Should Sociologists Stand Up for Science? Absolutely!

Ruane, Janet M.

doi:10.1111/socf.12394

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…This takes us back to the troubling discourse on fake news. As one sociologist has recently noted, “The current fake news controversy is just the latest example of how ideas and truth are often the first casualties of power plays” (Ruanne :240). Ideological power plays through the rhetoric of fake news have been provisioned partly because, as academics, we have not always taken proper responsibility of our ideas.…”

Section: Academics and Resistance In The Postfactual Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Denying Anthropogenic Climate Change: Or, How Our Rejection of Objective Reality Gave Intellectual Legitimacy to Fake News

Prasad

2019

Sociological Forum

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The political rise of right‐wing populism in the United States, and elsewhere, has prompted a reexamination of theoretical perspectives that oscillate on an unequivocal rejection of objective reality. Indeed, populist campaigns that have acquired wide currency in the last few years have been ontologically predicated on the idea that there exists different “truths.” The premise of different truths has debunked any notion of an objective reality by rendering even the most reified of “facts” to be the outcome of individual subjectivities and ideological subscriptions. Donald Trump’s appeal to “fake news,” for instance, captures the implications that emerge when certain material “facts” become delegitimated in the public arena. The obfuscation of material facts through its entanglements in political discourse raises a timely question concerning theoretical resistance: How can objective reality retain its conceptual and analytical ideations without succumbing to the dangers that objective science historically created for socially marginalized subjects? Contextualizing the denial of anthropogenic climate change as an illustrative case, I answer this question by developing theoretical insights from critical realism and the notion of feminist objectivity. These insights accept the socially constructed nature of an objective reality but refute the idea of value‐free knowledge—that is, it disavows the claim that all representations of knowledge are equally valid and equally valuable.

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Section: Academics and Resistance In The Postfactual Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Denying Anthropogenic Climate Change: Or, How Our Rejection of Objective Reality Gave Intellectual Legitimacy to Fake News

Prasad

2019

Sociological Forum

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“… Editor's Note : This essay is one of six articles written in response to MacKendrick (). For other responses, see Brulle (), Frickel (), Ruane (), Shostak (2017), and Whooley (). …”

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confidence: 99%

Scientists in the Resistance

Fisher

2017

Sociological Forum

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In her recent piece, MacKendrick (2017) asks whether we are experiencing a “new wave of science activism” and outlines various visible and vocal forms of political action taken by scientists in recent months. Coming from a slightly different perspective, this piece looks at scientists as part of the broader Resistance—people working individually and in collectivities to challenge the Trump agenda. Building on analysis of data collected from a random sample of participants from the Washington, DC, March for Science, which took place in April 2017, I explore how participants at the March for Science compare to a broader sample of participants in the Resistance. Although they have some unique characteristics, my findings show that there are few statistically significant differences between participants in the March for Science and others participating in the Resistance. I conclude this piece by discussing the implications of these findings on scientists in the Resistance and science activism more generally.

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“… Editor's Note : This essay is one of six articles written in response to MacKendrick (). For other responses, see Brulle (), Fisher (), Ruane (), Shostak (), and Whooley (). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%