Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

Trust in institutions is at an all time low. The last thing we need is for these institutions to veer away from their goals to push a political agenda. Good riddance to her.

There are no apolitical institutions. You would see that more clearly when visiting (or god forbid living in) a dictatorship or totalitarian regime, where all institutions are either brought in line with the regime or abolished. And I do mean all including gardening clubs.

Enjoy institutions having the freedom to express political opinions, it is not guaranteed to last.

"Everything is political" is such a boring tautology.

Everything exists within the political climate of modern society. Institutions are forced to navigate the political landscape in which they exist.

But that does not make the institutions political in nature. There is absolutely nothing political about studying the mating patterns of beetles or the composition of rocks.

When people say that SA is being political, they mean that SA is using science to thinly veil their political activism. That's very different from your definition of "political"

"There is absolutely nothing political about studying the mating patterns of beetles"

It will be used as an example of how we are wasting tax money by politicians. It will be used as an example of how homosexuality is natural by one side, and then it will be used as an example of how science is used to "groom" children by the other. There will be fights about whether it should be in school books, and then some states will ban all school books that mention that research, and then publishers will be forced to remove it to still have enough of a market for their books. The authors will be called out on Twitter and receive death threats, their university will cut their funding to avoid the controversy, some students will complain about it, and then that will be used to show how universities indoctrinate our kids.

And so on.

That's what "everything is political" means. When people say things like "get politics out of x," they really mean "make x match my politics", because there's no such thing as "no politics."

The important distinction is that it is possible, and should be the expectation, that you can study beetles and publish the results without any sort of political motivation or bias.

In that sense, it is perfectly possible and reasonable to "take the politics" out of scientific research. Simply do the research and publish the results. There absolutely is a thing as "no politics".

Once the results are out in the world, politicians and pundits are going to talk about it. That doesn't make the science itself a political act.