Justice Presentation

Scientific Responsability

Questioning the Unquestionable

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INDEX

Introduction

Radical Science (4)

(1) Nazi Scientists

(2) Modern Medical Myths

Community engagement (5)

(3) the Power of the category

Breaking the Monopoly (6)

Bibliography

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Bibliography

• Haas, F. (2008), German science and black racism—roots of the Nazi Holocaust. The FASEB Journal, 22: 332-337. https://doi.org/10.1096/fj.08-0202ufm
• Stein, G. J. (1988). Biological science and the roots of Nazism. American Scientist, 76(1), 50-58.
• Campbell, C. (2021). Medical violence, obstetric racism, and the limits of informed consent for Black women. J. Race & L, 47.
• Fuentes, A., Espinoza, U. J., & Cobbs, V. (2024). Follow the citations: Tracing pathways of “race as biology” assumptions in medical algorithms in eGFR and spirometry. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 346(116737), 116737. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116737
• Morales‐Doyle, D. (2017). Justice‐centered science pedagogy: A catalyst for academic achievement and social transformation. Science Education, 101(6), 1034-1060.
• Beckwith, J. (1986). The radical science movement in the United States. Monthly Review, 38, 118-129.
• Greving, H., Bruckermann, T., Schumann, A., Stillfried, M., Börner, K., Hagen, R., ... & Kimmerle, J. (2023). Attitudes toward engagement in citizen science increase self-related, ecology-related, and motivation-related outcomes in an urban wildlife project. BioScience, 73(3), 206-219.
• Elman, J. P. (2018). Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure by Eli Clare. Feminist Formations, 30(1), 20-31.

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Introduction

It is commonly accepted that the primary institution of knowledge production is academia, and that the primary arbiters of knowledge are the scientists that occupy it. Knowledge production, as a cornerstone of scientific thought, rests on the labor of a small, institutionally recognized group of people who apply the scientific method in the creation of the ideas that will guide society. This scientific community, thus, continues to be a fundamental power structure, holding in its influence the ability to dictate material and metaphysical reality for billions of people. However, this power has not been universally wielded responsibly. The scientific community has been complicit, and active, in the dissemination of knowledge that has led to the widespread subjugation of various people under the guise of knowledge production. Whether its scientific racism relegating Black people to servitude on the basis of biological reality, intersex people being forced to fit into a binary that does not suit them, or disabled people being fundamentally deemed an existential threat to the human genome due to eugenics theory, the scientific community has played an outsized role in producing the ideological fuel needed to justify various hierarchies that sustain our current hegemonic world system. I contend, however, that academia is not an organ of other entities, such as the state or capital, but rather has its own material incentives that intersect. Academia is maintained not simply as a place of knowledge production – it is the sole arbiter of what reality can and does look like. What does this power look like, and how is it being challenged?

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Nazi Scientists

Nazi ideology was deeply intertwined with the development of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Nazism emerged from a German strain of Social Darwinism, an ideology that seeks to extend Darwin’s laws of evolution to human development. Namely, Social Darwinists understand human behavior through the laws of "survival of the fittest," framing human civilization as a byproduct of competition between superior and inferior groups. Nazism would integrate theories of biological race into these dynamics, creating a distinct form of Social Darwinism that was used to exalt the genetic superiority of the white race, “demonstrating” the inferiority of other people, namely Black and Jewish people, and employing a strict and highly systematized racial caste system. Doctors and biologists championed the notion of racial hygiene, whereby the “health” of a nation relied on its supposed racial purity, and thus undesirables were segregated, and later cleansed. As such, during the Third Reich, the fields of medicine and biology played a uniquely pronounced role in the internal politics of the Nazi party. By the end of the war, 48% of all psychiatrists had joined the Nazi Party, compared to 10% of the general population. Additionally, 7% of male MDs were in the SS compared to <0.5% of the population. While it is easy to view these scientific beliefs as pseudoscience, they were, at the time, highly respected products of the academic institutions in Germany. Rather than being a product of “bad science,” Nazi Germany was, in essence, a society in which the biopolitical power of academia was taken to its logical, and genocidal conclusion.

7%

48%

Pyschiatrists

Male MDs

10%

<0.5%

General Population

General Population

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Modern Medical Myths

A significant amount of medical and anatomical knowledge circulated today relies on the race-science that produced Nazi ideology. An article published by Agustín Fuentes, Ulises J. Espinoza, and Virginia Cobbs in Social Science and Mecicine, Fuentes et al. demonstrated that many of the citations used in modern medical research originated in studies that have long since been deemed pseudoscientific. However, because they have been cited in other commonly cited literature, which themselves produce more cited literature, oftentimes the findings of these old pieces become "common knowledge" in the scientific community. Myths such as the supposed higher pain tolerance of Black people, and other "biological differences" between people of different races continue to be perpetuated today. Often, this leads to disasterous outcomes for people of color. In Medical Violence, Obstetric Racism, and the Limits of Informed Consent for Black Women, Colleen Cambell discusses the disparate outcomes Black women face when carrying children across all income levels. She describes a process of overmedicalization, whereby the assumed weakness of Black bodies, in part, leads to doctors suggesting C-sections at a higher rate, and Black women's needs being routinely ignored by doctors. She points out, however, that key to this dynamic is the institutional power of doctors. Because doctors are viewed as authoritative, and because they view themselves as the final arbiters of medical knowledge, Black women are subject to medical violence that materializes through the unchecked biases of unquestioned doctors. Thus, the authority of scientists is weilded, just as in Nazi Germany, to inflict racialized suffering and assert biopolitical power over Black people.

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The Power of the Category

Because scientists are tasked with the responsability of progressing knowledge, the scientific process monopolizes the production of knowledge across society. The only viable knowledge, thus, is the knowledge produced by science. This gives scientists the power to determine what is normal, and therefore what, and who, is anamolous and outside the realm of normalcy. In chapter 2 Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure, Eli Clare asserts that this monopoly on knowledge is often weaponized against disabled people. When there is an accepted normalcy in the human experience, rather than a range of experiences, people outside of that experience are subject to erasure at best, and violence at worst. Historically, disabled people have been subject to forced sterilization, imprisonment, and have been forced to power through often debilitating discomfort to conform to societal needs. When the scientific community is given the power to decide what is normal, they are given the power to decide who society is for. Similarly, intersex people are often forced, at birth, to undergo surgeries that conform their bodies to anatomical male or female standards. Because parts of the scientific community continue to see sex as a binary, that strict categorization leads doctors to "cure" the abberation of intersexuality. When scientists claim that only purely anatomical male and female bodies are normal, they are given the power to commit violence against those who fall in between. The scientific community, rather than being above social woes, is a distinct institution that has its own interests in the ecosystem of oppression. The scientific community is all too happy to perpetuate harmful myths and disseminate violence, so long as it retains its monopoly on knowledge production. While individual scientists may not be at fault, the system is intentionally designed to be exclusive, intertwined with moneyed interests, and destructive towards other forms of knowledge. Along with the state, capitalism, and various intersecting systems of oppression, the institution of science seeks to perpetuate its own existence first and formost, and thus continues to reinforce a world that is conveniantly agreeable to those who seek to profit from the exploitation of marginalized people.

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Radical Science

Wherever oppression is found, resistance always emerges in response. Science is no exception. Across history, radical scientists have gone against the grain, often at great personal expense, to push back against scientific knowledge that upholds systems of oppression. Whether its scientists debunking race-science, unionized academics, scientists fighting against climate change, sustainable engineers, or scientists otherwise involved in outside activism, the scientific community is filled with renegades who refuse to accept the scientific status quo. What many scientists have pushed for, and continue to push for, is social justice education as a cornerstone of the scientific curriculum. In order to be informed, well rounded producers of knowledge, scientists must be humble enough to engage in struggle with other people, and not above other people. Scientists are workers and face much of the same exploitation as others. What they don't know, often, is that the science they produce often serves the exploitation of their fellow workers. Scientists are a vital part of human civilization, but they must recognize that they fit into a much larger system that is designed for profit and exploitation. Scientists should not be our rulers, but they must be our comrades.

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Community engagement

One of the primary ways the scientific community is able to restrict access to knowledge is through the witholding of involvement for the larger community. Science should be collaborative, not just for scientists, but for everone. One article by Greving et al. studied participation in a citizen science project in which local communities were asked to set up camera traps to track wildlife in their neighborhoods. The researchers found that those who participated reported feeling pride in their work, enthusiasm about engaging in citizen science, and were more enthusiastic about wildlife. People want to be a part of the scientific process, and though much of the process requires specialized training, it must still be accessible and decentralized. So long as science remains isolated from the larger population, people will remain skepticle of its outcomes, detatched from its developments, and the gap will widen between the scientific and non-scientific communities. The future of radical science is one in which collaboration with other people, other ideas, and other forms of knowledge becomes commonplace. For that to happen, scientists must be willing to engage with their fellow humans to produce the knowledge from which everyone will benefit.

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Breaking the Monopoly

The monopoly of knowledge production is a relatively recent phenomenon. Beyond its recency, however, it is a tool of colonial domination, and has discreditted indeginous forms of knowledge while at the same time reappropriating them. The goal of science should not be to disseminate what is and what isn't, it should be to give us one of many ways of understanding the world. These forms of knowledge, connections to land, and traditions are not archaic relics to be destroyed by science, but are and always have been an essential part of the human experience. Scientists must learn to value other forms of knowledge, such as indeginous cosmologies and ancient forms of knowledge that have been erased by science. The world is a big place, and many different kinds of knowledge can coexist! Radical scientists, while still maintaing their curiosity and discipline, can and should revolt against their own monopoly of knowledge, and integrate themselves as one part of a constellation of human knowledge.