La scienza è una grande, fondamentale, questione democratica | ROARS

[From Goolge tranlsate] Science is a great, fundamental, democratic question

"It would seem that the first discursive epiphany of the now recurring statement "science is not democratic" is attributable to the astronomer Halton Arp, who employed it at the end of the last century in a book that contested the validity of the theory for which the big bang is at the origin of the universe. On the contrary, it is good to restore the first use of that proposition in the original contours: "One of the most self-evident principles".

No matter how many people believe something, if the observations prove it is wrong, it is wrong. Believe it is often ... When it turns out to be a great number of renegade specialists and amateurs believe to be the most prestigious experts, the latter say, well science is not democratic, Arp, Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science, Halton Arp. Montreal, Apeiron, 1998, pp. 273, 274, original bold, added tondo). Since then the expression has experienced a success inversely proportional to the scientific prestige of who first seems to have evoked it. Today, it is persistently reiterated in the contemporary debate about the role that science plays in society. And this is why we gladly repeat this clear reflection on the relationship between science and democracy published by Antonio Scalari on Blue Suitcase. [...] Burioni, engaged in the "battle" against misinformation about vaccines, was forced to cancel some comments to a post that targeted the thesis according to which the cases of meningitis recorded in 2016 in Italy, particularly in Tuscany, were due at the arrival of migrants from Africa. The doctor had motivated his decision in a comment that ended just like this: "science is not democratic".

Last year, inspired by this episode, I had written an article dedicated above all to the topic of science communication. You ask: why come back to talk about it a year later? Because after having had a great visibility, this phrase has acquired a kind of life of its own. In fact, it still happens today to participate or attend discussions on scientific topics in which at some point someone intervenes by declaring: "science is not democratic".

[...] We end up just to talk about "science" and "democracy", and therefore of even more demanding and complex issues. I know this was not the intention of the author (who then explained and clarified what he meant). But that slogan, when it continues to be taken and repeated as it is, launches a message that causes misunderstandings and confusion. The point, however, is not to divide between two parties, the one in favor of the democracy of science and the opposite one.

[...]  SCIENCE PRESENTS, OR NO, SOME AFFINITIES WITH DEMOCRACY?

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY, BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY IN THE CONTEXT OF DEMOCRACY?