Enrico Fermi comes to mind:
“Whatever Nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.”
I guess he wasn’t talking about the magazine…
“Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
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Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#22Quoted post unavailable.
Count me out! I, for one, will pursue my paperclip maximization without regard to any such trivialities.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#23This is so general that its either very obvious or nonsense. They should include examples of what they consider "harmful science".
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#24The astrophysical sciences make me feel vulnerable, insignificant, insecure, and irrelevant relative to the vast expanse of the universe.
I demand an end to this harm.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#25I think that most of these types of guidelines and rules are written with good intent, but intent is what ruins good science.
Science, as a method, works when you have a hypothesis, but when that hypothesis isn't supported by your findings you can't just discard the findings and go "well I'm still pretty sure I was right anyway."
If you find something you disagree with to be true, that makes the science even more important to share! Other people can start to look at what you've seen and get more details and finer understanding.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#26No post body was provided.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#27Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. [..] Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potent…
Moreover, how can any of these be enforced, and by whom? At least you know who your church authority figures are and who to criticize. Where do we even start if we let Twitter outrage decide whether science is potentially harmful and should be allowed or not?
This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#28Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. [..] Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potent…
>>Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publicationAre they really advocating for self censorship in the sciences? And when the whims of societal taste turn or, God forbid (and yes, I put this with all irony intended), Twitter decides it doesn't like an opinion for five minutes... does science self censor then as well?
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#29Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. [..] Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potent…
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#30Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. [..] Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potent…
> research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. Do these people think there are motherfucking X-Men living among us who we want to save from stigma? These kinds of statements read like the authors don…
> Do these people think there are motherfucking X-Men living among us
In fact, there are. You know, we all have genetic differences, and most studies do not account for these genetic differences. So a medicine that helps one person might cause drug induced Lupus in another.
Lithium is a good example of this stigma. I have Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder and Lithium is constantly forces on me even though it does not work. I am what they call a "Lithium Non-Responder" and this has bee shown to be linked to varying genetics.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814312/
The stigma is that researchers still think there is only one genetic human.
And what do you think the X-Men was about? It was about genetic difference and mental health. It is about trying to have people see that we have value that others cannot see because all they see is the illness.