Slashdot Mirror
Why Scientists Should Have a Greater Voice On Global Security
Lasrick writes "Physicist Lawrence Krauss has a great piece in the NY Times today about the lack of influence scientists wield on global security issues, to the world's detriment. He writes, 'To our great peril, the scientific community has had little success in recent years influencing policy on global security. Perhaps this is because the best scientists today are not directly responsible for the very weapons that threaten our safety, and are therefore no longer the high priests of destruction, to be consulted as oracles as they were after World War II. The problems scientists confront today are actually much harder than they were at the dawn of the nuclear age, and their successes more heartily earned. This is why it is so distressing that even Stephen Hawking, perhaps the world’s most famous living scientist, gets more attention for his views on space aliens than his views on nuclear weapons. Scientists' voices are crucial in the debates over the global challenges of climate change, nuclear proliferation and the potential creation of new and deadly pathogens. But unlike in the past, their voices aren't being heard.'"
They don't build large political or commercial organizations, their tests for success and advancement are radically different than those in the political space, so they are just hopelessly unqualified for that role.
This is my sig.
An increasing number of politicans will only listen to the scienticians if what they're saying supports the conclusions they've already arrived at.
They're not interested in facts, just their own ideology.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
To much politics in science today to trust them with decisions.
There is a lot of junk out there being passed off as science.
Many scientists are available for sale to the highest bidder.
This has caused a loss of trust in the scientific community by the general public and the leadership.
- "hackers" would be called "tireless researchers"
- finding security flaws would be called "peer-review"
- there would be a lot more 14-year-olds leading new scientific advances
and...
- people who put their own self-interests aside to disseminate paywalled scientific research for the betterment of humankind would be labeled "heros," and be awarded posthumous honors
Sent from my ENIAC
I suspect I'm going to get moddd into oblivion for this, but:
That's because scientists are smart within their respective field, but people too often assume that Intelligence is the same thing as Wisdom. It is not. But more importantly my own opinion is that most scientists are divorced from geopolitical reality. Case in point, the recent article discussing the doomsday clock still being set at 5 minutes to midnight. While a piece of that involves global warming, a significant piece of that is due to the existing large nuclear weapons stocks. Really? Today, in 2013, we're closer to doomsday than 1962 during the Cuban Missile crisis, the closest the Cold War ever came to a hot war, when Russia was building nuclear weapon silos within a few hundred miles of America's hearltand (it was at 7 minutes to midnight then)? Those guys are clearly running their calculations missing a few data points.
just because there are a lot of nuclear weapons out there doesn't mean anyone is remotely close to actually firing one off.
Scientists promote Godless evil ideas such as global warming, evolution and birth control. They also seem to think you should believe something based on the evidence for it, sound methodology, and peer review. If every idea had to be scrutinized thusly, do you realize how difficult it would be to get every new idea about aliens and conspiracies onto talk radio? Then how would we are to be learning about these important topics?
--
Necessity is the mother of invention. Greed is the mother of patents.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
As I recall, the only time anyone listened is when a bunch of awesome-sauce physicists warned that the nazis were working on atomic weapons research. Obviously, we couldn't let a mineshaft gap of that size exist, so we had to beat them to it.
Much more instances of ignoring, like agent orange for example.
Unless you're telling about a really neat new way to stick it to the enemy, or an asteroid will kill us allin 6 months unless we send Bruce Willis and Ben Afleck to nuke it (because blowing shit up is effing awesome), you're just not that interesting.
More like a nagging wife:
Blah blah good of humanity blah blah anti-matter reactor blah blah free energy blah blah big bada boom blah blah... wait, did you say big effing explosions? Annihilation of matter, particularly ENEMY matter? You have my attention sirs, please proceed...
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".
-- Isaac Asimov
It has been a long time since anyone existed who could only call himself (or herself) a "scientist." The term is now a generic way to refer to people whose actual work is in any of a staggering number of highly specialized fields. There is some acknowledgment of this in TFA, which states (correctly) that many of today's greatest scientific minds don't work directly in the fields related to the things that affect our security. To use the article's own example, Stephen Hawking is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist: he doesn't work on nuclear weapons.
But for a given question, what grounds are there to privilege the viewpoints of those whose expertise is not in a field of direct relevance to that question? On questions concerning nuclear weapons, for example, why should Stephen Hawking's viewpoint be held as equivalent to a nuclear physicist's viewpoint? For that matter, why should his viewpoint be held as superior to the viewpoint of anyone else who is not a nuclear physicist?
there's money to be made!
The BAS is the perfect example that scientific knowledge doesn't translate to political insight. They've been crying wolf for 60 years, and are now surprised why nobody is listening to them anymore? If science really has lost influence, it's because of people like these guys who hide behind science and call everyone 'anti-science' who disagrees with them.
"Perhaps this is because the best scientists today are not directly responsible for the very weapons that threaten our safety, and are therefore no longer the high priests of destruction, to be consulted as oracles as they were after World War II."
More likely it's because people finally figured out that being a scientist doesn't make you an authority on non-scientific topics. (Not to mention that the golden era he laments, like all such golden eras, never really existed.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Scientists are specialized brains who devote a significant majority of their life and time to one discipline or sub-discipline. A specialist is good for explaining how something works in layman's terms, a generalist is better at integrating this information into other specalist's explanations to mesh out something that works. A scientific council with general recommendations and upper/lower bounds to possible solutions? Great. A scientist deciding the solution outright? No sir.
The writer wants greater influence from scientists who agree with him.
I suspect that given the chance to have given Edward Teller or William Shockley greater influence on global security, he might decline.
On the other hand, he might have wanted more influence by someone like Linus Pauling.
All three mentioned were good scientists in their fields. So, the criterion becomes what their positions are rather than just that they are good scientists.
How on earth did this drivel make the front page?
Stop calling problems challenge, we don't need any more of this stupid businessspeak.
People who studied underwater basket weaving at the university of life tend to seek questions to their answers, and fear anyone who disrupts the process by injecting facts and equations.
Scientists don't have a good track record on setting policy. They tend to get too focused on their own little area and end up making bad decisions. And that doesn't even take into consideration what can happen when the wrong scientist gets in control, if you remember the Russian horrors of Lysenkoism.
Any time you create a process whereby people can acquire power, that process will be abused. Remember the fighting between Oppenheimer and Teller? It can get much, much worse than that.
If scientists have more power than average people, then everyone will rush to redefine themselves as scientists, like this guy. Instead of marketers, we'll have "social researchers." Instead of accountants we'll have "capital flow researchers." And I'm not going to stay out of the game, I'll definitely be a computer scientist, not a programmer. Soon the term "scientist" will lose its meaning.
If scientists want to affect policy in a democratic society, they need to get better at explaining. Albert Einstein reportedly said, "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." It may sound excessive, but remember that's what Feynman did with advanced theoretical physics. You can do it. Of course, in a democratic society, if everyone collectively wants to shoot themselves in the foot, there's not always much you can do about it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Given their hostility to religion, they would be the first to advocate blowing up Mecca and starting WW3.
The major power structures, church and state, are formed around blind faith.
They know what is best and will do it for you. You just have to believe.
Science is based around inquiry and questioning what is going on.
To accept science you must be open to doubt.
The major power structures are based on doubt and questioning being a very very bad thing.
If we want science to go up we must become free of the current power structures.
The solution to nuclear proliferation is not for scientists to have some greater voice. It's for scientists to convince the populace that nuclear proliferation is an issue worth bothering about. So far, they have failed.
Isn't it ironic that most people are more worried about having a nuclear reactor within a few dozen miles from their backyard, than they are worried about getting vaporised or poisoned by thermonuclear war?
Scientist: Nuclear weapons are bad, mmmkay?
World: Gosh. Thanks.
Lets face it, "Scientists" lie and manipulate just as much as anyone. Especially when they lie and manipulate in order to get funding for their "scientific research".
Just because youre a scientist or label yourself as one does not mean you are credible, a person with everyones best interest at heart, honest or worthy or any authority. Just like politicians dont always mean a good politician.
And the thing about most science is you dont actually need proveable facts, all you need to do is guess a lot and throw in some fancy wording and you can sound credible and correct even if youre 100% wrong. Hmmm that sounds just like your standard politician doesnt it?
Science should have a greater voice on policy at all levels. Laws are intended to accomplish goals. They should be tested regularly to see if they accomplish those goals, and repealed if they do not. Evidence based legislation is a good idea for the same reasons evidence based medicine is.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
An increasing number of politicans will only listen to the scienticians if what they're saying supports the conclusions they've already arrived at.
They're not interested in facts, just their own ideology.
It's not just politicians, it's everywhere - even on Slashdot.
If you look at the gun control debate and only consider the evidence, the answer is obvious. It's been obvious for a long time - there was an article in Scientific American decades ago which explained the evidence and statistics. The conclusion hasn't changed since then.
And yet, people go back and forth on this very website arguing storylines instead of facts. Both sides continuously cite heartfelt stories in an attempt to sway others that what they believe is correct. The statistics are there, there's some attempt to mislead the debate by framing the numbers in specific ways, but overall it's clear-cut.
Being a scientist means you make evidence-based decisions. I may not like the decisions, and it may feel wrong to me, but at the end of the day I know that basing decisions on evidence is the most likely path to success.
If you don't form your beliefs based on evidence in the gun debate, why bother using evidence at all? If you can believe stories over evidence, then vaccinations cause autism, cell phones cause cancer, a little inflation is good, and a talking snake convinced a rib-woman to eat an apple from a magic tree.
There are cases where we don't have enough information, and "best guess" and "expert opinion" can probably serve; however, many times the evidence is overwhelming and the path is clear.
We would all do well to stop talking "pathos" in our posts and concentrate on facts.
That's what we should be doing, really: keep the debate focused on evidence. When there's a clear indication from evidence, don't let the other side wander off into storyland.
(I chose gun control as an emotionally-charged topic that's fresh in people's minds. I claim the point is valid for many issues discussed on Slashdot.)
Global security isn't a democracy, its an anarchy decided by the people with the guns.
Unlike the hysterical, afraid-of-their-own-shadows populace who have their "gut instinct" and "common sense" to go by,
or the clergy who get their information directly from the god(s)/goddess(es)/supreme being(s),
those silly scientists only have theories (that suck so bad they need to be modified all the time to fit new data).
no, its highly intelligent.
The reactor in my "backyard" is owned by a company based 1000 miles away in an economic system with a proven track record of not caring about what happens beyond ned quarters numbers. They would kill me and my family in an instant if they thought it would improve their numbers. Currently, it would not, lucky me... so far.
The folks with fingers on the button truly have their bacon in the game, and so far none of them have been crazy enough to want to vaporize their entire family and country just because they're mad at us.
I'd trust a russian general a hell of a lot more than I'd trust an american CEO, any day. Trust does not equal blind obedience or worship... just means... trust.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Scientists have a voice; they can speak out plenty using the numerous tools we all can use to share our thoughts all over the world(as I am doing now). There is nothing stopping anyone(in an even remotely free and peaceful society) from putting up a youtube vid or tweet or whatever for all of us to see. What is really meant by this conflated phrase 'should have a voice' is exactly the opposite of the real definition. The real proposition is not that they should be able to have the means to speak to any willing to listen(they already do), instead it is that they should be able to tell us what to do(via various statist means). This is exactly the opposite of wanting people to have a voice, to permit discourse. It is domination, not dialogue. It is using terms of voluntarism to mask terms of violence. Krauss in this NY times article is advocating more control of the guns of the state by scientists while using the language of peace.
We should listen to people like PEEZEE? No thank you, I don't believe the government is the perfect parent for us.
Four years ago a candidate for President promised to "restore science to it's rightful place" - why hasn't it happened? He got elected (and re-elected) to office on that pormise (among others)?
Ken
...will they behave differently from anyone else in such a situation? I doubt it. Scientists are human, too. Thrown into the political arena, and they too will act politically.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
The politicians, political leaders especially, all seek power to enforce their wills upon the world around them. Some may feel this is for the greater good, (religious theocratic leaders), others merely for self-fullfillment (ordinary dictators, and many elected officials.) A good many are somewhere between.
The scientist looks at the stark reality of the world around them, and work studiously to distance themselves from their own wants and desires for outcomes of experiments (eg, BIAS.) A real, proper, and riggorous scientist accepts hard data with a stoic air, and breathes easier as his bias gets swept away by review, leaving only objective truths behind.
The politician has "a vision" of how the world "should be".
The scientist tries to build a model of how the world actually is.
This is why the scientist is ignored studiously by the politician; the scientist harps on and on, and on about what is, while the politician seeks to change all that, and philosphically rejects harsh limits on what can be done. The politician often feels the current or natural state of things is something to OVERCOME, not something to respect and build into policy.
As such, the politician is only interested in what the scientist has to say in regards to methods of envoking change, looking for tools and weapons to use to produce the changes the politician feels are needed, to make the world match his own internal view of "ideal."
Chemistry and metalurgy give rise to internal combustion engines and industry, and chemical fertilizers. It isn't about the knowledge or truth, but about what you can extort out of nature by bending and breaking rules. That's all the politician cares about.
As such, the politician simply *does NOT* want to hear about how a policy he deems essential will cause all hell to come to breakfast. Like global warming and pollution; the scientists have predicted that heavy industrialism would result in a damaged and possibly unlivable climate since the beginning of the industrial revolution. The politicians simply would hear none of it. Industry was essential to their wish fullfillment, and the consequences were unwelcome distractions, treated as evil distractions and detractions from their glorious dreams of the ideal societies they would build through "progress." (With themselves, naturally, enshrined as heros and architects of that grand future they were the visionaries for.)
Short of a hostile takeover from the madmen of politics, awash in their selfish fantasies, I don't see science making a dent in the RDF those bastards create for themselves.
Maybe our government would listen more of our politicians held degrees in science. Take China for example.
Scientists are in desperate need of a politically active association in all the worlds major economies. Only then by the shear numbers of voters that are scientists and a focus on the issues that involve scientists i.e. global warming but not raising the debt ceiling will politicians sit up and listen. For fun it could be called APPLES (rekindling Issac Newton's memory) standing for the Association to effect Political Pressure through Lobbying and Education by Scientists. How do you like them Apples?
Careful what you ask for: next thing you know, scientists will be (even more) selected on their policies.
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
It's for scientists to convince the populace that nuclear proliferation is an issue worth bothering about.
Politicians who care about it are also making a lousy case. I distinctly remember one of the Bush-Kerry debates back in 2004, when as the final question the moderator asked each candidate what they thought the most important issue of the day was. Kerry responded with nuclear proliferation, and everyone looked at him like he had 3 heads or something.
That said, the way the world has been responding (or more exactly, not responding) to issues of global warming, I'm not sure how much longer nuclear proliferation will matter.
I am officially gone from
I totally agree, and I am one of them.
We have given up and have passed the baton to the bean-counters of all sorts and all worlds. In a nutshell, we have allowed ourselves to be prostituted in scales of rankings and economies. We have given up all ethic authority for breadcrumbs at funding, evaluation and throughput.
While writing the post I googled the article, but can't find it. The current debate on gun control is flooding the search results right now, even for something as specific as Scientific American.
On further reflection, I decided to say nothing as to which side was the "right" side of this issue. I'm trying to make a larger point, and the actual debate is secondary. Also, I'm hoping that this will encourage people to post evidence that I'm unaware of. (I clam that the evidence is clear on this issue, but I might be wrong.)
I can remember reading the article in my youth, it had clear conclusions. It's less relevant today than more modern statistics.
Sorry for the omission, it was somewhat on purpose.
I applaud the attitude. Verifying assumptions and otherwise scientific thinking are what we need most.
We are the problem. Global security or security in general will always be a concern. There will always be someone who comes to power who will want more and will create weapons of mass destruction. It is the selfish part of human nature, and we are technologically advanced enough that we can destroy ourselves. There is no solution. No philosopher king or scientist can save the day. The problem is us.
The Doomsday clock is a complete farce, and an excellent example of why I wouldn't let the BAS run a bath, let alone a government.
The criteria for setting it are subjective, highly politicised, and fly in the face of quantitative data on conflict levels. The scientists setting it may now how to tamp an enhanced fission device, but they come out with opinions and "analysis" that would get them laughed off a 1st year military, history, economics, or politics course.
Scientists outside their speciality (i.e. in policy formation) are not more competent than a man on the proverbial omnibus. Indeed, they are often worse because their local expertise and prestige fools them into thinking they have general expertise. Which isn't to say they are terrible, just that I treat their special pleading with the caution it deserves.
Agreed, the historical record of the Doomsday clock makes the current setting look ridiculous. the press releases have become increasingly incoherent and strange, so they only reveals the prejudices of its authors.
The doomsday clock has no methodology, no numbers, and is completely irreproducible and unfalsifiable.
I guess that's what the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists think is "science".
Until a DMCA take-down is issued...
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
One interesting example I heard of is the fascinating Antanas Mockus, a Mathematician who became the mayor of Bogota. He had Unorthodox methods to say the least, but I found his creativity intriguing. My father once told me there was a political party in Israel once formed by scientists, but it went no where. You heard the one about two academics and a lightbulb right?
And then there are plenty of scientists out there consulting - this guy consulting the IMF with some potent ideas with heuristics for dealing with complex systems and tail events. I sure do hope they listen. Then again you will find ten other schmucks who are so called experts but give extremely harmful advice. And for all I know, Taleb's methods (as appealing as they seem to me) may fail under certain circumstances.
What I want to see is scientists forming financially and intellectually independent groups that aside from producing peer reviewed papers (or journals for that matter) would also work on projects (business, research, other). Asides from the ability to independently investigate and critique the government, it would be able to solve problems without government intervention. Not all solutions are costly and complicated, and the government is frequently large and inefficient. This might do some good to the economy, politics and science itself. In any case when things are small, failure is small. Things move quick. If something nice pops up it will pick up anyway, and centralized planning is often too sluggish to react. I am not saying Laissez-faire but a little consideration for the Subsidiarity principle in all our institutions would do society a lot of good.
That's the point that you miss... effectiveness is in the eye the beholder, and that's what politics is for. Sure, you can scream bloody murder about a coal mine operator in Kentucky funding opposition to AGW, but, by the same token, he's under no moral obligation to care that New Jersey's coast might get battered by rising seas when he chose live on top of a mountain. Politics recognizes this, and science doesn't.
This is my sig.
I would go for that.
Never met an academic self-annointed scientist worth a tinkers damn for actually making anything of any value to anybody who had to actually trade for it with their own goods and services. For that matter, never met a registered professional Engineer who was granted the PE without ever stepping out of the protected sandbox of government schools and grants who was worth more than a shake of the head.
No, they are not antithetical at all. There is nothing stopping from a scientist who tries to build a model of the real world can't run for office and be a politician. There are certainly scientifically minded people in our government right now.
I think the issue is more that the type who is attracted to power tend not to be the scientist type. They are more the sociopath type that believes they are better than everyone else and whatever view they have is superior.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
There is only one rule: http://druptest.dailywav.com/sites/default/files/wavs/obey2.wav
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
Eisenhower said back in 1960: "Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite." We all remember the warnings about the military-industrial complex; how many remember the warnings against a scientific elite? (http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html)
First, why should scientists be any better at policy than anyone else? For example, the author of the piece we're referring to has unconditionally decided that nuclear weapons should be completely eliminated. (I ignore here the game theoretic flaws with his position such as how you keep defectors from obtaining nukes.) Because his view isn't supported at the government level, he is now arguing that scientists should have a greater influence on policy.
That's classic argument from authority. He wants to have his way so he wants policy decided in such a way that he becomes a primary authority and his interests are furthered. So what makes him a better source for nuclear weapons policy?
Second, we have the fundamental problem that scientists are cheap. As may be recalled, the tobacco companies had little trouble finding scientists to produce pro-tobacco health studies.
I would not call climate change a science. So far its all guessing. "We guess there is man made climate, we talked it over, and come to a consensus. We have no science to back it up, but its good enough."
Politics control science and destroy it if they can't benefit from it, like NASA turning into a Muslim outreach program. (don't think that will happen, but that is what Obama said he wanted NASA to do.)
Mr Krauss is with his political views not a scientist but political activist. I am for sure against listening anyone to him. The moment science will start telling us what is good and what is bad is the last moment we will keep calling it science or be able to discern it from religion. Unfortunately for some it is just a new religion.
It would certainly make more sense to give scientists greater influence over policy, than it is to let journalists have this power.