Statements Javier Miley Since his candidacy, these statements have been, to say the least, disproportionate. From the privatization and closure of the organization to the delegation of decision-making, his assertions were consistently accompanied by a marked disdain for our work: “What have scientists produced? It is not observed that they have produced development and research.” Interview. This allows for reasonable pessimism about the next direction of the National Council for Information and Communication Technologies (CONICET) which may be chaired by Daniel Salamon, a close friend of the incoming president. But the truth is that it is not a new discourse.
The need for scientific research has been questioned by various voices for nearly a decade. Understandably, many do not know why studying Disney films might help identify discriminatory practices in society, or how discourse analysis might help evaluate and guide immigration policies. However, the applicability of scientific findings occupied an indisputable place in the process of discrediting CONICET and those who work there.
It has become common for people outside the academic field to express their opinion on the legitimacy of the titles of research projects or not – I say “titles” because criticism is never based on reading projects, articles or abstracts! !-. The measure of judges’ approval of the work of others boils down to one question: What is the purpose of this or that investigation? Here Daniel Salamon has a point: He said in Tennessee That CONICET’s productivity is claimed by “even the general public, who say to you ‘Listen to me, they’re doing this, does that sound good to you?'” For common sense, science is pronounced in the singular and involves suits and test tubes and quantifiable results The same “common people” are, for example, the journalist who said – without being questioned by Salamon – that 75% of the CONICET plant is dedicated to “sociologists”. Nothing further. Real numbers: Social and human sciences by 23.65%.
But the problem is not with “the general public” but with ourselves We don’t know how to question common sense or publicize our work to explain its importance.
Thinking of research as a tool that produces results that are applicable in the short term means not only devaluing knowledge in its symbolic, social, cultural and cognitive character, but also reducing knowledge to a purely commercial perspective. In an interview Before the elections, Daniele Salamoni explained his concept for the scientific system: The National Council of Science and Technology (CONICET) should be a business incubator, and priority should be given to research that “generates foreign exchange” (sic). In his words, researchers must learn how to be entrepreneurs. Moreover, although the future official admitted his love for social sciences, the field in which his daughter works, he emphasized that we should Prioritizing funding for more “useful” topics at the expense of “more interesting” topics. Sexy, science? The meaning that this word acquires in Salamoni’s statement activates a recurring opposition between the humanities and the exact and natural sciences.
The distinction between useful and exciting research places the humanities on the side of entertainment and intellectual enjoyment. This has an obvious implication: the concept that research is not work. The repeated insult “CONICET gnocchi” does nothing but undermine this idea, erasing the demanding and demanding daily lives of those of us who work in the organization under conditions.
In this line Salamon talks about “science” in the singular. The alleged uniqueness and homogeneity of scientific work is thus articulated around two basic ideas: the only valid sciences are the “hard” sciences, which presuppose that the social sciences are not sciences, and the only possible world is the one whose whiteboard expresses quantification. results. This stereotype is perfectly embodied by the character of Salamon, a biotechnologist who specializes in animal cloning. With this stereotype, Salamon asserts that science should help solve the crisis, at least in the next two years. It is understood that if there is already ongoing research that has produced tangible results, additional investment will be needed to build on those results. But this cannot cover all research – nor perhaps the majority – because The generation of knowledge moves at a different pace than the generation of goods and services. Scientific developments have their moments, which respond to the need for deep thinking, the ability to link findings that may seem unrelated but in the end are not, and attention to the social-historical conditions in which problems of research and testing arise. From assumptions that sometimes require many reformulations, etc.
These long times, which obviously generate disagreements with current social practices, make us believe that the humanities are a whim and that the topics we deal with in social fields are irrelevant. The truth is that to obtain funding (scholarships or to enter a scientific research career) we must justify the suitability of our research topic and the expected objectives for the next 3 to 5 years, all of which are evaluated by committees of specialists, and the evaluations are constant and very demanding. That’s by saying, Irrelevant topics simply do not get funding.
Now, if we want to be as “sexy” as Salamon suggests, we have to force ourselves to think about the relationship between the humanities and money. Is it really possible for the social sciences and humanities to be unable to generate foreign exchange? In this we must acknowledge that CONICET has been performing poorly, but not because it funds unimportant issues, but because of more structural issues related to organization and performance. Those of us who try to articulate our research on our own with companies, foundations and NGOs always find ourselves in trouble. Not only do we have to devote many hours of pro bono work to administrative issues, but, for example, interns cannot charge for their work on this type of initiative. The amount of bureaucracy and requirements for making agreements ultimately discourages the desire to engage with non-academic fields.
But also the conditions in which we work are generally poor. There is no such bogeyman who would want to come along and interrupt a perfectly functioning scientific system that makes us all happy. Of course, with a Miley administration we have a reasonable fear of wanting to fire workers, cut salaries and cut off income for the scientific system. But let’s not forget that instability has been high for many years, salaries are low, scholarships are increasingly difficult to obtain, and it is increasingly difficult to get into CIC. They have already silently – their silence, their silence – defunded us. In 2022 there was no call at all: the app calendar ran out.
like a little, When other countries appreciate what we do, we often cannot carry out our work because we cannot export services.. If we are invited to hold a conference, we must use all the foreign money the host country has or have them pay us in cash because we cannot bring foreign currency into our country or do it directly for free, confident that prestige will be achieved. Increase our CV and, paradoxically, this will be appreciated by the national scientific system.
Aside from these problems, Salamon must understand that “the great scientists,” those “Ferraris in which we cannot put gasoline,” exist in all branches of science and that all of these sciences complement each other. Interdisciplinarity is gaining ground, We cannot continue to think of the scientific system in an outdated framework of sharply defined disciplines, nor can we believe that the only solution is quantitative and financial: by how much should we cut it?
And I insist that a large part of the problem is our problem: the importance of the “common people” and the political and social pressures are there. Our role as social scientists is to tell society why it is appropriate to have scientific development in all areas of knowledge. “We have to be creative,” Salamon said: “I hope they are.” Maybe it’s time to come up with creative ideas from within and out loud.
