Alex WellersteinVerified account

Agree - but the bridge doesn't make those decisions, humans do. I think there's separation between the bridge as physical object and the human activity/intentions around it. There's also a separation between scientific method and human activity/intentions around it.

When humans make things, they imbue them with human properties, including politics. A nuclear weapon, you probably agree, contains some kind of inherent politics — or to put it another way, it's impossible to imagine one that doesn't come with political implications.

And the idea that you can separate the "scientific method" from "human activity." Science is a form of human activity. If you study science and scientists (which Audra and I and many others do), this becomes quite obvious — and what else could it honestly be?

Yes but of course since is also a noun, not just a verb. I see separation because the scientific method is not just an activity, it's an idea. An idea can be separate from activities and intentions.

The sense in which a bridge is just a pile of concrete is meaningless. You can call it that, but you’re not talking about a bridge. It you want a bridge, you need to take the politics on board. Same for science. Ideas must be instantiated by actions or they’re meaningless too.

All along I’ve agreed that the human activities around the bridge are political but callling the bridge itself political is what’s meaningless. It’s an inanimate object.

That move is what people are calling out. If you a) cut a bridge completely out of its context, and b) reduce it to materials, you can no longer say anything meaningful about that bridge qua bridge. Those political systems are part of what we all mean when we talk about bridges.

I think you can still say something about it when it’s taken out of context. Imagine a bridge on Mars. Still has some sort of meaning although not much use.