Art and Politics
I was thinking the other day about art and politics.
Art and Politics exist in contrast to Science in that:
Art and Politics deal with what you can get away with, what you can do.
Science deals with what is real.
Of course, marketing is somewhere in between.
When people talk about sex education in the district – in our schools – and abstinence only is taught… it’s not cause anyone actually thinks it is the most effective way to stop pregnancy. It’s not. That’s been shown, many times over. But as a political/policy decision, people with power don’t want it taught, so it’s not.
Science decides/develops theories, and sometimes, eventually, proof.
I learned this week that the science of assigning ‘low-tar’ designations on cigarettes was false. All cigarettes actually have the same amount of tar. The tests were doctored. But that was figured out, and now that’s that. In art and politics, people (rightly) decide on things based on preferences.
The role of science is simply to inform our choice of preferences. As we’ve seen with global warming, science itself has no direct power.
