Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

royalsociety.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 970 posts

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#471

Post by xdennis »

colechristensen wrote: post #33
toolz wrote: post #12

So many "misinformation censorship" proponents seem to have quickly forgotten just how much literally everyone in public health has spread misinformation this pandemic. It's unavoidable being wrong and often the cost of making claims without unimpeachable evidence is higher than the cost of being wrong. Name me a public health official who regularly made recommendations this pandemic and I'll show you misinformation.…

There is a difference between "malice" and "intentional misinformation". Authority figures are not accurately representing risks and rewards of different actions and have deliberately shaped their messaging to achieve outcomes. Direct from the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/cdcgov/status/1233134710638825473 "CDC does not currently recommend the use of facemasks to help prevent novel #coronavirus. Take everyday pr…

> They weren't saying this because they thought face masks were ineffective, they said this because they were worried about supplies for healthcare workers.

This doesn't pass the smell test because governments could easily have banned the private sale of masks.

Many governments have used their powers to confine us to home arrest without a trial and they expect us to believe they couldn't have confiscated all the masks?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#472

Post by thetopher »

wumpus wrote: post #329
chana_masala wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you r…

Great choice of critic -- who has written many books about scientists commiting fraud because of their lust for grant money. Too bad his criticism comes from fantasy, instead of facts. And of course he's a climate change denier.

I’ve read State of Fear, and I agree that Crichton isn’t a great source for scientific facts.

But this quote isn’t really a criticism of science. It’s a criticism of journalism.

I think most people here on HN agree with his premise regarding the quality of science journalism. I’m not so sure about his conclusion that all journalism should be treated with the same suspicion.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#473

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #142
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.

Presumably OP does not have hard evidence and is only relating an anecdote. There isn’t much of an incentive to waste time and resources fighting for academic integrity or some other high minded concept like this. Baring those incentives we’ll be left with anecdotes on forums and a continued sense of a diminished trust in academia.

Op sounded very confident that the persons allegedly involved _are_, in no uncertain terms, not just definitely total frauds but also definitely engaged in a giant fraud conspiracy that definitely goes all the way to the top. If what they meant was "someone told me once that..." they could have said that instead, but they've chosen to word things very very differently. At best they've drastically overstepped reasonable limits of what claims one is able to rightly make, and that assessment feels extremely generous.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#474

Post by rdtsc »

lettergram wrote: post #113
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…

> Most research is flawed or useless, but published anyway because it's expedient for the authors to do so. For the record I now know a professor at one of the premier institutions in the world, who is a total fraud. Their research was fraudulent in grad school. Their lab mates tried to raise concerns and nothing happened. That person graduated, with everyone on the committee knowing the issues. Then they got a premi…

> Their lab mates tried to raise concerns and nothing happened. That person graduated, with everyone on the committee knowing the issues.

I understand after some time it would be an embarrassment for the department because they hired, vetted them, etc. But why did that get tolerated initially, was it a case of nepotism? It seems they must have had some kind of a special privilege or status to skate by so easily despite the accusations.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#475

Post by ZephyrBlu »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #136
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.

Well yes. It’s not cool to out someone in front of millions of people. Feel free to dismiss the claim if you wish.

People on HN are so odd sometimes. Ah yes, I must be a liar if I don't want to spill all the details my friends told me in confidence and ruin our relationship.

Sure, sometimes people lie on the internet but this is not an outlandish story.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#476

Post by xdennis »

cletus wrote: post #79

The only positive for me from this misinformation plague is that as soon as the next issue comes along all of the anti-Covid vaccine sentiment will be completely forgotten. Don't believe me? When was the last time you heard about the MMR vaccine causing autism? The "good" part of this is that rejection of science, politicization of science and the use of this issue to manipulate people who somehow claim to be "free"…

Do you seriously believe that people who didn't trust MMR vaccines now do because of covid?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#477

Post by Pxtl »

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…

The rabble of ignorant science deniers aren't a problem for science, but they are a problem for policy. Reality itself can't sue climate change deniers for defamation, and for all intents and purposes they have control of policy in the world's largest economy as long as the US senate is deadlocked.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#478

Post by ModernMech »

cgrealy wrote: post #391
GeekyBear wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that an economic problem rather than a scientific one? I'll add the other sentence from the first paragraph of the source above. >Because the reproducibility of empirical results is an essential part of the scientific method, such failures undermine the credibility of theories building on them and potentially of substantial parts of scientific knowledge.

I'm not disagreeing that reproducibility is a problem. Of course it is. I'm asking how to fix it. How do we incentivise reproducibility?

You have to fund it, simple as that. Tenure is granted to professors who get grants. Grants are gotten by publishing papers. Papers are published by conducting novel research.

One thing we could do is mandate that some portion of all grant money has to be given to independent researchers who will work to confirm your findings. I could imagine some downsides to doing this, but at least it would put money in play.

Also, another problem is that the people doing research are usually grad students working toward a Ph.D.. No one wants to do a Ph.D. confirming someone else's results. You'd need some other workforce to do the work of reproducing research. Again, doable but there needs to be money allocated for this task.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#479

Post by wumpus »

vba616 wrote: post #437
wumpus wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great choice of critic -- who has written many books about scientists commiting fraud because of their lust for grant money. Too bad his criticism comes from fantasy, instead of facts. And of course he's a climate change denier.

>Too bad his criticism comes from fantasy, instead of facts. The quoted passage specifically says his area of expertise is show business. Do you know of misinformation that he endorses or spreads on that topic?

His books all have a scientist doing evil because of their lust for grant money.

"State of Fear" is a polemic against climate science.

If all you read was the comment I responded to, then it's no surprise that you don't think I provided enough information to criticize his books. Read his books, then read my criticism.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#480

Post by WaitWaitWha »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #361
Infernal wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Stopping people like this takes a lot of work and often some personal risk. I don't recall where I first heard it, but the principle that it takes 10x the amount of energy to refute bullshit as it does to generate it certainly seems to apply in this case.

Bullshit Asymmetry Principle. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bullshit%20a...

It is easier to fool people then to convince them they have been fooled - Mark Twain
Post reply on HN