Mar 16, 2021 02:50 AM
(This post was last modified: Mar 16, 2021 06:29 PM by C C.)
‘Woke’ science has no place in government policymaking
https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/14/woke-...icymaking/
EXCERPTS: “Science, at its core, is a social phenomenon.” This observation, from Alondra Nelson, the newly appointed deputy director of President Biden’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), certainly qualifies for a prominent place in the Pantheon of Inane Statements. The core of science, in fact, is the scientific method—posing and testing hypotheses; carefully gathering, examining, and generating experimental evidence; and finally, synthesizing all the available information into logical conclusions.
Dr. Nelson’s assertion is inauspicious, but perhaps we should not be too surprised by a “squishy” statement from someone whose undergraduate degree was in sociology, while her doctorate is in “American Studies.” What, we wonder, qualifies her to be deputy director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy? And how does it comport with President Biden’s commitment to always rely on “science and truth.” We suspect it is an example of how lip service to science has invaded the domain of real science.
“Hard” sciences are a framework for understanding physical, chemical, subatomic, biological, and other natural or even man-made phenomena. The disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, and especially mathematics, have nothing to do with society as such, because the phenomena they characterize exist independently of humans. Mathematics is typically the language of this framework, whether it is arcane calculus, probability theory, combinatorics, topology, or some other branch well understood by only a very select group.
The presence of uncertainty or unresolved questions in the hard sciences does not make them soft or diminish their rigor. In fact, scientific findings incorporate statistical uncertainty, but without ascribing motives or a social context.
[...] The reality that the scientific method may produce discoveries that affect identity groups in different ways is not a justification for denial, misrepresentation, or dismissing the results of an experiment or finding. Yet, we see that happening, and not for the first time. A good example was provided by President Bill Clinton’s Undersecretary of Agriculture Ellen Haas, who had previously headed an anti-technology advocacy group, and who deconstructed science thusly: “You can have ‘your’ science or ‘my’ science or ‘somebody else’s’ science. By nature, there is going to be a difference.” Translation: I don’t give a damn about the experimental data or consensus in the scientific community. My views are just as valid as the experts’ views. This is how, as the old Washington, D.C. saying goes, personnel becomes policy, and often not in the best interests of society.
Some of “social science” is simply asinine and a waste of research funding that could instead be expended on endeavors useful to society, like epidemiology or surveillance of emerging infectious diseases, which have been notoriously underfunded. [...] The late Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a physician, released a landmark report, “NSF Under the Microscope,” that provided a useful analysis of the agency’s grant-making. It identified several projects that will make most Americans, scientists and nonscientists alike, shake their heads. They include studies of how to ride a bike; when dogs became man’s best friend; whether political views are genetically predetermined; whether parents choose trendy baby names; the best time to buy a ticket to a sold-out sporting event; and why the same teams always seem to dominate the NCAA basketball playoffs.
Our organizational mistake was the creation of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate within the NSF. Underlying its ability to dispense grants is the wrongheaded notion that social-science projects [...] are as important as research to identify early markers for Alzheimer’s disease or pancreatic cancer—or the biology and epidemiology of coronaviruses. This is what happens when, as a skeptical former senior NSF official put it, “the inmates run the asylum.”
There are two problems with public officials legitimizing “soft science” as the basis for policy making: It often fails to arrive at the right answers and it can undermine public trust. We have seen during the coronavirus pandemic that the reporting of cherry-picked data has influenced public behavior negatively and potentially undermined non-pharmaceutical interventions and encouraged some unproven, unwise “pharmaceutical” ones [...] Real science is apolitical. The phrase “follow the science” is commonly used to persuade, even when the speaker knows “the science” is unclear, equivocal, or being misrepresented for political purposes. As a result, many officials have lost credibility and provoked defiance rather than compliance... (MORE - details)
Science goes rogue: Militant activism derailing standards & empirical evidence
https://quillette.com/2021/03/14/science-goes-rogue/
EXCERPTS (Lawrence M. Krauss): Social justice activists have been arguing for some time that scientific societies and institutions need to address systemic sexism and racism in STEM disciplines. However, their rationale is often anything but scientific. For example, whenever percentages in faculty positions, test scores, or grant recipients in various disciplines do not match percentages of national average populations, racism or sexism is generally said to be the cause. This is in spite of the fact that no explicit examples of racism or sexism generally accompany the statistics. Correlation, after all, is not causation. Without some underlying mechanism or independent evidence to explain a correlation of observed outcomes with population statistics, inferring racism or sexism in academia as the cause is inappropriate.
One might have hoped for more rigor from the leadership of scientific societies and research institutions. Alas, this has not been the case. In the current climate, many have simply adopted popular rhetoric and the jargon of critical theory has begun to dominate communications by these institutions. Pandering and virtue signalling have begun to generate proactive initiatives by the highest levels of the scientific community, often replacing the focus on science itself. Here are a few examples from the past few weeks alone.
[...] In the face of this transformation, there has been little organized outcry from the scientific community. However, some are now speaking out. The Princeton mathematician Sergiu Klainerman has spoken out strongly against these intrusions of activism into science in particular and academia more generally. Most recently, Jeffrey Burl, an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan Technological University bravely wrote an open letter demanding an apology for what he called the “racist sentiments” expressed in his university’s Senate Resolution, which condemned white supremacy and racially motivated intolerance at his institution. He argued that these sentiments constituted a hostile work environment for white male scientists like himself, and that he had seen no signs of discrimination against women and people of color in his 28 years at the university. Instead, he argued that “I, as a white male, have been systematically discriminated against for 40 years.” He referred to the fact that when he was hired, there were two job openings, one of which was available to anyone, and one of which was only open to women. Since only a small percentage of the candidates were women, he argued that this hiring was clearly discriminatory. Needless to say, Burl now faces a petition demanding that he be fired.
Whatever one thinks of his interpretation of his experience, Burl was openly stating what many male scientists are afraid to discuss—that there is no clear evidence of systemic discrimination on the basis of race in academia, and that any examples of gender discrimination in recent decades have not involved discrimination against females. Rather, there has been a concerted effort at universities for at least 25 years to attempt to achieve gender equity in faculty ranks, often using affirmative action techniques that Burl suggests are discriminatory.
Science as a discipline is supposed to be based on empirical evidence. But if repeating a falsehood often enough makes it true, then science now risks creating a false reality, with grave implications for the future of research and for society more generally... (MORE - details)
https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/14/woke-...icymaking/
EXCERPTS: “Science, at its core, is a social phenomenon.” This observation, from Alondra Nelson, the newly appointed deputy director of President Biden’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), certainly qualifies for a prominent place in the Pantheon of Inane Statements. The core of science, in fact, is the scientific method—posing and testing hypotheses; carefully gathering, examining, and generating experimental evidence; and finally, synthesizing all the available information into logical conclusions.
Dr. Nelson’s assertion is inauspicious, but perhaps we should not be too surprised by a “squishy” statement from someone whose undergraduate degree was in sociology, while her doctorate is in “American Studies.” What, we wonder, qualifies her to be deputy director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy? And how does it comport with President Biden’s commitment to always rely on “science and truth.” We suspect it is an example of how lip service to science has invaded the domain of real science.
“Hard” sciences are a framework for understanding physical, chemical, subatomic, biological, and other natural or even man-made phenomena. The disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, and especially mathematics, have nothing to do with society as such, because the phenomena they characterize exist independently of humans. Mathematics is typically the language of this framework, whether it is arcane calculus, probability theory, combinatorics, topology, or some other branch well understood by only a very select group.
The presence of uncertainty or unresolved questions in the hard sciences does not make them soft or diminish their rigor. In fact, scientific findings incorporate statistical uncertainty, but without ascribing motives or a social context.
[...] The reality that the scientific method may produce discoveries that affect identity groups in different ways is not a justification for denial, misrepresentation, or dismissing the results of an experiment or finding. Yet, we see that happening, and not for the first time. A good example was provided by President Bill Clinton’s Undersecretary of Agriculture Ellen Haas, who had previously headed an anti-technology advocacy group, and who deconstructed science thusly: “You can have ‘your’ science or ‘my’ science or ‘somebody else’s’ science. By nature, there is going to be a difference.” Translation: I don’t give a damn about the experimental data or consensus in the scientific community. My views are just as valid as the experts’ views. This is how, as the old Washington, D.C. saying goes, personnel becomes policy, and often not in the best interests of society.
Some of “social science” is simply asinine and a waste of research funding that could instead be expended on endeavors useful to society, like epidemiology or surveillance of emerging infectious diseases, which have been notoriously underfunded. [...] The late Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a physician, released a landmark report, “NSF Under the Microscope,” that provided a useful analysis of the agency’s grant-making. It identified several projects that will make most Americans, scientists and nonscientists alike, shake their heads. They include studies of how to ride a bike; when dogs became man’s best friend; whether political views are genetically predetermined; whether parents choose trendy baby names; the best time to buy a ticket to a sold-out sporting event; and why the same teams always seem to dominate the NCAA basketball playoffs.
Our organizational mistake was the creation of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate within the NSF. Underlying its ability to dispense grants is the wrongheaded notion that social-science projects [...] are as important as research to identify early markers for Alzheimer’s disease or pancreatic cancer—or the biology and epidemiology of coronaviruses. This is what happens when, as a skeptical former senior NSF official put it, “the inmates run the asylum.”
There are two problems with public officials legitimizing “soft science” as the basis for policy making: It often fails to arrive at the right answers and it can undermine public trust. We have seen during the coronavirus pandemic that the reporting of cherry-picked data has influenced public behavior negatively and potentially undermined non-pharmaceutical interventions and encouraged some unproven, unwise “pharmaceutical” ones [...] Real science is apolitical. The phrase “follow the science” is commonly used to persuade, even when the speaker knows “the science” is unclear, equivocal, or being misrepresented for political purposes. As a result, many officials have lost credibility and provoked defiance rather than compliance... (MORE - details)
Science goes rogue: Militant activism derailing standards & empirical evidence
https://quillette.com/2021/03/14/science-goes-rogue/
EXCERPTS (Lawrence M. Krauss): Social justice activists have been arguing for some time that scientific societies and institutions need to address systemic sexism and racism in STEM disciplines. However, their rationale is often anything but scientific. For example, whenever percentages in faculty positions, test scores, or grant recipients in various disciplines do not match percentages of national average populations, racism or sexism is generally said to be the cause. This is in spite of the fact that no explicit examples of racism or sexism generally accompany the statistics. Correlation, after all, is not causation. Without some underlying mechanism or independent evidence to explain a correlation of observed outcomes with population statistics, inferring racism or sexism in academia as the cause is inappropriate.
One might have hoped for more rigor from the leadership of scientific societies and research institutions. Alas, this has not been the case. In the current climate, many have simply adopted popular rhetoric and the jargon of critical theory has begun to dominate communications by these institutions. Pandering and virtue signalling have begun to generate proactive initiatives by the highest levels of the scientific community, often replacing the focus on science itself. Here are a few examples from the past few weeks alone.
[...] In the face of this transformation, there has been little organized outcry from the scientific community. However, some are now speaking out. The Princeton mathematician Sergiu Klainerman has spoken out strongly against these intrusions of activism into science in particular and academia more generally. Most recently, Jeffrey Burl, an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan Technological University bravely wrote an open letter demanding an apology for what he called the “racist sentiments” expressed in his university’s Senate Resolution, which condemned white supremacy and racially motivated intolerance at his institution. He argued that these sentiments constituted a hostile work environment for white male scientists like himself, and that he had seen no signs of discrimination against women and people of color in his 28 years at the university. Instead, he argued that “I, as a white male, have been systematically discriminated against for 40 years.” He referred to the fact that when he was hired, there were two job openings, one of which was available to anyone, and one of which was only open to women. Since only a small percentage of the candidates were women, he argued that this hiring was clearly discriminatory. Needless to say, Burl now faces a petition demanding that he be fired.
Whatever one thinks of his interpretation of his experience, Burl was openly stating what many male scientists are afraid to discuss—that there is no clear evidence of systemic discrimination on the basis of race in academia, and that any examples of gender discrimination in recent decades have not involved discrimination against females. Rather, there has been a concerted effort at universities for at least 25 years to attempt to achieve gender equity in faculty ranks, often using affirmative action techniques that Burl suggests are discriminatory.
Science as a discipline is supposed to be based on empirical evidence. But if repeating a falsehood often enough makes it true, then science now risks creating a false reality, with grave implications for the future of research and for society more generally... (MORE - details)