Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online • Hacker News Board

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#261

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

sockpuppet_12 wrote: post #244

s1artibartfast wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is the life of one innocent person an acceptable price for success?

What do you mean by success here? Depending on your definition, I think there are times where the answer is yes. There are clear analogs to the trolley problem in public policy every day.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#262

Post by slg » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #226

slg wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first comment was effectively "Everyone knows this person is a fraud and no one is willing to stand up and put a stop to it". Your second comment was effectively "Well I don't know they are a fraud and I'm not going to be the one who upsets people by trying to put a stop to it". I don't say this as a criticism of you. I say this a defense of the people you are criticizing. Stopping people like this takes a lot o…

The people in charge were given evidence, face much less risk, and it's their job to put a stop to it. They deserve the criticism.

>The people in charge were given evidence, face much less risk, and it's their job to put a stop to it.

That is an awfully authoritative statement to make based off what OP shared.

But either way, this has been proven time and time again whether we are talking about simple corruption like OP mentioned or more serious forms of injustice. People will judge themselves based off motivations and others based off actions. We can excuse ourselves because of the personal inconvenience that acting will cause us. But other people don't get that luxury. They get criticized purely based off that lack of action because if we were in their situation surely we would do the right thing. Being honest about this is important step to actually fixing the system because we need to identify the motivations which lead to the lack of action in order to remove them and encourage action. Simply vilifying people for not acting accomplishes nothing.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#263

Post by CPLX » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

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.

Sorry nobody gives a fuck that our global military dick swinging prevented Senegal and Guatemala from sailing into New York harbor and carting off our treasures.

The outrage economy tends to focus on people and interpersonal drama. Some comedian said this, or maybe some company did something stupid and there’s a walkout.

If anything there’s a massive shortage of outrage. Given the degree of misery the entrenched elite is inflicting on the masses, the fact that we don’t have a general strike or torch wielding mobs swarming over the gates of billionaire’s houses is frankly astonishing.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#264

Post by cgrealy » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #242

pharrington wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion, when was most scientific research not flawed or "useless"? Remember, the Einsteins, Clarks, etc of the world were wildly exceptional outliers. Do you really think that if you were to look at most research done between 1897 and 1922, the overall quality would be higher? And that there would be less social factors competing with the integrity of work?

> In your opinion, when was most scientific research not flawed or "useless"? How long has it been since replicating someone else's study to validate the results was routinely part of the scientific process? >The replication crisis is an ongoing methodological crisis in which it has been found that the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to reproduce. Because the reproducibility of empirica…

Isn't that an economic problem rather than a scientific one?

Science doesn't exist in a vacuum, it still needs humans to do grunt work and those humans need to be paid, and there isn't much money in replicating an existing study and saying "yep, that's what we thought".

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#265

Post by TimTheTinker » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

bhk wrote: post #256

pharrington wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion, when was most scientific research not flawed or "useless"? Remember, the Einsteins, Clarks, etc of the world were wildly exceptional outliers. Do you really think that if you were to look at most research done between 1897 and 1922, the overall quality would be higher? And that there would be less social factors competing with the integrity of work?

The exponential growth of spending on research is the main factor working to dilute quality and to corrupt the process.

Not to mention the "publish or perish" ethos that has become such an integral part of promotion & retention policy (and grants) in so many academic institutions.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#266

Post by vimacs2 » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:27 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #81

strictfp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> We need to separate research from politics. That absolutely will never happen as long as the funding comes from the government.

I'd add that even if it received funding through private enterprise, it would still be infused with the politics of said backers - whether intentionally or not.

The best you could possibly achieve is funding purely through small time (non business) donations from the public - and I'm still a little skeptical as to the scope of research that could realistically fund.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#267

Post by mandmandam » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:28 AM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #122

overgard wrote: post #86

I think the US has caught this cancerous idea that the average person can't be trusted to think for themselves. The amount of condescension in that thought process is disgraceful. They think, someone has to tell the average person how to think. And the baffling thing is that supposed liberals think that thoughts should be policed by corporations, government, and self styled intellectuals (which seems so much against…

No, it’s that the average person cannot make decisions about complex subjects . This is not a new development: the boundaries of scientific knowledge - across all fields - have required a large amount of specialization for a while now. The barrier to entry is a PhD, and even then you’re only an expert in a small part of your field. If you suddenly decide to jump in without context and make judgements about topics you…

It didn't actually take an expert to see that Daszak's paper in The Lancet was making claims that weren't backed up. Basic logical and scientific thinking with a little background knowledge were more than enough to raise serious doubts as to his bias.

Intelligent people who questioned Daszak's paper got memory-holed. Their posts were removed, had their reach limited, were placed under warning banners, etc, simply for raising the mere possibility of lab leak origin.

I could give many more examples of "subject matter experts" giving us ample cause to throw them in prison, never mind distrusting them - WMD lies, false flag attacks, staged incidents, etc.

All reported and repeated with zero gorm. No accountability. Dissenters get smeared, fined, jailed. Protestors get blocked off, boxed in, ignored, mocked, minimized. Rare politicians speaking truth get marginalized, smeared, mocked, ignored, cheated. Threatened.

Seeing this get worse and worse for decades, how can you seriously argue that our distrust is the problem? Distrust is more than justified, it's demanded. Anything else is ostrich shit.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#268

Post by ozfive » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:28 AM UTC

zosima wrote: post #16

ozfive wrote: post #2

[flagged]

A healthy society must have a diversity of opinion, and that includes being allowed to be against vaccination and expressing that viewpoint. The overton window is getting ridiculously narrow right now and it's definitely not for the benefit of society, truth nor probably even for the general health. The evidence for the benefits of vaccines can speak for itself, so there is really no point in maligning anyone. But th…

You don't understand what is for the benefit of society then. In the case of western societies it's clear that they only ones benefiting from the anti-vax opinion is the healthcare industry. What do you gain from rejecting something that can elongate your immunity and also elongate against the schance that some for profit industry (western healthcare) will take advantage of you when you don't have the ability to object where the outcome of objection is death.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#269

Post by oh_my_goodness » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:28 AM UTC

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…

It's fun to complain about the lack of perfection in science, while posting on an instantaneous, free world-wide forum.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#270

Post by gww » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:29 AM UTC

slategruen wrote: post #254

raziel2p wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change the economic incentives in academia and research. If right now universities and researches are rewarded for publishing studies/papers no matter the quality, change the rules so that you're rewarded for quality, not quantity.

I think research quality isn't the primary problem. Yes there are bad quality papers being published but it usually highly depends on the institution. The problem here really is unending demand for novelty. I find it weird that academia has a very high risk appetite for research that's "shiny and new" instead of focusing on reproducibility. They'd rather have a bunch of "new" topics which has flaws in their methodolo…

A lot of institutes are also pressuring their PIs to not only produce novel work but also highly translatable and patentable work. I know of some institutes that want to preview any work a PI wants to publish or speak about in a public venue, in case any of it can be patented. Keep in mind that most of these places are funded through government grants and tax payers but none of the money from these patents is ever funneled back to them.