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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

#511

Post by blessede »

mrguyorama wrote: post #479
blessede wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many demands, but probably the most egregious is the insistence that males be incarcerated in women's prisons if they say they are women. Several states now have policy that enables this, and female prisoners have been sexually assaulted, raped and even impregnated as a result of this. More generally, this graphic has an astute depiction of the problem: https://i.ibb.co/ZcMWLvM/no.jpg

"This graphic (an image macro) has an astute depiction" The actual graphic: "Lesbians must have sex with me!" Get the fuck out of here. This is nonsense.

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

#512

Post by csours »

I feel like rational communication requires an overlap in perspective - not the same point of view, but some amount of overlap.

Science relies on rational communication between people who disagree, because we can fool ourselves, and we can fool our in-group. The narrative fallacy doesn't just affect weak minds; by yourself, you won't outsmart your own filters.

To learn about the world, you have to accept the world, and some things about the world are hard to accept as bare facts. Donald Trump was elected president. Can you accept that as a bare fact? Probably not if you've fought with people about it. There's a drag show in town. Can you accept that as a bare fact? ... IQ tests have a history of racial disparity. ... The earth is round and orbits the sun. ...

A lot of rational minded people tend to disparage emotional intelligence, but I feel that rational communication across strong moral feelings requires a lot of emotional work and trust, and it's really hard to trust while you are fighting.

---

I feel like 'virtue signaling' is poorly named. I think 'Comfort Signaling' and 'Loyalty Signaling' are easier to talk and reason about.

* I am flying this flag because I want my people to be comfortable with me.

* I am flying this flag because I want my people to know that I am loyal to them, and I don't care about what other people think. (Or, I'm fine with the other people hating me because of this flag)

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

#513

Post by ben7799 »

FredPret wrote: post #434
Bhilai wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SciAm is allowed to be wrong and is allowed to be opinionated as well. The Bro however pretends to ignore proven science in order to have "interesting conversations." The dissonance here is astounding.

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I think most of the Anti-Rogan sentiment is mostly people attributing things to him that he does not actually do or say.

People from the far left are so opposed to listening to him their opinion of him is almost completely formed by hearsay and taking small snippets of what he or his guests say out of context.

I fell victim to this. After the recent talk about just how important his show was in the election I listened to the Trump, Vance, and Fetterman interviews. His show is nowhere near as bad as the left says it is, and he is hardly "far right" just because he decided to endorse Trump this time.

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

#514

Post by throwaway5752 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #499
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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>Would you be willing to defuse it by instituting a policy of always saying "merry Christmas" instead of "happy holidays"? This is nonsensical. This isn't "defusing" it, this is authoritarianism and literal capitulation to the absurd demands that are meaningless People say "Happy holidays" now because they know some people don't celebrate Christmas and they want to be nice, friendly, and pleasant to them as well. If…

Don't get mad about it. That is the definition of victory for the groups creating these issues. Just ignore it and go about your day as much as possible. Don't comment about it online.

They are only industrial strength memes to create anger and distrust, thereby placing people in more manipulable mental states. You starve them by ignoring them, regardless of the merits. Most of all, don't react with anger.

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

#515

Post by Veen »

jpmattia wrote: post #406
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.

> Challenging scientific conclusions should be encouraged not cancelled. Vaccines are on the docket for cancellation, which to be fair, will last only as long as a swath of the population sees their kids incapacitated by some completely preventable virus infection. But do we really have to go through an epidemic (again!) to understand that the science of vaccines is solid? There is such a thing as settled science. Th…

The science on vaccines is solid, but there are potential side effects (that's also solid science). So when it comes to, for example, giving kids the vaccines, we have to balance the likelihood of serious side effects with the necessity of preventing the disease. In the case of COVID, the disease's risk to kids is extremely low, but they are still vaccinated. That is a political decision, and it is perfectly reasonable to dispute it.

That's a particularly clear cut example. There are many more complex scenarios where "trust the scientific experts" is dubious because science has a limited domain of applicability. When you pretend that non-scientific decisions must be made on a scientific basis, people see through it and become sceptical.

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

#516

Post by lotsofpulp »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #505
lotsofpulp wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operators and customers of this spa noticed: https://x.com/KatieDaviscourt/status/1858611351901663550 https://x.com/ItsYonder/status/1858673181315506307

Yeah that judge, a woman, explicitly labels that "notice" as discriminatory. Seems pretty clear cut.

Judges are not infallible, and the judge being a woman is irrelevant since she does not represent all women.

I think it is reasonable for a woman to want a shared nude space to be free of people with penises, regardless of what that person identifies as, for simple logistics reasons of not being able to be sure if someone is being deceptive.

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

#517

Post by dgfitz »

SolarNet wrote: post #466
bee_rider wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a tiny problem can cascade like that, it seems that there’s a systemic logistics issue going on here, the problem wasn’t the nail it was some high-level problem in the overall organization. One nail is small and unimportant but the general problem of getting enough nails is a big important one. And anyway, the messenger also could have been shot, the horse could also have tripped on a rock, the battle could have b…

I think the argument the poster is making is as root cause analysis. The root cause of the messenger failing was the missing nail. Sure it could have been many other things, but in this case it was the nail. And if it was a pitched battle that was narrowly lost by one message, sure, they could have won or lost because of a dozen other factors, but in this case it was the missing message. There are likely many other i…

This is a very well thought-out comment. I commend you for it.

Sometimes the problem really is tiny. Ill look for the link, but I read an article about how Valve, the company, was saved by an intern.

I think details matter.

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

#518

Post by vonneumannstan »

iwontberude wrote: post #444
throwaway0123_5 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're talking about a horseshoe on a horse which was being used to deliver an important message

There are too many leaps of abstraction, which to me, proves the missing horseshoe nail is irrelevant in the big picture. Too many other things could have transpired positively for the kingdom in a space so expansive. It’s classic scapegoating. “Bro my controller totally didn’t work that time! We would’ve won the match otherwise I promise.”

It's an ancient proverb demonstrating early understanding of complex systems. Not an in depth philosophical argument.

However there are plenty of real life examples of a single small detail causing outsize impact. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261

It's kind of absurd to think otherwise.

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

#519

Post by mrguyorama »

KK7NIL wrote: post #52
elashri wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom The essence of science is the use of scientific method which have specific meaning and way of doing things. It relies on evidence based knowledge not on any distrust. It does not have to do with authority but you would question if your tools you are using is good (calibrated and not interfering with measurements in an unaccounted way ..etc) or if y…

So when someone says "trust the science!" they mean "define your null hypothesis, design an experiment to test it, run said experiment, analyze the data for statistical significance and submit for peer review"? Or do they really mean "trust the scientists"?

I have never once in my life heard the phrase "Trust the science" from anyone other than someone fighting a strawman

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

#520

Post by mrguyorama »

cryptonector wrote: post #93
elevatedastalt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Scientific process does not have any authority except observed natural phenomena.

The scientific method has no authorities, but science does.

It literally doesn't. Even Nobel Prize winners do not get a free pass to make baseless claims.

There's an entire realm of people who did great science, won a Nobel prize, and then went on to make absurd unfounded claims about shit they do not know.

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