I mean, does it have value for society that scientists recovered old administrative documents about the French revolution? Not really.
But as a society, we can now decide to continue to be wrong about most beliefs we held about that time period or to correct those beliefs. Did those researcher knew what they would find? Yes, probably. Were those finding aligned to their political views? Probably yes, i doubt there is a lot of Furetien left, and they probably wouldn't have searched those documents. (i wanted to use the verb seek and not search, but couldn't remember if it was irregular)
Does it really have value for people? Not really. I will now get internet points everytime someone talk about the French terror for the foreseeable future. That's it.
But maybe, if our civilization last long enough, our history myths will match our real history and everyone will be less wrong.
And that's the best science can do.
You must be joking. The very fact that you are posting here indicates that you are making use of countless products of science. They're just not products of science that are tied to any political controversy or help anyone to gain political power, so everyone takes them for granted and doesn't stop to think about them when they think about "science". But they should.
History is not a science, although it can make use of tools that science has developed.
> And that's the best science can do.
Again, you must be joking. Even leaving aside my comment above, science has done a huge amount more than discover some old historical documents.
Let me rephrase the last part of this slightly to help illustrate the problem:
Most scientists aspire to answer questions that will have value for people.
Scientists have discovered all kinds of fascinating stuff that has vastly improved people's lives. For example, all the discoveries that made possible the medium in which we are having this conversation. But there's no reason any of that has to be political. Scientific discoveries have greatly empowered people in all kinds of ways that don't require any politics to work.
The reason science is political is that some people want to use it as a tool, not to empower all people, but to empower themselves at the expense of other people. They want science to give them an excuse to tell other people what to do or what not to do. That is the difference between "value for people" and "value for society". If it's "value for people", then each person can judge that for themselves, and use the tools of science as they choose to improve their lives. But if it's "value for society", then who gets to judge that for "society"? That is where the problem lies. To the extent that there is a valid point lurking in this article, I think that's it.