It is surely within the ambit of scientific journals to take stands on issues that affect the fields they cover, but endorsing political candidates is a dangerous matter. In 2020, for example, Nature endorsed Joe Biden for President (a first for them). It did not change the readers’ views of Biden, but it eroded the credibility of both the journal and science in general. This is according to a study by Floyd Zhang published in Nature Human Behavior, and is summarized in a later issue of Nature:
Overall, the study provides little evidence that the endorsement changed participants’ views of the candidates. However, showing the endorsement to people who supported Trump did significantly change their opinion of Nature. When compared with Trump supporters who viewed Nature’s formatting announcement, Trump supporters who viewed the endorsement rated Nature as significantly less well informed when it comes to “providing advice on science-related issues facing the society” (Fig. 1). Those who viewed the endorsement also rated Nature significantly lower as an unbiased source of information on contentious or divisive issues. There was no comparable positive effect for Biden supporters.
Zhang also found that viewing Nature’s political endorsement reduced Trump supporters’ willingness to obtain information about COVID-19 from Nature by 38%, when compared with Trump supporters who saw the formatting announcement. This finding echoes other work on how partisanship influences interest in scientific information5. Furthermore, Trump supporters who viewed the endorsement also rated US scientists, in general, as much less well informed and unbiased than did Trump supporters who viewed the formatting article. There was no comparable positive effect for Biden supporters.
This lesson was apparently lost on Nature‘s American competitor, Science, which (like the new Nature article below it), is calling for scientists to hold Trump to account on things like climate change, pandemics, and so on. That’s fair enough, but then they politicize the whole thing by demonizing Trump from the outset, doing exactly the thing that will erode confidence in the journal and its pronouncements.
The article was written by Science‘s editor, Holden Thorp. He considers himself “progressive,” and has debated my partner in crime, Luana Maroja, on the role of politics in science (see also this video). Thorp also devoted a column in his journal to criticizing a paper on which both Luana and I were coauthors, a paper on “In Defense of Merit in Science” by Abbot et al.
Click to read:
Here’s the way it starts, guaranteed to alienate Republicans:
The reelection of Donald Trump for a second, nonconsecutive term as US president—mirroring only Grover Cleveland’s 22nd and 24th presidencies after the Civil War—underscores a reality: Although his success stems partly from a willingness to tap into xenophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, nationalism, and disregard for truth, his message resonates with a large portion of the American populace who feel alienated from America’s governmental, social, and economic institutions. These include science and higher education. Winning back this disaffected group will require science leaders to foster and promote a more inclusive scientific landscape for all Americans and lay out how science can be successful under Trump.
How willing will readers be to take these lessons to heart if they are Republicans? (Granted, most readers, who are budding scientists, will be Democrats, but then they don’t need these lessons.) Who wants to be implicitly told that they are xenophobes, racists, sexists, and nationalists?
And there’s a statement whose first part is tautological and the second part is debatable:
Make no mistake, the political assaults on science stem largely from those who seek to undermine the truth for political gain, and this dynamic is the major contributor to declining trust in science.
Some of the declining trust in science is also due to scientists’ changing their views, as during the COVID crisis, but much of that was simply due to the acquisition of new information and is not the fault of scientists. We are supposed to change our minds when new data undercuts our previous stands. But that erosion is not due to scientists “undermining the truth for political gain”. There is no mention of Nature’s contribution to declining trust in science by simply endorsing a candidate in 2020. Other erosion of trust occurs when scientists or journals make statements like “human biological sex is a spectrum,” something that is flatly wrong and contradicts what people already know.
The article above, then, is not only bound to do precisely what it’s decrying—eroding trust in science by politicizing it—but is also disingenuous by neglecting the causes of distrust in science that come from progressive politics, as well as from the infusion of politics in science.
The rest of the article is anodyne, urging scientists to change their minds when they’re wrong, not to engage in falsifying results (duh!), and not to blame “their students and postdocs for problems” (duh again!). The article ends by taking another swipe at an administration that hasn’t yet begun:
The attacks [on science] are going to keep coming and probably accelerate for the next 4 years. As painful as that will be, it’s up to the scientific community to respond in a way that makes those blows less successful.
The “four years” implies that the Trump administration will be bad for science. That may well be true, but we don’t know yet! Here we have journals playing Chicken Little.
Nature, already stung by its endorsement of Biden in 2020, didn’t endorse anyone in the last election, but might as well have endorsed Biden if you read this article. The piece also contains a survey showing that nearly 40% of Nature readers in the U.S. would consider moving out of the country if Trump won. I wonder how many actually will move?
At any rate, the new Nature article below also evinces fear of the Trump administration, but does so in a fear-mongering way that I wouldn’t employ were I editor. It also gives anodyne advice. But it’s not as bad as the Science article:
A few excerpts:
When Donald Trump was first elected to the US presidency in 2016, Nature advised scientists to constructively engage with Trump. We said that the incoming president’s contrary approach to evidence, among other things, had no place in modern society. We added that the science community had a responsibility to step up and work with the president and his new administration so that they govern on the basis of research and evidence.
. . .The United States has now re-elected Donald Trump as president. Many researchers have told Nature that they are in despair, seeing the election result as a step backwards for facts, reason, knowledge and civility.
Last week, Nature said that the United States needs a leader who respects evidence. The incoming administration must embody this principle. On behalf of the research community, we will hold it to account if it falls short.
We hope that the incoming administration will govern in the best interests of the United States. That means holding on to the best of what the previous administration did, and not returning to some of the policies of the first Trump presidency.
Is it journalism to cite the “many scientists who are in despair” without mentioning that some scientists (granted, a minority, given our political leanings) are happy? This is a slanted take.
The article then calls out the Trump administration (properly) for its weakness on recignizing climate change and for threatening to defund the World Health Organization. But then it becomes anodyne like the Science article above, and ends on a lame note:
The research community must engage with the new administration with courage, tenacity, strength and unity. At the same time, scientists in the United States must know that they are not alone. The research community is a global one. We need to stand together and stand strong for the challenges that are to come. And that will mean continuing to speak facts to power.
“Stand together” clearly means “stand together against the Trump administration,” and I think that’s obvious to any reader with eyes.
Readers here know that I abhor Trump, but even more than that I abhor the ideological erosion of my beloved science. In four years Trump will be gone (hopefully to be replaced by someone who’s not mentally ill), but any damage done to the reputation of science by journals rushing to take sides will last a lot longer.
At some point it will be understood by all that woke editors like H. Holden Thorpe and Laura Helmuth have done incalculable harm to science.
Both should have been fired years ago.
Breaking news: Laura Helmuth is leaving Sci Am!
Here is a recent article in *Science* providing evidence that most climate policies have been ineffective:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl6547
As summarized by the WSJ:
An evaluation of more than 1,500 climate policies in 41 countries found that only 63 actually worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Subsidies and regulations—policy types often favored by governments—rarely worked to reduce emissions, the study found, unless they were combined with price-based strategies aimed at changing consumer and corporate behavior.
“The commonality in those successful cases is where we see subsidies and regulations being combined with price-based policy instruments,” said Nicolas Koch, senior researcher at the Berlin-based Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change and an author of the study. “This means carbon pricing, and it could be energy taxes, it could be vehicle taxes.”
The study, published today in the journal Science, used an AI algorithm to sift through a database of environmental prescriptions compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based economic agency, between 1998 and 2020. These policies ranged from energy-efficient standards for household appliances to a carbon tax on fossil fuels like oil and gas.
https://www.wsj.com/science/environment/climate-change-policies-emissions-ai-research-a02b3f59
Has even one progressive reconsidered their support for the Inflation Reduction Act, which spends hundreds of billions of dollars on policies known to be ineffective?
I know we are supposed to be done with election analyses here, but seeing Science’s pronouncements on Trump’s racism and sexism as critical for he was elected, let me link a highly data-driven analysis that pretty much refutes that contention:
https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/a-graveyard-of-bad-election-narratives
Thanks. Good analysis.
Very interesting analysis by Musa al-Gharbi.
al-Gharbi:
Al-Gharbi explains why the following cannot explain Harris’ defeat:
1. Racism
2. Sexism
3. Money raised by the candidates (to buy the election).
4. The presence of third parties (Jill Stein, Cornel West, libertarian aprty)
5. Voter turnout
What actually explains the election results? Well, I recommend:
Matt Grossmann & David A. Hopkins: Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics. Cambridge UP, 2024
Herbert P. Kitschelt and Philipp Rehm: Polarity Reversal: The Socioeconomic Reconfiguration of Partisan Support in Knowledge Societies. Politics & Society, December 2023, 51(4)
Ruy Teixeira: The Shattering of the Democratic Coalition. Nov 7, 2024
It’s time to face the facts.
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-shattering-of-the-democratic/
The Democrats really are no longer the party of the common man and woman. The priorities and values that dominate the party today are instead those of educated, liberal America which only partially overlap—and sometimes not at all—with those of ordinary Americans.
Musa al-Gharbi: We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. Princeton UP, Oct 2024
How a new “woke” elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status – without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged.
I think one of the hardest things for me to learn personally is that the overwhelming majority of citizens in the country do not exactly care about my avocation, nor does my avocation bestow a special wisdom or insight that is by its nature superior to other thought. Though it can sorta feel like it (I admit) to enjoy reading challenging material in Nature or Science. Perhaps those notions are being played upon.
To put it crudely.
Thank you, this was very well done.
The only thing I would add regarding the name calling (xenophobe, racist, transphobe, etc.) is that the terms are not what they seem to be.
For example, those who claim that there are two biological sexes and against men participating in women’s sports are labeled as transphobes. Those who want the border enforced and the immigration system reformed to allow for a better legal immigration process are labeled xenophobes. Those who want to do away with hiring based on skin color are labeled racists. These are relatively moderate positions held by not just a far-right cabal of MAGA voters, but also be many mainstream Democrats, so when a media source takes those views, it does call into question for many their judgment about other politically-charged issues but science-based issues such as climate change.
Plus, name calling never gets those people that you call those names on your side, though it probably gets a lot of hits on Bluesky.
+1
Thought-terminating clichés
See
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism — A Study of “Brainwashing” in China
Robert J. Lifton
W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York
1961
MAYBE chapter 22. My notes are off at the moment.
The other thing about the redefinition of those terms by the progressive left is that per their chosen definition as I mentioned above, there were indeed a lot of transphobes, xenophobes, racists, etc., who rejected Harris and voted for Trump, or maybe didn’t vote at all but who would have traditionally voted D. So the leftists are right – there are a lot of transphobes, xenophobes, and racists in the country. By their definitions though, that includes me and many others who post and comment on this site, even though we don’t see ourselves as such.
This capture of language by the left reminds me a lot of Maoist linguistic engineering. It’s a shame that it’s also infected science magazines.
Um about that survey in Nature. Among the scientists in my university department, nowhere near 39% are even *capable* of moving to live somewhere else in response to an election outcome. The vast majority of working scientists (researchers, graduate students, professors, instructors) are tethered to their jobs, grants, labs, and salaries, and their families are similarly tethered. New jobs are hard to find. Moving to a different province (or state) or country is a year(s)-long project. So I guess those survey results are aspirational or, ahem, political statements. But – just in case – somebody should alert the watchers at the border (h/t Leslie) to keep an eye out for migrant scientists looking for asylum here in Canada.
The same cultural trends also exist in Canada. The trans debate is identical on both sides of the border, for example.
The Liberals under Trudeau are polling badly and likely to the next election.
The far left needs to confront these ideas, not fantasize about running away.
Sadly it appears that journal editors have discovered that they have a platform that extends beyond their primary constituencies: scientists and science lovers. Their pontifications are now picked up in social media and spread way beyond their traditional audiences. Some of these editors simply can’t resist the temptation to spread their great wisdom into the great beyond. Put simply, they should shut up and publish science.
TDS is both real and highly contagious.
Neither side is without “sin”; my hope is that the extremism and politicization of everything, exhibited by both Dems and Repubs, dies a quick death, but I’m not holding my breath.
This resembles religions in that one side can tell you the flaws in the other sides reasoning, but cannot see the holes in their own “arguments”.
I think you are right on this, Ceiling Cat. For me, losing my trust in the editors of NYT, Guardian, Atlantic, Science, Scientific American, etc. changed me. Until we fire all these editors, I do not believe trust in science will be restored.
Me losing my idealism is something I deeply resent.
The ideological capture of science kills me. They really don’t understand that they are to blame for the loss of trust. It’s not the Republicans.
Also, this is a controversial thing for me to articulate, but the editors of Nature and Science politicizing science marks the editors as having higher than average but mediocre IQs in the game of science and that they are high in neuroticism. Who the hell needs that? On the bell curve of smarts in science, they betray themselves as not being equipped to adjudicate decisions about the most difficult ideas known to man.
We need a better screen for editors, a hiring criteria that selects that selects on smarts, low neuroticism, and politeness only the to the extend that politeness/agreeableness smooths over a multitude of sins and maintains professionality.
You forgot the Lancet!
I don’t know why, but I’m still laughing at that a full minute later as I try to type!
🙂 Hah, yes. Oversight, indeed.
This is the 50th anniversary of Feynman’s 1974 commencement speech at Caltech on pseudo-science or “cargo cult” science.
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
One of the key points is that the easiest person to fool is yourself, and a good scientist bends over backward to doublecheck his assumptions and data. There really is no mention of religion here but the ideas apply to anything folks are accepting without good evidence.
The TDS stuff is just “weird” to someone on the outside. I think some very smart folks are being manipulated.
From the link:
“During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency.”
That crazy idea is still around. Perhaps not so much here but it exists.
On a brighter note, just above the Thorpe editorial in that same issue, Marcia Mcnutt has an opinion piece titled “Science is Neither Red Nor Blue” that you would probably broadly agree with.
I think the idea that science is neutral is just not true, & I wonder if it ever has been. I think too many scientists have presented factual results, then stood back & pretended that they are no longer responsible for how those results are used or represented. I think more scientists should be politically active, as we need scientists to be involved in politics & law-making, rather than just bloody lawyers…. there are too many of them!
PS in Nature -this article on bird evolution
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08114-4
Scientists can run for office to be a part of that decision making process, as can anyone who meets the minimum criteria. I agree with you – it also would provide scientists with a more real-world view of the tradeoffs involved in implementing public policy.