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Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

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Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#21

Post by belorn »

beachy wrote: post #12
LifeIsThermal wrote: post #2

This is tragic. Science must always be free of politics.

The thinking behind their stance is well laid out in a previous editorial: > The principle that the state will respect scholarly independence is one of the foundations underpinning modern research, and its erosion carries grave risks for standards of quality and integrity in research and policymaking. When politicians break that covenant, they endanger the health of people, the environment and societies. This is why…

Will they assess and critique developments if they are beneficial to Joe Biden political message and campaign? Will the public trust it?

The purpose of their stance is clear, but from this point on anything nature publish will have to be taken in the context of a political objective to get Joe Biden votes, with the side effect of benefiting scholarly independence once he is elected. That carries grave risks that people trust in the science decrease because the motives behind publications will be questioned based on political alignment rather than scientific evidence.

Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#22

Post by yokaze »

Flankk wrote: post #7
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a hilariously naive way of seeing things. Science is never neutral and never can be, and pretending it is neutral is just saying you're fine with the current status quo. Trump actively harms science and scientists and universities, so why should the scientific community system quiet?

Because it is incredibly divisive and cheapens the journal. I'm not interested in what my doctor thinks of Biden, I just want to get rid of the damn foot fungus.

> I'm not interested in what my doctor thinks of Biden, I just want to get rid of the damn foot fungus.

You are free to ignore what your doctor thinks of Biden, but if the other partly has or plans to enact laws which will impede your treatment, it is not outside of the responsibility of your doctor to inform you about that. I would expect my doctor to at least to be informed about it.

Certainly, it only is an aspect of policies, and of course, you are free to decide differently, as your decision may weigh things differently.

But I think, the main point is, you don't want to be bothered. That is understandable, but the solution is to ignore it.

Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#25

Post by akvadrako »

evgen wrote: post #5
LifeIsThermal wrote: post #2

This is tragic. Science must always be free of politics.

If only certain (Republican) politicians would learn to keep their ignorant opinions out of science then maybe that would happen. When one party goes to war against facts and science then every scientist has a moral duty to push back.

Democrats are also anti-science. It’s just due to scientists used to understanding they should stay out of politics.

Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#26

Post by raxxorrax »

evgen wrote: post #5
LifeIsThermal wrote: post #2

This is tragic. Science must always be free of politics.

If only certain (Republican) politicians would learn to keep their ignorant opinions out of science then maybe that would happen. When one party goes to war against facts and science then every scientist has a moral duty to push back.

Whatever shit they do, you don't want to step to that level. It is not true that you will loose otherwise, on the contrary, you will become a republican otherwise.

Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#27

Post by rich_sasha »

mikelothar wrote: post #24

Reading that article left me worried. It's not very factual, it has many errorneous statements, and, honestly, it looks like propaganda. Seems to me like Nature is not worried about losing credability.

+1. Had they limited themselves to the critique of Trump, it would be fine. But they actually take the step forward and bathe Biden in glory.

He may be a good guy, all I know is he isn't Trump, and says some of the right things, ahead of an election. This could translate to absolutely anything.

Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#28

Post by dekhn »

rich_sasha wrote: post #27
mikelothar wrote: post #24

Reading that article left me worried. It's not very factual, it has many errorneous statements, and, honestly, it looks like propaganda. Seems to me like Nature is not worried about losing credability.

+1. Had they limited themselves to the critique of Trump, it would be fine. But they actually take the step forward and bathe Biden in glory. He may be a good guy, all I know is he isn't Trump, and says some of the right things, ahead of an election. This could translate to absolutely anything.

Biden has been a politician for decades. It's not hard to figure out what Biden is.

Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#29

Post by jensgk »

mikelothar wrote: post #24

Reading that article left me worried. It's not very factual, it has many errorneous statements, and, honestly, it looks like propaganda. Seems to me like Nature is not worried about losing credability.

> it has many errorneous statements

Do you have any examples?

Re: Nature supports Joe Biden for US president

#30

Post by thu2111 »

beachy wrote: post #12
LifeIsThermal wrote: post #2

This is tragic. Science must always be free of politics.

The thinking behind their stance is well laid out in a previous editorial: > The principle that the state will respect scholarly independence is one of the foundations underpinning modern research, and its erosion carries grave risks for standards of quality and integrity in research and policymaking. When politicians break that covenant, they endanger the health of people, the environment and societies. This is why…

Ah, "political science". Doesn't get more natural than that.

That's not a very clever stance. The overwhelming leftism of academia is a matter that academics have themselves studied. It's not a secret. What this position boils down to is:

"Having successfully got rid of most conservative academics, we're going to push left wing narratives. The priorities of the people paying for it shouldn't matter. Anyone who isn't as leftist as us is from now on 'anti-science'."

I've been reading more papers from Nature, Science and The Lancet this year, due to COVID. They are politicised trash. The editor of the Lancet routinely goes on major anti-Trump rants on Twitter, so it was no surprise when he published the Surgisphere paper which took about 24 hours before an actual journalist (at the Guardian no less) noticed it was completely fake. Other papers push ideological positions using all the tricks of bad science.

The fact that academics consider these outlets respectable is very telling. They publish soo many bad papers.

Science magazine published a blog post where they pondered suppressing papers that had anti-lockdown conclusions or data because it might encourage people to be less afraid. Other scientists have reported their papers indeed being rejected for that given reason - not the quality of the science but the fact that it wouldn't support social policies popular on the left.

Social science is famously poor quality.

https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/09/11/whats-wrong-with...

It's very sad that the natural sciences are so publicly hitching their reputation to it.

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