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“Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

nature.com

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Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#761

Post by dkonofalski »

benhoyt wrote: post #515
dkonofalski wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those things are true. The earliest known manuscripts of any biblical text post-dates Jesus by 300 years. There are no eyewitness accounts in existence. Non-biblical scholars did not write about Jesus and the only mentions that we have of his existence are from someone who was shown to forge documents (Josephus) and Roman documents using general terms that refer to a criminal as "someone claiming to be the Me…

> The earliest known manuscripts of any biblical text post-dates Jesus by 300 years. It's easy to make bold statements, but that definitely doesn't match what most historians, Christian and secular, claim. (And I believe several of your other claims have been largely discredited, even by secular historians.) Bart Ehrman, a New Testament historian who is well known for his critical eye on this stuff (he was a Christia…

>Bart Ehrman, a New Testament historian who is well known for his critical eye on this stuff

He is not known for any such thing. Ehrman's claims are all on the historical chain of evidence for the books, not whether the books are true accounts. I'm very familiar with his work. In fact, in his book "How Jesus Became God", he suggests that there's no evidence at all, historically speaking, that Jesus ever even claimed to be the Son of God or anything supernatural and that, if he did exist, he was just a preacher. Jesus was not mentioned by any of his contemporaries or the Romans at all and they kept excellent documentation of official events of their empire.

Either way, by your own admission, there were no eyewitnesses. If the books are dated 120 years after the birth of Jesus, then the people that wrote them were not around when those events occurred.

Also, your evidence is simply showing that the books existed. It doesn't prove or support the idea that the events in them were true. Your argument here is akin to saying that Ghostbusters is a true story because it takes place in NYC and that's a real city that exists now.

Quoting a book as evidence that the book is true is tautological.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#762

Post by nitrixion »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #473
midoridensha wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as pure laziness. The purpose of writing is to communicate and exchange information. Just like misformatting some markup language will result in communications errors, so will not writing proper English with an English-reading audience. Emojis are different; they're an addition, meant to convey extra meaning or information that's difficult to convey with pure text. Omitting capitals doesn't do this; it just…

August 25, 2022 Dear respondent, Your points are duly noted. However; may I suggest you write in a more formal register? Your prose reflects the lack of effort with which I am displaying by using this very form of writing. A higher degree of effort on your part will demonstrate the level of commitment to the written word that this audience expects. Please respond in kind. Yours Truly, kelseyfrog

Thank you for both of your responses. This one made me laugh, which was needed this morning.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#763

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

mike00632 wrote: post #719
nomel wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but it's not that simple. Transitioning should start before puberty, for best outcome. There's no way to not "think of the children" since the best outcome requires children: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31682347/

Delaying puberty isn't "transitioning". You mentioned hormone blockers so you seem to have some knowledge which makes me think that you are intentionally misrepresenting what is happening in order to deny medical care to trans children. Despicable.

How do children who exhibit behaviors that the doctors and parents stereotype as opposite-sex benefit from having their natural development blocked with and/or overwhelmed with opposite-sex hormones?

Most parents are fine with gender non-conforming children (in the parent's mind of course - the kid is just being themselves). It's not a panic for them to ask why modifying their child's body to match their toy choice is so important.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#764

Post by n4r9 »

timr wrote: post #750
n4r9 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that false? It seems to me to be the current scientific consensus. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737365/ - "Genetic data sets are used to see if biological races exist in humans and in our closest evolutionary relative, the chimpanzee. Using the two most commonly used biological concepts of race, chimpanzees are indeed subdivided into races but humans are not." https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/20…

Read the links. Because those aren't providing evidence for the claim. They're just repeatedly asserting what I've already told you is faulty reasoning: we don't have a precise genetic definition of "race" today, therefore it doesn't exist. That's wrong. Regarding the specific papers: The first explicitly admits that race exists in the opening sentence (oops), then proceeds to say "the two most commonly used biologic…

The guidelines include the qualifier "at least based on modern biological criteria". This is true: if you use the modern biological criteria for race, then there is only one human race.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#765

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

deanCommie wrote: post #405
Dig1t wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://youtu.be/uU7nzwbJ-Hk?t=41 Here is a good example: > "I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic and opens trans people up to violence" This is a US senator and a Berkeley law professor talking in court.

Let's start with this: I don't know how I can explain why this kind of discourse opens trans people up to violence if we can't first agree why this is transphobic. Fundamentally we keep having this conversation in humanity. "This is wrong (homophobic, transphobic, racist, classist, casteist)" "No it isn't!" And over and over and over again. And we look back and think how could it have been possible that we were SO di…

> And you have some feminists that exclude trans women.

No "trans woman" is ever a woman. They're men, males. You're trying to take women's rights from females by denying them a way to uniquely identify themselves.

This right here is why "trans rights", as activists choose to define it, can never happen. If you can take the words woman and female, Germany could redefine Jew and China can redefine Uighur, and everyone could identify as black-descendant-of-slavery to access scholarships.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#767

Post by nomel »

mike00632 wrote: post #719
nomel wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but it's not that simple. Transitioning should start before puberty, for best outcome. There's no way to not "think of the children" since the best outcome requires children: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31682347/

Delaying puberty isn't "transitioning". You mentioned hormone blockers so you seem to have some knowledge which makes me think that you are intentionally misrepresenting what is happening in order to deny medical care to trans children. Despicable.

> Delaying puberty isn't "transitioning".

I never said it was. As you probably know, for a minor, transitioning is a process with very real time requirements. For many minors, and > 98% of minors [1] that take puberty blockers, it is the first step, the start, in completing the process of transitioning.

> in order to deny medical care to trans children. Despicable.

See the data backing Sweden's decision. "Medical care" must result in a net positive, by definition. It seems that Natures statement, potentially, makes this more difficult to discover.

1. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20502877.2022.2...

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#768

Post by musicale »

FabHK wrote: post #635
giantg2 wrote: post #245

"Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic." If it's good research, then it shouldn't have any of these biases. Stigmatization and restrictions of rights is a policy issue. Science is not policy . I think we need to promote this separation more. Too often I see "but the study…

This. That editorial and its new policies might be justified, but it is definitely a watershed. The old model was: scientists discover facts about the world, politicians/society decide what to do with these facts. This new policy undermines the separation of descriptive (purely factual) and prescriptive, normative (infused with value judgements) statements. Should physicists and engineers worry about whether a discov…

> Should physicists and engineers worry about whether a discovery they make could be used for new weapons?

Szilard and Einstein thought it was worth worrying about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Szilard_letter

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#769

Post by ZainRiz »

giantg2 wrote: post #245

"Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic." If it's good research, then it shouldn't have any of these biases. Stigmatization and restrictions of rights is a policy issue. Science is not policy . I think we need to promote this separation more. Too often I see "but the study…

This is basically saying "Scientific research that supports my politics should be allowed, and those that refute it should be banned (because of course anyone who opposes my politics will be hurting people)"

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#770

Post by nomel »

mike00632 wrote: post #717
nomel wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fuck, let people live their lives. We all only get one. I think this is greatly simplifying the concerns that people have in transitioning minors, the statistically anomalous rise in minors that identify as trans [1], and the safety of puberty blockers. For example, see the data that guided the recent Swedish health board decisions to mostly stop puberty blockers. I'm pointing out "minors", because it's all I see i…

Did you know that more people came out as left handed when the condition stopped being stigmatized? I don't share your "concerns" about there being more LGBT people in the world because they were always there; now they are just being recognized (by both rights groups and bigots who are currently focusing on them).

I don't see how left and right hand matches the fact that there are 5x more 13-17 than 65 year old identifying as trans, unless you're suggesting that gender is learned, like right handedness was, and like all those older people, who should be trans, are now comfortable the way they are.

But, I'm nobody, looking at numbers I probably don't understand. The problem here is that Nature is saying that these numbers should be considered, but potentially discarded, depending on the conclusion they make.

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