Make Science a Scene Again

Choose a couple of peers you really care about and do work that will impress them

For most of its history, science was a “scene”: [a small group of creators who invent an exciting New Thing—a musical genre, a religious sect, a film animation technique, a political theory. Riffing off each other, they produce examples and variants, and share them for mutual enjoyment, generating positive energy.]¹ Like any good scene, science eventually drew attention from the rest of the world, becoming integral to industry, health, and war; culminating, of course, in science’s elevation to top national security concern during and after WWII. This shift brought untold resources and prestige, but shattered science as a scene.

Today, everybody has opinions about science. Every discipline wants to be a science. Science is coupled to almost every policy decision. Science is scrutinized intensely by people who know nothing about science. Science is no longer small and scientists no longer perform primarily for other scientists. Yes, there are many disciplines where practicing scientists would say that they are primarily concerned about the opinions of other scientists, but in reality most science is performed for other audiences from the government employees setting grant requirements to university administrators making tenure decisions to journal editors gatekeeping prestigious publications.

Arguably, the healthiest disciplines are those that are still the most “scene-y.” Look at health sciences vs. math. Everybody cares about health. Health science is a high-stakes hypercompetitive game full of congressional hearings, billion-dollar spinoffs, and news articles about NIH funding or fraudulent Alzheimer’s data. Math research is inscrutable to most people and takes decades to become directly relevant. As a result, mathematicians mostly do math for other mathematicians. There is less money and prestige, but (admittedly from the outside) mathematicians also seem to have a lot more fun than other scientists². Not taking itself too seriously is usually a sign that a discipline is healthy. A generation ago physicists studying string theory were profiled by the New York Times dancing to a parody of the Macarena in honor of a theoretical advance, but as string theory has become an increasingly famous and then fraught topic the field has chosen to show a more serious public face. A less prestigious, less lucrative, scene-ier mode should be an option for all disciplines.

What can scientists do to nudge science towards being a scene again? A lot of it is shifting mindsets and expectations. You’re not playing at Carnegie Hall, you’re playing for a small crew of other musicians in a grimy bar. Choose a couple of peers you really care about and do work that will impress them. If the tenure committee or grant agencies don’t care, their loss – perhaps it’s a badge of honor. It becomes a pursuit for the love of the game, not stability, prestige, or money. Less money means that yes, large, expensive experiments are off the table; but what creativity can those constraints create? Perhaps science is a thing you do on the side of the work that pays the bills. Of course, just because you’re rejecting the mainstream does not mean you can reject rigor or sound epistemology (a lot of non-mainstream “science” is not actually science).

Find people who share the vibe and start a scene!

1. Words in brackets are from David Chapman’s excellent Geeks, Mops, and Sociopaths. For more about scenes see also https://alexdanco.com/2021/03/19/how-scenes-work-with-jim-oshaughnessy/

2. Some of you will argue that Math is not Science. Fair, but the point still stands.