I respect the author's principle-based approach but many of her arguments seem a little off. If the RS doesn't expel people for their politics, then it doesn't make sense to expel Musk for, essentially, concerns about his politics. And if you expel crotchety scientists for disagreeing with the scientific consensus there won't be any left. The RS motto is literally "Take nobody's word for it"; I don't see how Musk disagreeing with other's opinions could possibly be grounds for removing him.
That being said, Musk does seem like a vaguely inappropriate addition to the Society. His wikipedia page suggests he doesn't have a PhD, doesn't do any research and is involved in military matters for an army foreign to the UK. He's obviously being included because he has lots of money and it isn't clear to me if that is proper or not.
> If the RS doesn't expel people for their politics, then it doesn't make sense to expel Musk for, essentially, concerns about his politics.
But the article does not talk about Musk's political opinion per se. The concerns would have been totally the same if Musk was acting the same way but involving himself with a different political ideology.
The concerns seem to be: 1) Musk is aggressive towards his fellow scientists, 2) Musk is supporting and spreading anti-science things, 3) Musk is pushing for anti-science practices in his own scientifically linked activities (such as not following the steps that guarantee good science in clinical trials).
The article mentions that Musk is getting more political. However, the message is not "being political is the reason why he should be excluded", the message is "while it is possible to be political and continue to adhere to the scientific practice, what we see is that Musk gets more and more anti-science because he gets more and more political".
I feel similarly. I agree Musk doesn't belong in the RS, but I'd have said the same in 2018 (I missed the news). It's concerning that the author has only come to this realization now that Musk vocally disagrees with her political views. I don't consider that principled at all
If it was just scientific consensus and politics, that would be one thing — while I share the author's opinion in these aspects, I recognise these aspects are not sufficient for such a response.
To actively stir up trouble and misrepresent other scientists, and to perform experiments outside recognised ethical norms as Musk does, is much much worse.
And also very obviously a violation of the quoted rules, and brings the society into disrepute.
Yes, the mistake was inviting him to be a fellow in the first place. Now he's in, the Society must follow its rules and precedents. At the very least, it shouldn't be seen to expel someone for political opinions or heterodox views on science. Some the of Royal Society's most notable members have had lunatic fringe ideas and they weren't thrown out.
It's a valid viewpoint, however membership to the royal society is judged via candidates having made 'a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science'. I would argue Elon is fully within scope, outside of the fact that I think Elon is not the slightest fit to the general ethos of that specific organization.
The core of the OP’s argument as I see it is that the RS requires its fellows to treat other scientists with curtesy. Elon clearly doesn’t feel bound by that, but the OP does.
This is something I’ve noticed more and more: there are essentially two very different ways to look at rules of various kinds (including laws).
Some people focus on consequences, and have a mental model along the lines of “if I do X, Y could realistically happen to me”. When they read the Statutes and Code of Conduct of the RS they see literally nothing of note, because there are no realistic consequences.
Other people essentially see rules as expressions of the will of some abstract entity, in this case the RS, and feel honor-bound to comply with them or at least take them into account. The consequences are not very important to them. When they read the CoC of the RS they come way with a lot of limits on their behavior.
We used to live in a world where most people who could aspire to be a FRS were clearly in the latter category. We don’t any more. IMHO we therefore need to adjust the rules so that the two categories of people come way with similar mental models of them.
The thing is neither climate change nor vaccines are political opinions or views. They are hard scientific facts and you are absolute moron if you try to twist them into political views.
To quote him "Whereas previously he seemed to agree with mainstream scientific opinion"
Can someone please explain to me how we managed to get a whole generation of the western scientific thinkers who think the scientific method is consensus of scientific opinion? The author lists Isaac Newton, Hooke, Boyle . All of these prominent minds made scientific breakthroughs that didn't stick to the consensus views of the time.
People interested should look at The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn.
To quote from Wikipedia:
Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in science in which scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity and cumulative progress, referred to as periods of "normal science", were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science.
It's farcical. The Royal Societies motto is "take nobody's word for it", yet this particular author is so keen on the idea that science is people agreeing with each other that the highlighted research on her home page is a paper from nearly ten years ago titled "CATALISE: A Multinational and Multidisciplinary Delphi Consensus Study."
What exactly is a "consensus study"?
"Our goal in this study was to use an online Delphi technique to see whether it was possible to achieve consensus among professionals on appropriate criteria for identifying children who might benefit from specialist services"
"These responses [from experts] were synthesised by the first two authors, who then removed, combined or modified items with a view to improving consensus ... The resulting consensus statement is reported here"
This is what she thinks of as her best scientific work! It's not even science at all, just emailing a bunch of people trying to get them to agree to things and anytime someone doesn't agree she "synthesizes" them out of the picture.
No wonder she hates Musk. The Royal Society is far better off without people like this. It's not like Musk would care if it booted him out anyway!
The difference is that Elon Musk has not challenged scientific consensus by publishing revolutionary studies or conducting risky experiments, but rather by republishing inflammatory statements online. His actual achievements (including super-heavy rockets and electric cars) are largely independent from his unconventional views on vaccines, for instance.
You can't compare him to figures like Newton and Hooke, who made both their names and their living from science.
People, evidence is, should be better educated in the History and Philosophy of Science (and in Mathematics and in Logic). It should be part of the mandated curriculum.
Membership to the royal society is judged via candidates having made 'a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science'.
I think the world at large today could use a few more people appealing to our better natures. For that, this is a wonderful statement.
I wish there was a way to moderate our modern discourse to be closer to finding ways forward together, rather than dividing ourselves further. Elon’s entire schtick these days is to move faster than regulatory bodies can align. I hoped for an attempt at amending the RS statutes for clarity and boundaries, rather than resignation from the battle entirely. Perhaps as proof that some boundaries can be reactive to anyone regardless of influence.
I can’t think of many causes worth fighting for that can be won through resignation, certainly never within research or scientific contexts.
So some brown-nosers thought to pull Musk in because they thought it would get them some news and mentions and so on, possibly be financially advantageous in some way despite him not really being a scientist.
That seems to have been easy, but removing him now...oh...well....so difficult.
Similarly how easy it was to suck up to Russian billionaires in London and so difficult to sanction them when things went sour. We knew they were crooks back then but lots of people benefited from ignoring it.
The whole episode is a nice and timely reminder of the difficulty of the society as a whole in dealing with scientists and understanding which ones are good, which ones can be trusted, etc. Academic societies such as the RS help, but as this shows they are by no means perfect, and can be gamed and manipulated when the stakes are high enough. It is a real challenge though -- how do you trust a scientist without having to learn all the science they are telling you about?
Musk is a successful individual, but he doesn't need RS, and RS definitely doesn't need him either. Keeping him on the fellow list is simply a commercial gimmick and nothing more. I fully support the writer's perspective.
I mean, the Royal Society has always been crazy, and full of provocative and crazy people. I'm not sure how you can have a group of geniuses without that.
Famously Newton was a complete and utter egomaniac nut job, as well as being one of the most gifted men to ever live. For example, the Leibnitz Newton debate - where surprisingly the royal society concluded in favour of Newton, while Newton was the head of the royal society.
Maybe 100 years from now, we will have letters complaining that the same illustrious society that Elon Musk (the man who revolutionised space travel) was once a member of, now houses so and such, who said x verifiably untrue statement.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. I think you have a good point.
Perhaps that’s why my feeling is that the best “solution” may actually be to loosen up the Code of Conduct so that the OP doesn’t feel honor-bound to act with curtesy towards Elon.
I really don't like this growing implication of scientists with political struggles orthogonal to their expertise.
This article criticizes Musk for spreading misinformation that goes against scientific views, in particular on climate change.
DISCLAIMER: I've worked 2 years on climate insurance, as a data scientist tasked with measuring the risks of extreme weather events and how they change with global warming. I've worked on Hurricanes (general name is Tropical Cyclones), Frost, and River flooding.
What are the damning examples of Musks's misinformation cited in the article?
The worst I can find (except for having a jet, which all billionaires do) is under the title "Downplaying the climate emergency", where the article quotes a Guardian article. In there, the most damning thing Musk has said is:
"Musk has praised Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and GOP presidential hopeful, as “a very promising candidate” despite Ramaswamy calling the climate change agenda a hoax. Musk responded to Ramaswamy on X about the climate crisis saying: “It is possibly overstated in the short term, but we should be concerned about it long term.”"
Does that warrant a witch hunt? Is it even false?
Many media like the Guardian (cited many times in her article) like to announce short-term climatic Ragnarok, for instance increased risk of hurricanes[0].
And they cite short-term "limits" like reaching the threshold of 1.5°C additional average global temperature compared to pre-industrial era.
But these media mix up all climate risks in their Ragnarok, which makes their prophecies invalid. For instance on hurricanes: the risk of hurricanes could be REDUCED because of global warming [2] (frequency goes down, intensity goes slightly up).
In fact, as we're nearing the 1.5°C "limit" [1], most of the doom warnings seem to have been invalid, except for precise heat-related risks like droughts and wildfires.
At least until 2024, Musk has been less wrong than the Guardian cited so often by this article.
So should we remove this scientist from the Royal Society because she spreads misinformation? Oh well, it's already done.
My point is PLEASE ONLY TRY TO CANCEL PEOPLE UNDER GOOD REASONS, because the perception by Republicans/Right-wingers that Democrats/Ecologists are hysteric is what truly undermines the West's response to climate change.
> Most of those I've spoken to agree that a serious breach of these principles was in 2022, when Musk tweeted: "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci", thereby managing to simultaneously offend the LGBTQ community, express an antivaxx sentiment, and put Fauci, already under attack from antivaxxers, at further risk.
This statement is clearly relevant to a scientific society. It is not just about unrelated bigotry by a fellow of that society.
Given that I'm listening to Kennedy's The Real Anthony Fauci while typing this I have a hard time taking this seriously. Both the 'offend the alphabet community' (whatever that might be given that there is no love lost between the L and Q, G and Q, B and Q, L and T and G and T factions in this 'community') as well as the defence of Fauci, a person who declared himself representing The Science™ while recklessly trampling its principles.
Does that mean that everything Kennedy writes and says is the true gospel? Of course it doesn't nor does it need to. What it does say is that Fauci is not the person I'd choose as a representative for how to do science and that prosecuting the man sounds like a good idea. After all, if he is innocent he has nothing to fear, right? Let this cesspit be opened and let those who are shown to have to have abused their power, misled the public and acted for personal gain and against the trust put in them by the public be dealt with. In short, let The Science™ be exposed for what it is, a sham. Let the trust in lower-case science, scientists and the scientific method be restored by exposing the charlatans who sought to abuse the former's standing for their own purposes.
There are many doctors who express problems with the C19 vaccines. In some countries (most notably Japan) there are public hearings and parliament questions. In the west it seems this is not allowed.
Fauci was close with the EcoHealth Alliance. He tried to hide gain of function research. There are a lot of criticism to this NGO, "including a joint letter signed by 77 Nobel laureates and 31 scientific societies." (Wikipedia).
To the public Fauci straight up lied by promoting the vaccine as safe and effective, while he did not have the evidence to support that (and most likely did know that pregnant women in the trail had a lot of "spontaneous abortions", but recommended it for pregnant women anyway).
While I'd be the last person to defend Elon (he prevented unionization in Tesla, which he so get jail time for imho), I do think that it's time to prosecute Fauci. He seems to have been complicity in the AZT debacle.
Sticking it in a pronoun joke is something we should not cry over, it's just a joke.
Elons statements were obviously not aimed at Faucis role in vaccine discussions, but in his much more dubious role in gain-of-function research and especially covering up the origins of Covid.
While that is relevant to a scientific society, I think it's worth taking a good hard look on whether its wise to take a side on that, other than maybe denounce gain-of-function research.
How is criticizing a particular politician [1] "antivaxx"? This intentional conflation of scientific "truth" [2] with the particular policies that a democratic government decides to implement was one of the most blatantly bad faith phenomena of the pandemic. Even if we had an oracle that could have given us perfect future predictions, it would still not be able to answer the ethical questions of which path to choose. That's for the people to decide
And punishing people for disputing the current "truth", and criticizing sacred cows, would go directly against the RS's principles. "Nullius in verba"
[1] Yes, he is one
[2] A notion which itself goes against the principles of scientific inquiry
I know who Elon Musk is and his contributions. My apologies, but I have never heard of the author and their contribution, and why should I fucking care what they (and 80 of their politically like-minded friends) think out of a thousand other members? Obviously the Royal Society's own relevance is hinged on picking who they should keep between two opposing members.
I've not heard of all bar one of Trump's new and previous cabinets combined, and the one I have heard of, I only know about due to the brain worms. Zero of Biden's, zero of Obama's. Possibly two of GWB's?
I've only heard of two of the people who work at SpaceX, and that's Musk and Shotwell none of the rest; likewise none of those under Musk at X, TBC, Neuralink, Tesla, Starlink, Solar City.
Someone blogged about why they resigned from the society, someone posted the link here, enough upvoted it for you to be engaged enough to reply.
Fame is just being noticed — and you noticed — but merely getting into the group says they must have been top quality in the first place.
No loss. Whinging about politics and non-mainstream opinions.
Is there genuine curiosity (even dare I say wrongthink) left in the RS or is it just another polite social club for people to gather and feel smug about the consensuses they've formed.
The Royal Society is important because it is where the UK government go when they need good advice on scientific issues. Many people in the US might think that their government doesn't need good advice on scientific issues but, as they will find out, they are wrong.
It's a society of scientists - why would it admit or tolerate liars? Spreading obviously and easily provable misinformation online isn't "non-mainstream opinion" - it's just lying. Why would that be tolerated?
My esteem of the Royal Society is lessened by the realisation that it admits not just scientists, but also mere CEOs who aren’t scientists themselves. Would Henry Ford be admitted? In my opinion that inflates the prestige of membership.
A summary on scientists from the World Science Forum 2024:
"The emphasis has been placed on innovation, the rankings have reduced scientists to publication machines, and this brings with it increasing distrust towards researchers."
I think Musk is a perfect fit among modern era scientists and the author has no place there with his outdated views.
Idea: "scientists must focus on research that benefits humanity rather than financial gain or publication metrics" (Tamara Elzein)
Wow! Hurt 'scientists' are among us apparently, it only took some seconds to downvote (mostly the words of other scientists, the rest is caustic irony). Small people, no place for widespread critical view, facing problems, self criticism.
This is another example of how badly mislead people can become despite being smart. This is a man who is virtuous, true - just! Or has been for many years, in his mind on the 'good' side. And he's certainly done a lot of good. But...
He is now in the time for his /excesses/ to be called out. Research and science are great; the replication crisis and wasted time/effort were not. Excess should be called out.
Elon is directionally the agent calling out the excesses of the covid era (that's the time period Elon began his shift rightward) and he'll make some missteps - like the anti fauci stuff - but by and large a course correction is needed. Elon is mainly fighting for his Rockets to go up faster and he'll back whichever horse gets him there quickest. So do I pay attention to the guy launching the future or the guy letting his heart bleed out in a blogpost?
I do feel worried about the Britons. Their economy is slumping, cultural prestige waning (it'll be gone by GEN alpha), and I've heard reports they lock up people over facebook posts. I know not all of those things are 100% true but if even their Royal Society members can't seem to avoid falling to political squabble and see the long horizons of history, I worry for their future.
roenxi|1 year ago
That being said, Musk does seem like a vaguely inappropriate addition to the Society. His wikipedia page suggests he doesn't have a PhD, doesn't do any research and is involved in military matters for an army foreign to the UK. He's obviously being included because he has lots of money and it isn't clear to me if that is proper or not.
cauch|1 year ago
But the article does not talk about Musk's political opinion per se. The concerns would have been totally the same if Musk was acting the same way but involving himself with a different political ideology.
The concerns seem to be: 1) Musk is aggressive towards his fellow scientists, 2) Musk is supporting and spreading anti-science things, 3) Musk is pushing for anti-science practices in his own scientifically linked activities (such as not following the steps that guarantee good science in clinical trials).
The article mentions that Musk is getting more political. However, the message is not "being political is the reason why he should be excluded", the message is "while it is possible to be political and continue to adhere to the scientific practice, what we see is that Musk gets more and more anti-science because he gets more and more political".
didntcheck|1 year ago
ben_w|1 year ago
To actively stir up trouble and misrepresent other scientists, and to perform experiments outside recognised ethical norms as Musk does, is much much worse.
And also very obviously a violation of the quoted rules, and brings the society into disrepute.
Veen|1 year ago
waihtis|1 year ago
tim333|1 year ago
>Fellows - The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship made up of many of the world’s most eminent scientists, engineers, and technologists.
Maybe he isn't a scientist but he is an engineer/technologist. If you put "greatest living engineer" into google you can guess who pops up.
bjornsing|1 year ago
This is something I’ve noticed more and more: there are essentially two very different ways to look at rules of various kinds (including laws).
Some people focus on consequences, and have a mental model along the lines of “if I do X, Y could realistically happen to me”. When they read the Statutes and Code of Conduct of the RS they see literally nothing of note, because there are no realistic consequences.
Other people essentially see rules as expressions of the will of some abstract entity, in this case the RS, and feel honor-bound to comply with them or at least take them into account. The consequences are not very important to them. When they read the CoC of the RS they come way with a lot of limits on their behavior.
We used to live in a world where most people who could aspire to be a FRS were clearly in the latter category. We don’t any more. IMHO we therefore need to adjust the rules so that the two categories of people come way with similar mental models of them.
nextlevelwizard|1 year ago
thewanderer1983|1 year ago
People interested should look at The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn.
To quote from Wikipedia: Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in science in which scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity and cumulative progress, referred to as periods of "normal science", were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science.
mike_hearn|1 year ago
What exactly is a "consensus study"?
"Our goal in this study was to use an online Delphi technique to see whether it was possible to achieve consensus among professionals on appropriate criteria for identifying children who might benefit from specialist services"
"These responses [from experts] were synthesised by the first two authors, who then removed, combined or modified items with a view to improving consensus ... The resulting consensus statement is reported here"
This is what she thinks of as her best scientific work! It's not even science at all, just emailing a bunch of people trying to get them to agree to things and anytime someone doesn't agree she "synthesizes" them out of the picture.
No wonder she hates Musk. The Royal Society is far better off without people like this. It's not like Musk would care if it booted him out anyway!
https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/dorothy-bishop
seabass-labrax|1 year ago
You can't compare him to figures like Newton and Hooke, who made both their names and their living from science.
mdp2021|1 year ago
People, evidence is, should be better educated in the History and Philosophy of Science (and in Mathematics and in Logic). It should be part of the mandated curriculum.
ks2048|1 year ago
Even if you think Musk is a genius, it seems hard to label him as a scientist (instead of a CEO of science-related companies).
waihtis|1 year ago
ClaraForm|1 year ago
I wish there was a way to moderate our modern discourse to be closer to finding ways forward together, rather than dividing ourselves further. Elon’s entire schtick these days is to move faster than regulatory bodies can align. I hoped for an attempt at amending the RS statutes for clarity and boundaries, rather than resignation from the battle entirely. Perhaps as proof that some boundaries can be reactive to anyone regardless of influence.
I can’t think of many causes worth fighting for that can be won through resignation, certainly never within research or scientific contexts.
LightBug1|1 year ago
t43562|1 year ago
That seems to have been easy, but removing him now...oh...well....so difficult.
Similarly how easy it was to suck up to Russian billionaires in London and so difficult to sanction them when things went sour. We knew they were crooks back then but lots of people benefited from ignoring it.
zzbn00|1 year ago
FussyOtter|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
pikseladam|1 year ago
LeroyRaz|1 year ago
Famously Newton was a complete and utter egomaniac nut job, as well as being one of the most gifted men to ever live. For example, the Leibnitz Newton debate - where surprisingly the royal society concluded in favour of Newton, while Newton was the head of the royal society.
Maybe 100 years from now, we will have letters complaining that the same illustrious society that Elon Musk (the man who revolutionised space travel) was once a member of, now houses so and such, who said x verifiably untrue statement.
bjornsing|1 year ago
Perhaps that’s why my feeling is that the best “solution” may actually be to loosen up the Code of Conduct so that the OP doesn’t feel honor-bound to act with curtesy towards Elon.
aubanel|1 year ago
This article criticizes Musk for spreading misinformation that goes against scientific views, in particular on climate change.
DISCLAIMER: I've worked 2 years on climate insurance, as a data scientist tasked with measuring the risks of extreme weather events and how they change with global warming. I've worked on Hurricanes (general name is Tropical Cyclones), Frost, and River flooding.
What are the damning examples of Musks's misinformation cited in the article?
The worst I can find (except for having a jet, which all billionaires do) is under the title "Downplaying the climate emergency", where the article quotes a Guardian article. In there, the most damning thing Musk has said is: "Musk has praised Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and GOP presidential hopeful, as “a very promising candidate” despite Ramaswamy calling the climate change agenda a hoax. Musk responded to Ramaswamy on X about the climate crisis saying: “It is possibly overstated in the short term, but we should be concerned about it long term.”"
Does that warrant a witch hunt? Is it even false?
Many media like the Guardian (cited many times in her article) like to announce short-term climatic Ragnarok, for instance increased risk of hurricanes[0].
And they cite short-term "limits" like reaching the threshold of 1.5°C additional average global temperature compared to pre-industrial era.
But these media mix up all climate risks in their Ragnarok, which makes their prophecies invalid. For instance on hurricanes: the risk of hurricanes could be REDUCED because of global warming [2] (frequency goes down, intensity goes slightly up).
In fact, as we're nearing the 1.5°C "limit" [1], most of the doom warnings seem to have been invalid, except for precise heat-related risks like droughts and wildfires.
At least until 2024, Musk has been less wrong than the Guardian cited so often by this article. So should we remove this scientist from the Royal Society because she spreads misinformation? Oh well, it's already done.
My point is PLEASE ONLY TRY TO CANCEL PEOPLE UNDER GOOD REASONS, because the perception by Republicans/Right-wingers that Democrats/Ecologists are hysteric is what truly undermines the West's response to climate change.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-w... [1]: https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/global-temperature-likely-... [2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01388-4
bigbacaloa|1 year ago
[deleted]
waihtis|1 year ago
[deleted]
throw_pm23|1 year ago
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shafyy|1 year ago
dcow|1 year ago
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mock-possum|1 year ago
fabian2k|1 year ago
This statement is clearly relevant to a scientific society. It is not just about unrelated bigotry by a fellow of that society.
hagbard_c|1 year ago
Does that mean that everything Kennedy writes and says is the true gospel? Of course it doesn't nor does it need to. What it does say is that Fauci is not the person I'd choose as a representative for how to do science and that prosecuting the man sounds like a good idea. After all, if he is innocent he has nothing to fear, right? Let this cesspit be opened and let those who are shown to have to have abused their power, misled the public and acted for personal gain and against the trust put in them by the public be dealt with. In short, let The Science™ be exposed for what it is, a sham. Let the trust in lower-case science, scientists and the scientific method be restored by exposing the charlatans who sought to abuse the former's standing for their own purposes.
cies|1 year ago
Fauci was close with the EcoHealth Alliance. He tried to hide gain of function research. There are a lot of criticism to this NGO, "including a joint letter signed by 77 Nobel laureates and 31 scientific societies." (Wikipedia).
To the public Fauci straight up lied by promoting the vaccine as safe and effective, while he did not have the evidence to support that (and most likely did know that pregnant women in the trail had a lot of "spontaneous abortions", but recommended it for pregnant women anyway).
While I'd be the last person to defend Elon (he prevented unionization in Tesla, which he so get jail time for imho), I do think that it's time to prosecute Fauci. He seems to have been complicity in the AZT debacle.
Sticking it in a pronoun joke is something we should not cry over, it's just a joke.
zosima|1 year ago
While that is relevant to a scientific society, I think it's worth taking a good hard look on whether its wise to take a side on that, other than maybe denounce gain-of-function research.
didntcheck|1 year ago
And punishing people for disputing the current "truth", and criticizing sacred cows, would go directly against the RS's principles. "Nullius in verba"
[1] Yes, he is one
[2] A notion which itself goes against the principles of scientific inquiry
tgma|1 year ago
ben_w|1 year ago
I've not heard of all bar one of Trump's new and previous cabinets combined, and the one I have heard of, I only know about due to the brain worms. Zero of Biden's, zero of Obama's. Possibly two of GWB's?
I've only heard of two of the people who work at SpaceX, and that's Musk and Shotwell none of the rest; likewise none of those under Musk at X, TBC, Neuralink, Tesla, Starlink, Solar City.
Someone blogged about why they resigned from the society, someone posted the link here, enough upvoted it for you to be engaged enough to reply.
Fame is just being noticed — and you noticed — but merely getting into the group says they must have been top quality in the first place.
Oarch|1 year ago
Is there genuine curiosity (even dare I say wrongthink) left in the RS or is it just another polite social club for people to gather and feel smug about the consensuses they've formed.
tristramb|1 year ago
dennis_jeeves2|1 year ago
gambiting|1 year ago
It's a society of scientists - why would it admit or tolerate liars? Spreading obviously and easily provable misinformation online isn't "non-mainstream opinion" - it's just lying. Why would that be tolerated?
FussyOtter|1 year ago
mihaaly|1 year ago
I think Musk is a perfect fit among modern era scientists and the author has no place there with his outdated views.
Idea: "scientists must focus on research that benefits humanity rather than financial gain or publication metrics" (Tamara Elzein)
mihaaly|1 year ago
ineedaj0b|1 year ago
He is now in the time for his /excesses/ to be called out. Research and science are great; the replication crisis and wasted time/effort were not. Excess should be called out.
Elon is directionally the agent calling out the excesses of the covid era (that's the time period Elon began his shift rightward) and he'll make some missteps - like the anti fauci stuff - but by and large a course correction is needed. Elon is mainly fighting for his Rockets to go up faster and he'll back whichever horse gets him there quickest. So do I pay attention to the guy launching the future or the guy letting his heart bleed out in a blogpost?
I do feel worried about the Britons. Their economy is slumping, cultural prestige waning (it'll be gone by GEN alpha), and I've heard reports they lock up people over facebook posts. I know not all of those things are 100% true but if even their Royal Society members can't seem to avoid falling to political squabble and see the long horizons of history, I worry for their future.