Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science • Hacker News Board

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

#971

Post by immibis » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 1:21 AM UTC

willy_k wrote: post #551

jhedwards wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point (as I understand it) was not to protect the kids themselves from covid, but that kids are active vectors of illness: they get sick easily and rapidly spread it to everyone around them. Sending kids to school during a pandemic is basically asking to fast-track that sickness to everyone in the community.

That’s why you focus resources on protecting those who you don’t want kids to spread it to, the sick and the elderly, a la the suppressed Great Barrington Declaration.

Or uh, we could stop the virus in its tracks and go back to normal? This was the New Zealand plan, and it worked.

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

#972

Post by immibis » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 1:23 AM UTC

lowkeyoptimist wrote: post #748

TheBigSalad wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people who say "Trust the science" are saying that science has it all figured out. It's telling people that they should weigh scientific data into their thought process. In reality many people make all of their decisions based on emotions and "feels".

"Trust the science" really came into its full form during the pandemic and was a veiled line in appealing to authority. The CDC, Dr. Fauci, NIH, or any governing body issuing mandates during the pandemic would tell you to trust the science, when in reality they just didn't want people to question their decisions. As it turns out, some of the people questioning school closures or masks were correct! Questioning vaccin…

I and everyone around me questioned their statements and came to the conclusion they were in fact true. That is what "trust the science" means. It does not mean "do whatever I say" - it means "I am right and you can verify that, so you should probably take what I'm saying into consideration lest we all suffer."

The right wing somehow took "science" to mean "Anthony Fauci"...

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

#973

Post by immibis » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 1:25 AM UTC

senderista wrote: post #6

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…

"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.

Is science authority? If science is not authority, then distrusting authority and trusting science are not in opposition.

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

#974

Post by ConspiracyFact » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 1:26 AM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #279

taeric wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 distribu…

" I really do not understand how trans debate has come to dominate some online discourse." It is a wedge issue, simply. It benefits entrenched interests because it allows them to anger and control people, just like they do with the War on Christmas, the War on Guns, Welfare Queens, Baby Killers, Wokeism, DEI, and so many other catchphrases that collapse nuanced issues to a sports slogan. This entire discussion is gro…

[flagged]

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

#975

Post by tourmalinetaco » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 2:34 AM UTC

tombert wrote: post #963

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #961

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sizable chunk of “banned” books were sexually inappropriate for school, and some even promoted pedophilia, so I have some serious concerns if you disagree with their removal.

I'm sure some of those banned books are reasonable to be banned, though I do find it amusing that the people promoting these book bans are simultaneously insisting on putting the Bible in the classroom, a book that has a passage about a woman fantasizing about donkey dicks and horse cum. That's not a joke: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2023%3A... If there's actually a book in that list that pro…

She was not fantasizing about bestiality, it very clearly states she “lusted after her paramours”. Paramours being adulterous lovers. And, if you even skimmed the rest of Ezekiel 23, you’d know it was describing her being a prostitute to many, many men. I will concede that this chapter, and the Jewish scriptures in general, tend to be rather excessive and would not be where I would start my children for Biblical teaching.

What list are you referring to? Perhaps I missed something, but I don’t see a list of banned books. However, regarding books promoting pedophilia, the worst example I am aware of (that isn’t Lolita, which I feel is a cop-out) is The Bluest Eye. I won’t link directly to the passage, however searching “Passages Challenged Bluest Eye” should lead you to a website with excerpts. They have not just one, but two characters who prey on the main character, and she is assaulted twice by her father in unnecessarily graphic scenes.

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

#976

Post by tombert » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 3:28 AM UTC

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #975

tombert wrote: post #963

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure some of those banned books are reasonable to be banned, though I do find it amusing that the people promoting these book bans are simultaneously insisting on putting the Bible in the classroom, a book that has a passage about a woman fantasizing about donkey dicks and horse cum. That's not a joke: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2023%3A... If there's actually a book in that list that pro…

She was not fantasizing about bestiality, it very clearly states she “lusted after her paramours”. Paramours being adulterous lovers. And, if you even skimmed the rest of Ezekiel 23, you’d know it was describing her being a prostitute to many, many men. I will concede that this chapter, and the Jewish scriptures in general, tend to be rather excessive and would not be where I would start my children for Biblical teac…

I know she wasn't fantasizing about bestiality, but she is still fantasizing about guys with dicks as large as donkeys and cumshots as large as horses; sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Regardless, most of the old testament is pretty child-unfriendly. Lots of passages about rape and violence with extremely questionable morality (including unambiguous endorsement of genocide), and I do not think it has any place in a classroom, even if we disregard separation of church and state (which we shouldn't).

I didn't mean a literal "list", though I realize it was bad wording on my part.

"Unnecessarily graphic" doesn't imply "promotes". I haven't read the book, and it might not be appropriate for a school library, but your description here doesn't seem to indicate that it's promoting pedophilia.

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

#977

Post by roughly » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 3:39 AM UTC

genewitch wrote: post #845

tomrod wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not sufficiently parsing causality versus predictivity. The global warming hypothesis matches the projections. So it's a food enough model. The causal attribution does take time, but recall we can estimate the global greenhouse emissions with reasonable accuracy and can compare to benchmarks in history. Push all we want against the sun, it continues to shine regardless of our efforts.

global warming hypothesis! Have you seen the temperature graph for earth's history? Judd et al., Science 385, 1316 (2024) It's actually remarkably cold on earth, colder than it's been in over 450mm years. but if you look at the graph, it's not a diagonal or straight line, it goes up and down over millions of years. so, with these two facts: Will it get warmer or colder? Knowing that, why do i have to listen to this c…

The core of the concern about climate change is what it’s going to do to human society. Nobody gives a shit what the climate looked like a million years ago - complex human society reliant on large scale agriculture didn’t exist a million years ago, and that’s all we care about. We worry about droughts because they affect our crops and cause famines, we worry about heat waves because they kill our people and livestock, we worry about sea level rise because it damages our cities, we worry about hurricanes of increasing intensity because they kill people and damage our cities. We don’t give a shit if we’re in a relatively cool period in earth’s history or if the whole thing will shift in a hundred thousand years because that’s totally fucking irrelevant to what’s going to happen in the next hundred years and how we’re going to adapt our cities, crops, and cultures to it, because that’s what actually matters to us, because we’re actual living people in a complex society and we’d like to stay that way on both counts.

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

#978

Post by GoblinSlayer » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 6:30 AM UTC

smaudet wrote: post #952

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #881

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't reject scientific method completely, but you also can't trivially ignore social dynamics, because scientific method routinely deals with issue simply by waiting for the old generation to go extinct, then consensus can be naturally reached.

I think you'll find upon inspection the hard sciences are based on consensus reached and not overturned for centuries, not generations. If you were arguing with me in the 11th century perhaps you'd have a valid concern, at the point at which we've been successfully doing this for almost a whole millennia, I strongly disagree with your assertion(s).

In the past science waited to overturn a consensus, today it waits to reach a consensus.

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

#979

Post by valval » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 7:05 AM UTC

pesus wrote: post #962

valval wrote: post #959

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference in tone between their former and latter messages is obvious. They went from a passive aggressive “I don’t understand this idiom” straight to an unhinged tirade of “conservatives are morons” without much provocation. Of course you share that sentiment, like the overwhelming majority of people on this very left leaning message board, but I still find it funny when it comes out so explicitly.

> They went from a passive aggressive “I don’t understand this idiom” straight to an unhinged tirade of “conservatives are morons” without much provocation. They never said that. Ironically, this is a perfect case of "facts don't care about your feelings" - even though you're upset, it doesn't change the fact that they never said that. It seems like your comments about needing self-reflection and complaining about "g…

Of course concealing one’s true intent just enough to be able to later play dumb and deny motivations when called out is a decent strategy for online arguments, but it’s not foolproof.

Deciphering the commenter’s true meaning wasn’t super hard in this case. From claiming that a highly intelligent conservative pundit is a moron it’s easy to deduce that the person thinks less intelligent conservatives are also morons. They also explicitly said they “don’t like conservatives” which is a pretty silly statement to throw out there in general.

It’s also painfully obvious that the poster doesn’t understand the idiom “facts don’t care about your feelings” from them having now tripled down on trying to explain it or those who use it unsuccessfully.

The idiom’s intended message is as simple as it seems. It says that getting emotional about facts doesn’t change them. It’s not some deeply profound thing to say.

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

#980

Post by Manuel_D » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 7:27 AM UTC

henearkr wrote: post #890

Manuel_D wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like what the skin color has to do with how good your physician is? Nothing. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Malpractice and disciplinary rates among Black and Latin physicians are higher: https://www.library.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Medica... > After controlling for a number of other variables, Latino/a and Black physicians were both more likely to receive complaints and more likely to see those comp…

Same as my other comment. Don't use a proxy.

Is it defensible to claim that men don't commit more violent crime than women? Sure, men are convicted of violent crimes at a higher rates, but convictions for violent crimes is just a proxy for the true violent crime rate. If we want to make th claim that there's a disparity here we shouldn't use a proxy.

Of course, that logic doesn't work because convictions for crime is a pretty good proxy. If I want to discredit it, I'd have to actually explain why convictions for violent crime don't correspond to the true crime rates. If you have cause to think that malpractice lawsuits and disciplinary actions are not a good proxy for poorly administered medical care, I'm all ears.