Oct 30, 2025 06:26 PM
(This post was last modified: Oct 30, 2025 07:10 PM by C C.)
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publicati...ce-is-over
EXCERPTS: As Melinda Gormley and Melissae Fellet observed in a 2015 article about the debate, neither scientist tried to portray himself as objective about the matter; neither claimed that the scientific facts as he understood them were independent from his beliefs about how best to pursue peace. [...] Disagreement between scientific experts about how to deal with the risks created by nuclear weapons would have to be resolved democratically.
In the decades following the Pauling–Teller debate, scientific research aimed at informing public policy expanded enormously to help meet the risks and challenges of a rapidly modernizing world. This was a new task for science.
Billions of dollars funded thousands of scientists to study questions as disparate as: How safe is nuclear energy? Which pesticides and food additives cause cancer? What are the causes and impacts of acid rain? When should women start to get mammograms? Are genetically modified foods necessary to feed the world? What are the economic benefits of environmental protection? Does standardized testing improve educational outcomes?
Research programs motivated by such questions were supposed to reduce uncertainties to arrive at the truth of the matter. Agreement on actions to solve the problems was supposed to follow. But in very few cases did this happen. ... And disagreement about what to do persisted, and often got worse.
[...] Seventy years of growing entanglement between science and politics show that the truths that matter most in democratic decision-making emerge from the political arena, not the laboratory... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: As Melinda Gormley and Melissae Fellet observed in a 2015 article about the debate, neither scientist tried to portray himself as objective about the matter; neither claimed that the scientific facts as he understood them were independent from his beliefs about how best to pursue peace. [...] Disagreement between scientific experts about how to deal with the risks created by nuclear weapons would have to be resolved democratically.
In the decades following the Pauling–Teller debate, scientific research aimed at informing public policy expanded enormously to help meet the risks and challenges of a rapidly modernizing world. This was a new task for science.
Billions of dollars funded thousands of scientists to study questions as disparate as: How safe is nuclear energy? Which pesticides and food additives cause cancer? What are the causes and impacts of acid rain? When should women start to get mammograms? Are genetically modified foods necessary to feed the world? What are the economic benefits of environmental protection? Does standardized testing improve educational outcomes?
Research programs motivated by such questions were supposed to reduce uncertainties to arrive at the truth of the matter. Agreement on actions to solve the problems was supposed to follow. But in very few cases did this happen. ... And disagreement about what to do persisted, and often got worse.
[...] Seventy years of growing entanglement between science and politics show that the truths that matter most in democratic decision-making emerge from the political arena, not the laboratory... (MORE - details)