science in an anarchist society
I've always been fascinated by anarchist societies. I have disliked hierarchy and authority a long time and so I have been fascinated by a society that would not rely on these and yet still maintain cohesiveness. Yet, a society with no hierarchies would be inherently decentralized. How would science, hailed as one of the great benefits of a centralized power structure, be done in such a society? This has been a question that has puzzled me for years. I have had to unwrap a lot of my biases around what science is, how science is done, and its relationship to society.
Based on my experiences and readings, I want to write down what I have found so far. I think this view may still be somewhat limited and I hope to continue expanding my conception of science as I understand how anarchist societies can work. Still, between the rising anti-science sentiment across the world and the unraveling US government, this seemed like a good time to get my thoughts organized.
There a couple of different aspects to science that I'd like to expand on:
- value of science within society
- resources for experiments
- learning techniques and theory
- communication of new results
value of science within society
The question I had for a while was "would people even value science in an anarchist society?" Maybe people just need enough food, shelter, community, and healthcare to be happy. Why would people pursue science at all? Would only a few people do it out of curiosity?
When I thought this way, I think I was really undervaluing science. In the end, where does food, shelter, community, and healthcare come from? There is work underlying each of these, which must persist in any society for the benefit of the people. Figuring how to do this work is science! As the world continues changing around us, we must continue to describe the systems around us and how we relate to them. Science is essential for our continued survival.
I think we also often underestimate how curious we are as humans. Our curiosity often gets taken advantage of in the news cycle or in social media, but it can be source of joy and fulfillment when applied to our surroundings. Observations, experiments, theories: these are core to science and I think many people find enjoyment in these at various scales. There is a deep satisfaction in grasping at structures within reality.
resources for experiments
The way most of formal science is done across the world is either through federal funding (ultimately from taxes) or from sponsorship from rich donors or organizations. It can take a team of scientists years to decades to obtain results that have practical applications. During this time, they must continuously rely on the goodwill of their donors to obtain funding for lab equipment and salaries.
Both federal funding or rich donors imply some centralized collection of resources, which would not be available in an anarchist collective. How would we have resources to do science, then?
In terms of people, I think this would be driven by volunteers or some labor exchange system, however the society is arranged. If the necessities are provided for and people are all equal, no further compensation is needed to do science in this alternate society. From this, there may be more freedom in who does science and what kind of research gets emphasized. For instance, a baker may take a pause and do research to understand into how various flour formulations affect a recipe or in how people perceive the taste of bread. In this way, research may be more naturally motivated and more equitable. (There likely would still be people specializing in science that would be particularly skilled in building equipment, educating others, and communicating results.)
In terms of lab resources, I do think scientists will have be more crafty in building their experimental setups, as there would be less central suppliers. If enough people participate in science, the work of building setups could be distributed and may not be so bad, especially with support from the local crafts people. Historically, experimental scientists were quite capable in building the setup they needed and I still see this spirit in "citizen scientists" (with little to no funding). I've seen people learn how to refurbish and use chemical testing equipment, as well as numerous replications of cognitive neuroscience experiments. It takes work, but when done with friends and not as a job, it's so enjoyable!
This kind of self-organization of people and equipment makes sense and is already out there for smaller scale projects (up to about 10 people), but it's more fuzzy for big projects like the Large Hadron Collider or the Human Genome Project. Is it possible to gather so many people and build such large structures without a hierarchy to coordinate them? I wonder about that.
learning techniques and theory
Another aspect crucial to scientific practice is passing on knowledge of scientific theory and practice. We need to pass on what we've learned from past experiments, so each generation can build on prior work. We also need to pass on research techniques, so that anyone could perform science at the highest level.
Currently, this is done through hierarchies built into academia and industry. Many practicing scientists learn how to run experiments in classes or through independent research guided by a mentor. I think this kind of structure can live on, but the dynamics would look different in a different society.
There is often a certain level of status needed to operate as a mentors/instructors. For instance, only a select group of people with PhDs can be college professors, limiting the group of available mentors across subjects. In addition, when doing paid research under a mentor (as in grad school for instance), the mentor holds financial power over the mentee, which can lead to various abuses of power.
I think there would be still be people specializing in education and mentorship, but just as in scientific investigations above, there would be greater equity in who can teach and more room for teaching part time. Far instance, the aforementioned baker might hold classes on making bread for people in a communally shared space.
communication of new results
Related to education is the communication of new results within the scientific community. Our conception of the world advances through discussions of the latest scientific experiments and theories.
Right now, this mostly happens within academic institutions, at scientific conferences, and through publications. Unfortunately, these discussions involve a lot of gatekeeping currently.
discussions within institutions
Academic institutions are the most accessible. Depending on the institution, you may be able to just show up to a lecture from a visiting lecturer or contribute to a journal club. Getting a spot to give a lecture is a bit harder, but also doable given the proper connections. In an anarchist society, I think they should continue to be accessible with less barriers on who can attend lectures and events as well as who can host these events.
conferences
Currently, Scientific conferences consist mostly of professionals. They are costly to attend in terms of travel, lodging, and often also conference fees. Initiatives like Neuromatch make conferences much more accessible by hosting them primarily online. I think a combination of local in-person conferences and global online conferences would be a solution for this in a more collective society.
publications
Publishing and reading articles is probably the most gatekept activity in scientific communication. There have been efforts to democratize the process more, such as the open-access movement to allow anyone to read scientific articles for free or preprint servers to allow anyone (in principle) to put up a manuscript without "official" review from a journal. I think these efforts have done a lot to improve the process, but I think the language used in journals is still a barrier to both reading and writing such materials for the general public. In my time of doing citizen science, I've attended lectures and even conferences with my friend group, but we never managed to publish on the results of our investigations, only blog posts.
Right now, in my opinion, publications are gatekept because they serve as an indicator of career success for professional scientists. Sure, anyone can write a blog post, but you need to get past a bunch of reviews and feedback to get something into Nature... at least that's the reasoning. A lot of hand-wringing is done about peer review keeping up the standards of scientific quality, but I'm not sure how much quality it really adds. For most of my PhD, I kept up with the literature by reading preprints. When the official paper from the journal came out after all the reviews, mostly it would come out with some tampering on claims and a few supplemental figures.
I think what would be nice (and what I see more outside of academia) is more community created materials compiling the latest results in an area and clear explanations of emerging techniques with their tradeoffs. When we get rid of hierarchical relationships and notions of careers (as in these communities), the science shines through.