On the Dehumanizing Mission of Science

In my commentary on the book by Ilya T. Kasavin, I would like to start from some provisions of the system-communicative theory, which is directly related to the three basic leitmotifs of the commented work: from the understanding of science as communication, from the ethical interpretation of science, and from the question of its political subjectability. In contrast to Kasavin's normative position, namely, his statement about the desirable and almost definitive humanity of science, I argue that its communicative originality does not always correspond to the humanistic expectations that society traditionally associates with science. And the point is not only that the meaning and effects of a person (researcher or expert) are usually “excluded” from the factors of scientific observation as distorting its objectivity. To an even greater extent, science is characterized by alienation that is generated by the organizational effects of science - a huge disciplinary and structurally differentiated enterprise, the functionality of which algorithms scientific communication so much that there is essentially no room for an individual's free decision. The matter is aggravated by the fact that traditional collegial expert structures (academic and dissertation councils, competition and attestation commissions, etc.) can no longer make their decisions (only) on the basis of a deliberative discussion of the scientific achievements of employees, any deep acquaintance with scientists themselves and their projects. Today, it is customary to focus on averaged and algorithmized markers of scientific success (on the Hirsch indices of researchers, on the impact factors of the journals where they are published, on the distribution of scientific institutions by category).

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