Tatiana Rock: Neoliberalism turns science into a weapon for the right

By Camila Alvarenga, from Opera Mundi – In a program 20 minutes interview On Friday (15/04), journalist Breno Altman gave an interview to Tatiana Roque, a professor at the Mathematics Institute at UFRJ and a specialist in the history of science, who spoke about denial, science and politics.

Regarding the scenario that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, around the world, of vaccine denial and the coronavirus itself at certain times, Rocky argued that it was the result of a moment when science and politics are subject to a new assessment.

“It’s about indecisiveness because you lose legitimacy if people don’t see the benefits of science and technology in their lives. Science has not delivered what it promised to improve everyone’s lives, many view technology as something that made people lose their jobs. And the response of scientists has been to defend the truth of science, because it doesn’t It should deserve the respect of the population simply because it produces facts, and that only reproduces elitist thought. Trust is built, and we have to prove that science contributes to a better life,” he said.

Therefore, for the teacher, the current doctrine of denial is not the same as the one in the past that never disappeared, it simply became dormant. She believes that the current phenomenon is the result of this age.

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“What is in crisis is policy based on technical evidence. At the end of World War II, a scientific method of making decisions and influencing public policies was developed. So an intermediate class of specialized professionals was created, whose production will influence the decision-making process, which is important even In certain areas, such as health,” he said.

However, this became a more serious problem with neoliberalism, which incorporated this style of decision-making entirely and took it to other fields, such as economics, “as if political decision-making could be done on top of models whose science is not in fact strict and hollow politics “.

Thus, she concluded that “when employed by neoliberalism, science is correct and serves it”, although this model has been in crisis, according to the professor, since 2008, when it turned out that the choices were mainly political and non-scientific.

But this does not mean that science, if used in another way, is neutral, “but it looks universal.”

The goal is to declare universal facts. So, for example, the entry of the popular classes into scientific work, as happened in Labor governments when people entered universities, changes science for the better, makes it more inclusive,” he added.

Science, politics and new challenges

Rocky also thought that science and politics are not something opposite, but that they should be separate, finding, in specific moments and themes, common points. She herself, as an educator, was president of the teachers’ union at UFRJ in 2015 and got involved in institutional politics.

“Political decisions, social issues, can be helped by science, but science will not solve these problems. He said that science comes from consensus, and politics is from a system of struggle, clashes, animosities, and class struggle.”

The teacher also highlighted the importance of subjects that are considered secondary sciences, or not even that, as is the case for the so-called human sciences. For her, these are just as fundamental and, in some cases, more relevant to the so-called “hard” science.

“For example, the climate crisis, which I see today as the great challenge to humanity and science. This also includes the humanities and trying to search for alternatives without that leading us to denial, as if the solution could be in technological interventions, and away from the real solutions, which is Radically changing the economy and overcoming capitalism,” he highlighted.

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