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

nature.com

131–140 of 883 posts

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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true. I think a lot of people were insulated from information that created a perception for them that those disagreements didn't exist. A lot of people are surprised to find out that people who don't live near them don't share their values.

Oh, that was always true. It just wasn’t possible for those people to spend all day yelling at each other for it. The context of the disagreements was largely limited to newspapers and politicians. Some assumption of professionalism, editing and journalistic integrity was included with nationwide dialogues. The internet, Twitter, political amplification, bot amplification, media consolidation, etc have made it 1000x…

Some people could disagree on a topic and go about their day. That isn't true for everyone. One person's disagreement is another person's human rights.

A lot of people prefer the comfort of ignorance to the discomfort of that knowledge.

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

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The teachings of the Church must not be undermined by heliocentrism or evolution research, so findings in those areas will be strictly filtered for heresy before publication." This is actually a bit of a historical myth that due to anti-religious bias prevails widely. Contrary to widespread belief, the works of Charles Darwin were never on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books, nor did the Catholic Church…

Can you provide some books or links if so that I can read up on these misconceptions?

Try here for a purely academic overview (no religious Catholic websites or other "biased" commentators for this), that was also very recent. There are plenty of other sources, but this was just what I found first that was academic in scope.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_...

I would also recommend reading about Nicolas Copernicus (geocentrism before Galileo), as well as Georges Lemaître (Catholic Priest who had idea for Big Bang), and Gregor Mendel (before Evolution, experiments with Genetics).

Example: "In Spain, new cosmological discoveries and ideas were discussed at both the universities and at the Casa and Consejo. For example, Jerónimo Muñoz (ca. 1520–1591), who taught astronomy and mathematics at the universities of Valencia and Salamanca, was one of the many European scientists to observe and write about the supernova of 1572. For Muñoz, the supernova challenged the Aristotelian notion that change was impossible in the celestial realm. In some of his unpublished work and letters to other European astronomers like Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), he espoused an understanding of the relationship between the celestial and terrestrial realms drawn from Stoic philosophers. He denied the existence of celestial orbs and instead asserted that the planets moved through the heavens like birds through the air or fish through the water. He also discussed Nicolaus Copernicus’ (1473–1543) heliocentric system with his students, although he did not endorse it (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 57). In fact, as Victor Navarro-Brotóns has shown, “the work of Copernicus circulated freely in sixteenth-century Spain, where its technical and empirical aspects were greatly admired and used” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63). In 1561, the statutes of the University of Salamanca specified that in the second year of the astronomy course the professor must teach either “the Almagest of Ptolemy, or its Epitome by Regiomontanus, or Geber, or Copernicus,” and that the students could vote on which text they wanted (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 55). In 1594, these statutes were amended and the teaching of Copernicus was made mandatory, no longer subject to the vote of the students (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59). The 1594, statutes were reproduced with no change in 1625, despite the prohibition of Copernicus’ work by the Roman Inquisition in 1616 (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 60). In fact, De revolutionibus was “never placed on any Spanish Inquisitorial index” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63), which does not mean Spanish astronomers were free to adopt heliocentrism but does indicate that it was possible to teach and discuss Copernicus in Spanish universities. As Navarro-Brotóns notes, only one Spanish scholar, Diego de Zúñiga (1536–1597), is known to have actually endorsed the Copernican system. Others used the Prutenic tables, which were calculated using Copernicus’ mathematical models, and other parameters drawn from De revolutionibus, in much the same way that Copernicus was taught at the University of Wittenberg (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59; Westman 1975). Finally, interest in Copernicus spread outside universities, because the Prutenic tables and other technical aspects of Copernicus’ work had applications in navigation. For example, Juan Cedillo Diaz (ca. 1560–1625), who studied at Salamanca and became chief cosmographer at the Consejo de Indias and professor at the Mathematical Academy in Seville in 1611, made a free Spanish translation of the first three books of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus sometime between 1620 and 1625 (Granada and Crespo 2019; Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63; Esteban Piñeiro and Gómez Crespo 1991)."

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

#134
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, how can any of these be enforced, and by whom? At least you know who your church authority figures are and who to criticize. Where do we even start if we let Twitter outrage decide whether science is potentially harmful and should be allowed or not? This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled.

> And many many people will be fooled. At least you can spot the acolytes with "I believe in Science" bumper stickers and yard signs. Science is not a belief system.

Is it not? I certainly don't know or understand even a fraction of what would be considered established science, but if a credible expert tells me that something is supported by established science I will believe it over something like religious dogma. I consider myself to be a "believer" in science.

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

#135

This has garnered quite a lot of reactions from the comments. I'd like to ask a genuine question about this, from the perspective of assuming that Nature is acting in good faith about this. Let's say someone has calculated the polygenic scores (PGS) of Heteronormativity, meaning that a model, can predict with a decent level of accuracy that someone will or will not be straight from their DNA. This, in an ideal world,…

In this scenario the "oppressed" group could only be "oppressed further" if you assume the position that abortion is killing a person, otherwise you wouldn't be able to call it a further oppression since nobody came into existence to be oppressed. I don't see how, if you assume the common pro-choice paradigm which usually coincides with the views you express, this could be considered wrong.

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

#136

Science must only be objective. Science should not care one whit about humans or what we want/think/feel. We should respect people, there's a huge difference. As far as I'm concerned, this is the final nail in the coffin for nature magazine or whatever they call themselves now. This entire blog post is them contradicting themselves repeatedly.

Science is only objective. But scientists are subjective and biased. The paper is not speaking about how people feel, they are speaking on the subjectiveness of scientists leading to the harm of minority people. What do you think happened in Nazi Germany?

> But scientists are subjective and biased

Maybe, but how much does that matter? If the bias of these scientists is leading them to publish incorrect or low quality research, then Nature should reject it on the grounds that it's bad science. The fact that Nature feels the need to publish this is basically an admission that the political ideology of their leadership is not able to stand up to scientific scrutiny.

> What do you think happened in Nazi Germany?

Probably something a lot like this: Powerful institutions sacrificing objectivity to push propaganda and ideology

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

#137

No, science must pursue the truth, no matter where it leads. There is no such thing as a hate fact.

I think there is a lot more nuance than people admit. Lets take an example of we have a deadly disease spreading through the population (much more deadly than covid) . Let's say a scientist finds out that the disease is primarily (exclusively) spread by red haired people. Should they just publish the finding? The fact becoming openly known might lead to mobs of people chasing red hairs and locking them up or even lyn…

The question is where and how do you draw the boundary for censorship? If you can't use science to draw the boundary, what is left? Let humans with their own biases do it? This inevitably turns into dictatorship.

You can come up with hypotheticals where truth strategy may harm some people. But censorship strategy is guaranteed to harm more people in the long run.

Also your hypotheticals can be easily countered:

> disease that is entirely harmless but 100% infectious and deadly to some group (e.g. Black people). Now should that research just be released into the public? This might encourage some groups to purposefully infect these people, thus putting them in significant danger.

Let's say you decided to censor your research. And then few years later the groups that you mentioned got lucky enough to discover the same disease. Now, because your research wasn't public, the world was not able to develop a cure.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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

#138

No, science must pursue the truth, no matter where it leads. There is no such thing as a hate fact.

I think there is a lot more nuance than people admit. Lets take an example of we have a deadly disease spreading through the population (much more deadly than covid) . Let's say a scientist finds out that the disease is primarily (exclusively) spread by red haired people. Should they just publish the finding? The fact becoming openly known might lead to mobs of people chasing red hairs and locking them up or even lyn…

You don't need to make up a hypothetical disease. Just look at the current monkeypox situation with health authorities waffling on how best to message that 98% of cases are in men who have sex with men.

It's simultaneously totally relevant information from a public health standpoint while also being stigmatizing. Completely ignoring the facts/suppressing that info to avoid stigma would contribute to greater spread within and outside of that community, and is irresponsible. Nuance, indeed.

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

#139
From the article:

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

—-

Say there’s an article coming out clearly disproving racial differences. Will the researchers be “carefully considering the potential implications” of this finding on people with national-socialist persuasions?

It is after a finding negativity affecting a group of people defined by, and I quote “political or other belief”.

Or is it only the correct political beliefs that one must be “carefully considering the potential implications” of?

If that’s the case, can I please know who decides the correct political beliefs?

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

#140

No, science must pursue the truth, no matter where it leads. There is no such thing as a hate fact.

I think there is a lot more nuance than people admit. Lets take an example of we have a deadly disease spreading through the population (much more deadly than covid) . Let's say a scientist finds out that the disease is primarily (exclusively) spread by red haired people. Should they just publish the finding? The fact becoming openly known might lead to mobs of people chasing red hairs and locking them up or even lyn…

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