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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

#231

Post by stefan_ »

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.

Which is why reorganizing all school systems around teaching the standardized test and judging teachers by these results has been such an overwhelming success that "virtually nobody [..] disagrees with".

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

#232

Post by jl6 »

abirch wrote: post #157
hnburnsy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, this is not labeled anywhere I can see as opinion, but does include an editors note to a suicide helpline, and a correction... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-puberty-...

What isn’t factual in this article? Is it political because it discusses puberty blockers and transgender adolescents?

One part that isn’t factual is the statement on safety of GnRHs which cites their use in treating precocious puberty, which is a completely different indication and treatment (age of treatment, length of treatment, purpose of treatment), and does not consider the impact on psychosexual development, nor consider the impact on desistance of non-trans kids. The “safe and reversible” narrative originates in medical consensus amongst doctors and activists, not evidence from scientific enquiry. The difference between consensus-based medicine and evidence-based medicine eludes most participants in this debate.

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

#233

Post by smaudet »

felixgallo wrote: post #227
tlogan wrote: post #222

The issue isn’t that Scientific American leans “pro-Democrat” and it is political. It always has, and that’s understandable. The real problem is that the modern Democratic Party increasingly aligns with postmodernism, which is inherently anti-science (Postmodernism challenges the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, framing it as a social construct shaped by culture, power, and historical context, ra…

[flagged]

Filter bubbles are real. If you spend your time watching (low quality) videos with a bent (anti-feminist/transgender, e.g.) you begin to believe that is the majority discourse.

Its similar to homophobia - a small (tiny) portion of the population expresses "nominal" preference towards homosexuality, however, there is an outsized fear among those who feel threatened by the concept...

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

#234

Post by [deleted] »

tlogan wrote: post #222

The issue isn’t that Scientific American leans “pro-Democrat” and it is political. It always has, and that’s understandable. The real problem is that the modern Democratic Party increasingly aligns with postmodernism, which is inherently anti-science (Postmodernism challenges the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, framing it as a social construct shaped by culture, power, and historical context, ra…

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by tasty_freeze »

tlogan wrote: post #222

The issue isn’t that Scientific American leans “pro-Democrat” and it is political. It always has, and that’s understandable. The real problem is that the modern Democratic Party increasingly aligns with postmodernism, which is inherently anti-science (Postmodernism challenges the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, framing it as a social construct shaped by culture, power, and historical context, ra…

Like climate change? Like support of masking up when COVID was killing more than a 1000 people a day? Like believing "conversion therapy" doesn't work and is actually harmful? Like understanding sex and gender and two things even though we use the same words to describe both? Like voter fraud is minimal (pop question: after the 2016 election Trump claimed there were more than 3 million illegal votes cast. As president he had all the resources in the world to investigate it, had a personal reason to identify it, had the duty as president to root it out. He formed a commission ... and nothing. Was was because he was negligent in his duties, tried but was incompetent, or was simply lying?)

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

#238

Post by beezlebroxxxxxx »

tlogan wrote: post #222

The issue isn’t that Scientific American leans “pro-Democrat” and it is political. It always has, and that’s understandable. The real problem is that the modern Democratic Party increasingly aligns with postmodernism, which is inherently anti-science (Postmodernism challenges the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, framing it as a social construct shaped by culture, power, and historical context, ra…

It's reasonable to criticize people that take the ideas and concepts from postmodernism too far into nonsensical corners.

But postmodernism, as a philosophical and larger historical/analytical approach, is not some evil boogieman. Lots of things have been done based on purported science knowledge that was, with historical context and with a proper critical eye, complete nonsense at best, and evil at worst. It was quite easy to make phrenology look like science. Postmodernism studies how it is possible to make something look like science. It's a complicated topic with consequences for the framing and development of scientific knowledge. There's no reason to discredit scientific endeavor in totality because of that though, and, to be honest, those people are far more fringe in academia, for instance, than people realize. And just as well, properly framed, there is no reason to wholesale discredit the critiques made by postmodernism of the uses and abuses of scientific knowledge by scientific institutions, governments, individuals, and the ways that arose out of culture and historical context.

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

#239

Post by Philorandroid »

felixgallo wrote: post #227
tlogan wrote: post #222

The issue isn’t that Scientific American leans “pro-Democrat” and it is political. It always has, and that’s understandable. The real problem is that the modern Democratic Party increasingly aligns with postmodernism, which is inherently anti-science (Postmodernism challenges the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, framing it as a social construct shaped by culture, power, and historical context, ra…

[flagged]

Unequivocally. Remember that the parties aren't diametric opposites, and are capable of evading reality simultaneously.

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

#240

Post by kmeisthax »

tlogan wrote: post #222

The issue isn’t that Scientific American leans “pro-Democrat” and it is political. It always has, and that’s understandable. The real problem is that the modern Democratic Party increasingly aligns with postmodernism, which is inherently anti-science (Postmodernism challenges the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, framing it as a social construct shaped by culture, power, and historical context, ra…

Postmodernism isn't anti-science, it's anti-modernism. Postmodernism doesn't care about science aside from the fact that it happens to make claims to objectivity, which postmodernism disdains. This is sort of like arguing that relativity is anti-science because it denies the existence of a privileged "objective" or "universal" reference frame.

To put it another way: if modernism was actually true and science was an inherently objective process that produced universal truths, then why do we have persistent and ongoing replication crisises in multiple scientific disciplines? Our answer has to come from postmodernism: the current scientific establishment values the production of papers as a way to fill magazines, and people with agendas to push (e.g. the American sugar lobby) will fund the production of scientific papers that produce the answer they want. If that makes sense to you, then you're a postmodernist.

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