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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

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Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#81

Post by nickpsecurity »

morkalork wrote: post #43
nickpsecurity wrote: post #21

[flagged]

Please explain to me the Marxism angle. Seriously, show me. Demonstrate for me. Apparently the prime minister of my country is a Marxist but as far as I can tell we're living in a neoliberal paradise where capital gets to freely influence government policy. Nobody has had their property confiscated by the government, nobody had been sent to a gulag, free enterprise is still a thing, where is the Marxism? Where is it?…

Marxism started spreading in universities decades ago. It was rooted in conflict theory. It put the class (group) before the individual. It divided them up into oppressors and the oppressed. Its notion of “justice” was taking power from the “oppressors” to redistribute to the “oppressed.”

Over time, people developed identity politics which put your group first but with race, gender, etc. That got merged with Marxist concepts into a new form of it with a new name: intersectionality, or critical race theory.

Those people build on conflict theory. They make decisions about your group before you as an individual. They divide them up as oppressors vs oppressed with a goal to redistribute power/wealth from one to the other. They play games with words like saying “privileged” instead of power or oppressor to get more support.

As implemented in the Soviet Union and China, the Marxists were mostly atheist, dogmatists, and no dissent was allowed. They wanted their ideology forced on everyone in every institution. You’d get canceled with no job or rations, often starving, if disagreeing. They’d go after peaceful dissenters. They also used labels to dehumanize their opponents which, combined with their rhetoric, justified harsh treatment in their minds.

Those pushing intersectionality, critical race theory, etc. are just like that. Cancel culture with mobs hounding dissenters. Labels like Nazi’s, TERF’s, extortionists, etc. They use these claims to frame it like war is justified. People are just disagreeing with them peacefully, though.

So, their ideology is similar to Marxism, started in hotbeds of Marxism, has goals similar to Marxism, and works like it as implemented. So, conservatives noticing this call them modern Marxist’s. They’re also using it to say it’s too close to Marxism, not exact equivalence.

They also note that the philosophy that wrecked many countries, even killing millions, will likewise devastate our country. It already is driving division up so much. That’s why non-Progressives are pushing back so hard.

Well, also since the Marxist/DEI/woke folks are forcing it on everyone from business to criteria for movie awards. We can’t even enjoy movies anymore since they prioritize indoctrination over film quality!

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#82

Post by nickpsecurity »

refurb wrote: post #4

Yikes, quite the scathing article and example of a the politicization of science. “Trust the science” has always bothered me for two reasons: 1) science is frequently not black and white and anyone who has done hard science research knows there are plenty of competing opinions among scientists and 2) while scientific facts are facts, we still need to decide on how to act on those facts and that decision making proces…

Scientific facts aren’t facts. Empiricism only tells you when you are wrong or have enough data to believe something for now. At any point, something we believe can be proven wrong.

To even get there requires independent, skeptical, peer review. That often doesn’t happen. It’s questionable how many scientific facts are even science. Much less factual.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#83

Post by OCASMv2 »

atmavatar wrote: post #56
senderista wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trust the science" is the very antithesis of the scientific spirit. The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom. If you treat scientists as some sort of infallible priesthood then you've missed the whole point of science.

No, the antithesis of the scientific spirit is to believe anything joe nobody posts on facebook or twitter that fits your worldview, regardless of (or perhaps especially due to) the presence of contradictory facts. The essence of science, and what is meant by "trust the science", is to accept theories that fit the existing data until such time as new data contradicts them, while encouraging people to ruthlessly searc…

Just like there's people whose only standard of proof is the word of "experts", regardless of (or perhaps especially due to) the presence of contradictory facts.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#84

Post by davorak »

rayiner wrote: post #79
lmm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fewer days in school reducing test scores is very much expected. Going from that to claiming an adverse effect on learning, much less an overall harm, is quite a leap.

Test scores accurately measure learning. That’s one of the most robustly supported facts in all of education, and something virtually nobody in Asia or Europe disagrees with.

> Test scores accurately measure learning.

I think you claim to much here. Or are using odd definitions, to me at least.

Sure you can extract something about what has been learned with properly made tests administered correctly. It is the tool that is used because it is the tool we have, not because it 'measures learning' in all the ways we want to measure.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#85

Post by [deleted] »

IvyMike wrote: post #39
anonymousiam wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I'm sorry, but could you please explain yourself? I also read Inherit the Wind in middle school, and my understanding is that it fictionalized the (true) story of the "Scopes/Monkey Trial", which was an ideological conflict between science and religion. It's been over 50 years, and maybe I'm so pure that I disregarded any racial context, but I don't remember any. How does "White Supremacy" come into the story, o…

As a whole? White supremacists hate the idea that they could have had non-white ancestors. Belief in a white Adam & Eve is much more in line with their world view. Non-whites were created by "the Curse of Ham". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham

[deleted]

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#86

Post by davorak »

dekhn wrote: post #28
yks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom. This is not "the essence of science" by any means.

The motto of the Royal Society: "The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' was adopted in its First Charter in 1662. is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment." It's highly consistent with the statement above and in many ways is consistent with…

The motto here does not align with how I read it compared to:

> The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom

"take nobody's word for it" -> anyone can say anything, that is just a claim, things other than that matter like data, replication, etc.

That is different and superior than a simple, broad, statement to 'distrust'.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#87

Post by refurb »

atmavatar wrote: post #56
senderista wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trust the science" is the very antithesis of the scientific spirit. The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom. If you treat scientists as some sort of infallible priesthood then you've missed the whole point of science.

No, the antithesis of the scientific spirit is to believe anything joe nobody posts on facebook or twitter that fits your worldview, regardless of (or perhaps especially due to) the presence of contradictory facts. The essence of science, and what is meant by "trust the science", is to accept theories that fit the existing data until such time as new data contradicts them, while encouraging people to ruthlessly searc…

Maybe you saw “trust the science” used in different ways, but the way I saw it used was:

- to shut down any debate as the science was “settled”

- to argue for censorship as any discussion that went outside the approved borders of “settled science” was by default false and dangerous to expose people to

- to argue that the “flavor of the month” study was the final word no matter how rigorous the research study was

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#88

Post by taeric »

tptacek wrote: post #74

I want to be sympathetic to Singal, whose writing always seems to generate shitstorms disproportionate to anything he's actually saying, and whose premise in this piece I tend to agree with (as someone whose politics largely line up with those of the outgoing editor in chief, I've found a lot of what SciAm has posted to be cringe-worthy and destructive). But what is he on about here? Or that the normal distribution—a…

Agreed fully on the JEDI stuff. I was somewhat hoping it was from an April first issue. That was bad.

And I thought I recognized the name. I really do not understand how trans debate has come to dominate some online discourse.

I thought the complaint on the normal distribution was supposed to be claims that many things are not normally distributed? Which, isn't wrong, but is a misguided reason to not use the distribution?

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#89

Post by carabiner »

devindotcom wrote: post #31

Every piece called out here is clearly labeled "opinion" - did they even read the normal news and analysis sections? Countless newspapers and outlets and actual scientific journals have opinion/editorial sections that are generally very well firewalled from the factual content. You could collect the worst hot takes from a few years of nearly any site with a dedicated opinion page and pretend that it has gone downhill…

Opinion: Astrology should be seriously considered...

That label doesn't give carte blanche to publish non-scientific nonsense. Does it?

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#90

Post by dijksterhuis »

tumnus wrote: post #22
underseacables wrote: post #16

I grew up believing that science was the search for truth and fact, and that it should be constantly challenged to further that. What has happened I think, is that there has been a great polarization of science as government and groups have used and twisted it to fit a political agenda. Which essentially stops that search for truth. Challenging scientific conclusions should be encouraged not cancelled.

But only to a point, correct? Otherwise we end up in the current dialogue where flat earthers, moon landing deniers, and a large percentage of religious believers feel more platformed than ever. It's far too easy for the uninformed to challenge science simply because it challenges their non-scientific beliefs.

Scientist 1: If we put a sugar cube into water whose temperature is exactly 74.7373 degrees centigrade, the water will likely turn pink. here is our evidence for this.

Scientist 2: we tried this and found that if the water is cooling that it doesn’t work, it has to remain at a constant temperature.

Scientist 3: we tried it with refined and unrefined sugar. unrefined sugar did not work.

scientist 1: we took another look - it seems there was some weird additive in the refined sugar, when this additive added to water at 74.7373 degrees centigrade the water turns pink.

that’s a very silly and stupid example of “challenging” other scientist’s work. you precisely explain what you tried and how it differed, in the hope it leads to a more specific and accurate picture down the line.

flat earthers et. al just “say stuff” they think is right, where the evidence does not actually challenge any hypothesis or existing evidence because the claims are just … bad.

this is not “challenging” science. it is stubborn ignorance. pure and simple.

most of it is so easy to refute any random youtuber with a spare hour can do it (read: 6-12 months [0])

- https://youtu.be/2gFsOoKAHZg

however, your point about platforming is important, because people who wouldn’t have had a soapbox 15 years ago, now have a soapbox anyone in the world can find them on.

if you’re looking for something to confirm your world view, there’s something on the internet for you.

rule 1 of the internet should be spammed in front of everyone’s eyes for seven minutes before anyone is allowed to use a web browser — don’t believe anything you read on the internet.

[0]: there’s a running joke about how long this person takes to make new videos.

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