impossible to make a career as a scientist these days without constantly promoting yourself and your work unfortunately. It’s very tiring and makes it difficult to focus on science. This is one of the reasons I changed careers.
Unfortunately science is unavoidably a political hot topic. Climate change denialism is the norm in the United States, we've somehow decided Tylenol causes autism in the past week, etc.
If you think either of those represent any meaningful portion of science you need to re-evaluate your understanding of science because it’s based on a layman’s perspective.
If you’re not actually involved in science you only see the scientists making news, which disproportionately selects for politically intersecting areas of research.
When I was working at a major US research university in the early 2000s, it was a big deal if the scientific publications got any mainstream press at all.
Countless papers push the boundaries of science in major journals and conferences every year and you never hear about them because they have no political implications and usually no immediate practical applications.
That's true, but the other professions don't tend to be associated with (or clearly vindicate) the “above-the-crowd/holier-than-thou” attitude – and I say that as an ex-scientist, for the same reason (among others) as the poster above.
It is 100% allowed, I just don't think it's really helpful or beneficial for them or society
Especially when they try to lean on their status as scientists in order to try and have their opinions be more influential.
The cdc for example saying it's ok to disregard their previous guidance in order to protest for black lives matter is one of these credibility damaging moments that is hard to undo.
So nobody is allowed to use their notoriety to amplify their posts?
No more athletes, musicians, artists, whatever. Everyone must be anonymous. Or is it strictly scientists who are not allowed to post if their profession is known?
> The cdc for example saying it's ok to disregard their previous guidance in order to protest for black lives matter
That’s… not what they said? They said it was probably relatively safe to attend a protest because it was happening outdoors and Covid spread mostly through accumulated aerosols. It turned out to be good guidance: practically no one gets Covid that way unless a sick person is actively coughing on them.
The “I am an expert, so listen to me drone about some political topic that’s vaguely related to my expertise” has been a thing for years now. And it’s usually some controversial thing that doesn’t have to do with science anyway.
In general, it makes scientists look really naive and makes them lose credibility when they talk about actual science.
If a person is an expert on a topic then it makes sense for them to have a higher probability of being correct.
>And it’s usually some controversial thing that doesn’t have to do with science anyway.
What evidence do you have that most scientists are giving opinions about things unrelated to their expertise and then stating you should trust them more due to their expertise or position?
Yes, that’s the typical argument but the problem is that they veer way out of their lane. And their lane is in reality very narrow and academically focused.
When these experts go into politics and activism, their biases show and consequently the credibility of them and their unfortunate colleagues who don’t go into politics get lowered.
> What evidence do you have that most scientists are giving opinions about things unrelated to their expertise and then stating you should trust them more due to their expertise or position?
Jordan Peterson comes to my mind. Although I have no respect for his opinions at all, I still think that, in the end, scientists have their political views and should be allowed to talk about them. What they shouldn't be allowed is to insinuate that these views are anything other than their personal views. Hate speech and political extremism should also not be allowed because these damage the reputation of their university.
Other than that, I don't think it's right to tell them not to use their status to influence politics and society towards what they perceive as making the world better. On the contrary, they might have some duty to do just that.
> The cdc for example saying it's ok to disregard their previous guidance in order to protest for black lives matter is one of these credibility damaging moments that is hard to undo.
AFAIK, the CDC itself made no such official statement, but many prominent figures in public health, including a former CDC director [0], said just that.
> The cdc for example saying it's ok to disregard their previous guidance in order to protest for black lives matter is one of these credibility damaging moments that is hard to undo.
Yep, there it is. You’re just upset that they don’t have your opinions.
Maybe the parent is lamenting how some people post a lot of interesting scientific content, but also a whole lot of other content on topics that they are not interested in, and unfortunately most social networks require following all aspects of a person and not just the parts that interest you.
Google+ had it right where you can follow just a community, and also you can selectively make your participation in certain communities visible in your public profile. I am not sure if Bluesky or Mastodon have something similar.
Literally true, perhaps. But have you ever noticed how reluctant non-scientist professionals are to voice opinions in their chosen fields? Lawyers preface everything with "not your lawyer", "not my area of practice...", "I'd have to look into the details of that case...", etc. Accountants similarly. Doctors similarly. Engineers similarly. Vs. it seems to be accepted practice for a nuclear physicist to speak ex cathedra about epidemiology, climatology, etc.
Ok but if I'm a radiologist opining about social media, I'm no longer practicing science. I'm just some guy with an opinion.
"Scientists say..." is becoming just another "studies show...". You can always find a scientist or a study or an "expert" to push whatever agenda the media outlet has.
Simply expressing the fact that climate change is happening is considered “activism” by some folks (and especially on X).
Asking them to “not be activists” is really a request for them to self police their speech in a way that fits their worldview.
This is not restricted to scientists by the way. Just look at the different response to how the NFL handled Charlie Kirk’s death with official moments of silence vs. Colin Kaepernick kneeing for police brutality. One is supported, one is suppressed.
Lack of self control or awareness. People make the mistake of thinking that because they are informed on one topic that happens to be political that their opinions on other political topics are relevant.
I’m fine seeing scientists arguing for the importance of science on social media. I don’t want to hear rants about LGBTQ+ people from geologists.
Why should a LGBTQ+ geologist not talk about LGBTQ+ stuff. That makes no sense. Scientists are human, they have the same attributes as other humans, sex and politics among them.
Why don't scientists publish anonymously? We already have double-blind peer review. This seems like such an obvious idea, there must be some issue.
Authors can still get reputation, recognition, and compensation for their papers, without people knowing who wrote what paper, via public/private keys and blockchain. Every time an author publishes a paper, they generate a new address and attach the public key to it. Judges send awards (NFTs) and compensation to the key without knowing who holds it, and if the same award type is given to multiple papers, authors can display it without anyone knowing which paper is theirs.
With LLMs even writing style can be erased (and as a side effect, the paper can be written in different formats for different audiences). Judges can use objective criteria so they can't be bribed without others noticing; in cases where the paper is an algorithm and the criteria is a formal proof, the "judge" can be a smart contract (in practice I think that would be a small minority of papers, but it would still be hard for a judge to nominate an undeserving paper while avoiding skeptics, because a deserving paper would match the not-fully-objective criteria according to a wide audience). Any other potential flaws?
1. It's a very small community and peer review is even hard. Think about it this way: what do you think two physicist colleagues talk about at a conference? How do you know who to talk to to collaborate on a problem? (Yes, people still talk voice about problems.)
2. Labs are specialized. You choose a lab to work at based on what they're working on. How are you going to choose where to spend your Ph.D or postdoc if you don't know what the lab is working on and how productive it is?
3. We are all still humans. We are wired to know the social systems around us. This would be an entire charade.
Ok, then scientists can form groups where they know each other, but publish anonymously outside those groups.
It doesn't solve all the issues, but it at least allows scientists to be "activists" (really just share their opinions like any other human) without affecting their credibility. Even if they're doxxed, they can eventually regain anonymity, because eventually other scientists with different views will publish papers on the same subject, and people can only distinguish who published what by its content.
Right now, scientists can share their opinions anonymously. This works well enough, except they can't share them in-person except to others they trust; and if they get doxxed, they can't remove their old posts from the name on their papers.
Those may not be the solutions, but the problem certainly exists. I'm in academia and even I'll admit it has a lot of nepotism. People who are famous or infamous are identified despite peer-review (stylometry and subject) and the reviewers are biased for or against them. Also see comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45396377#45396617: "It’s basically impossible to make a career as a scientist these days without constantly promoting yourself and your work unfortunately". If attaching your name to a paper becomes taboo, perhaps promotion will be less important, and if results can be judged algorithmically, definitely so.
So firstly most scientists already aren't really activists in any meaningful way, it seems like you're implying most are on twitter/bluesky doing activism and the vast majority aren't really. Secondly I'm confused who people think should be able to be activists in a democracy? Scientists seem like a good candidate for people that should do activism in a healthy democracy.
I feel like scientists should be explaining to us how the world is, and then other people should use those explanations to try and improve it.
Right now I feel like there are a scientists who would hide or discard results if they contradicted their advocacy beliefs,which is a dangerous place to be imo.
That's how it works. I think people for some reason don't understand policy making. The CDC conducts research and studies, pulls data, performs analysis, and then provides guidance based on it.
It enacts no rules, laws, or regulations. That's done by policy makers who can listen to or ignore the guidance and data from the CDC at their discretion.
No, it's not. Good science requires objective thinking and evidence-based reasoning. Claims must be proven, not accepted based on authority or prima facie evidence.
Unfortunately, social media or whatever has changed science communication. A scientist can do amazing science, have total evidence based reasoning and then be completely ignored because some quack tells a good story on Rogan.
That doesn’t matter and it’s not any different than 20 years ago. New findings could be published in medical journals that nobody in the public hears about and some quack on Howard Stern could spew to millions.
You might be confusing activists with volunteers. Those who donate their time and money are not necessarily vocal about their pet projects. I'm part of the latter and do not consider myself an activist.
Absolutely not. A scientist is expected to change their mind when new, counterfactual evidence is presented. Activists push for positions regardless of whether any evidence exists to support their position, and seem to maintain their position even when presented with counterfactual evidence. That is not science. We have a name for it: dogma.
Wait a second, if you’re saying that this is not a feature of good activism, are you implying you are more convinced by activists who practice dogma over objective thinking?
What is a scientist to do when they discover a vaccine or cure for something; say fuck it who cares if we change behavior? Are you saying a good vaccine advocate is someone who ignores the underlying science and acts dogmatically?
It just feels like you want to demonize this action of activism for… why? Just because there are lots of bad activists? There are a lot of bad scientists as well, to be honest the view of “good scientist” and “bad activist” feels dogmatic.
I have yet to observe an activist practice objective thinking. That was the root of the argument. Activists sometimes do back the correct argument, but not because they are practising scientific reasoning. Most activists are swayed by rhetoric, a good story. That's an emotional response, not a logical one.
To answer your second point, science has a process for disseminating new findings. It's not perfect, but it works. Organizations that scientists work for do pay attention to those sources, discoveries do get patented and productionized. I encourage you to conduct some research: See how many people were talking about mRNA vaccines and gain-of-function research on social media before COVID vs after. The lack of social media coverage didn't affect the science or the scientists, who had spent the past decade conducting research on the subject.
I will maintain that Twitter/X/Bluesky are not part of the scientific process, nor should they be. These platforms do not encourage objective thought or reasoned arguments.
How so? It seems obvious that you can do science (that is: attempt to advance the understanding of how the natural world works) without being an activist for any cause.
The job of science is to discover facts and produce new knowledge from those facts. Activism is the marketing of an ideology. They couldn't be more opposite.
Oh I mean I don’t care if the teacher is for or against school shootings, I just find it interesting to have subject matter experts share their knowledge and give their opinions on things that impact their field. Some people just don’t take it well when those opinions don’t line up with their own on contentious topics.
How is it "interesting" for an elementary school teacher to be against school shootings? I'd bet I can find some carpenters who are against smashing thumbs with hammers, but why bother?
Are you calling it "Activism" when someone shares the opinion of 99.9% of the population, and spends 0 time advocating for that opinion?
Auto mechanic: Consumer advocacy, business regulation, labor issues, safety, etc.
Professor of Medieval history: Lots of political discourse makes claims about history or things like "the dark ages" that turn out to be mis-interpretations or false. Note that I have a friend in that field who often writes gentle corrections to false historical claims in online discourse.
When one political party is explicitly anti-science in its goals and aims and actions (RFK, global warming as a hoax, anti-vaxx, COVID as a hoax), Nature endorsing the person who is pro-science isn't political; it's existential. This is not "no reason". It's just not the reason you like because for some reason.
Exact opposite. Science is under attack by politics and we need authoritative voices explaining how dangerous this is. Why would scientists not be allowed to offer opinions on their observations? That's basically the same thing as science.
When would that be? Needs to be after science stops being politicized by the Republican party. Scientists must be activists when anti-science is de jour.
I think you're assuming that dichotomy. There was an observation that Trump supporters derided liberals for loving biden. The observation pointed out a false equivalence, "the other side is doing the same thing", we love Trump, so they must love their leader too.
Or, do you some sort of systematic evidence that evaluates the politics across all of bluesky in comparison to X? I don't think there is such evidence to know that bluesy is the polar opposite of Twitter.
Scientists should embrace decentralization and use Mastodon in my opinion. Bluesky will meet the same fate as Twitter and X one day