RE: For science and peace
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Now we see how dependent and in what way science is usually bound to states and state funding; so far "free" and "open science"
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You are viewing a single comment's thread:
Now we see how dependent and in what way science is usually bound to states and state funding; so far "free" and "open science"
I am not sure to understand your comment and how it relates to my message. I will try to bring some items to the discussion. Feel however free to react and elaborate. Thanks in advance!
Scientists are always bound to funding. That has always been the case and will always be. For what concerns fundamental science, public money is often the only existing option. This being said, we always have the possibility to choose on what we work and with who we collaborate. If tomorrow I want to switch gears and work in the domain of biophysics, I can do it. So whereas there is a connection with funding, science is still free.
Of course, this is different when we discuss specific projects with funding coming from the private sector. Here, it is more a standard boss-to-employee relation. And this is probably different when like in Russia the state tries to mess-up (the story of Sakharov is a good example). This is however not a generality (at least for now... we are still lucky somehow).
On the other hand, open science is very different as this concerns transparency (open access, etc.). I am unsure to see the relation with the topic.
Thanks for passing by! Please enjoy the end of the week-end!
Hey @lemouth,
sorry for having caused confusion at this point and I should have specified "fiatscience" which may also include privately funded research in corporate setting arrangements. As my projects are mainly cryptofunded (I'm probably also in a minority) I see -as Ludvig Fleck might have said- a certain style (not only referring to disciplines) shaping certain ways of "doing" science. As much as I've been a critic of science or R&D funded by industries, I also saw and made myself the experience how bureaucratic aparatus can destroy promising ideas and critics can turn into skeptics destroying entrepreneurship and helpful and promising projects that would have actually survived on a market (outside of academia), when state funded (maybe as a lack of understanding or lack of contacts to people being active in the field (practice?)). As you wrote yourself you are still "friends" with your colleagues and "decided to refuse to write any referee report on any scientific manuscript or project in which Russian institutes are involved.", regardless what stance those scientists working in those Russian institutes have on the conflict: They are obviously not free. In your last paragraph/sentence with your word "disagreement" you made clear what position and at the same time shed light on what kind of contradictions might be in place at this point. To give you an example: I was asked if I would give a talk on a podcast just last week and I gave the founder of the podcast who is Russian the possibility to explain himself, what his thoughts on all this are and I told him to take time off and care for his other relatives in Ukraine as well. We definitely will have a cooperation when he resolves his issues in private life. As you correctly mentioned the open letter against the war, on an individual/personal level looks different but there are those institutions and institutionalization tendencies (in your case) that make a collaboration impossible for you. At this point I question how good one can separate a professional life of a scientist and their activities on instiutional/public level, esp. now that Corona era put our professional activities into the homeoffice (if not being a researcher in a lab). When I said open I didn't refer to open access per se when it comes to publishing but rather questioning how open one can be as a scientist with his own opinion/experiences and what impact it has/did not have on science or the work that they are doing. We might have seen that ideologically induced science might have not worked or represent reality in a sound way but we have seen that dictatorships are not necessarily producing bad science. How open/accessible/democratic science in academia (in certain countries is/can be) might be a topic for a separate post and my first comment might have been too short to sensitize for words we are so (over)used to already. You said:
And I'm curious if you would be able to switch to philosophy/philosophy of science/chemistry. Would you be free to switch to do science in a different way by refusing publishers or the very core of writing and express your research in artistic ways? Would you be still accepted among your colleagues as one of them or would there be another "public" emerge more interested and sharing a deeper understanding then in how you do science?
That’s fine. Please don’t be sorry. This is why discussion is important (and useful) ^^ And now I can comment more on what you said (thanks for all these details). I will try to comment on every point of your reply (apologies in advance if I miss something important, and please come back to me in this case).
I must say that I agree with you. Many of us (me, colleagues, and I think actually everybody) have seen grant proposals rejected by funding agencies for stupid reasons. For instance I submitted the same proposal two years in a row. The first year it was a super great idea but not funded because of lack of money. The second year this was apparently done for ages and straightly rejected without any right to object.
We see ideas and potentially good research being just killed in the egg. In addition, the time required to be spent on administration explodes… This is not the funniest part of the job and this is the one we more and more spent most of the time. All of this makes me sad…. The way science is managed those days is not optimal.
This is why it took me days to write what I wrote. The situation is full of contradictions, and there is no clear good solution.
What I decided is to stay in close contact with my friends and colleagues, but to refuse to write articles or to collaborate openly together. The reason as this would be de facto a collaboration between my university and research institute, and Russian universities and research institutes. This could then be taken as a scientific window for the power in place. And this I decided that I should refuse.
This was by far not easy to get there, and I still feel I cannot justify this very strongly. This is more what my heart tells me, to paraphrase @mobbs (sorry for the tag but those were your words). This is at the end of the day very non-scientific.
I have no idea about what to answer this (except that I misunderstood the usage of the word “open” on your initial message). The question is fair. The question has a meaning for any country involved in a conflict. Where to put the bar? Do we have to put a bar? I must admit that I don’t know. I already had enough troubles in finding what to do for the present case….
And I agree this has nothing to do with bad or good science. I should probably apologise for ignoring the point. I honestly don't know what to say.
Let’s now finish by something less severe and funnier…
Note that the example I wrote was just an example. I don’t see myself switching, but if I had to I would start by contacting research teams working on other topics and be included in those teams. If things go well, then we may have a smooth transition. I however have the advantage to work in an environment in which many fields and sub-fields are represented, so that the difference at the university level will be zero.
To come to the second point, knowing the time it takes to do good research, I don’t think it is possible to have two disconnected activities (exceptions exist; I would not be part of them), so that the opinion of the former colleagues will at this time be irrelevant.
But again, we are taking about a fictitious situation.