[hdlothia]

It would be nice if scientists started being just scientists again instead of activists. Hopefully being cloistered on bluesky will bring the old vibes back

[an0malous]

X is not politically neutral, Elon openly talks about recalibrating Grok whenever it says something too liberal like recent discussions about gun violence.

Scientists should embrace decentralization and use Mastodon in my opinion. Bluesky will meet the same fate as Twitter and X one day

[hdlothia]

Yeah x is a mess. When scientists say it's nice to just post about science on bluesky without being called slurs or harassed, I believe them.

[didibus]

Can't you fork Bluesky whenever you'd want too? I thought that was the idea? That the data and connections and accounts are all transferable.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

X/Twitter has never been politically neutral. It's just that the pendulum has swung the other way.

[rob_c]

> Scientist should...

Have you seen the state of scientific "computing".

[falcor84]

On a side note, I still can't get used to how wanting to restrict access to guns is considered a "liberal" stance.

[coeneedell]

It’s basically impossible to make a career as a scientist these days without constantly promoting yourself and your work unfortunately. It’s very tiring and makes it difficult to focus on science. This is one of the reasons I changed careers.

[sejje]

That's bad, too, but true in many professions I think.

But I think what the GP means is let's do science, let's not do hot-political-topics-as-science.

[Jgrubb]

I feel the same way about software, what career did you switch to?

[input_sh]

Scientists are allowed to have opinions outside of their work and share them.

[hdlothia]

It is 100% allowed, I just don't think it's really helpful or beneficial for them or society

Especially when they try to lean on their status as scientists in order to try and have their opinions be more influential.

The cdc for example saying it's ok to disregard their previous guidance in order to protest for black lives matter is one of these credibility damaging moments that is hard to undo.

[omoikane]

Maybe the parent is lamenting how some people post a lot of interesting scientific content, but also a whole lot of other content on topics that they are not interested in, and unfortunately most social networks require following all aspects of a person and not just the parts that interest you.

Google+ had it right where you can follow just a community, and also you can selectively make your participation in certain communities visible in your public profile. I am not sure if Bluesky or Mastodon have something similar.

[bell-cot]

> Scientists are allowed...

Literally true, perhaps. But have you ever noticed how reluctant non-scientist professionals are to voice opinions in their chosen fields? Lawyers preface everything with "not your lawyer", "not my area of practice...", "I'd have to look into the details of that case...", etc. Accountants similarly. Doctors similarly. Engineers similarly. Vs. it seems to be accepted practice for a nuclear physicist to speak ex cathedra about epidemiology, climatology, etc.

[sejje]

Reddit, pseudo-anonymously, is mostly where I do that, not where I've set up my professional presence.

[nomdep]

Unless is a opinion not shared by their colleagues

[tjwebbnorfolk]

Ok but if I'm a radiologist opining about social media, I'm no longer practicing science. I'm just some guy with an opinion.

"Scientists say..." is becoming just another "studies show...". You can always find a scientist or a study or an "expert" to push whatever agenda the media outlet has.

Nothing about this is remotely scientific.

[outside1234]

Simply expressing the fact that climate change is happening is considered “activism” by some folks (and especially on X).

Asking them to “not be activists” is really a request for them to self police their speech in a way that fits their worldview.

This is not restricted to scientists by the way. Just look at the different response to how the NFL handled Charlie Kirk’s death with official moments of silence vs. Colin Kaepernick kneeing for police brutality. One is supported, one is suppressed.

[intended]

I doubt it. Most scientists are not activists. Yet, any scientist who achieves anything notable, has to be trained on how to deal with the media.

Science, and facts themselves, are political now.

[greesil]

Science was defunded by politics, and sometimes is political due to existing interests. Why shouldn't scientists talk about politics?

[kortilla]

Lack of self control or awareness. People make the mistake of thinking that because they are informed on one topic that happens to be political that their opinions on other political topics are relevant.

I’m fine seeing scientists arguing for the importance of science on social media. I don’t want to hear rants about LGBTQ+ people from geologists.

[throwawaymaths]

(most) science was also funded by politics.

[Jaygles]

When the government (or the public) starts asserting basic facts aren't true, scientists become activists against their will

[dark__paladin]

This attitude of "let's leave politics out of this" is a major contributing factor to this mess we're in.

[armchairhacker]

Why don't scientists publish anonymously? We already have double-blind peer review. This seems like such an obvious idea, there must be some issue.

Authors can still get reputation, recognition, and compensation for their papers, without people knowing who wrote what paper, via public/private keys and blockchain. Every time an author publishes a paper, they generate a new address and attach the public key to it. Judges send awards (NFTs) and compensation to the key without knowing who holds it, and if the same award type is given to multiple papers, authors can display it without anyone knowing which paper is theirs.

With LLMs even writing style can be erased (and as a side effect, the paper can be written in different formats for different audiences). Judges can use objective criteria so they can't be bribed without others noticing; in cases where the paper is an algorithm and the criteria is a formal proof, the "judge" can be a smart contract (in practice I think that would be a small minority of papers, but it would still be hard for a judge to nominate an undeserving paper while avoiding skeptics, because a deserving paper would match the not-fully-objective criteria according to a wide audience). Any other potential flaws?

[ebiester]

1. It's a very small community and peer review is even hard. Think about it this way: what do you think two physicist colleagues talk about at a conference? How do you know who to talk to to collaborate on a problem? (Yes, people still talk voice about problems.)

2. Labs are specialized. You choose a lab to work at based on what they're working on. How are you going to choose where to spend your Ph.D or postdoc if you don't know what the lab is working on and how productive it is?

3. We are all still humans. We are wired to know the social systems around us. This would be an entire charade.

[raincole]

How to force not only one, but three solutions into a non-existing problem. This must be a parody of cryto bros/AI bros, right.

[tdb7893]

So firstly most scientists already aren't really activists in any meaningful way, it seems like you're implying most are on twitter/bluesky doing activism and the vast majority aren't really. Secondly I'm confused who people think should be able to be activists in a democracy? Scientists seem like a good candidate for people that should do activism in a healthy democracy.

[butterfi]

It would be nice if some politicians/media outlets didn't subvert or misrepresent science for their own gains. Yet here we are.

[snickerbockers]

Actual quote: "Twitter, once considered the central gathering place for scientists on social media...".

[Q6T46nT668w6i3m]

What do you mean? Activism is an essential part of science but maybe I’m misunderstanding your use of “activist.”

[hdlothia]

I feel like scientists should be explaining to us how the world is, and then other people should use those explanations to try and improve it.

Right now I feel like there are a scientists who would hide or discard results if they contradicted their advocacy beliefs,which is a dangerous place to be imo.

[glitchc]

No, it's not. Good science requires objective thinking and evidence-based reasoning. Claims must be proven, not accepted based on authority or prima facie evidence.

[umanwizard]

> Activism is an essential part of science

How so? It seems obvious that you can do science (that is: attempt to advance the understanding of how the natural world works) without being an activist for any cause.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

The job of science is to discover facts and produce new knowledge from those facts. Activism is the marketing of an ideology. They couldn't be more opposite.

[bell-cot]

> ...an essential part...

Why? Which of these other jobs would you call "Activism" an essential part of:

- Fire fighter

- Elementary school teacher

- Auto mechanic

- ER nurse

- Professor of Medieval History

[hdlothia]

I mean things like nature starting to make endorsements for president. Overly political for no reason.

[kabdib]

my dad was an ecologist in the 70s, and did a lot of early climate change stuff (getting ground truth for LandSat, etc.)

that's always been a fun conversation

[hdlothia]

That does sound super interesting.He probably had a real fun time doing science in the 70s.

[pm90]

If you’re gonna cut science funding on a massive scale, scientists will become activists.

[tootie]

Exact opposite. Science is under attack by politics and we need authoritative voices explaining how dangerous this is. Why would scientists not be allowed to offer opinions on their observations? That's basically the same thing as science.

[kalleboo]

Maybe when activists stop pretending to be scientists the scientists can stop being activists.

[whizzter]

If science results on sane topics like vaccines weren't attacked for not being in-line with loony politics then they wouldn't have to be "activists".

[CamperBob2]

It would be nice if scientists started being just scientists again instead of activists

So you've found a way to say "My job isn't at risk from a vindictive POTUS" in 14 words instead of 9. Great.

[miltonlost]

When would that be? Needs to be after science stops being politicized by the Republican party. Scientists must be activists when anti-science is de jour.

[techblueberry]

What does this even mean?

“Sure all the research shows X, but you can also believe y or even z because nothing really matters”

[randyhaute]

Rose colored glasses. Science from the start has challenged status quo of churches and god kings

You're not interested in science but kowtowing to perceived authority

[SanjayMehta]

They can be scientists on both platforms.

Bluesky is just the ideological opposite of whatever X is today, but with more blocking and censorship than even what Twitter had under Dorsey.

[seadan83]

I think you're assuming that dichotomy. There was an observation that Trump supporters derided liberals for loving biden. The observation pointed out a false equivalence, "the other side is doing the same thing", we love Trump, so they must love their leader too.

Or, do you some sort of systematic evidence that evaluates the politics across all of bluesky in comparison to X? I don't think there is such evidence to know that bluesy is the polar opposite of Twitter.