Science and Values
“There is an essential problem with the thesis… [values] have no place in an academic article.” - anonymous reviewer
Oh for the days when intellectuals were (dare we speak the word) advocates allowed to possess values and put forth arguments for action. Francis Bacon, Georges Hebert, Che Guevara, Salmon Rushdie, Rigoberta Menchu, these were people writing on science (natural, political or otherwise) AND values, ::gasp:: in the same breath. OK so lots of people like them were excommunicated, exiled, maimed, killed, but hey those were different times. These days what’s going to happen -the president at best puts you under a federal gag order, and at worst threatens naming you as an enemy combatant destined for Guantanamo Bay.? Ok maybe times aren’t that different. But I digress.
The quote above came from a review of one of my recent publication submissions, this one to the journal Agricultural History. I’m not bitter that the paper was rejected, really I’m not. In fact the editor herself has made it clear that she wants to publish the material, just reworked to read like a history paper and less like a debate over contemporary issues. Here’s a summary: Native Alaskans are pigeonholed into white-man’s account of what Native’s do, so only those uses of the land are protected by laws that protect Native Alaskans. History says that gardening is white, not native. I say here’s evidence that it is. Why is this important, do you think, to the people of these Native communities: so history books are more accurate or so they can make a living and feed their families more effectively?
History is apparently supposed to be a-political, despite the fact that everything that has happened in the modern age has happened in a political context. And don’t forget the old axiom that history is written by the winners.
Nevertheless, it is the very fact that scientists are afraid of having or acting on their values that has lead us to signing the death certificate for Alaskan polar bears. It is why after 100 years of anthropology in the third world, it is still the third world, regardless of whether that term is no longer politically correct. Once a scientist , social or otherwise crosses that line from research to advocacy they become pariahs, ineligible for federal funding, looked down upon by the gray beards sitting upon their highchairs of academia. Or from another point of view they become dissenters, rebels, revolutionaries — Che, if anything, was an anthropologist who crossed that line.
At the root of this proglem is that scientists are so hung up on objectivity and discovering universal truths that they’re afraid to actually feel anything publicly for fear that it’ll be proven wrong and hence ruin their careers. Ask virtually any scientist about the real-world implications of their latest cutting edge model and I bet you they’ll hem and haw about reducibility and uncertainty and well there are just too many variables and well its only a model!
What then, do we really study? If my history paper needs less data and more narrative; if entire sets of academic careers are built upon hypothetical arrangements and computer simulations, how is any of this different than science fiction? Well for one, science fiction writers aren’t afraid to have and argue for values. See Star Trek. Gene Coon, in the episode ‘Let that be your last battlefield’ may have told us nothing about the narratives that Bele and Lokai were enacting as a result of their different cultural experiences, but he did make a lot of racist people in America think twice.
I’ll do what it takes to get this article to print. Because first and foremost it is essential that these native gardens make it into the historical record. If Ag History doesn’t want to recognize its social relevance beyond this point thats their editorial perrogative. Come to think of it, its the reason I started this site in the first place.
