International history professor Liesbeth van der Grift will walk along the A12 motorway with other professors at the end of 2023. With Extinction Rebellion they are campaigning for the climate. “When we walked along the motorway in Toga, there was continuous applause. People were grateful that we were visible representatives of science,” she says. However, not everyone is enthusiastic. Other scientists, who are demonstrating under the name of the Scientists’ Rebellion, can count on criticism. It raises questions about the role of the scientist: does he or she stop at sharing knowledge or is he or she allowed to speak out about the consequences of this – even as an activist? Where is the line, and are guidelines needed for this?
Science influences politics
These are not new questions, says university historian Peter Slaman. “Scientists are not necessarily more involved in social debate than they were in the past. It was already happening in the time of the Greeks, Oppenheimer did it, and it is no different now. Scientific work simply influences society. And that is often a good thing. Society would look very different if researchers had not proven the link between smoking and lung cancer, and have been actively talking about it ever since. As a scientist, you simply have a signaling function, say the proponents of the activist science debate. You are the first to know the results of the research and perhaps the only one who can interpret them. No, say the opponents. As a scientist, you have to stay out of it all. You are allowed to have an opinion, but as a citizen, please leave your lab coat or gown at home, otherwise you are compromising the impartiality and credibility of science.”
The truth does not exist
According to Salaman, you need people who go out in the street wearing a lab coat or gown. But you also need a solid core of scientists who keep their distance, precisely to control the process and ensure the impartiality of the research. Although, he says, we must be careful not to act as if the “truth” ever exists. “Science is trying to find the truth, but it is not fixed knowledge that comes down to us. It is a process with fixed steps. If you have a point of view first and then you want to prove it with science, you turn the process upside down. Then you are no longer interested in finding the truth, but in shopping for facts.”
There is no such thing as neutral research, says research professor Trudy Deho. The topic you choose to research already provides direction in itself. But choices are also made within the study that affect the outcome. Take the Brain Foundation, for example, which claims that “a quarter of the population has a brain disease.” Behind this lie value-laden definitions. Because what do you consider a brain disease? Facts are always the end product of all sorts of processes. That’s why I call them “intensive arguments.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but we have to have those arguments, otherwise it’s a matter of persuasive activity. And that’s really undesirable.
open and transparent
According to Deho, scientists are allowed to be activists, as long as they are open and transparent. “During the Covid pandemic, there was also openness from scientific experts about the difficulties in determining the numbers of infected people. They explained that the numbers include decisions about who is considered to be sick with the coronavirus. Openness about such decisions is a central feature of reliable science. If science then calls for a mask policy or vaccination, that is an expression of healthy social engagement.
Shoemaker, stick to the last one.
According to Salaman, it is important that scientists only speak publicly about a topic on which there is real consensus within the field. And they must be genuine experts on the subject: “If a legal philosopher claims that there are chips in COVID vaccines, we are damaging the credibility of science as a whole.” You may not be breaking any laws officially, but you are crossing an unofficial boundary.
Both Salaman and Dehue advocate mutual clarity: not presenting issues as facts without pointing out what those facts are made of. Dehue: It’s fine to argue for or against specific measures, as long as you do so with a completely open mind. As with the nitrogen restrictions. Farmers argued and researchers joined the discussion by adopting the arguments or refuting them with evidence. You can call these researchers ecologists, but I don’t see anything wrong with that. Quite the opposite. In these polarized times, it’s good for scientists to come out of their ivory towers.
