Can you mix politics with science?
It’s wrong to mix politics with science, says Noam Chomsky. Science can’t teach us how to live; nor can it guide us in our political activism. Science operates on a quite different plane, unaffected by ordinary human concerns, passions and commitments. It should be left to pursue its own mysterious purposes in its own way. When intellectuals invoke ‘science’ in support of this or that political cause, observes Chomsky, you should be on your guard. Usually it will just be manipulation and deception. Activist science – ‘science for the people’ – is a contradiction in terms. Any genuine scientist will put science first, regardless of the political consequences.
Chomsky’s is nowadays the prevailing view, understandable at once and respected as a guide to conduct by most members of the scientific community. Its consequences are far-reaching. On the one hand, we have corporate-funded, tongue-tied, politically inarticulate science. On the other hand, we have mindless, scientifically illiterate activism. Activists who reject science can hardly be expected to bring about any kind of emancipatory movement or revolution.
It’s pretty clear who benefits from all this. Scientists are encouraged to imagine themselves in an ivory tower, politically untainted, shielded from popular passions, emotions and demands for accountability. Scientists might know things – alarming things about the rapid pace of climate change, for example – but they’re not supposed to shout from the rooftops or fraternise with the mob in the streets. Responsibility for remedial action is always a problem for someone else.
But who, exactly? Who is supposed respond appropriately to the science? Not ordinary people as they become aroused and politically active. If you’re a scientist who values your job, don’t mingle with activists. If you happen to be an activist in your spare time, you’d better separate your two different lives, switching hats as you come and go. Genuine, impartial, objective and dispassionate scientists need report only to the agencies involved in funding their research. So information must always travel up, not down. Only the appropriate authorities can act on your science. If you take direct action yourself – action, for example, as a climate scientist, linking up with environmentalists in mass resistance from below – you’ll probably find yourself under arrest (our picture shows the world’s leading climate scientist – James Hansen – being arrested in September 2010).
What, then, is to be done? As scientists who also happen to be activists, we urge a policy the reverse of Chomsky’s. There can be no anticapitalist revolution without abandoning both Chomskyan commitments: to tongue-tied, politically inarticulate science on the one hand; to mindless, scientifically illiterate politics on the other. Science should put itself first: above religion, above politics, above the prevailing social order. Meanwhile, activists should feel free to mingle and debate with scientists as they please. Indeed, don’t we all need to become scientists? Why not?
Science is the most revolutionary form of knowledge there is. Think of Galileo. Think of Darwin. Think of Marx. But it isn’t god-given. It isn’t immutable or separate from ourselves. It’s ultimately nothing other than our own shared intelligence as a species, our historical memory, our capacity to imagine and construct for ourselves a better world.
Chomsky’s is nowadays the prevailing view, understandable at once and respected as a guide to conduct by most members of the scientific community. Its consequences are far-reaching. On the one hand, we have corporate-funded, tongue-tied, politically inarticulate science. On the other hand, we have mindless, scientifically illiterate activism. Activists who reject science can hardly be expected to bring about any kind of emancipatory movement or revolution.
It’s pretty clear who benefits from all this. Scientists are encouraged to imagine themselves in an ivory tower, politically untainted, shielded from popular passions, emotions and demands for accountability. Scientists might know things – alarming things about the rapid pace of climate change, for example – but they’re not supposed to shout from the rooftops or fraternise with the mob in the streets. Responsibility for remedial action is always a problem for someone else.
But who, exactly? Who is supposed respond appropriately to the science? Not ordinary people as they become aroused and politically active. If you’re a scientist who values your job, don’t mingle with activists. If you happen to be an activist in your spare time, you’d better separate your two different lives, switching hats as you come and go. Genuine, impartial, objective and dispassionate scientists need report only to the agencies involved in funding their research. So information must always travel up, not down. Only the appropriate authorities can act on your science. If you take direct action yourself – action, for example, as a climate scientist, linking up with environmentalists in mass resistance from below – you’ll probably find yourself under arrest (our picture shows the world’s leading climate scientist – James Hansen – being arrested in September 2010).
What, then, is to be done? As scientists who also happen to be activists, we urge a policy the reverse of Chomsky’s. There can be no anticapitalist revolution without abandoning both Chomskyan commitments: to tongue-tied, politically inarticulate science on the one hand; to mindless, scientifically illiterate politics on the other. Science should put itself first: above religion, above politics, above the prevailing social order. Meanwhile, activists should feel free to mingle and debate with scientists as they please. Indeed, don’t we all need to become scientists? Why not?
Science is the most revolutionary form of knowledge there is. Think of Galileo. Think of Darwin. Think of Marx. But it isn’t god-given. It isn’t immutable or separate from ourselves. It’s ultimately nothing other than our own shared intelligence as a species, our historical memory, our capacity to imagine and construct for ourselves a better world.
