The relationship between science and ideology

[Red Economist]

Marxism (or rather it's Soviet Marxist-Leninist varieties) argue that science reflects a class based ideology. To all intents and purposes 'Soviet science' had to fit into 'dialectical materialist' philosophy of nature, but it was open to abuse such as Lysenkoism in genetics and agriculture, depending on who had the ear of the party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

In so far as philosophical criticisms are concerned, you can through around the accusation that geneticists justify inequality, big bang theorists are secular creationists, chaos theorists and quantum mechanics have idealist theories of causality, etc. This however is not the same as saying such criticisms are 'true' or subject to rules of evidence and experimentation and from my point of view, what matters is really that scientific knowledge 'works' irrespective of politics and truth- no matter how uncomfortable- should come first.

This 'Stalinist' approach historically appears to have virtually no support outside the Communist Bloc (though the 'radical science movement' did campaign over the use of science in the west). I was wondering if people had any views on whether politicizing science as a form of ideology is just a step too far or whether there it can be defended. A view from anyone with scientific expertise would be very welcome.

[Comrade Thomas]

Interesting post. However, I have just finished a book talking about Science in the USSR and science representing ideology was taken to the extreme; biology was denounced as being a bourgeoise speciality etc.

[Rafiq]

Science will always be bound by ideology, but that does not mean objective truth is not to be found in the sciences, merely the means from which it is presented. The language of objective truth is alien to our species, even to you and I. Instead we have ideology, language that represents real class - and therefore political interests. In this sense, all ideology is valid, in that it represents real phenomena.

[ckaihatsu]

Worldview Diagram

http://s6.postimage.org/axvyymiy5/120824_Worldview_Diagram.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/axvyymiy5/)


You Are Here

http://s6.postimg.org/z6z3hzt65/130828_You_Are_Here_aoi_xcf.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/z6z3hzt65/)

[Red Economist]

Interesting post. However, I have just finished a book talking about Science in the USSR and science representing ideology was taken to the extreme; biology was denounced as being a bourgeoise speciality etc

Yeah, it's kind of crazy. They had a 'eugenics' movement in the twenities but than Stalin banned it, along with genetics in the thirties because genetics was 'fascist' science. I think they had a point about how science and politics interact, but the way in which is was so openly abused is problematic.


Science will always be bound by ideology, but that does not mean objective truth is not to be found in the sciences, merely the means from which it is presented. The language of objective truth is alien to our species, even to you and I. Instead we have ideology, language that represents real class - and therefore political interests. In this sense, all ideology is valid, in that it represents real phenomena.

Many thanks. I think this was what I was missing. Truth is objective- but all knowledge is through the lens of ideology and limited by the development of productive forces or 'means'.

Rafiq, would you therefore defend Lysenkoism as in the class interests of the proletarian state and therefore 'true' (assuming you take that view of the USSR)?

[ckaihatsu]

Truth is objective- but all knowledge is through the lens of ideology


philosophical abstractions

http://s6.postimage.org/i7hg698j1/120404_philosophical_abstractions_RENDER_sc_12_1.j pg (http://postimage.org/image/i7hg698j1/)

[aristos]

Science itself as in "doing scientific research" and technology itself as in "drawing up blueprints for building mechanisms" are ideology-free. In this regard there are objective truths pertaining to scientific research and technological developement - something either works or it doesn't.

Lysenkoism didn't work. Dominance of ideology over science was certainly to blame for this, but unfortunately genetics "didn't work" either in that situation, in the sense that it would not yield quick results as was wished for.

However what science gets done, and what technology gets implemented has always been dictated by ideology in as much as ideology pertains to constructing narratives in order to make sense of the world (among other reasons) and it is these narratives that may lead to either pose the questions that science has to answer or not pose them.

[ckaihatsu]

Consciousness, A Material Definition

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[Red Commissar]

A major reason with the lysenkoism episode going as long as it did is that the Soviets wanted to be at the cusp of a big discovery in the biology so that their system could take credit for it. Starting from about the 1910s there was a disruption in biology originating from debates arising over those who held to the old Darwinian foundation and those who were advocating for genetics based on the (re)discovery of Mendelian principles.

It was in enough of a flux that it wasn't set in stone enough that any particular field was undeniably correct. I guess the Soviets were hoping to march their own into the fray thinking that it'd best the scientists of other countries and by extension prove the superiority of Communism or the soviet system depending on how you see it. Lysenkoism has sometimes been portrayed as being neo-lamarckian, but the principle that was appealing to soviet authorities was that he had promised to be able to use it to create a boom in agriculture.

What underpinned Lysenko's concepts was that he believed that these traits/adaptions acquired by an organism in its lifetime could then be passed on to its offspring. So in the agricultural case Lysenko thought that he could engineer say a drought-resistant strain of wheat by exposing the plants in a harsh environment and thinking that'd induce the change. Then if they did change, that could be passed on to create a new strain that could be grown elsewhere in the country.

By the mid 30s up through the 50s, there was a reconciliation between Mendelian genetics and Darwinian principles to form what is referred to as the "Modern Evolutionary Synthesis" which underpinned the study of biology for much of the rest of the century. This showed that genetics and darwinism were not incompatible, but in fact worked together well and explained the mechanism of evolution in the best way possible. This created what was then the understanding of evolution for pretty much the rest of the century, of evolution occurring at the level of an individual organism with its particular genotype and phenotype being affected by natural selection, genetic drift, bottlenecks, what ever that would determine if it was passed on. Mutations occur randomly in DNA and are affected by the same forces and can be driven to fixation in a population, again be it by natural selection or randomly by drift or a bottleneck, or eliminated by the same forces. In more technical jargon, evolution as the change in the frequency in alleles of a species. Since then we'd gotten other things like the gene-centered or group-centered view but that's beyond the point of this thread.

What this posited is that the environment can't effect a change in an organism such that it is induced to change to adapt and then could pass that onto future generations. As far as this synthesis went, the environment could act as a selection pressure, but it doesn't shape the organism. The organism doesn't just call forth an adaptation because the environment demanded it it, but there was an ancestor that somewhere along the way presented a series of mutations that were favored.

This ran contrary to Lysnekoism (as well as other Lamarckian-type concepts) which believed that these induced changes could be passed on, I guess in a sense an organism as a blank template that could be written upon and passed on accordingly to its progeny. I suppose too that the idea of an organism being shaped in this fashion may've appealed to some soviet authorities who fancied the Soviet project as a monumental task in of itself in creating a new modern man. Lysenko himself never felt his concepts were applicable beyond plants, but I guess for some officials the idea of a human being able to be changed by its environment such that all the challenges and experiences it had learned could be passed on would lead to the creation of this new man created by communism through several successive generations of development, which in of itself played into the Soviet ideas of development, technological advancement, the creation of a new society, and hopes for the future.

Lysenko's theories only lasted as long as it was thought by Soviet authorities that there was doubt in biology, as well as the end of the careers of officials that pushed for it. It goes without saying that this whole episode really messed up biology in the early Soviet Union- what's worse is that there were scientists in the 20s who had found proof of what'd be the modern synthesis. In fact, one of the figures who is associated with it was educated in the Soviet Union and left later to pursue his field of study where it was more accepted. Other sciences went fine though- Soviets were pretty good at physics and its various applications in particular.

One interesting biological development from the Soviet Union was the Belayev Fox experiment (http://155.97.32.9/~bbenham/2510%20Spring%2009/Behavior%20Genetics/Farm-Fox%20Experiment.pdf), which was a pretty useful study into how domestication works and how it fits in to evolution. Interestingly Belayev was able to get funding for this experiment even though he started it during the waning years of Lysenkoism, since he pitched it more as a way to kickstart a valuable new economic field in Fox furs that didn't involve trapping.

As an aside, there has been a lot of advancement in biology, and with that is the study of epigenetics, which does in some ways prove what was originally readily discounted as being lamarckian as happening in real-life. Basically, the observation of various modifications to an organism's genome without a direct change to the underlying sequence that can be caused by external forces like diet or exposure, and that such modifications can be inherited to boot. This doesn't mean that lysenkoism has been redeemed- far from it- but at least that we continue to see things that we never thought possible before.

Anyways, in a more broader sense we do see an intermingling of politics with science. We're aware enough of the Cold War to see how the Soviet Union and the United States would compete endlessly in the fields of military tech, space, medical advancements, consumer goods, etc. to show the superiority of their system because it was in their view responsible for allowing for that kind of scientific research to occur in the first place. We see some simplistic, childish variations of this especially with consumer tech- capitalism made computers! Woo!

And we've of course seen in more recent years attempts to recruit scientific studies to further all sorts of political goals. We tend to get a lot of this in places like behavioral genetics, sociobiology, social psychology, etc. especially when it comes to intelligence and trying to use that as a way to rationalize why society is structured the way it is. We saw that with the beginning of the century with social darwinism and the eugenics that shot out of it, which more often than not believed that there were people who were naturally superior and that the current society reflected that. Some took that further to lash out against social programs they perceived to be trying to interfere with nature. We can find countries with histories for example of forced sterilization on the same principles, as well as the prevailing consensus that for a long time relegated homosexuality as a mental disorder.

This doesn't even begin to take into consideration the co-opting of scientific fields in universities to pursue more 'profitable' fields. Biology fields in particular have been more preferential of applications in biotech and medical engineering in recent years. I know in particular you'll see a conflict here with say nuclear physicists or geneticists involved in GMOs against environmentalists. The former will often be moved to defend their positions against the later for many reasons, but among many will often be that their livelihood does depend on that field of work.

And I'm sure people stateside are aware of how politicians pandering to their base and out if their own personal views have mothballed stem cell research or wreck science education since it doesn't jive with their worldview.

[Loony Le Fist]

In so far as philosophical criticisms are concerned, you can through around the accusation that geneticists justify inequality, big bang theorists are secular creationists, chaos theorists and quantum mechanics have idealist theories of causality, etc. This however is not the same as saying such criticisms are 'true' or subject to rules of evidence and experimentation and from my point of view, what matters is really that scientific knowledge 'works' irrespective of politics and truth- no matter how uncomfortable- should come first.


I agree. The truth irrespective of politics, religion or other ideologies must always come first, or you cannot label yourself a scientist. I suppose that in-and-of-itself might be considered an ideology.



...
I was wondering if people had any views on whether politicizing science as a form of ideology is just a step too far or whether there it can be defended. A view from anyone with scientific expertise would be very welcome.

I would say that treating science as a form of ideology might go too far. Though I see nothing with using science to justify an ideology. Though I would argue the science has to come first. Going into a scientific experiment with the objective of trying to prove an ideology can often have results much like shooting a gun, painting a bullseye around the bullet hole, and calling yourself a sharpshooter. When you are working with a scientific mindset, ideology has to wait at the door.

That said, I think there can be very good scientific arguments for or against certain ways of thinking. The concepts behind racism and white nationalism, for example, have absolutely no basis in scientific reality due to what we know about human beings. Free market evangelists that believe that humans are rational choice automatons are rebutted rather strongly by what we have gathered through empirical observation.

This is not to say, however, that science is the answer to all of human existence. There are moral questions that cannot be answered scientifically, although we can use science to square our answers with reality.

[Ritzy Cat]

Science does not reflect material or human conditions. Science as the workings of the world, the laws that detail how the world works, are not influenced by material conditions or what the ideology of the people is. Language, culture, economy, are all influenced by mankind. They are all abstractions of the human identity, while science pre-exists all mankind. Man discovers it, and the rate at which they discover new breakthroughs in science is based on the conditions of humanity. Its very existence however, is completely unrelated to the man. If man were to disappear, the facts and theories of science will persists, but all of its economy, culture, language, everything else, will evaporate with man's disappearance. Man's applications of science will no longer exist, but the science itself will be there in its true and pure form.

Regardless or not if science seems to interplay with the structures of the state, such as the geneticists "proving" inequality or something of the sort, it would be very easy for bias to weasel into that. And such a scientist may stop once he found the evidence he needed to prove inequality. If there was somehow a way to prove this (not sure if it has already or not), it would inherently be the truth. Unless we genetically modify the "lesser races", which could be possibly even more degrading than literally defining a certain group as subhuman, I don't really know what we could do. And yes I agree with the point, these facts should come first. This would only be an issue in a capitalist state, because in a communist society there is no means to subjugate a certain group for their scientific inequality.


This 'Stalinist' approach historically appears to have virtually no support outside the Communist Bloc (though the 'radical science movement' did campaign over the use of science in the west). I was wondering if people had any views on whether politicizing science as a form of ideology is just a step too far or whether there it can be defended.

The "Stalinist" approach seems completely ridiculous. Science in a capitalist society is impure. Studies, experiments, tests are conducted for the purpose of advancing the agenda of corporations and private individuals, governments, even. Biased test conditions and experiments. Anyone that understands who is publishing the report, who funded it, will be able to put it into context with what it truly means. The way that these private (or public) bodies express 'science' is a small portion of what it really means.

I remember watching a documentary a few weeks ago, about the discovery of Radium, and how everyone was using it as medicine, as the "miracle substance", painting with it, everything, despite how toxic it was to humans. Biased studies were produced by scientists funded by the corporations that manufactured and distributed radium-based products showing how they had no negative health effects. People died, and many became chronically ill... I'm sure everyone here already knows how "science" works in the capitalist world, but it is important to know how widespread the issue is, to remind everyone that science is hardly ever truthful. Only in arcane, abstract fields like astrophysics, theoretical physics, string theory, theoretical mathematics, are there specifically "unbiased" studies... Ironically, these fields are among the least funded of the sciences, obviously for one reason because of their lack of applicability in the current human world but also because they cannot be abused by capitalists seeking to show the first page in the 100-page book of string theory, of theoretical physics, etc.

I don't completely understand what is meant by politicizing science as a form of ideology. If we are talking about a state based on the progression of science, that will inherently go bad in the capitalist society, because there exists the corporations that limit its funding in certain areas, and turn it basically into all "industrial research". This would likely be of the more "successful" of the capitalist societies in terms of economic development, because the bourgeoisie would quickly gain more access to the more advanced machinery, resource-refinement processes, etc. It would also polarize the science funding further so that the only funded science disciplines are those in the fields that would advance the bourgeoisie cause.

[bropasaran]

Scientific theory doesn't have much bearing upon reality-in-itself.

Since Newton posited "action at a distance" science basically became something like theology, and Newton himself acknoledged that. Before that there was a vulgar mechanicist view of the universe, simple cause and effect, atomos moving atomos, maybe there's souls fitted somewhere in there, but basically the view of universe was like a huge machine made out of solid material. Newton came with his theory of gravity, and then later appeared theories of electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces and that was all completely mind-boggling. How the fuck magnets work? Who knows!

Seeing that such things cannot be grasped, science "lowered the bar" from trying to understand the world to having understandable theories about how the world works, there's a huge difference there.

E.g. dark matter is totally theoretical concept based on some mathematical miscalculations that needed to be adjusted. I mean, there is even no objective definition of the most fundamental question of what matter itself is. What IS matter? No one knows. So, let alone dark matter. General relativity and space curvature, wat?

Not only that things like all of these cannot be proved, they cannot be even undestood, grasped by the human mind, the closest thing we can come to that is to understand theories about those things. Notice that for a theory to be scientifically acceptable it has to be consistent with itself, a bunch of pressupossitions and previous thoeries and with some data. That's it. That has no bearing upon truth. It doesn't have to be proved as true or real, it's scientically accepted on the grounds that we think that it is our closest aproximation to something like truth, and that's it.

And the pressupossitions I mention form a pretty big part of that. I suggest staring with Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and them moving onto Fayerabend's "Against Method" for critical, thought-provikig viewpoints of philosophy of science about what science is and how science works.