The thing that links politics and science is money. Money drives politics. And, unfortunately, money also drives science, or at least the scientists.
So the question is not whether science and politics can be separated. The question is whether scientists and politicians can be separated. Apparently not.
Can we produce science, especially medical science, that is not influenced by money? Clearly not.
Translation: "follow the science - follow my opinion and politics." These days, public discourse of science seems more like religion, and absolutely we should keep religion out of politics.
Given that scientists and science ideologists (such as you call out here) are pied-pipers and priesthood of the new religion of the so-called "secular" state, it is profoundly naïve to think you can just "separate" politics and science.
Just look at how your own employer was set up to enable every parasite possible in the face of the pandemic -- and still does. UC policy is profoundly tone deaf to any of these issues -- and they were already predisposed to be that way.
You need to think more deeply -- WHY is science so vulnerable to politics?
What accountability measures need to be put in place to help this distinction be realized?
These are great questions. Sadly, as an original subscriber, I can tell you that Vinay never reads these comments. So we will never know the answer. The more fundamental question is why, with his increasingly sound bully pulpit and pretty broad support, he has never been able to make a dent at UCSF which, as you point out, is among the worst offenders along virtually every scientific axis. That is the question I would most like answered. As many of us with less-good pulpits attempt to push back, what has HE done locally (where it counts) that has made a difference? If none of it worked, why not? And what should we all do about it? I would love to know the answers (as would you) but I fear we will not see them.
This does not detract from the piece which is clearly correct. But applying these things and making a difference is becoming consuming to many of us.
Interesting point. I have been thinking that Prof Vinay Prasad has been a success inasmuch as he is still surviving at UCSF. The same goes for Prof Jay Bhattcharya of Stanford. He has not changed Stanford, but he hasn't been fired either.
I think the real and enduring change will have to come from the grassroots--from voters, from patients, from students and faculty, and so on. What these professors are doing is to educate the people about what is wrong and why.
Some additional change may come from court decisions. Prof JB is part of a First Amendment lawsuit against the Biden administration. They recently won a court ruling in Louisiana, allowing the case to go forward (the government had tried to have the case dismissed but failed).
Agreed. We can’t ask that people like Drs. Prasad’s and Bhattacharya do everything. It’s huge that they bring these issues to light and make people question the current dogma. If they spoke about what they’re trying to change internally at their own institutions, then they might really get their a$$es kicked.
If he were not a tenured professor, he would have likely been fired by now (under some pretext). In one of his interviews, he has said that he had to make a very hard decision to "cross the rubicon" before he co-authored the 'Great Barrington Declaration.'
It is also relevant that the current president of Stanford is an ex-pharma executive. Things might have been a bit easier for him under the previous president.
Thanks for posting that. Wow! To think one has to worry about their own safety. Stanford should be ashamed of themselves. If I was a donor, I’d be redirecting my funds.
One "like" of your comment is not enough. I, too, am increasingly curious to find out why such a prolific poster of such clear-thinking criticism seems 1- unable to affect any real change and/or 2- even with his unorthodox views appears to be bulletproof within his professional space. One might ask- does he read his own writing? If so, how foes he continue to function at UCSF? Enquiring minds want to know.
The Biden endorsement in Nature says, “ His administration (Trump’s) has… walked away from crucial international scientific and environmental… organizations: even, unthinkable in the middle of a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO).” And yet it was the same group of Biden-supporting U.S. doctors that said that WHO’s guidance on not masking children was wrong, WHO’s guidance on not closing schools was wrong, and a host of other WHO policies. Evidently it was to okay to disagree with WHO if and only if your criticism was that their policies were not harsh enough.
I'm glad they endorsed. It showed once and for all what folks on the right have been saying about bias. I don't know if there are *SANE* far left progressive in academia anymore. Maybe Trump caused all the brains to explode. If *anyone* should debate, shouldn't it be the folks in academia? Look at what happened with Standford law students. I'm PETRIFIED that these morons will get the choice jobs. Maher is right. There is a rot in the democratic party and it starts in academia. PreK to college.
The unfortunate fact is that journals such as Nature, Science and the NEJM, and 3 letter agencies such as the NIH, CDC, FDA and NAS have damaged science almost irretrievably. They canceled/discredited anybody who didn't agree with the official narrative on Covid (and for that matter Climate change), and accused all such people as conspiracy theorists. Yet all those so-called conspiracy theories, such as the lab leak (which should have been the default position simply based on Occam's Razor) have proven to be correct. When one politicizes science one reaps the whirlwind, and all public trust is lost. In this instance, the trust of at least 50% of the US population.
Heavy sigh. You nailed it again. It is a future study to look at why science is vulnerable to politics. Human nature? Financial reward? One thing at a time.
Very interesting, especially considering getting a degree in Political Science or a Law Degree is more about Psychology, which I’m starting to doubt is or has ever been a science for politicians, but rather a sudo-science or perhaps acting school in disguise.
Jeffrey - my academic background is behavioral science research, which provides knowledge for psychologists. Colleagues in my field and within therapy- were among the first to outlaw discussion, and we are supposed to be the discussion fanatics. That is why I advised AG Garland to abolish my two professions, public health and psychology.
Your experience would appear to confirm the experience we've had with the "counseling" and SEL offered in our local schools, which certainly always feels more like sanding off the corners of any square pegs that they should fit better into those round holes they're so fond of. It seems it's about simplifying herd control and manufacturing the ideal "leaders" i.e. useful idiots of tomorrow who will best serve the needs of those who seek ever to hold power.
No kidding. Thank you very much, Jon. I agree, as far as the public (government) side of it, with the exception of public schools and free students allowed to think without fear. I’m eager to abolish the Federal Reserve for a more sensible fair-tax from a fair-trade process that would allow for well funded state schools and universities—controlled by an elected student body—where all true science and discussions can evolve by free people-students without fear of punishment and unreasonable restrictions or restraints. But powerful media conglomerates and governments “meeting in secrecy” have truly abused science, especially psychology, biochemistry and engineering, and to such an extreme I can only recognize it as pure Fascism, and our elected officials and their appointees as psychopaths guilty of Treason, especially as I began thinking about it more after 911 and the so-called pandemic. The media, and how they can simply publish a headline “stating a matter of fact” like saying “The Federal Reserve Powell, says…” which then normalizes both the position and private institution, which is anything but normal or legitimate…and the same applies to terms like “pandemic” or “Islamic Terrorism,” repeating it over and over by thousands of professionals…and so the people just accept it as real, rather than realizing it’s a total fraud. Being made to be afraid of government, corrupt police, terrified of shadows and even each-other or self has not been an accident, and the FBI, NSA, CIA, MI6, Mossad…are out of control professionals responsible for all of it.
We also need to ask “What was the carrot and what the stick” at each instance of political posturing. And a nation-wide secret conspiracy among all Equity-aligned institutions to: (A) Create top secret projects that nobody is informed of. (B) To employ absolute censorship (C) Agressively vilify, slander and witchhunt free-thinkers - is the source of cuckoo directors/editors. Each Equity program at University, Institution, city-gov, state-gov and fed gov has to be abolished before we can begin to rebuild normalcy.
A subscriber to the printed AAAS journal since 2017, I canceled membership in June 2020 because of political posturing. The question about Trump vs. Biden’s response to Covid is contaminated by the fact that Trump’s Covid performance began when less was known and Biden’s inauguration occurred on “Covid-month 10”, (If dating from St. Patrick’s Day 2020).
Clearly there MUST be separation of science and politics...
The scientific method promotes objectivity. FAR too many science-based practitioners seem to lose all objectivity, and they are consumed by *emotion*!
Asserting climate-change may be an extinction event, therefore scientists must jump into the fray is patently absurd. This type of emotional reasoning is detrimental to objective science. I can’t picture Richard Feynman behaving in this manner
The thing that links politics and science is money. Money drives politics. And, unfortunately, money also drives science, or at least the scientists.
So the question is not whether science and politics can be separated. The question is whether scientists and politicians can be separated. Apparently not.
Can we produce science, especially medical science, that is not influenced by money? Clearly not.
Translation: "follow the science - follow my opinion and politics." These days, public discourse of science seems more like religion, and absolutely we should keep religion out of politics.
Given that scientists and science ideologists (such as you call out here) are pied-pipers and priesthood of the new religion of the so-called "secular" state, it is profoundly naïve to think you can just "separate" politics and science.
Just look at how your own employer was set up to enable every parasite possible in the face of the pandemic -- and still does. UC policy is profoundly tone deaf to any of these issues -- and they were already predisposed to be that way.
You need to think more deeply -- WHY is science so vulnerable to politics?
What accountability measures need to be put in place to help this distinction be realized?
These are great questions. Sadly, as an original subscriber, I can tell you that Vinay never reads these comments. So we will never know the answer. The more fundamental question is why, with his increasingly sound bully pulpit and pretty broad support, he has never been able to make a dent at UCSF which, as you point out, is among the worst offenders along virtually every scientific axis. That is the question I would most like answered. As many of us with less-good pulpits attempt to push back, what has HE done locally (where it counts) that has made a difference? If none of it worked, why not? And what should we all do about it? I would love to know the answers (as would you) but I fear we will not see them.
This does not detract from the piece which is clearly correct. But applying these things and making a difference is becoming consuming to many of us.
Interesting point. I have been thinking that Prof Vinay Prasad has been a success inasmuch as he is still surviving at UCSF. The same goes for Prof Jay Bhattcharya of Stanford. He has not changed Stanford, but he hasn't been fired either.
I think the real and enduring change will have to come from the grassroots--from voters, from patients, from students and faculty, and so on. What these professors are doing is to educate the people about what is wrong and why.
Some additional change may come from court decisions. Prof JB is part of a First Amendment lawsuit against the Biden administration. They recently won a court ruling in Louisiana, allowing the case to go forward (the government had tried to have the case dismissed but failed).
Agreed. We can’t ask that people like Drs. Prasad’s and Bhattacharya do everything. It’s huge that they bring these issues to light and make people question the current dogma. If they spoke about what they’re trying to change internally at their own institutions, then they might really get their a$$es kicked.
In fact, Dr. Bhattacharya has gone through a very rough time at Stanford. See this article by him:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/stanford-failed-academic-freedom-test
If he were not a tenured professor, he would have likely been fired by now (under some pretext). In one of his interviews, he has said that he had to make a very hard decision to "cross the rubicon" before he co-authored the 'Great Barrington Declaration.'
It is also relevant that the current president of Stanford is an ex-pharma executive. Things might have been a bit easier for him under the previous president.
Thanks for posting that. Wow! To think one has to worry about their own safety. Stanford should be ashamed of themselves. If I was a donor, I’d be redirecting my funds.
One "like" of your comment is not enough. I, too, am increasingly curious to find out why such a prolific poster of such clear-thinking criticism seems 1- unable to affect any real change and/or 2- even with his unorthodox views appears to be bulletproof within his professional space. One might ask- does he read his own writing? If so, how foes he continue to function at UCSF? Enquiring minds want to know.
The Biden endorsement in Nature says, “ His administration (Trump’s) has… walked away from crucial international scientific and environmental… organizations: even, unthinkable in the middle of a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO).” And yet it was the same group of Biden-supporting U.S. doctors that said that WHO’s guidance on not masking children was wrong, WHO’s guidance on not closing schools was wrong, and a host of other WHO policies. Evidently it was to okay to disagree with WHO if and only if your criticism was that their policies were not harsh enough.
I'm glad they endorsed. It showed once and for all what folks on the right have been saying about bias. I don't know if there are *SANE* far left progressive in academia anymore. Maybe Trump caused all the brains to explode. If *anyone* should debate, shouldn't it be the folks in academia? Look at what happened with Standford law students. I'm PETRIFIED that these morons will get the choice jobs. Maher is right. There is a rot in the democratic party and it starts in academia. PreK to college.
Where do we turn to?
The unfortunate fact is that journals such as Nature, Science and the NEJM, and 3 letter agencies such as the NIH, CDC, FDA and NAS have damaged science almost irretrievably. They canceled/discredited anybody who didn't agree with the official narrative on Covid (and for that matter Climate change), and accused all such people as conspiracy theorists. Yet all those so-called conspiracy theories, such as the lab leak (which should have been the default position simply based on Occam's Razor) have proven to be correct. When one politicizes science one reaps the whirlwind, and all public trust is lost. In this instance, the trust of at least 50% of the US population.
Heavy sigh. You nailed it again. It is a future study to look at why science is vulnerable to politics. Human nature? Financial reward? One thing at a time.
Very interesting, especially considering getting a degree in Political Science or a Law Degree is more about Psychology, which I’m starting to doubt is or has ever been a science for politicians, but rather a sudo-science or perhaps acting school in disguise.
Jeffrey - my academic background is behavioral science research, which provides knowledge for psychologists. Colleagues in my field and within therapy- were among the first to outlaw discussion, and we are supposed to be the discussion fanatics. That is why I advised AG Garland to abolish my two professions, public health and psychology.
Your experience would appear to confirm the experience we've had with the "counseling" and SEL offered in our local schools, which certainly always feels more like sanding off the corners of any square pegs that they should fit better into those round holes they're so fond of. It seems it's about simplifying herd control and manufacturing the ideal "leaders" i.e. useful idiots of tomorrow who will best serve the needs of those who seek ever to hold power.
Spot On!
You will own nothing and be happy
No kidding. Thank you very much, Jon. I agree, as far as the public (government) side of it, with the exception of public schools and free students allowed to think without fear. I’m eager to abolish the Federal Reserve for a more sensible fair-tax from a fair-trade process that would allow for well funded state schools and universities—controlled by an elected student body—where all true science and discussions can evolve by free people-students without fear of punishment and unreasonable restrictions or restraints. But powerful media conglomerates and governments “meeting in secrecy” have truly abused science, especially psychology, biochemistry and engineering, and to such an extreme I can only recognize it as pure Fascism, and our elected officials and their appointees as psychopaths guilty of Treason, especially as I began thinking about it more after 911 and the so-called pandemic. The media, and how they can simply publish a headline “stating a matter of fact” like saying “The Federal Reserve Powell, says…” which then normalizes both the position and private institution, which is anything but normal or legitimate…and the same applies to terms like “pandemic” or “Islamic Terrorism,” repeating it over and over by thousands of professionals…and so the people just accept it as real, rather than realizing it’s a total fraud. Being made to be afraid of government, corrupt police, terrified of shadows and even each-other or self has not been an accident, and the FBI, NSA, CIA, MI6, Mossad…are out of control professionals responsible for all of it.
Just do your research and tell me what you found. Political science does not mean that politics is scientific.
We also need to ask “What was the carrot and what the stick” at each instance of political posturing. And a nation-wide secret conspiracy among all Equity-aligned institutions to: (A) Create top secret projects that nobody is informed of. (B) To employ absolute censorship (C) Agressively vilify, slander and witchhunt free-thinkers - is the source of cuckoo directors/editors. Each Equity program at University, Institution, city-gov, state-gov and fed gov has to be abolished before we can begin to rebuild normalcy.
A subscriber to the printed AAAS journal since 2017, I canceled membership in June 2020 because of political posturing. The question about Trump vs. Biden’s response to Covid is contaminated by the fact that Trump’s Covid performance began when less was known and Biden’s inauguration occurred on “Covid-month 10”, (If dating from St. Patrick’s Day 2020).
Clearly there MUST be separation of science and politics...
The scientific method promotes objectivity. FAR too many science-based practitioners seem to lose all objectivity, and they are consumed by *emotion*!
Asserting climate-change may be an extinction event, therefore scientists must jump into the fray is patently absurd. This type of emotional reasoning is detrimental to objective science. I can’t picture Richard Feynman behaving in this manner