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

Guarding against overgeneralization is not something we need new scientific heresy rules to prevent. It's already part of being a good scientist. It's also a subjective bar, and adding "inappropriate" to that makes it entirely fungible.

Moreover, I've spent the last 2+ years horrified by how willing "scientists" have been to generalize to wild real-world conclusions from miniscule data based on Twitter outrage, so I have zero faith that a board of clerics is going to use these rules with magnanimity. Whichever political faction that controls the board will be tempted to define "inappropriate" to mean "whatever conclusion we don't like".

Just to make it concrete: run an RCT that shows that masks don't have any effect on Covid transmission? Good luck getting that published in a top journal, even today. With these new rules, literally anyone who doesn't like the conclusions will claim that the result is an "overgeneralization". There will be no study large enough to satisfy the clerisy...unless The Science says something approved, of course.

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Edit: and lest you think I am exaggerating with my example, consider the following, directly quoted from the new guidelines:

> Harms can also arise indirectly, as a result of the publication of a research project or a piece of scholarly communication – for instance, stigmatization of a vulnerable human group or potential use of the results of research for unintended purposes (e.g., public policies that undermine human rights or misuse of information to threaten public health).

They're literally saying that they're open to censoring research that might be "misused" to "threaten public health". And they've defined it broadly enough that pretty much anything that displeases "a vulnerable human group" can be covered. Convenient.

The actual guidelines that are being proposed, namely the following quote, do sound like a veiled requirement to self-censor (or 'contextualize') any data or findings that go against the expected norm.

"Researchers are asked to carefully consider the potential implications (including inadvertent consequences) of research on human groups defined by attributes of race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age, disease, (dis)ability or other status, to be reflective of their authorial perspective if not part of the group under study, and contextualise their findings to minimize as much as possible potential misuse or risks of harm to the studied groups in the public sphere."

I would argue that the "possible misuse" of some undesirable findings explicitly should not be a valid factor to consider, since it's even more important to publish valid findings especially if they are controversial. As you say, we should definitely avoid generalization of findings by relying on stereotypes without empirical basis (because that's a false implication), however, we should also not shun findings strongly supported by empirical basis even if they coincide with some stereotypes - and this statement does not even try to mention this balance.

I would welcome the same passage to say something like "If this research touches these sensitive topics, then we implore the authors, reviewers and editors to be double-sure that the assertions are actually true, but for $Deity's sake don't ever omit any controversial but true results".

In essence, it's a statement about priorities and values. Being respectful is important. Being true is important. But if you say that the former is more important than the latter and should sometimes override it, then you don't share my values and are not a friend of science; you should respect the dignity and rights of all humans as long as it doesn't harm the communication of truth and not an inch more.

There is a very clear trend in the HN crowd's reaction to this statement, so I'm inclined to offer a defense. I'm not linked to Nature in any way, just of a rebellious bent.

The principle objections to the guidance appear to fall into the following categories:

* They threaten the objectivity of science

* They prevent the publication of "heretical"/"non-PC" results

* They are too vague

I strongly recommend that people read the actual guidelines before forming a strong opinion about the linked statement: https://www.nature.com/nature-portfolio/editorial-policies/e...

I'd also recommend mulling for a moment on the trade-off between scientific freedom and ethics. Because it has always existed and journals have for a very long time had a position on what is an appropriate trade-off. We've come far since scientists were able to cut live dogs open without anesthetic for their experiments, and that's a good thing.

The great majority of the guidelines are in my opinion very specific (as opposed to vague) and relate either to the conduct of the research or to the language of the paper (as opposed to the results of the research). They are geared towards the removal of bias and make reference to guidelines set out by other well-established organisations.

Probably the most problematic guideline is this one:

> [editors reserve the right to request modifications to] content that undermines - or could reasonably be perceived to undermine - the rights and dignities of an individual or human group on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant human groupings.

I concede that this part requires further refinement, since it looks like it could be used to refuse results that aren't "woke". My good-faith take is that it really means "be careful you don't give matches to the pyromaniac". For example, if you're going to publish a result about substance abuse amongst different demographics, please be very cautious about the risk that certain institutions might use it as a pseudo-justification for persection of minorities.

At the end of the day, a journal has a great ethical responsibility for the impact of what it publishes, and is within its rights to say "no" on that basis.

- is it desirable for science be beneficial to people? - if so, doesn't that judgement need to be made? - in respect to whether or not to publish a paper or article, who should make the judgement as to whether the science is beneficial or not, if not the publisher?

I think if you're going to object to this, you need to do so on the substance of the guidelines. Otherwise you're just substituting your own editorial judgement for that of the publisher, in effect claiming the authority of what is fit to publish for yourself.