Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#61

Post by nonbel » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #54

aphextron wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ok, but please do not vote for anyone calling themselves "scientist" who practices NHST, you will only be perpetuating this nation- (even civilization-) destroying practice: Can you expand on this? What is NHST?

Null-hypothesis statistical testing The parent poster has ... for some inexplicable reason ... decided that this technique is invalid. This reeks of a profound misunderstanding of the technique, and a failure to discriminate between poor use and invalidity.

It isn't inexplicable. NHST entails affirming the consequent and transposing the conditional, which are known formal fallacies.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#62

Post by Arizhel » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:53 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #43

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

scientists are liberals, almost exclusively. there are a few oddballs who aren't financially liberal, and a few oddballs who aren't socially liberal-- but we're talking like 1/100 for each of those cases. realistically, most of the scientists i've ever met would fall into the green party best, but hold their nose and vote democratic party because it's the closest they'll get to actually liberal policies. >to get scie…

There isn't one. A scientist (a non-quack one at least) running on the Republican ticket would be wasting his time. The Republican voters do not care for science (esp. anything that contradicts their worldview), and insist on anyone they vote for being highly and openly religious. That's not going to work too well for scientists, even if they were fiscally conservative.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#63

Post by almost_usual » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

Arizhel wrote: post #55

jackmott wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The republican party is simply unacceptable on many levels for any intelligent, honest person. I realize that you, like many people, simply do not see it that way, and imagine that there is some kind of equivalence or near equivalence in how corrupt and crazy both parties are, but most of us don't. What we are seeing is horrific, a party that is against reason and goodness and civility at almost every step. They pick…

>and that religion was crazy. This is the real sticking point here. If you're not a highly religious person (or at least willing to claim to be one), and not willing to publicly advocate religion in your campaign, then you're not going to get anywhere in the Republican Party. Republican voters simply will NOT vote for someone who isn't religious. And non-religious voters will not vote for a Republican.

"Republican voters simply will NOT vote for someone who isn't religious"

The majority probably won't.

"And non-religious voters will not vote for a Republican"

This isn't true. I know atheists who voted Republican this election purely for economic reasons. Spending nearly $1000 a month on Affordable Healthcare will do that to people.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#64

Post by mgberlin » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

As a former scientist who is very sad about the way politics are going right now, I was extremely excited to see this group forming. Then I saw that they've inexplicably co-mingled gun control and science. By all means we need to take every measure possible on climate change, energy production, and science education (the other issues listed on their site), but scientists are no better suited to have an opinion on gun control than any other citizen (except some of them might have a slightly better understanding of statistics, but those can lie in either direction).

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#65

Post by nonbel » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

richmarr wrote: post #42

nonbel wrote: post #32

Ok, but please do not vote for anyone calling themselves "scientist" who practices NHST, you will only be perpetuating this nation- (even civilization-) destroying practice: "We are quite in danger of sending highly trained and highly intelligent young men out into the world with tables of erroneous numbers under their arms, and with a dense fog in the place where their brains ought to be. In this century, of course,…

Are you suggesting that use (or otherwise) of statistical significance tests in a scientific field would have an affect on your performance as an elected representative?

First, there is a difference between a significance test and a null hypothesis significance test. The former was proposed by Ronald Fisher, the latter is something different that arose anonymously. See my other post for some links.

I'm suggesting that people who do NHST would encourage more funding to go towards others who do NHST, while also making policy decisions based off of it. At least when politicians are mostly clueless about science they use intuition and common sense.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#66

Post by j2kun » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

Agustus wrote: post #44

What can a scientist do that no other person can at a macro-level? On minimum wage, there are scientists who have two schools of thoughts: a. Minimum wage can be increased without negative impact to individuals b. Minimum wage is a horrible action that harkens back to racist unions trying to keep black people out of jobs and has unseen consequences in a labor market. In this instance, the answer from the 314 Action g…

For one, they can read and understand the significance of various scientific literature that is intended to shape their policy decisions. They also generally don't support people who spew falsehoods and bullshit.

Of course anyone can learn these skills, but so few do.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#67

Post by croon » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:57 PM UTC

Sacho wrote: post #49

croon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that it absolutely is no guarantee for success, but don't you agree that it's one requirement?

I believe you are applying a circular definition. We call people smart when we like a majority of the actions they take. Due to the unknowable causes of these "smarts", we have invented many memes to rationalize them - eloquence, colege education, street smarts, intelligence, philosophical wisdom, the list goes on. Since we are good at hypocrisy as well as rationalization, we have left ourselves a back door for thebp…

Trump is an idiot, Bill O'Reilly is smart. I don't like either.

While I get your point, most rational people have no trouble attributing positive properties to people they dislike.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#68

Post by justin66 » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:57 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #59

jackmott wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The republican party is simply unacceptable on many levels for any intelligent, honest person. I realize that you, like many people, simply do not see it that way, and imagine that there is some kind of equivalence or near equivalence in how corrupt and crazy both parties are, but most of us don't. What we are seeing is horrific, a party that is against reason and goodness and civility at almost every step. They pick…

>The republican party is simply unacceptable on many levels for any intelligent, honest person. Anyone who would say this with a straight face isn't intelligent or isn't honest, so they can't speak for intelligent honest people. >but most of us don't. Who exactly do you think you are speaking for? Identity politics and strong liberal populations in universities has made it social suicide for anyone to admit they have…

> Identity politics and strong liberal populations in universities has made it social suicide for anyone to admit they have any doubts about the Democratic party.

I don't think you understand the political terrain here at all. Bernie Sanders supporters of the "I have doubts about the Democratic party" variety were very, very well represented in universities during the last election.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#69

Post by ocschwar » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

cderwin wrote: post #30

croon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When science is a partisan issue, what else can you do?

Even if you don't expect any scientists to want to be on a Republican ticket, why refuse to support prospective scientists who would do so? There might not be many conservative scientists, but I'm sure they exist. The only answer that seems feasible to me is that they're not really interested in getting scientists elected, instead they're more interested in scientists who are willing to abuse their authority to promo…

Because even pro-science republicans, if they win election, are going to be under pressure to caucus with and cooperate with the anti-science damn-near-Khmer-Rouge GOP.

I actually contacted 314 offering to run as a pro-science republican against my pro-science democratic congresswoman. I won't win, as her support is solid, but I'd perform quite nicely as a pro-science republican candidate to (I hope) shame the rest of the GOP.

If they change their minds, you may see me on the ballot.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#70

Post by hueving » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #48

cderwin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you don't expect any scientists to want to be on a Republican ticket, why refuse to support prospective scientists who would do so? There might not be many conservative scientists, but I'm sure they exist. The only answer that seems feasible to me is that they're not really interested in getting scientists elected, instead they're more interested in scientists who are willing to abuse their authority to promo…

I'm all for changing parties from within, but with: * Life starts at inception * Man-made climate change * Evolution (taught in school) * Not a single payer healthcare system when comparing to any industrialized country on earth * Anti-consumer ethics in FCC, compared to any other industrialized country on earth * Tax policies clearly aimed at keeping money flowing upwards, only very slightly veiled, yet again compar…

>If "progressive causes" == science backed causes, then go right ahead.

No, "progressive causes" will be whatever is in vogue in the party. So anti-GMO with labeling campaigns and leverage the scientists to cast doubt on their safety would be very possible. Perhaps it will be to convince people that science has shown that people with more money are evil and should be jailed based on the UC Berkley study with the BMWs.