I respect the author's principle-based approach but many of her arguments seem a little off. If the RS doesn't expel people for their politics, then it doesn't make sense to expel Musk for, essentially, concerns about his politics. And if you expel crotchety scientists for disagreeing with the scientific consensus there won't be any left. The RS motto is literally "Take nobody's word for it"; I don't see how Musk disagreeing with other's opinions could possibly be grounds for removing him.
That being said, Musk does seem like a vaguely inappropriate addition to the Society. His wikipedia page suggests he doesn't have a PhD, doesn't do any research and is involved in military matters for an army foreign to the UK. He's obviously being included because he has lots of money and it isn't clear to me if that is proper or not.
> If the RS doesn't expel people for their politics, then it doesn't make sense to expel Musk for, essentially, concerns about his politics.
But the article does not talk about Musk's political opinion per se. The concerns would have been totally the same if Musk was acting the same way but involving himself with a different political ideology.
The concerns seem to be: 1) Musk is aggressive towards his fellow scientists, 2) Musk is supporting and spreading anti-science things, 3) Musk is pushing for anti-science practices in his own scientifically linked activities (such as not following the steps that guarantee good science in clinical trials).
The article mentions that Musk is getting more political. However, the message is not "being political is the reason why he should be excluded", the message is "while it is possible to be political and continue to adhere to the scientific practice, what we see is that Musk gets more and more anti-science because he gets more and more political".
I understand where you're coming from but because of Covid and those years, using the shield of 'science' to disallow criticism is a little underhanded. Covid/Vaccines/Lockdowns are on the table of politics for the foreseeable future.
I feel similarly. I agree Musk doesn't belong in the RS, but I'd have said the same in 2018 (I missed the news). It's concerning that the author has only come to this realization now that Musk vocally disagrees with her political views. I don't consider that principled at all
It's not about that Musk disagrees with her political views, it's that he is being anti-scientific, pushing wrong scientific facts and so on to further his personal agenda, which happens to involve a lot of politics.
If it was just scientific consensus and politics, that would be one thing — while I share the author's opinion in these aspects, I recognise these aspects are not sufficient for such a response.
To actively stir up trouble and misrepresent other scientists, and to perform experiments outside recognised ethical norms as Musk does, is much much worse.
And also very obviously a violation of the quoted rules, and brings the society into disrepute.
Yes, the mistake was inviting him to be a fellow in the first place. Now he's in, the Society must follow its rules and precedents. At the very least, it shouldn't be seen to expel someone for political opinions or heterodox views on science. Some the of Royal Society's most notable members have had lunatic fringe ideas and they weren't thrown out.
It's a valid viewpoint, however membership to the royal society is judged via candidates having made 'a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science'. I would argue Elon is fully within scope, outside of the fact that I think Elon is not the slightest fit to the general ethos of that specific organization.
> Although most Fellows are elected on the basis of their scientific contributions, others are nominated on the basis of "wider contributions to science, engineering or medicine through leadership, organisation, scholarship or communication". [Italics in original.]
But yes, you hit the nail on the head about Musk being within their supposed scope, but a disastrously bad fit for their org. Making him a Fellow (back in 2018) was a self-serving idiot move by the Society. And now the Wages of Dim are adding up.
How is he within scope? At best he might have contributed to advancing engineering science, but is that really the case? Has he not rather merely financed engineering science and perhaps not even engineering science but just engineering practice?
The core of the OP’s argument as I see it is that the RS requires its fellows to treat other scientists with curtesy. Elon clearly doesn’t feel bound by that, but the OP does.
This is something I’ve noticed more and more: there are essentially two very different ways to look at rules of various kinds (including laws).
Some people focus on consequences, and have a mental model along the lines of “if I do X, Y could realistically happen to me”. When they read the Statutes and Code of Conduct of the RS they see literally nothing of note, because there are no realistic consequences.
Other people essentially see rules as expressions of the will of some abstract entity, in this case the RS, and feel honor-bound to comply with them or at least take them into account. The consequences are not very important to them. When they read the CoC of the RS they come way with a lot of limits on their behavior.
We used to live in a world where most people who could aspire to be a FRS were clearly in the latter category. We don’t any more. IMHO we therefore need to adjust the rules so that the two categories of people come way with similar mental models of them.
Yeah, I'd class that as high- and low- status behaviour. One of the things that high-status people have to deal with is that they basically create the rules by their behaviour and actions. That leads to a certain disregard for what is written on-paper because they can write different things on it if they want to.
I'd imagine the RS people actually probably tended more towards the former in the early days. There was more of an aristocratic bent and the more vigorous a scientific body is the less respect it has for established rules - more than one of the good scientists from back when were also legit heretics (I've been reading the wiki page for Newton, for example - or the grave robbing doctors).
The thing is neither climate change nor vaccines are political opinions or views. They are hard scientific facts and you are absolute moron if you try to twist them into political views.
Science informs policy, but it doesn't create or judge it. Science can help you predict the effects of vaccinating every adult in a population, but it can't say whether you should mandate that
This is hopefully incredibly obvious stuff, but unfortunately during the covid era "trust the science" was used to mean "my particular policy views are objectively correct and above criticism", and "antivax" targeted at people who had a vaccine themselves, but just did not believe it should be coerced on others
And is it still controversial to say that the efficacy of covid vaccine was a lot more disappointing than we were basically all expecting? Despite the revisionism of "well we never said that" (even when they did). Or that the apocalyptic predictions of lockdown-lifting were just a tiny bit overstated
To quote him "Whereas previously he seemed to agree with mainstream scientific opinion"
Can someone please explain to me how we managed to get a whole generation of the western scientific thinkers who think the scientific method is consensus of scientific opinion? The author lists Isaac Newton, Hooke, Boyle . All of these prominent minds made scientific breakthroughs that didn't stick to the consensus views of the time.
People interested should look at The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn.
To quote from Wikipedia:
Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in science in which scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity and cumulative progress, referred to as periods of "normal science", were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science.
It's farcical. The Royal Societies motto is "take nobody's word for it", yet this particular author is so keen on the idea that science is people agreeing with each other that the highlighted research on her home page is a paper from nearly ten years ago titled "CATALISE: A Multinational and Multidisciplinary Delphi Consensus Study."
What exactly is a "consensus study"?
"Our goal in this study was to use an online Delphi technique to see whether it was possible to achieve consensus among professionals on appropriate criteria for identifying children who might benefit from specialist services"
"These responses [from experts] were synthesised by the first two authors, who then removed, combined or modified items with a view to improving consensus ... The resulting consensus statement is reported here"
This is what she thinks of as her best scientific work! It's not even science at all, just emailing a bunch of people trying to get them to agree to things and anytime someone doesn't agree she "synthesizes" them out of the picture.
No wonder she hates Musk. The Royal Society is far better off without people like this. It's not like Musk would care if it booted him out anyway!
This is called Argument from authority and is a logical fallacy.
To steal a good part from wikipedia:
Scientific knowledge is best established by evidence and experiment rather than argued through authority[13][14][15] as authority has no place in science.[14][25][26] Carl Sagan wrote of arguments from authority: "One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority.' ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.
The difference is that Elon Musk has not challenged scientific consensus by publishing revolutionary studies or conducting risky experiments, but rather by republishing inflammatory statements online. His actual achievements (including super-heavy rockets and electric cars) are largely independent from his unconventional views on vaccines, for instance.
You can't compare him to figures like Newton and Hooke, who made both their names and their living from science.
> You can't compare him to figures like Newton and Hooke, who made both their names and their living from science.
Not disagreeing with the rest of your post, just making a minor nitpick - didn't Newton actually spend most of his time on alchemy and at the Royal Mint? He definitely made his name from science (or math & science as I prefer to think of it). But his living? I don't know about that.
People, evidence is, should be better educated in the History and Philosophy of Science (and in Mathematics and in Logic). It should be part of the mandated curriculum.
Membership to the royal society is judged via candidates having made 'a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science'.
I think the world at large today could use a few more people appealing to our better natures. For that, this is a wonderful statement.
I wish there was a way to moderate our modern discourse to be closer to finding ways forward together, rather than dividing ourselves further. Elon’s entire schtick these days is to move faster than regulatory bodies can align. I hoped for an attempt at amending the RS statutes for clarity and boundaries, rather than resignation from the battle entirely. Perhaps as proof that some boundaries can be reactive to anyone regardless of influence.
I can’t think of many causes worth fighting for that can be won through resignation, certainly never within research or scientific contexts.
So some brown-nosers thought to pull Musk in because they thought it would get them some news and mentions and so on, possibly be financially advantageous in some way despite him not really being a scientist.
That seems to have been easy, but removing him now...oh...well....so difficult.
Similarly how easy it was to suck up to Russian billionaires in London and so difficult to sanction them when things went sour. We knew they were crooks back then but lots of people benefited from ignoring it.
The whole episode is a nice and timely reminder of the difficulty of the society as a whole in dealing with scientists and understanding which ones are good, which ones can be trusted, etc. Academic societies such as the RS help, but as this shows they are by no means perfect, and can be gamed and manipulated when the stakes are high enough. It is a real challenge though -- how do you trust a scientist without having to learn all the science they are telling you about?
But do general people know who is a scientist and who isn't? How do they find out?
It isn't by membership of a learned society, it isn't if they are working at a university. There is no simple way for a general person to know if somebody is a scientist.
Readit News
That being said, Musk does seem like a vaguely inappropriate addition to the Society. His wikipedia page suggests he doesn't have a PhD, doesn't do any research and is involved in military matters for an army foreign to the UK. He's obviously being included because he has lots of money and it isn't clear to me if that is proper or not.
But the article does not talk about Musk's political opinion per se. The concerns would have been totally the same if Musk was acting the same way but involving himself with a different political ideology.
The concerns seem to be: 1) Musk is aggressive towards his fellow scientists, 2) Musk is supporting and spreading anti-science things, 3) Musk is pushing for anti-science practices in his own scientifically linked activities (such as not following the steps that guarantee good science in clinical trials).
The article mentions that Musk is getting more political. However, the message is not "being political is the reason why he should be excluded", the message is "while it is possible to be political and continue to adhere to the scientific practice, what we see is that Musk gets more and more anti-science because he gets more and more political".
Dead Comment
To actively stir up trouble and misrepresent other scientists, and to perform experiments outside recognised ethical norms as Musk does, is much much worse.
And also very obviously a violation of the quoted rules, and brings the society into disrepute.
> Although most Fellows are elected on the basis of their scientific contributions, others are nominated on the basis of "wider contributions to science, engineering or medicine through leadership, organisation, scholarship or communication". [Italics in original.]
But yes, you hit the nail on the head about Musk being within their supposed scope, but a disastrously bad fit for their org. Making him a Fellow (back in 2018) was a self-serving idiot move by the Society. And now the Wages of Dim are adding up.
>Fellows - The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship made up of many of the world’s most eminent scientists, engineers, and technologists.
Maybe he isn't a scientist but he is an engineer/technologist. If you put "greatest living engineer" into google you can guess who pops up.
This is something I’ve noticed more and more: there are essentially two very different ways to look at rules of various kinds (including laws).
Some people focus on consequences, and have a mental model along the lines of “if I do X, Y could realistically happen to me”. When they read the Statutes and Code of Conduct of the RS they see literally nothing of note, because there are no realistic consequences.
Other people essentially see rules as expressions of the will of some abstract entity, in this case the RS, and feel honor-bound to comply with them or at least take them into account. The consequences are not very important to them. When they read the CoC of the RS they come way with a lot of limits on their behavior.
We used to live in a world where most people who could aspire to be a FRS were clearly in the latter category. We don’t any more. IMHO we therefore need to adjust the rules so that the two categories of people come way with similar mental models of them.
I'd imagine the RS people actually probably tended more towards the former in the early days. There was more of an aristocratic bent and the more vigorous a scientific body is the less respect it has for established rules - more than one of the good scientists from back when were also legit heretics (I've been reading the wiki page for Newton, for example - or the grave robbing doctors).
This is hopefully incredibly obvious stuff, but unfortunately during the covid era "trust the science" was used to mean "my particular policy views are objectively correct and above criticism", and "antivax" targeted at people who had a vaccine themselves, but just did not believe it should be coerced on others
And is it still controversial to say that the efficacy of covid vaccine was a lot more disappointing than we were basically all expecting? Despite the revisionism of "well we never said that" (even when they did). Or that the apocalyptic predictions of lockdown-lifting were just a tiny bit overstated
People interested should look at The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn.
To quote from Wikipedia: Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in science in which scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity and cumulative progress, referred to as periods of "normal science", were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science.
What exactly is a "consensus study"?
"Our goal in this study was to use an online Delphi technique to see whether it was possible to achieve consensus among professionals on appropriate criteria for identifying children who might benefit from specialist services"
"These responses [from experts] were synthesised by the first two authors, who then removed, combined or modified items with a view to improving consensus ... The resulting consensus statement is reported here"
This is what she thinks of as her best scientific work! It's not even science at all, just emailing a bunch of people trying to get them to agree to things and anytime someone doesn't agree she "synthesizes" them out of the picture.
No wonder she hates Musk. The Royal Society is far better off without people like this. It's not like Musk would care if it booted him out anyway!
https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/dorothy-bishop
To steal a good part from wikipedia: Scientific knowledge is best established by evidence and experiment rather than argued through authority[13][14][15] as authority has no place in science.[14][25][26] Carl Sagan wrote of arguments from authority: "One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority.' ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.
You can't compare him to figures like Newton and Hooke, who made both their names and their living from science.
Not disagreeing with the rest of your post, just making a minor nitpick - didn't Newton actually spend most of his time on alchemy and at the Royal Mint? He definitely made his name from science (or math & science as I prefer to think of it). But his living? I don't know about that.
Just because you put it in PDF doesn't make it something more.
People, evidence is, should be better educated in the History and Philosophy of Science (and in Mathematics and in Logic). It should be part of the mandated curriculum.
Even if you think Musk is a genius, it seems hard to label him as a scientist (instead of a CEO of science-related companies).
I wish there was a way to moderate our modern discourse to be closer to finding ways forward together, rather than dividing ourselves further. Elon’s entire schtick these days is to move faster than regulatory bodies can align. I hoped for an attempt at amending the RS statutes for clarity and boundaries, rather than resignation from the battle entirely. Perhaps as proof that some boundaries can be reactive to anyone regardless of influence.
I can’t think of many causes worth fighting for that can be won through resignation, certainly never within research or scientific contexts.
That seems to have been easy, but removing him now...oh...well....so difficult.
Similarly how easy it was to suck up to Russian billionaires in London and so difficult to sanction them when things went sour. We knew they were crooks back then but lots of people benefited from ignoring it.
It isn't by membership of a learned society, it isn't if they are working at a university. There is no simple way for a general person to know if somebody is a scientist.
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