[Lightspeed]

Part of the consideration is the history of science, how it actually plays out as compared to what it apparently is. Because inescapably, whatever science is, it only exists within human systems.

By keeping science as a privileged term in the way it is, we actually undermine our efforts to produce robust, effective knowledge. By saying science is only this we foreclose other forms of knowledge maturing that exist in the world, especially where the knowledge doesn't fit current dominant sensibilities. The obvious example is indigenous knowledge. It gets ignored, left to languish because it's "not science".

Maybe if we hadn't been so enthralled with science in the 1900s, with all the horrors we wrought with it, if it hadn't become so hyper-privileged, maybe things would be different. Maybe it could remain specialised and particular.

But that's not what's happened. It's really important we don't ignore that the science we do is only a subset of what could be done, and there are complex reasons to what we do actually investigate scientifically. And all the impacts of that.

Science is NOT and has NEVER BEEN purely the ideal it's proposed to be. Anyone trying to hold up science as this ideal, anyone who insists on it won't find themselves able to hold onto positions of authority within academia. This doesn't prevent anyone from adhering to this ideal, assuming they can find funding, which is the case for all science.

The high ideals of old fashioned science are a delightful fantasy... we know because of the countless lives that have suffered the harsh edge of reality that is the price of this fantasy.