Accountability and impunity in application of knowledge

Living within a Self-engendered Simulation (Part #5)

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

In assertively seeking to displace religion and other methods framed as pseudosciences, science as an institution could be recognized as increasingly subject to a process of enantiodromia. As institutions, both religion and science engage by whatever means in processes to protect their institutions at all costs, however much these are arguably alien to their principles and methods. The implication in both cases is that their respective methods cannot be held to be at fault -- however much they rationalize their respective vulnerability to "sin" and "error" and the necessary remedial responses.

It is then curious to compare the response of religion to heresy with any analogue in science. Religion has a tragic history of handling any suspicion of heresy -- one which has engendered dramatic fragmentation into denominations. Unbelievers continue to be subject to the severest sanctions. Difficulties are however evident in the handling of sexual abuse by clergy with remarkable little recourse to the process of excommunication and defrocking.

The legal profession has a process of disbarment, namely the removal of a lawyer from a bar association or the practice of law, thus revoking any law license or admission to practice law. Disbarment is usually a punishment for unethical or criminal conduct but may also be imposed for incompetence or incapacity.

The challenge for science is potentially greater, although it is now following the "playbook" of religion to a recognizable degree. There is however little evidence of any disbarment or defrocking process. In this regard, a striking case of infringement of ethical principles in the "soft sciences" is offered by the complicity of the American Psychological Association and some of its members in the process of torture (Linda M. Woolf, Torture, APA, and the Hoffman Report: What Now? What can the APA do to rectify the shameful legacy of psychology's collusion? Psychology Today, 13 July 2015). The APA voted to remove psychologists from settings that operate outside international law, and to ban participation of psychologists in unlawful interrogations. Clearly there is no question of the psychologists in question having their academic qualifications withdrawn, thereby rendering their universities complicit to a degree.

With respect to the "hard sciences", especially with their widespread involvement in development of weapons of mass destruction, there is little evidence of any sanction, given the complicity of science and government in that process, and despite the preoccupations of bodies such as the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (Elisabeth Pain, The Social Responsibilities of Scientists, Science, 16 February 2013). Other instances which could be seen as calling for some form of sanction by science are documented by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway (Merchants of Doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming, 2010). No matter how heinous the crime, or how bad the science, academics are not subject to any process analogous to defrocking ("dedoctoring"? deprofessoring"?). As with any priesthood, scientists are effectively above the law.

Arguably however it is an analogue to the process of excommunication which is used by scientists, if not intrinsic to science. Clearly those fully qualified as scientists, who engage in activities disapproved by other scientists (disciplines or institutions), are subject to forms of exclusion from professional associations, conferences, and journals.

A striking example is offered by the widely documented case of Rupert Sheldrake, most notably prior to his own description of the process (Science Delusion: freeing the spirit of enquiry, 2020; Ted Dace, The Anti-Sheldrake Phenomenon, February 2010). The latter argues that the systematic confusion of science with reductionist dogma is the most dangerous cult of them all. A related perspective, termed epistemological anarchism, was previously articulated by Paul Feyerabend (Against Method, 1993; Science in a Free Society, 1978).

As with religion, development of the handling of potentially offensive disagreement is not a feature of the scientific method or its modelling processes. How indeed might any incommensurability of simulations be encompassed, as implied by the arguments of Nicholas Rescher (The Strife of Systems: an essay on the grounds and implications of philosophical diversity, 1985; The Limits of Science, 1999).

As with religion in the past, science as an institution has demonstrated a high degree of dubious complicity with "mainstream" authoritarianism in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The dubious responses of religion to perceptions of heresy are now evident in the response of science to challenges by groups of scientists to the authoritarian view -- uncritically conflated with notions of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories, as a means of protecting science as an institution. This extends to complicity in proposals for government justifications for censorship, "taking down" websites and accounts, and possibly criminal proceedings ("Careless Talk Costs Lives" -- Fresh Calls To Silence Pandemic Skepticism, OffGuardian, 6 January 2021, # 335; Joseph Mercola, Spy Agencies Threaten to "Take Out" Mercola, 1 December 2020).

There is an intriguing contrast with the understanding of profession, especially since many scientists would describe themselves as "professionals" in contrast to their deprecation of ill-informed "amateurs". It is however confusing in that the sense of profession extends beyond the domain of science to include other activities in which some form of training and certification is required. In such cases there may well be provision for a process of de-registration (being "struck-off") and/or de-certification in the event of malpractice. Despite being considered as professionals, no such provision is evident in the case of scientists. Are there no circumstances under which a scientist can be disqualified -- even if their actions are deemed unprofessional?

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]