Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online • Hacker News Board

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#161

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:23 AM UTC

I see the root cause of all this debate as a failure in scientific communication.

When it comes to complex scientific decisions with significant impacts on the public, nuanced and detailed justifications are required. Instead, we often get simple declarations written by PR departments at juvenile reading level. This spawns chaotic and poorly conducted debate in all walks of life.

What is required is a robust and transparent framework for honest analyses of topics. For example, if the CDC has a specific recommendation, They should provide an outline of the arguments, counter-arguments, assumptions, and supporting data for each part.

It seems that the status quo is to completely ignore any arguments against a given recommendation. This suffocates any honest discussion in the crib. It also suggests to some that the justifications are not robust enough to survive the light of day. If you cant show your work, people will be skeptical that you did it all.

This is applicable to any science based public policy, but especially obvious to covid policy.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#162

Post by mistrial9 » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:24 AM UTC

nsainsbury wrote: post #126

AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

Yes, absolutely this. I don't think many people outside of academia truly understand how much scientific research has degraded over the years. There are an extremely small number of fields in which the overall quality is still quite high (mathematics, etc.) but overwhelmingly the social sciences, medical science, etc. are wastelands of p-hacked, low-N, biased, poorly designed studies that can't be replicated (not to…

with the dizzying speed, complexity and volumes of reference materials, the single word "degraded" does not have enough descriptive power to start to be interesting. Its just so much more of everything, so much faster, plus all the factors named here.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#163

Post by atom_arranger » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:24 AM UTC

bmc7505 wrote: post #59

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Regardless of where you stand on specific issues like censorship, public health and misinformation, I think it’s really dangerous how counter-consensus opinions cannot be expressed in the open without individuals facing intense public scrutiny. There needs to be some kind of correction mechanism in case the consensus opinion is misinformed. Maybe it would help to put in term…

That might be what comes to pass in the far future. It's possible for something to be a good and creative tool and also capable of terrible things.

I think the gain of function research that may have lead to covid could possibly have had interesting applications, but it also (possibly) lead to something terrible, probably best to regulate it more.

In fiction AI is banned in Dune and Warhammer 40k because of past events. It makes sense that if something really bad happened because of AI you might want to put regulations on development of it.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#164

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

mistrial9 wrote: post #141

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Along the way, everyone knew and when people tried to bring up concerns higher ups in the institution suppressed the knowledge. As you are doing here. I don't see a name or any specifics anywhere in your comment. Of course not including any names or specifics also means you could be making it up for a good story. We have no way of knowing.

the two parent comments speak to me (uninvolved) as wholly throwing all people, institutions, grant selection and everything else, under the bus without distinction. The drivers for that are unknowable, but I guarantee that neither these statements, NOR their complete compliment, are Truth. Proof is that without sufficient distinction, nothing claimed is distinguishable enough to even weigh. Add that the selection pr…

> wholly throwing all people, institutions, grant selection and everything else, under the bus without distinction

That's an odd way of reading a post about "a professor" that contrasts them against the rest of their lab.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#165

Post by CPLX » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

mandmandam wrote: post #71

CPLX wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. At least here in the United States there’s a full on collapse of trust in institutions and supposed expertise and for extremely good reasons. Over and over again those with authority have squandered it. An opioid epidemic devastated so many communities after doctors, health care executives, and McKinsey and Company said the new class of drugs were non-addicting. Our manufacturing sector evaporated after e…

> in a war all the experts said was necessary Just to clarify, many experts from generals to peacenik linguists to gonzo journalists predicted immediately that the wars would be an expensive and unwinnable series of atrocities. They weren't given airtime.

Well yes that’s the point. By literal definition the people who were so obviously wrong weren’t experts.

But at the time, if you were observing “expert” opinion that was it.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#166

Post by andrecarini » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

raziel2p wrote: post #153

andrecarini wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative? While I agree with the general sentiment, science and academia is still better than random YouTube videos.

Change the economic incentives in academia and research. If right now universities and researches are rewarded for publishing studies/papers no matter the quality, change the rules so that you're rewarded for quality, not quantity.

How do we change those incentives? Who gets to determine the quality threshold?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#167

Post by richk449 » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

rob_c wrote: post #95

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let people draw their own conclusions and don’t censor or otherwise penalize them for questioning one interpretation of data vs another. Encourage people to do their own research and investigate who is funding the sources used for that research. There is no need for conspiracy theories when financial incentives exist.

I think unfortunately we also need to protect science from idiots making very bad conclusions based on not understanding a paper... That's how we end up with 'bacon cures cancer' headlines in the daily fail...

The dailymail writes “bacon cures cancer” because that headline gets clicks and shares, so it makes them money.

I’m not sure that has anything to do with “science”.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#168

Post by crmd » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #115

AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

This highly depends on the field. In Physics the barriers are very high. I mean not necessarily for things to end up on arxiv.org but to be published in a peer reviewed magazine. Although probably that's not for every field and perhaps not even feasible because the data is just not there. Thinking about Medicine, every single data point there is probably a lot of work (and speaking of human trials 4 digit expensive).

Across the academy, there is a movement away from the mission of seeking truth to the mission of seeking justice. The exact sciences are about a decade behind the social sciences in this transition.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#169

Post by pharrington » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:26 AM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

In your opinion, when was most scientific research not flawed or "useless"? Remember, the Einsteins, Clarks, etc of the world were wildly exceptional outliers.

Do you really think that if you were to look at most research done between 1897 and 1922, the overall quality would be higher? And that there would be less social factors competing with the integrity of work?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#170

Post by ozfive » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:27 AM UTC

sbmassey wrote: post #25

ozfive wrote: post #2

[flagged]

The bias of this mathematician and the rest of the Royal Society working group regarding vaccination is irrelevant to the subject of these papers, which analyse how and why misinformation is spread, and how correct information can retain credibility. Reflexively trying to discredit them while being too lazy to read beyond the headline is a great way of making your own position look highly dubious though.

Dubious assumes that my agenda is based on laziness which is in itself lazy. I read the article and my opinion is in alignment with the question everything that you don't understand camp which is the majority of anti-vax arguments regardless of the efficacy of the thing you are arguing against. No one ever claimed that these "vaccines" where a permanent solution. Everyone intelligent and capable of following along knew that getting "vaccinated" was not going to be for more than 6 months due to the fact that this was a rushed operation. No one claims that this was a tried and true solution and most agree that it was and still is a stop gap until we reach a greater immunity. How you choose to reach that is truly up to you. You can catch the virus multiple times and take a higher chance of possible death or take the vaccine and still catch it with a lower chance. It should be your choice but it also has ramifications for your pocketbook and further chance of "getting ahead" within this western healthcare system that so obviously is a bane to the income potential of individuals. When I argue for "vaccination" I'm not just advocating for your health but for your future income and that you should not succumb to the powers that be that will happily take your money downstream but in larger sums. I find it hilarious that people argue for questioning something that potentially could up their odds for getting bamboozled down the line.

EDIT: it boggles my mind when people argue against censorship yet they hit the down-vote button ever.