It would be great if the author would provide example research which they think should not have been published under this new ethics guidance.
“Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
241–250 of 883 posts
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#242I'm having difficulty reconciling these two opinions: 1. This ethics guidance is bad because it limits, or even censors, scientific investigation related to socially sensitive topics. 2. Social science has a reproducibility crisis and is mostly useless (a viewpoint commonly expressed in response to other articles). Does anyone hold both of these opinions, or is it just different people talking at different times?
If you're using outrage to select science for what's pleasing to hear instead of what's true, you can use 1 as an explanation for 2. And 1 isn't exactly new.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#243I'm pro trans rights, pro LGBTQ, and also very much value free speech. There is a trend on the political left right now that basically equates speech directly with violence (e.g. asking whether a man is capable of getting pregnant is violence) >Academic content that undermines the dignity or rights of specific groups >We commit to using this guidance cautiously and judiciously, consulting with ethics experts and advo…
> There is a trend on the political left right now that basically equates speech directly with violence (e.g. asking whether a man is capable of getting pregnant is violence) I must admit I have not seen an argument like this outside of a strawman characterization.
In fact, there were even claims during the 2020 riots that "White silence is violence." See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSVUrvnJFXs. That's right, even _not_ saying anything at all (including not parroting the expected slogans) is a direct act of violence.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#244Enrico Fermi comes to mind: “Whatever Nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.” I guess he wasn’t talking about the magazine…
It's interesting that the linked policy says almost the exact opposite of Fermi's statement, implying that ignorance is sometimes better than knowledge: "...considerations of harm can occasionally supersede the goal of seeking or sharing new knowledge, and a decision not to undertake or not to publish a project may be warranted."
I know the people behind statments like these are coming to it with extremly unintelligent and bad faith definitions and intentions, but the actual words are actually correct. If you had the option to delay humanity's discovery of atomic bombs to late 20th century or after, and therefore delay any substantial deep understanding of the atomic physics beneath, you would probably do it. If you had the atomic bomb, you probably wouldn't have shared it with Stalin's USSR or Hitler's Germany and, for that matter, Roosevelt's USA. If you had known in 1990 that the WWW would be used to spread propaganda and track dissidents, you would have probably liked to delay it till more security and decentralization is built in from the outset. This is a very well-discussed topic in philosophy of science and technology and good sci-fi.
Fermi was probably talking about inevitable things, e.g. if climate is already worsening beyond human limits it's always good to know even if it's too late to do anything. But if knowledge (or our pursuit of it) would lead to new dangers, its perfecly reasonable to (try) to limit knowledge and its spread or pursuit.
The dishonesty of the -ve IQ people behind attitudes like the criticized is that they see danger in everything and use moral panic to enforce views. If the actual "dangers" they are freaking out about are legitimate, they would have been justified to supress (non-violently) science and technology)
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#245"Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic."
If it's good research, then it shouldn't have any of these biases. Stigmatization and restrictions of rights is a policy issue. Science is not policy. I think we need to promote this separation more. Too often I see "but the study says this thing". Sure, that may be a scientific fact, but that doesn't mean it's the best thing for society, or even that it provides a complete picture of the issue.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was waiting for the first person to say this, which is why I explicitly wrote "black" when describing the disproportionate rates of sickle cell in black children vs. white children. This isn't some rhetorical game. We know what "race" is, intuitively, and we know that it correlates strongly with real-world biological outcomes. These guidelines are gaslighting people into ignoring broadly useful categories because w…
Black isn't a "race", it's a social category. You can't actually be serious? In America, black includes people of Caribbean descent, people from South America, African-Americans, someone that stepped off a plane from Ethiopia. It's a completely meaningless term in regards to science. You can't actually be serious?
"Blind isn't an actual biological condition, it's a social category"
The same thing can be different categories. Black is social category, and is also a very well defined biological state of the most visible organ in your body, and is associated with certain genes. Instead of repeatedly stating the name of those different genes every time you say something about them, you can simply say the name of the most visible marker of them and still be correct the vast majority of time.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#247Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. [..] Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potent…
This reminds me of the short story in “I, Robot” (Asimov) about the robot who could read people’s minds. The robots in that world were hard-coded to be incapable of injury humans, and the mind-reading robot considered emotional damage “injury”. Of course the robot got into a paradox where it had to hurt someone’s feelings, so it just…died.
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Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Black isn't a "race", it's a social category. You can't actually be serious? In America, black includes people of Caribbean descent, people from South America, African-Americans, someone that stepped off a plane from Ethiopia. It's a completely meaningless term in regards to science. You can't actually be serious?
"Blind isn't an actual biological condition, it's a social category" The same thing can be different categories. Black is social category, and is also a very well defined biological state of the most visible organ in your body, and is associated with certain genes. Instead of repeatedly stating the name of those different genes every time you say something about them, you can simply say the name of the most visible m…
The notion was that a "race" is something of such significant scientific relevance, that not being able to use "Black" to refer to a "race" would be a disservice. But you aren't here saying Black is a race, it is a "defined biological state of the most visible organ in your body". Okay, what does that have to do with race? Did you not understand my previous post explaining that "people who are socially considered Black" is basically a useless scientific criteria outside of its social circumstances?
You seem a little bit more focused on repeating some rhetorical dunk you read somewhere online than actually understanding what is being discussed. Take a moment and actually consider what I'm writing. To repeat the example that I gave before, research on Ashkenazi Jewish diseases is not hindered by calling it research on the specific haplotype group that it is. The poster that brought up Ashkenazi Jews is misunderstanding if not disingenuous. I think you also don't get the difference between what a haplotype group is in this context, and your concept of "race".
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#249I'm pro trans rights, pro LGBTQ, and also very much value free speech. There is a trend on the political left right now that basically equates speech directly with violence (e.g. asking whether a man is capable of getting pregnant is violence) >Academic content that undermines the dignity or rights of specific groups >We commit to using this guidance cautiously and judiciously, consulting with ethics experts and advo…
I see it more as an acknowledgement that, in the midst of a propaganda war (which the entire world is now engaged in 24/7, thanks to the internet), the information you put out into the world may have strategic value to individuals or groups whose goals are contrary to the good of the human race. When true things are used to justify horrific actions, it's particularly difficult to prevent because that truth lends serious credibility to the supposed rationality of the horrors being enacted. Superficially-rational evil is the most destructive force in the world specifically because it's built on a foundation of carefully-selected truths.
That doesn't mean the truth should die or we should hide from true things. But it's impossible to avoid the amoral power of true things, and pretending "just telling the truth" won't or can't lead to horrific outcomes is a level of naiveté intelligent people can't afford to have in an era when political and civil violence is back in the Overton window throughout the world.
Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the 90s before mass internet adoption, it sure felt like it. We had disagreements, but nothing compared to what we see today.
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.
"A lot of people are surprised to find out that people who don't live near them don't share their values."
Maybe. I feel like those people might be living under a rock. With all the media today it seems unlikely that an individual isn't attacked on at least one belief. I know I see constant attacks on my beliefs.
The problem is that with fast transport, we are extending many laws to the larger geographic area (state or national level), which means increasing the size of the negatively affected groups since we are not homogeneous.
Edit: why disagree?