Re: <nettime> Why I won't support the March for Science

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

On 04/25/2017 04:34 AM, Eric Kluitenberg wrote:

> ... the proliferation of automated citation indexes, research and
> performance metrics, persisting science publishing oligopolies, a
> general war on non-quantiative approaches, a general distrust towards
> the Humanities and even the social sciences (among beta-oriented
> scientists) and ‘theory’  - what do you need concepts for when you
> can measure / quantify everything?

From what I could see (before our local US disaster shifted the focus) 
this kind of metrification in the intellectual world comes from 
neoliberal economics. It's an utterly false quantification because it 
rests on no "evidence" at all - ie, there is no way to prove that what 
they say is valuable, is really valuable. Are widely cited publications 
more valuable than the outliers from which significant discoveries 
emerge? Are statistical analyses of population behavior more valuable 
than the new gesture or concept that changes population behavior? Etc.

As I understand it, there are at least three parts to the politicization 
of science proposed by Latour. One involves involves scientists admiting 
that objectivity itself has political effects. A second involves 
breaking the stranglehold of capitalist industrial policy over all 
decision making. And the third involves understanding the difference 
between objectively produced facts and philosophically produced 
orientations. The idea of the latter is not that you come down on one 
side or the other of a supposed "fact/value" debate. Instead it's about 
recognizing that fundamental orientations in life are made through 
procedures very different from those whereby objective phenomena are 
characterized. The role of the humanities in the politicization of 
science is making this last point clear, in a dialogue with science and 
not through a refusal of it as the creationists and climate-deniers do. 
The dialogue is key: because politics depends on alliances.

best, Brian

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