Science and Public Policy, volume 29, number 1, February 2002, pages 69–75, Beech Tree Publishing, 10 Watford
Close, Guildford, Surrey GU1 2EP, England
Ideological influence
Ultra-left science policy and anti-modernization
in Argentina: Oscar Varsavsky
Mauricio Schoijet
The anticientificismo trend that started in
Argentina in 1962 was a resistance to moderni-
zation. Oscar Varsavsky’s best known work of
1969 combined elements of an ultra-leftist crit-
ique of science with a critique of the way in
which Argentine science was developing. He had
a very important ideological influence in the
1970s in much of Latin America in many techni-
cal and scientific groups. His work was used by
obscurantist elements for repressive policies.
Dr Mauricio Schoijet is in the Departamento El Hombre y su
Ambiente at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-
Xochimilco in Mexico. His address is Rancho Akamira 72, Los
Sauces-Coyoacán, Mexico 04940, DF, Mexico; Tel/fax: +52 5
677 7428; E-email: schoijet@prodigy.net.mx.
Science and Public Policy February 2002
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/29/1/69/1650696 by University of Wisconsin - Madison user on 23 April 2020
T
HE ARGENTINE MATHEMATICIAN and
science and technology policy author Oscar
Varsavsky (1920–1976) had a very important
ideological influence in the 1970s, not only in his
own country, but in several other Latin American
countries. His influence is certainly weaker now, but
it has not vanished completely. Its persistence was
confirmed by the publication in 1994 of an eighth
edition of his best known work, his short book Cien-
cia, Política y Cientificismo (often called CPC), first
published in 1969. This edition has an introduction
and biographical essay by Cristina Mantegari.
The first six editions were published in less than
six years. After 1976, under the heavy repression of
the military dictatorship, which included book burn-
ings and the kidnapping and assassination of pub-
lishers, it would have been dangerous to publish a
new edition.
I shall discuss this work, plus his directly related
controversy against philosophers Gregorio Klim-
ovsky and Thomas M Simpson. I shall leave out
several other aspects of his work, such as his stand
on the ‘limits to growth’ controversy, his writings on
technology, and his papers on physics and mathe-
matical models.
Varsavsky’s ideological influence was very im-
portant for a short time. It declined quite rapidly af-
ter the great purge at the universities by the Isabel
Perón Government in 1974. For a long time nobody
mentioned him in Argentina, as far as I know. More
recently some younger professors of the Faculty of
Philosophy and Literature, Universidad Nacional de
Buenos Aires (UNBA), have rediscovered him and
commented favorably on his ideas (Díaz, 1989; Flax,
1992; 1993). Mantegari’s (1994) excellent essay is
also a testimony to a continued interest in his work.
0302-3427/02/010069-7 US$08.00  Beech Tree Publishing 2002 69
Ideological influence of Oscar Varsavsky
Mauricio Schoijet was born in Argentina in 1932, and became
a Mexican citizen in 1986. He holds a degree in industrial
engineering from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (1960). He
has a PhD in metallurgy and materials science at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania (1969). He taught at the Electrical Engi-
neering Department of the Centro de Investigacin y Estudios
Avanzados (1969-1979). Since 1980 he has been teaching at
the Departamento El Hombre y su Ambiente (Man and Envi-
ronment) of the Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana-
Xochimilco. His book on science policy in Mexico was pub-
lished in 1991. He has published papers in metallurgy and
solid state physics, energy and environment, science policy
and history of science, and nuclear safety. He participated in
the movement against the Laguna Verde nuclear plant.
On the other hand, there is a lack of serious
evaluation, as shown by the fact that some senior
scholars refer to him in a rather neutral way, without
taking a stand on the validity of his ideas — Enrique
Oteiza and Hebe Vessuri, for instance (Oteiza, 1996;
Vessuri, 1996). Vessuri places him within the “pio-
neers of Latin American thinking on the role of sci-
ence and technology in the region’s development”.
Some Latin American conservatives see him as a
dangerous hack, better to be soon forgotten.
I consider that a balanced picture shows both
positive and negative aspects. The latter received
more public attention. I believe that the story of his
influence should be known, as it represents an im-
portant episode in the history of Argentine and Latin
American science and of the public perception of
science.
Brief biography
Varsavsky obtained degrees in chemistry at the
School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the UNBA.
He wrote his doctoral thesis on quantum mechanics
in 1949. He started his scientific career as a univer-
sity assistant, but was forced to leave the university
as a result of the repression under the first Peronist
Government, as it required professors to join the
Peronist party.
He worked as a translator, participated in some in-
formal study groups and taught himself more
mathematics. Between 1954 and 1958 he taught at
provincial universities in Argentina. In 1958, he
joined the Mathematics Department of the Science
School at his alma mater, was also for a short time a
member of the board of the Atomic Energy Com-
mission (CNEA), and then left for the Universidad
Central de Venezuela in Caracas. Back at the UNBA
in 1962, he became a member of the Consejo Direc-
tivo (Governing Council) of the Science School and
a participant in the modernizing group led by Ro-
lando García.
In February 1966, he resigned and went back to
Venezuela. Thus he escaped the brutal repression of
the Onganía’s dictatorship a few months later, which
caused the extinction of several important research
groups and the emigration of many scientists. He
70
went back in 1968 and started a small private re-
search institute in Buenos Aires. While he worked
there, he spent part of his time as a consultant in
Venezuela and at CEPAL (the United Nations
Commissión Económica para América Latina) in
Santiago, Chile. He was also a consultant for the
Governments of Perú and Ecuador. In 1975, he ex-
iled himself again in Venezuela, but returned to Ar-
gentina and died in Buenos Aires in 1976.
He published his first scientific papers in 1949. In
total, he published over 30 papers and research re-
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/29/1/69/1650696 by University of Wisconsin - Madison user on 23 April 2020
ports, plus one high school mathematics textbook,
one book chapter and several books in Argentina,
Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, the United States and
France, on applied mathematics, operations research,
mathematical models and science policy. He co-
edited a book on mathematical models and numeri-
cal experimentation in the social sciences. He also
wrote articles on the philosophy of science and a
book on the philosophy of history. A volume of his
Selected Works was published in 1982 by his co-
workers Calcagno and Sáinz (Varsavsky, 1982).
Marcelino Cereijido, one of the most important
Argentine scientists, now living in Mexico, remem-
bers that “there was no laboratory in Argentina that
would not discuss Varsavsky’s ideas” (Cereijido,
1990, quoted by Mantegari). The Brazilian author
Carlos E Senna Figueiredo (1983; 1984) published
two books on his ideas and personality. Varsavsky
also influenced some other authors, for example the
Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda (Fals
Borda, 1970), and the Peruvian philosopher Fran-
cisco Miró Quesada (Miró Quesada, 1986).
In the late 1930s, Varsavsky became a member of
the first cell of communist science students. In the
early 1940s, he and several others were either sus-
pended or thrown out of the party. After that he
withdrew from active political participation, al-
though he was apparently close to the Government
of president Arturo Frondizi (1958–1962), who ap-
pointed him to the board of directors of the Atomic
Energy Commission.
During the second period of Peronist rule, which
started with the presidency of Héctor Cámpora in
1973, Varsavsky acted as an adviser at the Instituto
Nacional de Tecnología Industrial, a government
industrial laboratory. Although he did not join the
Peronist party and rejected an invitation to join its
Consejo Tecnológico (Mantegari quotes his co-
worker Sara Rietti on this point), an organization of
scientists and engineers, many Peronist scientists
and intellectuals considered him at that time as a
close ally.
Varsavsky’s pamphlet and its political context
In his booklet CPC, published a few months after
the 1969 insurrection in Cordoba (the cordobazo),
he defined himself as anticientificista (a term to be
explained shortly), attacking the liberal vision of
Science and Public Policy February 2002

science which had traditionally prevailed within the
Argentine scientific community. He explains that he
could not initially understand the anticientificistas,
in part because their views were expressed in an un-
clear way. He admitted that he was anti-Peronist at
that time, considering the Peronist leaders as re-
actionary demagogues. He also accepted that he was
a victim of the desarrollista (growth-based) illusions
spread by the Frondizi Government: he admitted that
“even though we were suspicious of desarrollismo,
we adopted it”.
He goes on to state that it was the loss of these il-
lusions that led him to a critical position. This seems
to be confirmed by his coworker Rietti. The record
of his interventions at the governing council of
UNBA also seems to point in the same direction. For
example, he asked for more concrete actions vis-á-
vis the political purge at the Instituto Nacional de
Microbiología.
In 1967, he published an article on “Scientific
colonialism in the hard sciences” in American Be-
havioral Scientist. The title suggests that he was
moving in the direction of a radical critique.
The 1960s and 1970s were a period of great mass
mobilizations and violent confrontations in Argen-
tina. Several political and military organizations
had a considerable influence and mobilized large
segments of the working class and the petty
bourgeoisie. Probably the most influential and with
most military strength was the Peronist organization
Montoneros. It represented a kind of armed
reformism driven by a populist ideology.
The publication of CPC should be seen in the
context of an ideological shift. Much of the Argen-
tine petty bourgeoisie moved away from their tradi-
tional liberal positions and towards the Peronist
version of Populism. This resulted partly from the
failure of right-of-center development policies, and
was under the influence of the Cuban Revolution. It
was helped by the lack of an ideological demarca-
tion between the revolutionary and the reformist or
national-populist positions.
CPC deals with three quite different aspects of
science in Argentina. The first part looks at the
situation of Argentine scientists and the way science,
basically the natural sciences, was carried out at that
time. This might be considered a fair account, and I
shall discuss his proposals below. The second part
deals with his views on revolution, and it could be
characterized as superficial, prejudiced against the
social sciences — a prejudice shared by many scie n-
tists from the hard sciences, and affected by confu-
sion between the scientific and the political levels.
The third is a kind of short autobiographical (and to
some extent self-critical) note about the history of
the attempts to modernize the role and teaching of
science by the leading group of the Science School
and his role in it.
Varsavsky defined himself as an anticientificista ,
starting from a critique of scientific research in the
natural sciences as it was practiced at that time in
Science and Public Policy February 2002
Ideological influence of Oscar Varsavsky
Varsavsky considered that scientific
research in Argentina in the natural
sciences was directed by the norms
and values of the large international
scientific research centers, and was
élitist, individualist and lacking in
social relevance
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/29/1/69/1650696 by University of Wisconsin - Madison user on 23 April 2020
Argentina. He considered that it was directed by
the norms and values of the large international scie n-
tific research centers, and that it was élitist, indi-
vidualist and lacking in social relevance. For him it
represented some kind of seguidismo (seguir: to
follow; the word, as it was used by Varsavsky, had
the implication of following uncritically) and scie n-
tific colonialism, that would be part of a process
of cultural de-nationalization and loss of national
identity.
He claimed that below the mask of autonomy of
the scientists the social system influenced science,
imposing its priorities and permeating it with an
“espíritu empresarial” (either an entrepreneurial or a
business-oriented spirit). He accused the national
science council CONICET and the Instituto Di
Tella, a private research center in the social sciences,
of being cientificistas. He depreciated academic
freedom, suggesting that it was an illusion, as the
dominant social forces imposed their priorities on
the scientists, although with “a velvet glove”.
He disapproved of some forms of international
scientific cooperation. For example, he opposed the
creation of ‘centers of excellence’ under the spon-
sorship of the Organization of American States or
the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States. He was against sending young scientists
abroad, at least without a prior period of research in
their own country. He suggested the possibility of
giving up research in some theoretical branches that
would be too remote from the real needs of the
country. Also individualism should be overcome via
interdisciplinary research focused on concrete prob-
lems of the national reality, for instance, related to
ecological or natural resources problems.
He claimed that scientists should study the prob-
lems of revolutionary social change, and become
integrated within a “revolutionary general staff”
(“Estado Mayor revolucionario ”), if there was one,
but denied (in the spirit of depreciating the social
sciences) that they had contributed anything towards
understanding these problems.
In private conversations he also suggested that
there should be limitations on academic freedom on
ethical grounds, because to carry out research on
irrelevant subjects in a country with limited re-
sources and beset with all kinds of problems would
71
Ideological influence of Oscar Varsavsky
be a kind of unacceptable luxury (Raúl Orayen, per-
sonal communication).
Ultra-leftismand right -wing anti-cientificismo
In later texts Varsavsky took even more radical
stands. He began to deny the objectivity of “present
science”, that it was “ideological”, and part of a
“cultural superstructure” (Varsavsky, 1971a), a
claim apparently connected with the Marxist base-
superstructure model. He claimed that science was
not objective because:
• it refused to study the problems of revolutionary
change, giving priority to “microsocial problems
… that only have meaning within this system”;
• scientists published results that “helped to fight
against revolution” (sic); and
• it gave more prestige to the physical than to the
social sciences (Varsavsky, 1971b), a claim that
seems to be in contradiction with his own
depreciation of the latter.
Under the Peronist Government elected in 1973 he
defined himself as supporting a “Socialismo
Nacional” and “a national science … designed in the
light of our national objectives”.
Varsavsky was not the only one who thought
along these lines, although he was the most visible
and influential. Almost simultaneously with the pub-
lication of his booklet a group of social scientists
published another book which adopted similar pos i-
tions in the social sciences (Bastianes et al, 1969).
In 1972, Mario Margulis, at that time a professor
of anthropology at the Universidad Nacional de La
Plata, published a short tract on science policy for
the social sciences. Although curiously he did not
mention Varsavsky, he reproduced some of his ideas
(Margulis, 1972). Margulis tried to develop an un-
warranted analogy with economics, arguing that sci-
entific production had to be considered a commodity
tailored towards satisfying fictitious needs, which he
defined following such radical social theorists as
Andrew Gunder Frank, Jean Baudrillard and André
Gorz. Margulis posits a “Latin American” science,
and he tries to support his claims by quoting Eliseo
Verón, who had criticized Varsavsky’s ideas explic-
itly.
While Varsavsky and his followers represented
what might be called a leftist form of anticientif i-
cismo, there was also a rightist one, promoted by the
Peronist sociologists Gonzalo H Cárdenas and
Roberto Carri (Verón, 1974). The central features of
this included unconditional support of Peronism, the
most acute statolatry (worship of the state), and an
identification of ‘science’ — considered as an em-
pirical and intuitive form of inquiry — with the po-
litical practice of Populism.
In 1971, a public controversy arose between
Varsavsky, García and Jorge Schvarzer, and the
72
supposedly “cientificistas” philosophers Gregorio
Klimovsky and Thomas M Simpson. It should be
emphasized that the conservative scientists, like De
Robertis (a distinguished Argentinian physiologist
who obtained substantial funding from the US Air
Force), did not care about public controversies. Kli-
movsky and Simpson supported the universality of
science and the importance of basic research. They
claimed that its neglect would create conditions
likely to make the country more dependent in both
political and economic terms.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/29/1/69/1650696 by University of Wisconsin - Madison user on 23 April 2020
Far from conforming to the stereotype created by
Varsavsky, Simpson agreed on some points with
Varsavsky. He accepted his suggestion of groups for
the study of models of a desirable society; the social
responsibility of scientists and the formulation of
priorities within an economic and social context.
However, both Klimovsky and Simpson also pointed
out that the theory of the “two sciences” -— in this
case, national and international — had its disreputa-
ble origins in the Stalinist political practice, that in-
troduced the idea of a “proletarian science” against a
supposed “bourgeois science”, and in the “national”
or “Aryan” science of Nazi Germany.
Klimovsky denounced Varsavsky’s position as
dangerous, in that he was postulating that scientific
results should be accepted or rejected according to
ideological factors. He stated that this was a road to
Fascism. Klimovsky and Simpson also vindicated
the need of demarcation between science and poli-
tics, asking Varsavsky and his followers to cla rify
their concept of ideology (Klimovsky, 1971; Simp-
son, 1972).
To this, Schvarzer replied accusing them of using
their requirement of precision as a sly tactic for hid-
ing their own ideology. He also stated that “the only
form of validating truth is by referring it to a series
of value judgments, to an ideology that corresponds
to it” (Schvarzer, 1972), that is an extreme form of
relativism in defense of their “national science”.
In a later intervention (in a postscript to the 1975
compilation Ciencia e Ideologia) Simpson pointed
out that the idea that the
“accepta nce of universal norms would be noth-
ing more than a masking tactic for hiding an at-
tempt at dissolving the national spirit in order
to benefit foreign interests … is tied to an apol-
ogy of the colonial tradition … and to the
assumption that any cultural product is
ideological in the sense of constituting a simple
expression of economic and social interests.”
He claimed that this position led towards obscurant-
ism and irrationalism.
Klimovsky’s and Simpson’s positions were
completely correct in defending the objectivity of
science, although they did not seem to realize that
in some branches of science and in some histori-
cal contexts the elimination of an ideological
contamination has been a long and protracted
Science and Public Policy February 2002

process. This was the case of the pseudoscientific
spin-offs in the biological sciences, such as social
Darwinism.
Varsavsky was not only criticized by those who
defended the liberal vision of science but also by
Marxists, such as psychoanalyst José Bleger and the
sociologist Eliseo Verón (Bleger, 1973). Bleger sup-
ported Klimovsky’s position, adding that Varsavsky
was applying the methods of the right within the left.
He accused Varsavsky of denying that a scientific
problem should be discussed as such, introducing
“ideological reasons”, that would be equivalent to
“state reasons”. He suggested that Varsavsky’s pro-
posal implied the possibility of a drive for power
over the scientific community by “some sectors that
struggle for a share of power”.
I have already mentioned Schvarzer’s reply.
Varsavsky’s reply was similar to Schvarzer’s in re-
fusing to give a definition of ideology, while he
claimed that “centering the discussion on the ideal
characteristics that science could or should have is
an ideological action”. He added that present day
science was saturated by ideology at all levels
(Varsavsky, 1971a).
In July 1972, a Consejo [Council] Tecnológico del
Movimiento Nacional Justicialista (Justicialismo
was used as a synonym of Peronism) was formed,
presided over by Rolando García and under the
direct authority of the personal representative of
General Perón, who was still in exile in Spain. The
Consejo mobilized hundreds of scientific cadres.
In its initial manifesto, which was dense in patriotic
and third world rhetoric, it suggested a “Social-
ismo Nacional”, for which science and technology
would have to be considered “as resources that the
country had to mobilize for serving the Argentine
people”.
In November of the same year, Ciencia Nueva
published a letter from abroad by philosopher Mario
Bunge, who attacked the Consejo as opportunistic,
as its members chose to forget the obscurantist and
repressive practices of the former Peronist Govern-
ment. He stated rightly that Perón’s anti-capitalist
statements should be taken as seriously as the simi-
lar ones made long ago by Hitler and Mussolini. He
criticized the instrumental characterization of sci-
ence as a resource, warning that such a science pol-
icy as was implicit in the Consejo’s manifesto would
cause a new emigration of intellectuals (Bunge,
1972). This effectively happened, although not
exactly for the reasons offered by Bunge.
Short triumph of Varsavskyism
The Peronist electoral victory of 1973 gave the party
influence over culture. In August, historian Rodolfo
Puigrós, an intellectual mentor of the Montoneros
guerrilla, was appointed Rector of the UNBA. In his
inauguration he demanded that all educational insti-
tutions should teach the “national doctrine” and stop
Science and Public Policy February 2002
Ideological influence of Oscar Varsavsky
the “infiltration of positivism, of historicism, of utili-
tarianism ... all of them forms that disguise the ideo-
logical penetration within the universities” (Garzón
Valdés, 1982).
This nonsense was used for fighting against the
supposed cientificismo, serving as a cover that
would justify an ideological discrimination against
both leftist and rightist professors. In the Law
School the attack was focused on deontological
logic, which was suspect of “universalism” and lack
of “national content”.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/29/1/69/1650696 by University of Wisconsin - Madison user on 23 April 2020
I cannot state that neither Varsavsky nor García
was responsible for the obscurantist and repressive
measures applied by Puigrós. However, it should be
clear that the cultural policy of the second Peronist
Government was obscurantist and repressive, even
in its milder versions, represented by Puigrós, al-
though this tends to be obscured or piously forgot-
ten, because worse followed. In addition, I suggest
that both Varsavsky’s texts and the Consejo’s rheto-
ric contributed to creating the political and intelle c-
tual climate in which such deplorable practices
arose, and that it was also helped by their silence
about the first Peronism, of which they had been
victims.
The Jornadas (workshops) de Política Científica
y Tecnológica para la Reconstrucción y Liberación
Nacional, sponsored by the UNBA and other edu-
cational and research institutions, were held in
December 1973. They represented the ephemeral
victory of Varsavsky’s ideas, that for a short time
became an official discourse of a part of the educa-
tional and technical state apparatuses.
In September 1974, Perón died and under the
presidency of his widow Isabel Martínez the extreme
right wing of Peronism obtained control of public
education, appointing the intellectual fossil Oscar
Ivanissevich as Education Minister. Thousands of
professors were purged from the public universities,
as state terrorism became widespread. In the follow-
ing years, and under the military Junta led by Gen-
eral Videla, after the overthrow of the Peronist
Government in March 1976, the purge spread to the
government research institutes. Many scientists were
kidnapped and disappeared and many others went
into exile.
Anticientificismo included three
aspects: a resistance against
modernization; an attempt at a radical
critique of science, leading to
ultra-leftism; and a critique of the
dependence of Argentine science on
international science, and the
limitation of academic freedom
73
Ideological influence of Oscar Varsavsky
Ultra-leftism and resistance to modernization
I suggest that anticientificismo included at least three
different aspects:
• One was that of people such as Sebreli (an Argen-
tinian sociologist who claimed he was applying
Marxist analysis), and the sociologists Carri and
Cárdenas who all represented a form of resistance
against modernization.
• A second was represented by Varsavsky’s posi-
tions after 1972 and by the Margulis tract, and
was an attempt at a radical critique of science,
leading into ultra-leftism, carried to an extreme by
Margulis.
• Finally, both Varsavsky’s 1969 critique of the
dependence of Argentine science on international
science and his position vis-à-vis the limitation of
academic freedom on ethical grounds, contain
valid elements.
He seems to have changed his views between the
publication of CPC and his rise to prominence in
1973–74, in that he drifted into ultra-leftism while at
the same time becoming a supporter of Populist
policies. While his critique of the way in which sci-
ence developed in Argentina might have been cor-
rect to some extent, in that both resources for
scientific work and the status of the scientists should
come from within, it could be legitimate to ask
whether this kind of scientific dependence would not
naturally become weaker as its scientific establish-
ment became more mature.
The other point has to do with his narrowly in-
strumental view of science, which led to the depre-
ciation of academic freedom. He did not consider the
need for a critical science, nor did he realize that
academic freedom can be used by scientists to strug-
gle against the ideological influence of the dominant
social forces.
Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s was a country
quite different from the Soviet Union in the 1920s
and 1930s, but they had some similarities that might
have had an influence in explaining those events,
that is, support for anticientificismo and for
Lysenkoism. Both countries had experienced acute
forms of class struggle and both had young scientific
establishments.
Thousands of cadres had gone through some form
of training for scientific research. However, their
modes of thinking were still to a large extent pre-
scientific, and the lack of a scientific tradition plus
the existence of political fractures between the mass
of new cadres and the preexisting scientific élite cre-
ated a terrain favorable for senseless adventurism. In
both societies intense political debates developed on
the role of science.
Varsavsky could not be accused of opposing
modernization, but it seems clear that the anti-
cientificismo trend in Argentina (in the same way as
Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union) included this
74
element. Varsavsky had been a militant of revolu-
tionary political organizations. He was a scientist
who addressed himself to the problem of the
relationships between science and revolutionary
politics, starting from a rejection of the liberal
myths, according to which science would be an ac-
tivity uncontaminated by politics and ideologies
(or at least such contamination would be unusual).
He came up with wrong answers, but answers
which agree that science is part of an ideological
superstructure.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/29/1/69/1650696 by University of Wisconsin - Madison user on 23 April 2020
Eliseo Verón has correctly pointed out that
“scientists do not always produce scientific dis-
course”. Verón also suggests that Varsavsky makes
an error that is the opposite of the liberal one. That
is, in the same way that the liberal image of science
sees it as uncontaminated by ideology, Varsavsky
could imagine that it could be put into any ideology
— in his case the ideologies of nationalism and
Populism.
Varsavsky is a good example of a scientist who
did not produce scientific discourse — at least not in
the subjects considered in this essay. He worked out
ideological products that helped create a climate fa-
vorable to the demagogic and repressive measures
taken by Puigrós as Rector of the UNBA. Participa-
tion in a revolutionary organization, even in a lead-
ing position, does not guarantee that any given piece
of theoretical work will necessarily agree with a
revolutionary policy. Varsavsky did not start with
Marxist categories, nor did he have a correct phi-
losophy of science. He could not, therefore, have a
correct understanding of the central problem of the
relations between science and ideologies, and so
could not contribute much towards a correct science
policy.
Varsavsky’s work should be placed within an
ideological and political trend towards a radical cri-
tique of science that arose among scientists in the
United States, Britain and France, at the time of the
Vietnam war. It included a critique of the subordina-
tion of the social apparatus of science to the military
and foreign policy establishment of the United
States.
While the anti-war movement should be seen
as positive, it also produced a considerable amount
of humbug, even by very qualified scientists. For
instance, Steven and Hilary Rose claimed that “a
paradigm is never value free” (Rose and Rose,
1980). The biologists Richard Levins and Richard
Lewontin claimed that Lysenkoism was an attempt
at a scientific revolution (Lewontin and Levins,
1980).
Physicist Maurice Bazin stated that visiting for-
eign scientists in less developed countries “revered
for their nuclear wisdom, tacitly justified the whole
scheme of class domination” (Bazin, 1975). Jean
Marc Lévy-Leblond and Alain Jaubert wrote of sci-
entists belonging “to a well determined social class”
and implied a class nature in scientific production
(Lévy-Leblond and Jaubert, 1975).
Science and Public Policy February 2002

Summary
There have been many historical episodes of resis-
tance to modernization. The anticientificismo trend
that started in Argentina in 1962 should be consid-
ered as pointing in that direction. Varsavsky’s 1969
best known work combined elements of an ultra-
leftist critique of science with a critique of the way
in which Argentine science was developing. This
ultra-leftism was intensified in other writings. It had
an important influence on many technical and scie n-
tific cadres, and was used by obscurantist elements
for repressive policies. Such policies were quite mild
in comparison to what happened in the Soviet
Union, where the ultra-leftist critique of science (by
Alexander Bogdanov) was used for the repressive
policies coupled to the Lysenkoist campaign in the
biological sciences, but the point is that in both cases
ultra-leftism critique of science was used for repres-
sive and obscurantist purposes.
References
Albornoz, Mario, Pablo Kreimer and Eduardo Glavich (editors)
(1996), Ciencia y Sociedad en América Latina (Universidad
Nacional de Quilmes).
Bastianes, C A, S Colabella, H Rapaport and I Viñas (1969), “De-
pendencia e investigación social: el caso del Proyecto Margin-
alidad”, Buenos Aires, mimeo.
Maurice Bazin (1975), “La science, les scientifiques et le tiers-
monde”, in Lévy-Leblond and Jaubert (1975), pages 88–98.
This article was translated into Spanish in Chile in Comunica-
ción y Cultura, 1, 1973; this issue had a second printing in
Chile the same year, a third in Buenos Aires, Editorial Galerna,
also the same year, and a fourth in México, Editorial Nueva
Imagen in 1977, pages 74–88.
Bleger, José (1973), “Ideología y política”, Revista de Ps i-
coanálisis, XXX(2), pages 509–513.
Bunge, Mario (1972), “Peronismo y ciencia”, letter to the editor,
Ciencia Nueva, 20, November, pages 60–61.
Cereijido, Marcelino (1990), La nuca de Houssay: la ciencia ar-
gentina entre Billiken y el exilio (Fondo de Cultura Económica,
México) pages 140–141.
Díaz Esther (1989), Para seguir pensando (Eudeba, Buenos
Aires) pages 163–173.
Fals Borda, Orlando (1970), Ciencia propia y colonialismo intelec-
tural (Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, México) pages 23–24.
Flax, Javier (1992), “Ciencia, poder y utopía: las posibilidades de
la ciencia en Argentina”, in Esther Díaz and Mario Heler (edi-
tors), Hacia una visión crítica de la ciencia (Editorial Biblos,
Buenos Aires) pages 17–42.
Flax, Javier (1993), “La vigencia y validez del pensamiento de
Varsavsky”, Espacios, 12, June–July (Facultad de Filosofía y
Letras of the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires) pages
47–50.
Science and Public Policy February 2002
Ideological influence of Oscar Varsavsky
Garzón Valdés, Ernesto (1982), “La emigración argentina: acerca
de las causas ético-políticas”, in Peter Waldmann and Ernesto
Garzón Valdés (editors), El poder militar en la Argentina:
1976–1981 (Verlag Klaus Dieter Vervuert, Frankfurt) pages
179–203.
Klimovsky Gregorio (1971), interview originally published in Cien-
cia Nueva, 10, reprinted in the 1975 compilation Ciencia e
Ideología (Ediciones Ciencia Nueva, Buenos Aires) pages 11–
40, including a postscript written in October 1973.
Lévy-Leblond, J M, and Alain Jaubert (editors) (1975),
(Auto)critique de la Science (Editions du Seuil, Paris).
Lévy-Leblond, Jean-Marc, and Alain Jaubert (1975), “Introduc-
tion”, in Lévy-Leblond and Jaubert (1975), pages 13–19.
Lewontin, Richard, and Richard Levins (1980), “El problema del
lysenkoismo”, in Hilary Rose and Steven Rose, La radicali-
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/29/1/69/1650696 by University of Wisconsin - Madison user on 23 April 2020
zación de la ciencia (Editorial Nueva Imagen, Mexico) pages
75–116; original in The Radicalisation of Science. Ideology
of/in the Natural Sciences (Macmillan, London, 1976).
Mantegari Cristina (1994), “La trayectoria de Oscar Varsavsky y
su inserción en la crítica del cientificismo”, in Ciencia, Política
y Cientificismo (Centro Editor de América Latina, Buenos Ai-
res) pages 13–69; Mantegari also includes a chronology, bibli-
ography and citations.
Margulis, Mario (1972), “Condiciones de producción y de ideolo-
gización de la ciencia social en los países dependientes”,
Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Cátedra de Antropología So-
cial, La Plata, mimeo.
Miró Quesada, Francisco (1986), “Ciencia y técnica”, in Leopoldo
Zea (editor), América Latina en sus ideas (compilation spon-
sored by UNESCO, Siglo XXI, México), pages 72–94.
Oteiza, Enrique (1996), “Dimensiones políticas de la “política
científica y tecnológica”, in Albornoz et al (1996) pages 75–86.
Rose, Steven, and Hilary Rose (1980), “The myth of neutrality of
science”, in Rita Arditti, Pat Brennan and Steve Cavrak (edi-
tors), Science and Liberation (South End Press, Boston MA)
pages 17–32; originally in Impact of Science in Society, 2,
1971.
Schvarzer, Jorge (1972), “La ideología de un científico puro”,
Ciencia Nueva, 15, March, pages 4–6; reprinted in the compi-
lation Ciencia eIdeología (Ediciones Ciencia Nueva, Buenos
Aires, 1975).
Senna Figueiredo, Carlos E (1983), Encontros na América do sol.
A era dos projetos nacionais (Antares, Río de Janeiro).
Senna Figueiredo, Carlos E (1984), Deus o diablo no dia do
golpe. Una rapsodia socialista (Antares, Río de Janeiro).
Simpson, Thomas M (1972), “Qué posibilidades tiene el desar-
rollo científico en la Argentina de hoy?”, Ciencia Nueva, 14,
January, pages 19–23, reprinted in the compilation Ciencia e
Ideología, pages 79–108; also “Ideologismo, tradición y cultura
nacional” in the same compilation, pages 109–115.
Varsavsky, Oscar (1969), Ciencia, Política y Cientificismo (Centro
Editor de América Latina, Buenos Aires).
Varsavsky, Oscar (1971a), “Ideología y verdad”, Ciencia Nueva,
12, September, pages 44–47.
Varsavsky, Oscar (1971b), “Ciencia y estilos de desarrollo”, Cien-
cia Nueva, 13, November, pages 38–39.
Varsavsky, Oscar (1982), Obras Escogidas (Selected Works),
compilation and prologue by Alfredo Eric Calcagno and Pedro
Sáinz (Centro Editor de América Latina, Buenos Aires).
Verón, Eliseo (1974), Imperialismo, lucha de clases y cono-
cimiento: 25 años de sociología en la Argentina (Editorial
Tiempo Contemporáneo, Buenos Aires).
Vessuri, Hebe (1996), “Introducción”, in Albornoz et al (1996),
pages 115–126.
75