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.
Maybe the problem is with our funding model. Necessarily the whole grant system is based on being able to argue a narrative as to why your scientific inquiry deserves money. Combine that with a system that includes incentives towards or away from social values, and scientists are necessarily activists.
And then that’s just to get money in your specific direction, getting money in your general direction requires more broad activism.
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.
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.