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

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#381

Post by lettergram » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:45 AM UTC

newbie789 wrote: post #285

lettergram wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of this was told to me in confidence (via their lab-mates, etc) I’m not going to betray their trust.

This website is pretty easy to post on anonymously. It takes five seconds to make a throwaway and another three to post a name. While I agree that there are frauds out there in academia and elsewhere, I have no reason to believe that you’re not yourself some sort of fraud. You’ve essentially posted “I have direct knowledge of [unspecified academic fraud in which somebody claimed to have direct knowledge of [unspecifi…

> 1. Do you actually give a shit about this big fraud you’ve brought up but not revealed?

To expose it directly here would likely have little effect generally, but would have an outsized effect personally (damaging trust). If it did have an impact it would likely expose those involved (many careers). I am not in the command chain, I have seen the evidence and it's overwhelming. But I'm not in a position to enact the requisite change.

That said, I don't actually give a shit about this particular case. It's widespread, insanely wide spread. Most studies / work cannot be replicated.

> 2. Why did you post?

As an anecdote to highlight something that I've seen. I also linked to several other informational pieces with public accounts (so don't trust mine, fine -- trust theirs).

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#382

Post by tstrimple » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:46 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #161

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 tran…

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

How can you have scientific communication without nuance? We know nuanced discussions can't happen at scale. Is this even solvable?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128061

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#383

Post by Retric » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

kortex wrote: post #349

Retric wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing code and data can be as harmful to science as it is beneficial. You don’t want to reuse the same instruments that conducted the last experiment to validate it. Independent replication is inherently expensive, but also critical to the field at large. Some sort of code vault that releases the code and data after a period could be a solid compromise.

Well yes, but no. You want to avoid any systematic bias, which if you reuse tooling/instruments/code, you run the risk of, but source code is also something which can be peer-reviewed. Reproducing the code base from scratch just isn't going to be tractable for large scientific pieces of software (e.g. CERN). Better to have the source code and dig through it carefully as part of the review and replication than insist…

Suppose someone decided to build another LHC, but to save money they would use exactly the same design, constriction crew, and code used to build the first one. Would you consider that a perfectly reasonable choice or would it seem risky?

That said I am all for peer reviewing code, but that’s not where this ends up. People are going to reuse code they don’t bother to dig into because people are people. The obvious next step would be to reject any paper that’s reusing code from a different team, but that’s excessive.

That said reusing code or data is much safer than reusing code and data.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#384

Post by 8note » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

Censoring scientific information to me feels like a continuation of science's replication crisis.

The tooling for all classical techniques seem to have been broken as of late, getting rid of critical thinking for free speech, and replication for science.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#385

Post by Simplicitas » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

I wonder if this statement from the Royal Society is more about this situation in Britain, rather than the rest of the rest of the world.

Rationality is probably the only remaining weapon humanity has to survive, and it sure is threaten, especially in light of the modern social medial business model.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#386

Post by finite_jest » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #319

cgrealy wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the one for people whose life expectancy was less than half the modern day? Who lived completely different lives?

Pro or con the diet, the difference in life expectancy is mostly antibiotics.

Antibiotics rock, and I think penicillin is rightly praised as being as closed to a Panacea as it gets. However, we shouldn't underestimate the positive effect of better hygiene, vaccination, and advances in surgery techniques.

I share the feeling that better nutrition is probably not as much of a significant factor in developed countries. For what it's worth, we are more obese than our ancestors.

Our World in Data has this nice chart of life expectance by age in England and Wales [1]. I have this pet hypothesis that a good chunk of the increase in the life expectancy of the younger people in that chart is due to vaccination and better hygiene. And, for older ages, the a good chunk of increase is due to advances in surgery.

The effect of antibiotics is probably more uniform across the ages. It is note-worthy that penicillin was discovered in 1928, so the increase in life expectancy before then can't be due to antibiotics.

I have no expertise in this area, so you should take all of this with a pinch of salt. The Our World in Data chart is really cool though. That steep fall and rebounce due to the Spanish flu, and the contrast with COVID-19 with respect to affect on different age-groups is also interesting. [2]

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#it-is-not-only-ab...

[2]: I think comparing the naming of the diseases also tells us something about how society has changed.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

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Post by Terry_Roll » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

fr33d0m_ wrote: post #317

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…

So how do you think this gets solved? What do you think some of the root causes are? Semi-related, I was reading about the history of some of the "US greatest universities"; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. were actually Christian Universities? Wasn't even Cambridge founded in the 1200's have similar history? https://www.quora.com/When-did-Harvard-College-stop-being-a-... I'm not sure of the complete validity, but it's…

The root causes are scientists are experts in operating tools, just like many programmers can write code, it doesnt mean they understand the process.

The medical profession is largely still the snake oil industry it was hundreds of years ago, and Govt legislation enables their monopoly.

I have as little to do with the NHS as possible because these so called experts are experts in minutiae and not the big picture. They prescribe what they have been taught. The Govt/NHS also limits a GP's prescribing ability so private healthcare should be the gold standard not a communist era make work scheme like the NHS.

You try getting a doctor to explain their thinking, most will not, and when you challenge them they go all jihad on you, in a western country of all places!

This just demonstrates cognitive dissonance in what they have been taught, but any country or institution or individual who believes in sky faeries just shows humans can hold some diametrically opposed beliefs which are irrational and should be cause to be struck off any so called professional register!

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#388

Post by errcorrectcode » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

I think we cannot avoid another Dark Ages and deurbanization without reputable authorities, information, and criticism of popular dis/misinformation.

Deplatforming creates martyrs and conspiracy theories, as does the lack of communication or the lack of reputable authorities.

I don't know how we can scale the limited time of subject-matter authorities except to direct their cannons at the biggest sources and individual instances of nonsense.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#389

Post by xahrepap » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #350

From a social psychology perspective, censorship is known to increase interest in whatever you ban or try to withhold. Censorship also interferes with educating people and helping them improve their understanding. People often learn their understanding is flawed by saying something "stupid" and getting a response to that. Censorship fosters a climate of fear where people are less likely to say the "dumb" thing and ge…

We always make sure we say things like “oh wow. I’m really glad you asked me that. Thanks!”

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#390

Post by jimkleiber » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 2:53 AM UTC

Laforet wrote: post #373

jimkleiber wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it render masks "ineffective" or "less effective"? I think I see so much absolutist language whereas I wish we would use more relative language.

A LOT less effective, especially for filtering sub-micrometer aerosols. https://imgur.com/a/Of4rDAu Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.00375

I appreciate you sending the source. I guess I still have the same argument. A LOT less effective does not equal ineffective. Or maybe I just see certain words like "ineffective" as binary words, either it works or it doesn't, and have a reaction to that. It may be a lot less effective to have facial hair while wearing an n95 compared to no facial hair and a properly fit n95, but is that still much much more effective than not wearing any face mask?