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The Peril of Politicizing Science

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The Peril of Politicizing Science pubs.acs.org/JPCL Viewpoint The Peril of Politicizing Science Cite This: J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376 Read Online ACCESS Metrics & More Article Recommendations It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. support of the regime was not sufficiently enthusiastic. It was Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow not uncommon to get disciplined for being too quiet during the range of thought? In the end we shall make mandatory political assemblies (politinformation or komso- thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no molskoe sobranie) or for showing up late to mandatory mass- words in which to express it. celebrations (such as the May or November demonstrations). Once I got a notice for promoting an imperialistic agenda by −George Orwell, 1984 showing up in jeans for an informal school event. A friend’s grew up in a city that in its short history (barely over 150 dossier was permanently blemishedmaking him ineligible for years) had its name changed three times.2,3 Founded in I Ph.D. programsfor not fully participating in a trip required 1869 around a steel plant and several coal mines built by the of university students: an act of “voluntary” help to comrades Welsh industrialist John Hughes, the settlement was originally in collective farms (Figure 2). called Hughesovka (or Yuzovka). When the Bolsheviks came Science was not spared from this strict ideological control.6 to power in the 1917 Revolution, the new government of the Western influences were considered to be dangerous. Text- working class, the Soviets, set out to purge the country of books and scientific papers tirelessly emphasized the priority ideologically impure influences in the name of the proletariat and pre-eminence of Russian and Soviet science. Entire and the worldwide struggle of the suppressed masses. Cities disciplines were declared ideologically impure, reactionary, and geographical landmarks were renamed,4 statues were torn and hostile to the cause of working-class dominance and the down, books were burned, and many millions were jailed and World Revolution. Notable examples of “bourgeois pseudo- murdered.5 In due course, the commissars got to Yuzovka, and science” included genetics and cybernetics. Quantum mechan- the city was stripped of the name of its founder, a ics and general relativity were also criticized for insufficient representative of the hostile class of oppressors and a alignment with dialectic materialism. Westerner. In modern terms, Hughes was canceled. For a Most relevant to chemistry was the antiresonance campaign few months, the city was called Trotsk (after Leon Trotsky), 7 (1949−1951). The theory of resonating structures, which until Trotsky lost in the power struggle inside the party and brought Linus Pauling the Nobel prize in 1954, was deemed to was himself canceled (see Figure 1). In 1924 the city became be bourgeois pseudoscience. Scientists who attempted to the namesake of the new supreme leader of the Communist defend the merits of the theory and its utility for understanding Party (Stalin), and a few years later renamed to Stalino. My “ ” Downloaded via 172.58.121.2 on June 10, 2021 at 12:05:27 (UTC). ’ fi chemical structures were accused of cosmopolitism (Western mother s school certi cates have Stalino on them. Following sympathy) and servility to Western bourgeois science. Some Stalin’s death in 1953, the Communist party underwent some lost jobs. Two high-profile supporters of resonance theory, reckoning and admitted that several decades of terror and Syrkin and Dyatkina, were eventually forced to confess their many millions of murdered citizens were somewhat excessive. ideological sins and to publicly denounce resonance. Mean- Stalin was canceled: his body was removed from the See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles. while, other members of the community took this political Mausoleum at Red Square (where it had been displayed next 7,8 ’ purge as an opportunity to advance at the expense of others. to Lenin s); textbooks and encyclopedias were rewritten once As noted by many scholars,7,8 including Pauling himself,9 the again; and the cities, institutions, and landmarks bearing his grassroots antiresonance campaign was driven by people who name were promptly renamed. Stalino became Donetsk, after were “displeased with the alignment of forces in their science”.7 the river Severskii Donets. This is a recurring motif in all political campaigns within I came of age during a relatively mellow period of the Soviet science in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and McCarthy’s rule, post-Stalin. Still, the ideology permeated all aspects of life, Americathose who are “on the right side” of the issue can and survival required strict adherence to the party line and jump a few rungs and take the place of those who were enthusiastic displays of ideologically proper behavior. Not canceled. By the time I studied quantum chemistry at Moscow joining a young communist organization (Komsomol) would be career suicidenonmembers were barred from higher education. Openly practicing religion could lead to more grim Received: May 7, 2021 consequences, up to imprisonment. So could reading the Accepted: May 10, 2021 wrong book (Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, etc.). Even a poetry book Published: June 10, 2021 that was not on the state-approved list could get one in trouble. Mere compliance was not sufficientthe ideology commit- tees were constantly on the lookout for individuals whose © 2021 The Author. Published by American Chemical Society https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475 5371 J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376 The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters pubs.acs.org/JPCL Viewpoint State University, resonance theory had been rehabilitated. Yet, Schrödinger equation, Curie Law, etc.). The authors call for the history of the campaign and the injustices it entailed were vigilance in naming discoveries and assert that “basing the not discussed in the openthe Party did not welcome name with inclusive priorities may provide a path to a richer, conversations about its past mistakes. I remember hearing parts deeper, and more robust understanding of the science and its of the story, narrated under someone’s breath at a party after advancement.” Really? On what empirical grounds is this copious amounts of alcohol had loosened a tongue. based? History teaches us the opposite: the outcomes of the Fast forward to 2021another century. The Cold War is a merit-based science of liberal, pluralistic societies are vastly distant memory and the country shown on my birth certificate superior to those of the ideologically controlled science of the and school and university diplomas, the USSR, is no longer on USSR and other totalitarian regimes.17 The authors call for fi the map. But I nd myself experiencing its legacy some removing the names of people who “crossed the line” of moral thousands of miles to the west, as if I am living in an Orwellian or ethical standards. Examples16 include Fritz Haber, Peter twilight zone. I witness ever-increasing attempts to subject Debye, and William Shockley, but the list could have been science and education to ideological control and censorship. fi easily extended to include Stark (defended expulsion of Jews Just as in Soviet times, the censorship is being justi ed by the from German institutions),18 Heisenberg (led Germany’s greater good. Whereas in 1950, the greater good was advancing nuclear weapons program),19 and Schrödinger (had romantic the World Revolution (in the USSR; in the USA the greater 19 fi relationships with under-age girls). Indeed, learned societies good meant ghting Communism), in 2021 the greater good is are now devoting considerable effort to such renaming “Social Justice” (the capitalization is important: “Social Justice” campaignsamong the most-recent cancellations is the is a specific ideology, with goals that have little in common renaming of the Fisher Prize by the Evolution Society, despite with what lower-case “social justice” means in plain − well-argued opposition by 10 past presidents and vice- English).10 12 As in the USSR, the censorship is enthusiasti- presidents of the society.20 cally imposed also from the bottom, by members of the There is no doubt that many famous scientists had views or scientific community, whose motives vary from naive idealism engaged in behaviors that, by today’s standards, are not to cynical power-grabbing. 21 fi Just as during the time of the Great Terror,5,13 dangerous acceptable. Their scienti c legacies are often mixed; for conspiracies and plots against the World Revolution were seen example, Fritz Haber is both the father of modern chemical ’ warfare and the man whose development of nitrogen fixation is everywhere, from illustrations in children s books to hairstyles 22 21 and fashions; today we are told that racism, patriarchy, feeding the planet. Scientists are not saints. They are misogyny, and other reprehensible ideas are encoded in human beings born into places and times they did not choose. fi scientific terms, names of equations, and in plain English Just as their fellow human beings do, each nds his or her way words. We are told that in order to build a better world and to though the circumstances of their lives, such as totalitarian address societal inequalities, we need to purge our literature of regimes, world wars, and revolutions. Sometimes they made the names of people whose personal records are not up to the the right choices, sometimes they erred. Some paid dearly for 22 high standards of the self-anointed bearers of the new truth, their mistakes. Haber was an avid German patriot, to the the Elect.11 We are told that we need to rewrite our syllabi and extent that he actively developed chemical weapons in order to change the way we teach and speak.14,15 provide Germany with military advantage.
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