the decline of globalism and implications for science

[Glenn Hampson]

Another important topic looming in the metaverse is whether the goals of global open that we’ve envisioned and worked together to achieve will be sustainable in our current political climate. Academic and research bridges to Russia are burning (as Kent Anderson described in a recent issue of the Geyser), and long-standing concerns about IP theft by China may yet reach a flash point, ignited by growing tensions over China’s support for Russia. The Scholarly Kitchen will be hosting a webinar soon on the future of research as a global enterprise (see Spring Break - Also This Week, Our Webinar on "The Future of Research as a Global Enterprise" - The Scholarly Kitchen (sspnet.org). To the larger question of the decline of globalism and the modern battle for hearts and minds, David Brooks has a good essay in today’s New York Times: Opinion | Globalization Is Over. The Global Culture Wars Have Begun. - The New York Times (nytimes.com).

 

In recent history and throughout the Cold War, research served as a form of backdoor diplomacy---a way for countries to keep talking and cooperating despite their political differences and disputes. This changes in times of war, though; it took decades for the US and Russia to unfreeze scientific collaboration following WWII and achieve trusted, high-functioning collaboration (see Science Knows Boundaries: Reflections on Sixty Years of U.S.–Former Soviet Union Scientific Cooperation | Science & Diplomacy (sciencediplomacy.org). Science and science diplomacy will be dealt a serious blow if Putin remains in power for years longer---not only because of sanctions against Russia, but because of the way this conflict is polarizing the world into different spheres of influence with unknown agendas.

 

Tying this into our previous conversation, misinformation and disinformation have played a huge role in creating and fomenting these divisions. Any efforts to heal these divisions will need to be accompanied by efforts to stem the tide of misinformation and disinformation that flows from the Internet, particularly from Facebook---tbd (see here for analysis and a few ideas: The battleground of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on Facebook: Fact checkers vs. misinformation spreaders | HKS Misinformation Review (harvard.edu)).

 

 

[David Wojick]

Cursory review of the "The battleground of Covid-19 vaccine misinformation" study listed at the end of Glenn's email. Just some quick observations.

1. The listed arguments are mostly right wing nut cases. These are not the primary scientific and policy arguments in the vaccine debate. Their occurrence numbers are very low and likely overstated due to (1) crude search and (2) double counting. "Misinformation" is not the right term for these extreme cases.

2. In fact I have never seen these nutty arguments, so their impact is likely slight. Also one would like to also see the nutty left wing arguments as the right is often reacting to the left. In any case I see no way of getting the nuts out of social media. 

3. The primary scientific and policy arguments are much more reasonable, so this study may be misleading. The main issue is not scientific. It is about the legitimacy of and need for mandatory vaccination. The scientific arguments are about the vaccines being rushed, dangerous, untested, experimental, etc., which are not unreasonable. The policy arguments are that the mandates are illegal, unwarranted, a power grab, etc. The genuine scientific issues play a supporting role.

4. As the focus on right wing nuttiness indicates, the "misinformation control" issue is seriously partisan on the left. OSI needs to consider whether they want to be left wing or nonpartisan. Each option has its advantages and disadvantages.

David

David Wojick

Issue analyst

dwo...@craigellachie.us

On Apr 8, 2022, at 3:57 PM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:



Another important topic looming in the metaverse is whether the goals of global open that we’ve envisioned and worked together to achieve will be sustainable in our current political climate. Academic and research bridges to Russia are burning (as Kent Anderson described in a recent issue of the Geyser), and long-standing concerns about IP theft by China may yet reach a flash point, ignited by growing tensions over China’s support for Russia. The Scholarly Kitchen will be hosting a webinar soon on the future of research as a global enterprise (see Spring Break - Also This Week, Our Webinar on "The Future of Research as a Global Enterprise" - The Scholarly Kitchen (sspnet.org). To the larger question of the decline of globalism and the modern battle for hearts and minds, David Brooks has a good essay in today’s New York Times: Opinion | Globalization Is Over. The Global Culture Wars Have Begun. - The New York Times (nytimes.com).

 

In recent history and throughout the Cold War, research served as a form of backdoor diplomacy---a way for countries to keep talking and cooperating despite their political differences and disputes. This changes in times of war, though; it took decades for the US and Russia to unfreeze scientific collaboration following WWII and achieve trusted, high-functioning collaboration (see Science Knows Boundaries: Reflections on Sixty Years of U.S.–Former Soviet Union Scientific Cooperation | Science & Diplomacy (sciencediplomacy.org). Science and science diplomacy will be dealt a serious blow if Putin remains in power for years longer---not only because of sanctions against Russia, but because of the way this conflict is polarizing the world into different spheres of influence with unknown agendas.

 

Tying this into our previous conversation, misinformation and disinformation have played a huge role in creating and fomenting these divisions. Any efforts to heal these divisions will need to be accompanied by efforts to stem the tide of misinformation and disinformation that flows from the Internet, particularly from Facebook---tbd (see here for analysis and a few ideas: The battleground of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on Facebook: Fact checkers vs. misinformation spreaders | HKS Misinformation Review (harvard.edu)).

 

 

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[Glenn Hampson]

Good morning David---thought I’d reply quickly before the day got too busy. Pasted below my signature is table 1 from this paper describing the main misinformation themes looked at plus the number of posts and interactions (comments, etc.). Your argument that these themes are “mostly right wing nut cases” with only “slight” impact is without merit---sorry. Regardless of where they originated and how they spread (which I’m sure would be a fascinating analysis on its own), these bits of misinformation (plus others) have had a HUGE impact on vaccine hesitancy. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation Survey, for example, looked at several disinformation myths and found that a whopping 78% of American adults “have heard at least one of these myths, and either say it is true or are not sure if it is true” (see https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-media-and-misinformation/ for details).

 

Your list of less “nutty” arguments against vaccines has also been impactful---that they are “rushed, dangerous, untested, experimental, etc., which are not unreasonable.” Credible science and policy officials have tried to push back against these beliefs, but they persist. The relative influence of these beliefs on vaccine hesitancy is probably about on par with the influence of nutty arguments, according to the US Census Bureau’s 2021 survey (https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/12/who-are-the-adults-not-vaccinated-against-covid.html).

 

And finally, regarding the whole right wing/left wing stuff, science tries its best to be nonpartisan. In this case, the political right in America has gradually been becoming the anti-science party. The rational Republican party of our youth, David, bears no resemblance whatsover to the Republican party of today. So, there is no logic in pretending that “nonpartisan” means a middle ground between “left” and “right,” between fact and fantasy, between what NBC news says is true and what FOX news says is true (see the official media bias chart for details, https://adfontesmedia.com/). Nonpartisan needs to mean objective, fair, evenhanded, candid, and free from bias, and yes, that’s exactly how OSI has endeavored to work, as you well know.

 

As always, I appreciate your perspective and commentary David, and thank you for your ongoing contributions to the group. Have a good weekend. I have to finish putting a roof on a shed---you probably have some crops to plant or are you still buried in snow?

 

Best regards,

 

Glenn

 

 

 

	Misinformation themes	Boolean search keywords	Total related posts #	*Total interactions #
1	Vaccines alter DNA	COVID-19 vaccine AND (alter DNA OR DNA modification OR change DNA)	18,897	4,295,053
2	Vaccines cause autism	COVID-19 vaccine AND autism	1,355	156,249
3	Bill Gates plans to put microchips in people through vaccines	COVID-19 vaccine AND Bill Gates AND microchips	460	121,983
4	Vaccines contains baby tissue	COVID-19 vaccine AND (baby tissue OR aborted baby OR aborted fetus)	9,308	3,320,472
5	Vaccination is a deep state plan for depopulation	COVID-19 vaccine AND (depopulation OR population control)	78,732	15,111,536
6	Vaccines cause infertility	COVID-19 vaccine AND infertility	1,388	212,811
7	Big government will force everyone to get vaccinated	COVID-19 vaccine AND (forced vaccination OR forced vaccine)	19,123	4,296,536
8	Vaccines kill more people than COVID-19	COVID-19 vaccine AND (massive death rate OR cover up death OR thousands die)	71,353	24,158,927
9	Vaccination is a Big Tech propaganda	COVID-19 vaccine AND (big tech crackdown OR big tech propaganda)	1,277	321,122
10	Total COVID-19 related posts and interactions	COVID-19	2,250,095	447,923,466

TABLE 1. COVID-19 VACCINE MISINFORMATION VACCINE THEMES BETWEEN MARCH 1ST, 2020 AND MARCH 1ST, 2021. NOTE: TOTAL INTERACTION IS THE SUM OF ALL INTERACTIONS (LIKES, SHARES, & COMMENTS.) THAT EACH POST RECEIVES.

[David Wojick]

Actually Glenn, nonpartisan means with respect to the existing two party system. You are clearly well to the left, denouncing the right, so if this is also OSI's position then it is too. It should probably make this partisan position clear to the public.

As I said there are advantages to the partisan option, especially since polls indicate that most academic scientists are on the left, they being academics. The downsides are (1) that it may be difficult to get OSI policy proposals through and (2) if OSI becomes a policy player it will be attacked by the right. 

Right now OA is a relatively nonpartisan reform movement, the exception being the anti-capitalism group. OSI could cause OA to be seen as a left wing effort. That is my primary concern.

However, OSI can certainly get into the misinformation game as that is highly partisan. Republicans in Congress are calling for an end to social media censorship of right wing thought, while Democrats are calling for an increase. I was going to say that the only way for OSI to be nonpartisan was to stay well away from the misinformation fight, but that is no longer relevant.

Things are starting to bloom here. I am making applesauce muffins with my homemade applesauce. This is apple country. 

Be well,

David

On Apr 9, 2022, at 12:23 PM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:



To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/BN6PR1701MB1732C992866B132A66D6EA87C5E89%40BN6PR1701MB1732.namprd17.prod.outlook.com.

[Glenn Hampson]

Good point. Well, in that case, unfortunately, let’s just leave politics out of the equation and call ourselves objective instead of nonpartisan. That’s what we all signed up for.

 

Of course, as you well know, at the intersection of fact-finding and policy formulation, there are necessarily political currents that flow through---sometimes strong currents. To the extent we’d like to be fair and nonpartisan policy advocates, I agree it’s important not to come across as politically motivated. My point David is that the politics we’re witnessing today bears little resemblance to the much more rational discourse we grew up with. Criticize the left’s objectivity all you want---criticism is certainly warranted on all sides---but the right is approaching science-related policy today from an utterly irrational, unmoored perspective. If being “left” means rejecting this approach of the anti-science “right,” then I think most of us in this group would gladly call themselves left, not as a mark of political affiliation but simply as believers in truth over fiction.

 

What can we do to rectify this situation in our tiny corner of the policy universe? As a life long science communication advocate, I recognize that it’s actually counter-productive to be critical of science deniers. It’s also a disservice to science and science policy, however, to pretend it’s “fair and balanced” to create false equivalencies and invite science deniers onto the same stage as scientists to debate science policy. There is merit to genuine scientific debate, and I think genuine debate is what you’re mistakenly visualizing is happening in the misinformation space. Unfortunately, that’s just a small portion of it. Much more of the debate is being fueled by misinformation.

 

We can all agree that the pursuit of the truth is a worthy goal. The issue here isn’t to be timid about which side of history we’re on---science advocates will always stand firmly on the side of truth---but how we can recognize what “truth” even means in today’s misinformation-clouded environment.

 

One more thing: These muffins you’re making are from applesauce you canned in the fall? Recipe please.

 

Best,

 

Glenn