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Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

royalsociety.org

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Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#231

Post by Sparkle-san »

Graffur wrote: post #217
jimmydoreornot wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always felt voting was a bad idea. It drives candidates to waste inordinate amounts of time and money on campaigning. For many posts, the ancient Athenians selected people at random (sortition) usually from a pool of willing candidates. A large enough random selection would be represenative. This would work well for the US House of Representatives. Your comment implies that you don't want representatives, you wa…

That is really interesting. Do you know if it's been used anywhere else? Even non-governmental type votes?

It's been used in student government and there's been some research behind it. I originally heard about it on an episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast.

https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/the-powerball-revolution/

https://democracyinpractice.org/

https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/mbio.00422-16

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#232

Post by anitil »

nsainsbury wrote: post #157
sega_sai wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person working in science (long past PhD), I disagree. There are tons of problem in science: grant system, pressure to publish etc. Also everyone in science is still a person with standard people problems: ego, desire to be right, wanting recognition etc. Also some fields had more issues because of poor statistical methods etc. But the self-correcting nature of science is still its biggest redeeming feature. And…

Science does eventually self-correct, but unfortunately it takes far too long to do so. One area I've studied pretty extensively is the history of cancer treatment. In the long story of the history of cancer treatment, it is absolutely scandalous how often the scientific consensus was wrong and persisted for years in spite of the evidence. For example, the radical mastectomy for the treatment of breast cancer continu…

The oil drop experiment was a nice example of this same phenomenon - a slow correction over time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment

I remember seeing a plot of the values over time, but my google-fu is failing me.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#233

Post by CrazyCatDog »

LasEspuelas wrote: post #194
AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

I also disagree. Nobody documents or publicizes the small labs doing small "useless" stuff. The kind of stuff that seems irrelevant but that slowly piles into a mountain of new information. As a PHD myself, many times I thought to myself: "this research is quite insignificant" and what we found was truly small potatoes, but I can only hope that, in the aggregate, all of us that did small stuff during that period adva…

It’s often useful to have the obvious or insignificant already established in the literature allowing one to focus on more elusive and revolutionary research!

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#234

Post by slg »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #211
slg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But someone with an invested interest in research funding that research doesn't inherently mean the conclusion is wrong. If anything your suggestion would lead to more conspiracy theories and not less as people are now more focused on the motives for the research rather than the body of that research.

It doesn't mean that but it should always be treated as a possible factor, and analyzed in light of other connections. Collusion is very real when billions of dollars are on the line and it is naive to assume otherwise.

>It doesn't mean that but it should always be treated as a possible factor, and analyzed in light of other connections.

But do you not see how this will result in conspiracy theories? You are no longer engaging with the merits of a study and are instead questioning the motivations and source behind that study. You are shifting from a more objective argument to a more subjective one allow more room for conspiracy theories.

>Collusion is very real when billions of dollars are on the line and it is naive to assume otherwise.

Yes, which is why "do your own research" is often misleading because those billions of dollars have greatly impacted what research is available to you.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#235

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

strictfp wrote: post #38
throwaway22032 wrote: post #9

The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. We can't follow the entire scientific proof chain for every piece of information we encounter, because we don't have time. So we rely on authority to some extent, whether that be peer review, government, independent bodies, etc. We need to be able to trust that these bodies are telling us the truth and aren't seeking to mislead us. Be…

I wasn't social media that eroded the trust in research and science, it was the introduction of politics. We need to separate research from politics. It needs to be a separate pillar of the state. You don't want reseachers chasing funds continously and doing short-term research for local sponsors. You want sizeable investments in long-term research projects, high autonomy and following of the scientific method. This…

I would argue that it wasn't just social media. Before the internet, it was relatively easy for a politician to 'pivot', to say something to one group, but quite a different thing to another. Now it is carefully catalogued and these days carefully tracked by anyone with any interest to care.

Social media just put some gas on a fire with engagement optimization. The rest was just human nature.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#236

Post by andrecarini »

donw wrote: post #186
andrecarini wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative? While I agree with the general sentiment, science and academia is still better than random YouTube videos.

Science and academia have pushed with all their might over the past few years to convince anybody with a functioning brain that random YouTube videos are, in fact, better sources for truthful information. Censorship is a short-term game.

> Science and academia have pushed [...] to convince [...] that random YouTube videos are, in fact, better sources for truthful information.

I don't follow, could you please expand?

I don't see how YouTube could be a better source for certain fields of information (say, medicine) than a collection of scientific studies.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#238

Post by bmc7505 »

atom_arranger wrote: post #163
bmc7505 wrote: post #59

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Regardless of where you stand on specific issues like censorship, public health and misinformation, I think it’s really dangerous how counter-consensus opinions cannot be expressed in the open without individuals facing intense public scrutiny. There needs to be some kind of correction mechanism in case the consensus opinion is misinformed. Maybe it would help to put in term…

That might be what comes to pass in the far future. It's possible for something to be a good and creative tool and also capable of terrible things. I think the gain of function research that may have lead to covid could possibly have had interesting applications, but it also (possibly) lead to something terrible, probably best to regulate it more. In fiction AI is banned in Dune and Warhammer 40k because of past even…

I think that banning general purpose computers only makes sense if you believe AI cannot be controlled. A more reasonable approach would be to design the program in such a way that by its very nature, fulfills certain criteria that cannot be escaped. Think of a linear type system or substructural logic. You have a core calculus which keeps track of resources and effects so that computation has no way to propagate outwards unchecked. Safety is not so much imposed by some external guard condition, but woven into the very fabric of computation itself.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#239

Post by sammalloy »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #87

Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…

> The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselves.

With respect, you can make this criticism about every single field and discipline. This is because the endemic problems under discussion have nothing to do with science per se, but are unique to the human condition.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#240

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #223
CPLX wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. At least here in the United States there’s a full on collapse of trust in institutions and supposed expertise and for extremely good reasons. Over and over again those with authority have squandered it. An opioid epidemic devastated so many communities after doctors, health care executives, and McKinsey and Company said the new class of drugs were non-addicting. Our manufacturing sector evaporated after e…

There has also been a huge emphasis on institutional misdeeds, driven by the outrage economy. Nobody takes note of the hundreds of life improving drugs developed in the same time period as opioid epidemic. Nobody takes note when cops arrest the right guy and saved the day. Nobody takes note when a country doesn't militarily threaten or invade the US.

Interesting point. Do you think were it not for outrage economy, would US tackle it faster/slower/at the same rate? Maybe the reason for outrage economy is that there is a fair amount of things to be outraged about.
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