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'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

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Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#301

Post by Chris2048 »

stenl wrote: post #224
neekleer wrote: post #210

One problem is that tenure and standing for established scientists no longer afford any of the expected protections. James Watson was not discredited but promptly fired and "disgraced" for stating a well-supported scientific finding in abrupt layman's terms for an interview. The minds of cancel culture would probably say they gave this dinosaur enough chances to fade away, but he wouldn't. If they do want scientists…

James Watson - who was as close to royalty as you can get in science - worked very long and hard to get himself fired. It wasn’t just ”an interview”, but a lifetime of racism and sexism. Lior Pachter has a handy collection of quotes with links to sources: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/james-watson-in...

I don't really trust the selective quoting of that blog, e.g:

quote: “Some anti-Semitism is justified”

full quote: “Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark? Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you can’t be criticized, that’s very dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society.”

They pounced on the unfortunate and/or unusual use of the word "justified", where the full context makes it clear he's talking about what you should be allowed to say, not what is correct. He means its existence in public discourse is "justified".

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#302

Post by Nasrudith »

growlist wrote: post #267
allovernow wrote: post #19

While this explicit cancel culture has been slow to arrive, this is exactly the kind of traditionally left leaning activism which has gradually come to infest almost all of academia (and to a lesser but growing extent, industry). The result is an extremely strong, emergent cultural pressure against certain results and certain questions, which has been holding back a wide range of fields and ensuring pursuit of severe…

'The long march through the institutions (German: der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen) is a slogan coined by student activist Rudi Dutschke to describe his strategy for establishing the conditions for revolution: subverting society by infiltrating institutions such as the professions.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins...

So the diabolical strategy of living their life, doing good work to their conscious, and the qualified replacing those who die of natural causes? History's greatest monster right there!

That is a downright sinister use of moving the goal posts that effectively calls not actively ensuring suppression of all inevitable all succession related mutations an evil. Since how else do they hope to maintain a status quo post-mortrem? Merely leaving the replacements to decide would.

I wonder if there is a word for that "not-even remotely a crime" cast as something sinister vilification effort. Given an inverse Halo effect I wonder if most users are even aware that they are doing it.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#303

Post by Chris2048 »

netsharc wrote: post #200
Fishysoup wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Two and two may equal four" being a bunch of nonsensical racist slandering based on no evidence. Every result ever has pointed that all races and genders are equally "intelligent" and well-suited to the same tasks. And trust me, there's been no lack of racist scientists. It's just that bullshit doesn't stick.

The fact that your comment is gray means to me there are a lot of racists on HN. Sigh... And worse, they're thinking they're not racist because they think they have scientific backing for their beliefs..

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.

If you disagree, show your reasoning, or your credentials.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#304

Post by [deleted] »

Fishysoup wrote: post #108
allovernow wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, look at the insane , wholly unscientific public crucification of James Watson for commenting, totally reasonably, on this very subject. Stripped of a Nobel prize for suggesting that two and two may equal four. Find me one credible media outlet which even questioned such treatment! Edit: sorry, I misread a headline about him losing the prize, it read stripped of "honors". Point still stands.

"Two and two may equal four" being a bunch of nonsensical racist slandering based on no evidence. Every result ever has pointed that all races and genders are equally "intelligent" and well-suited to the same tasks. And trust me, there's been no lack of racist scientists. It's just that bullshit doesn't stick.

[deleted]

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#305

Post by danShumway »

thu2111 wrote: post #270
danShumway wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two possible dangers that you can fall into with science. One is to assume a conclusion with such force that it causes you to avoid certain questions or to suppress certain research. The other danger is to be so fascinated with doubt or so averse to a particular outcome that you ignore consensus, and place less weight than you should on the obvious conclusion that research is pointing to (and yes, I think t…

From what I've seen, the reality is that there are pretty clear conclusions that we can draw in those areas The problem is this is circular: you reached your conclusions based on the output of the academic system (presumably). I used to think like this, that if most scientists agreed on something it was very likely to be true, that mistakes by whole fields were exceptionally rare and remarkable events, and that group…

Maybe background plays a role here.

My perspective is that I used to think like you growing up as a Creationist, and I can't see a major difference between the arguments OP is making and the arguments that were made to me by members of my church. I used to be highly dismissive of group consensus, I used to say that if you couldn't explain your point in a way that convinced me in specific, that I didn't care how many people agreed with you.

I now think that consensus is an important metric that should be at least considered, particularly in areas where I am not an expert.

Of course, we've seen areas where the broader scientific community was wrong. Before race science became a fringe argument used by fringe segregationists, it was a generally accepted conclusion. But again, underconfidence is just as dangerous as overconfidence. You can't pick one, you have to reject both.

> you reached your conclusions based on the output of the academic system (presumably).

At the end of the day I have to base my conclusions on something, and I think basing them on scientific output is a better place to start than basing them on ideology. Even from the much more subjective metric of "do I trust the communities who argue for this", climate-science doubters and gender-science doubters don't come out looking well.

During the early rise of neural networks, where consensus was that this was extremely promising for AGI, I could find neutral, intelligent people that I respected who disagreed with that conclusion. That made me feel much more confident rejecting the general consensus myself. On the subject of gender-science, I can't find the same number of quality defectors. To me, the people saying that race/gender are heavily tied to IQ look a lot like Creationists, and I ain't getting pulled into that trap again.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#306

Post by Chris2048 »

soyiuz wrote: post #183
barry-cotter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every result ever has pointed that all races and genders are equally "intelligent" and well-suited to the same tasks. This isn’t true. Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians have higher IQ scores than whites. Male and female scores on IQ tests are identical by construction. They have different scores on the component sub tests. http://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997mainstrea... Mainstream Science on Intelligen…

I suggest going back to school on your basic terms. Skin color taxonomies such as "white" and "black" are weak proxies for genetic diversity. Races are not taught this way anymore. This article in Scientific American puts it well in summarizing that "the mainstream belief among scientists is that race is a social construct without biological meaning."^1 "Ashkenazi Jews ... have higher IQ scores than whites" is a nons…

Do you have studies that use better taxonomies of "race"? Or do you mean any statement about race is so confounded by social factors it becomes nonsensical.

Also, The original claim was:

> Every result ever has pointed that all races and genders are..

If you muddy the water wrt race, it invalidates the above claim also.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#307

Post by dragonwriter »

l0000p wrote: post #283
dragonwriter wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. Or we could, instead of argument to authority, look at the actual research in the field, which doesn't support Watson's conclusions. (Neither does it strongly support their negation.) And Watson's expertise is in the low-level mechanic…

What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on. It sounds like your emotions are deciding which results you find 'correct'. This is the exact problem we're discussing.

> What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on.

What is interesting here is that you have an obviously pre-conceived argument and simply invent false facts (such as the appeal to authority I did not make anywhere) to fit it when reality doesn't supply them for you.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#308

Post by dragonwriter »

l0000p wrote: post #284
saagarjha wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D. specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at Harvard etc, etc....or you. It doesn't really matter either way when you're pushing your opinions and anecdotal opinions as fact. > What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? Based on what? Why don't you have an opinion about that? Because you don't car…

So somehow, without any deep knowledge of any of these subjects, you're able to determine that one statement is correct and the other is not. I'm doubting that this is based on anything else than emotions.

> So somehow, without any deep knowledge of any of these subjects

On what basis do you make this assumption?

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#309

Post by modo_mario »

beaner wrote: post #14
alevskaya wrote: post #4

Some relevant context here contesting this view: https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1216770668475252738

This guy's Twitter thread doesn't seem like a great defense, because he doesn't make any specific scientific claims. It's all just ad-hominem that this org are "climate deniers." More troubling is his claim that they are "weaponizing" reproducibility against climate change. Doesn't that raise a red flag? If you're worried that reproducibility poses a problem for something, doesn't that mean you might just a little bi…

"More troubling is his claim that they are "weaponizing" reproducibility against climate change. Doesn't that raise a red flag? If you're worried that reproducibility poses a problem for something, doesn't that mean you might just a little bit probably have beliefs not based on reproducible science, but on faith? And that the irreproducible science has a chance of being wrong?"

If I encounter an organisation with a name that tries to make me sound reputable primarily funded by Marlboro If I take not of the fact that they make the claim that cigarettes are not unhealthy. If they support this claim by picking and choosing data and misconstruing and twisting the words of reputable sources and scientists to make them fit their claim. (See their mention of a Claudia Tebaldi statement in the report this mess is about and other fud they've written in the past of course completely disregarding anything else she'd say that conflicts with their views) If disregarded and bashed for this I then see them rethink strategy and simply start saying there are too many studies showing the negative effects on health are not reproducible (not defining what is too many which can be anything from hundreds to a single one) and drawing a link to "anti cigarette dogma"

Can I then not say they are weaponising reproducibility without being accused of just "being afraid I'm wrong"?

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#310

Post by growlist »

Nasrudith wrote: post #302
growlist wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The long march through the institutions (German: der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen) is a slogan coined by student activist Rudi Dutschke to describe his strategy for establishing the conditions for revolution: subverting society by infiltrating institutions such as the professions.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins...

So the diabolical strategy of living their life, doing good work to their conscious, and the qualified replacing those who die of natural causes? History's greatest monster right there! That is a downright sinister use of moving the goal posts that effectively calls not actively ensuring suppression of all inevitable all succession related mutations an evil. Since how else do they hope to maintain a status quo post-m…

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