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'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

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Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#131

Post by overgard »

triceratops wrote: post #31
beaner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but climate science is complicated by the fact that it is overwhelmingly political. You could say the same thing about geocentrism, germs [1], fat vs sugars, etc. - which all turned out to be false, given time and scrutiny. Scientists have to learn the science to understand it, and that means encountering it from all perspectives. As new generations of people learn, they all have to go through it all again. To n…

> Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about anyway. I don't follow the logic of that. If denialism is wrong, but it's influencing society and policy, how is that not something to worry about?

If your side is failing to convince people, the solution shouldn’t be “shut up the other side”, no matter how right you may be. It’s intellectually dishonest.

By engaging in cancel culture, it gives the silenced side way more credibility, because they can say “why are they afraid to let us speak?” It’s not just that cancel culture is morally bad, its also ineffective.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#132

Post by neetle »

triceratops wrote: post #31
beaner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but climate science is complicated by the fact that it is overwhelmingly political. You could say the same thing about geocentrism, germs [1], fat vs sugars, etc. - which all turned out to be false, given time and scrutiny. Scientists have to learn the science to understand it, and that means encountering it from all perspectives. As new generations of people learn, they all have to go through it all again. To n…

> Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about anyway. I don't follow the logic of that. If denialism is wrong, but it's influencing society and policy, how is that not something to worry about?

It feels vaguely like Pascal's wager.

The payoff for anthropogenic climate change existing and us doing something is much higher than the price of it not existing and us doing something.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#133

Post by Gabriel_Martin »

0xy wrote: post #58
bsder wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am a firm believer in climate science, but this reaction suggests that the post you're replying to is correct. Sorry, there are things in this world called facts . There are things in this world that are empirically correct . As far as science can determine, climate change is factual and real. If that isn't your position, you really don't believe in climate science . And I'm calling you out on it--this isn't a "t…

Climate change is empirical fact, the extent of climate change is not. Within the scientific community, there are wildly differing theories about impact and causes. As for climate modeling, there are WILD differences in projections. This is why there are constant "X years until point of no return!" articles in tabloid media, which are all different and usually incorrect. Immediately shooting people down for being ant…

Not really, this is a tired trope, climate change mostly boils down to well-established physics relating to energy transference which is pretty consistent to my understanding, here's Nasa also saying as much: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-mo...

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#134

Post by n4r9 »

elfexec wrote: post #51

Aren't a lot of topics already taboo in science/academia? I'd say cancel culture has been in science for a while now. Afterall it is part of academia. Didn't a female brown university professor's study on transgenders get "canceled" because it offended some people not too long ago? Didn't Bret Weinstein, a biology professor, at some college in oregon get "canceled" not too long ago? Didn't Jordan Peterson get "cancel…

Not sure about the first example, but Bret Weinstein was fired because his behaviour didn't reflect his employer's values, not because of the science he was doing. I also don't think Peterson is having particular difficulty doing scientific work, nor is the actual research he does "taboo".

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#135

Post by outlace »

stephencanon wrote: post #120
tenpies wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even race, but just suggesting that evolutionary psychology is a valid scientific field can get you crucified in some circles. Somehow the human brain avoided all sexual selection forces, environmental pressures, and even difference between the sexes; but everything else in our bodies was at the complete mercy of these factors.

But evo psych isn't a valid scientific field; there's no way to go back and conduct experiments to validate hypotheses. It's a bunch of nonsense just-so stories that appeal to people's existing biases. It's horoscopes-and-crystals-woo dressed up in the language of science.

It's just as valid as evolutionary biology in general. You can say there are a lot of bad evo psych studies out there but that doesn't mean it's impossible to make scientific inferences about evo psych. You can run experiments with animal models and intervene on sexual selective pressures and see the outcomes.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#136

Post by ajross »

allovernow wrote: post #19

While this explicit cancel culture has been slow to arrive, this is exactly the kind of traditionally left leaning activism which has gradually come to infest almost all of academia (and to a lesser but growing extent, industry). The result is an extremely strong, emergent cultural pressure against certain results and certain questions, which has been holding back a wide range of fields and ensuring pursuit of severe…

> Our understandings of intelligence, social dynamics, genetic influences on behavior, sexually dimorphic psychology and performance, climate change, et al.

So... the correct results that are being suppressed all skew to the political right and in favor of established social order? Really? You're sure that's not itself an observer bias?

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#137

Post by catalogia »

neetle wrote: post #132
triceratops wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about anyway. I don't follow the logic of that. If denialism is wrong, but it's influencing society and policy, how is that not something to worry about?

It feels vaguely like Pascal's wager. The payoff for anthropogenic climate change existing and us doing something is much higher than the price of it not existing and us doing something.

Even if climate change wasn't happening (it is), it seems plain to me we'd all benefit from less sulfer in the air. Not even coal miners like smog (though if they live far away from the smog they may be apathetic towards it.) The universal appreciation for fresh air should be more than enough motivation for anybody.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#138

Post by tfehring »

beaner wrote: post #14
alevskaya wrote: post #4

Some relevant context here contesting this view: https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1216770668475252738

This guy's Twitter thread doesn't seem like a great defense, because he doesn't make any specific scientific claims. It's all just ad-hominem that this org are "climate deniers." More troubling is his claim that they are "weaponizing" reproducibility against climate change. Doesn't that raise a red flag? If you're worried that reproducibility poses a problem for something, doesn't that mean you might just a little bi…

For reference, here's the spreadsheet with the screenshotted link [0], I've copy-pasted the climate change deniers and corresponding sources below.

Anastasios Tsonis https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-who-deny-climate-...

Elliot D. Bloom https://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=403...

Patrick J. Michaels https://climateinvestigations.org/patrick-michaels-climate-d...

S. Stanley Young https://errorstatistics.com/2014/12/13/s-stanley-young-are-t...

David Randall https://undark.org/2018/04/18/national-association-of-schola...

David Theroux https://blog.independent.org/2012/10/27/its-official-no-glob...

Peter Wood https://undark.org/2018/04/18/national-association-of-schola...

Overall, I'm mostly underwhelmed by the evidence he presents. Anastasios probably falls into the climate change denier camp, though I know him from my time in UWM's math department and I believe he's a genuine skeptic acting in good faith. On the other hand, I turned up an awful lot of unscientific nonsense peddled by Elliot Bloom in my short time looking into him [1].

I haven't looked into the rest other than by following links above, which again are off-putting but not completely damning. I will add that the National Association of Scholars does appear to publish a lot of articles on climate change by clear climate change deniers and authors with significant links to the oil and gas industry [2], including:

- Leo Goldstein, whose website makes such claims as "CO2 in a greenhouse does NOT warm it. 'Greenhouse gas' is a misnomer.", "Higher CO2 concentrations in atmosphere do warm the surface, but only insignificantly.", and "Of all potential global dangers conceivably related to human activity, nothing has been studied better and found more harmless than anthropogenic CO2 release." [3]

- Edward Reid, who has at least 26 years of experience in the natural gas industry [4] and "fifty years of experience in the energy industry".

- David Legates, who according to Wikipedia "is a senior scientist of the Marshall Institute, a research fellow with the Independent Institute, and an adjunct scholar of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, all of which have received funding from ExxonMobil." [5]

[0] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/136FNLtJzACc6_JbbOxjy...

[1] For example, the graphic at 1:17:08 of https://youtu.be/1zrejG-WI3U?t=4628 is based on the same data as the graphic in http://archive.is/qlqA8, which is debunked here https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/02/roy-spencers-latest-dece... and in the follow-up linked at the top of that page

[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20180921133012/https://www.nas.or...

[3] https://defyccc.com/summary-of-science/

[4] https://www.therightinsight.org/Ed-Reid

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Legates

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#139

Post by klyrs »

freepor wrote: post #115
alasdair_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not suggesting choosing between left and right, only pointing out that the bias is pervasive and undeniable. Can you point to specific examples of this where the science is actually robust and well documented but has somehow been blocked from being published or otherwise stopped due to this pervasive bias?

I wouldn’t say robust beyond dispute, but Brown disavowed their own professor’s research because it disagreed with the orthodoxy: https://thefederalist.com/2018/08/31/explosive-ivy-league-st...

There was quite a lot wrong with this paper, and it wasn't about the "orthodoxy." The study makes claims about children, but the study was actually a survey of how parents felt about their children's transition. There was significant bias in how parents were selected to participate in this survey; it was predominantly advertised on anti-trans websites. The survey itself was biased. By all accounts, the statistical analysis of this data is not in dispute. The methodology, however, leaves much to be desired.

I read both the Federalist and the Huffington Post, because it's interesting to contrast how issues are being presented in mass media (and I get a certain pleasure in exercising my bullshit detector). But I certainly don't link to them in pursuit of a reasoned argument, because they're both quite biased.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-biased-is-your-news-so...

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#140

Post by barry-cotter »

freepor wrote: post #123
barry-cotter wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re not going to find research because it’s useless that’s the humanities gone. All of the topics you mentioned have been done and are being done. The point of IQ research is that it effects real life outcomes that we care about, like health, education, social status, criminal behavior, STI status, having children outside marriage, many others. If two groups are assumed to be identical but they have different ou…

How much of East African marathon dominance is for similar reasons to the cricket dominance of former British colonies?

Not much though I’m sure there’s some cultural contribution. Cricket is really only played seriously in former British colonies whereas you can run a marathon with over a 1,000 competitors at least once a year in almost every city in OECD countries. For middle income countries the Mexico City Marathon was founded in 1983 and there appears to be at least 10 marathons annually in South Africa. I’ve run in the Shanghai Marathon and there must have been 10,000 competitors.

Long distance running is a good candidate for second least culture bound sport, after sprinting.

East African also overstates the relevant population group. Among East Africans the Kalenjin, an ethnolinguistic group are themselves dominant.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9b58/9a401e65cb8bbd1f3cacb6...

The dominance of Kenyans in distance running

Kenyan runners, and especially those originating from the Kalenjin tribe, have dominated international middle- and long-distance running for over 40 years, prompting significant interest in the factors contributing to their success. Proposed explanations have included environmental factors, psychological advantage and favourable physiological characteristics, which may be genetically conferred or environmentally determined. Running is inherent within local Kenyan tradition and culture, and the Kenyan way of life, which involves many outdoor activities and pastimes in addition to mostly unfavourable living conditions, is conducive to enhanced distance running performance. Despite economic deprivation, Kenya has produced world and international running cham- pions repeatedly over the past few decades; these champions have become role models for the younger gener- ations, who take up running in the hope of a better future for themselves. Favourable environmental conditions such as altitude, diet and anthropometry, in addition to the motivational and socio-economic factors mentioned above, have all been proposed as possible reasons for the unsurpassed achievements of Kenyan dis- tance runners. However, the fact that the majority of internationally successful runners originate from a small tribe that accounts for approximately 3% of the total Kenyan population also points to a possible genetic component. Whether this is subject to influence from other co-factors, such as altitude or training effects acquired during childhood, remains as yet unresolved.

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