Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 883 posts

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#321

Post by xdennis »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #276
thisiscorrect wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is not the same thing. If you know the kid next door is being abused - and you do nothing about it, you are partially at fault for the violence happening to the kid. If you do something (call child services, for example) and it fails, you tried, and should try again lest you fall in the same trap. It is similar with police violence and racism. If you sit idly by and don't demand change, despite knowing people ar…

Yes, but see what you did there? You're comparing an individual case where you have personal information to a general vibe promoted by the media.

The general public has been led to believe that thousands of unarmed black men are killed by the police every year. In reality it's around 20. [1][2]

Saying that "silence is violence" coupled with misleading information is a means of manipulating people.

I prefer the old fashioned "sicks and stones, ...", "due process", "innocent until proven guilty", ...

[1]: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/03/police-blac... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unarmed_African_Americ...

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#323

Post by TulliusCicero »

john-shaffer wrote: post #267
dcow wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was top 5 or 10 or so on the front page and then after a page refresh gone. It has more votes than many of the topics on the front page and discussion is active. Maybe just really unlucky timing on my part but not the normal progression you see. I know these type topics are typically removed from the spotlight by staff out of a presumption that the comments won’t be productive. I think that’s fair in some cases, b…

IIRC, posts with more comments than votes are automatically penalized. It is #11 on the front page now, though.

I'm guessing that's because they tend to be more controversial? But I mean, sometimes controversial stuff is important, that's why it's controversial.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#324

Post by Animats »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #13
tarakat wrote: post #6

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. 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…

> 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. Do these people think there are motherfucking X-Men living among us who we want to save from stigma? These kinds of statements read like the authors don…

"These kinds of statements read like the authors don't actually believe people are meaningfully equal."

Right. Which is the problem. If differences between humans were down near the noise threshold, none of this would be an issue. What qualities should be valued or devalued, rewarded or punished, is an ethical and political issue. Measuring them is a scientific one. "Nature" is, supposedly, in the science business.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#325

Post by bombcar »

_9xrb wrote: post #224
nathanaldensr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you've identified, they've tied themselves into knots with inconsistencies and hypocritical positions. There is no logic to be found here, only insanity masquerading as such. Luckily for everyone else, the scientific method will remain, even if it is temporarily suppressed.

Ideology can remain inconsistent longer than you can remain fed and housed while opposing it.

You go underground as many have had to in the past.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#326

Post by r3trohack3r »

elefanten wrote: post #281
abeppu wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a pretty unreasonable comparison. There's a difference between religious dogma which makes claims about reality, and norms or ethics. Discrimination and harm as discussed in this document isn't about factual findings, but is about "superiority or inferiority of one human group over another" (i.e. a value judgement), "the rights and dignities of an individual or human group" (i.e. social norms and conve…

But that’s not what the quoted text is saying. It’s saying research whose outcomes could be “harmful” (where the definition of “harmful” is very broad) may have harms that “outweigh” the benefits… implying it shouldn’t be done. And now you’ve attached a high leverage handle to research allocation/gatekeeping and put it in deeply politicized hands that don’t care about the research.

The difference between your two takes appears to be a Motte and Bailey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

The question isn't whether abeppu's stance is valid, the question is: does their stance fully encompass the argument.

elefanten appears to be suggesting abeppu's stance is a Motte - that they're arguing a more defensible position (you shouldn't be able to publish research claiming one race is superior to another) rather than the real Bailey (anything deemed "harmful" can be filtered from scientific literature). The difference between these two arguments is pretty significant.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#327

Post by TulliusCicero »

n4r9 wrote: post #108

There is a very clear trend in the HN crowd's reaction to this statement, so I'm inclined to offer a defense. I'm not linked to Nature in any way, just of a rebellious bent. The principle objections to the guidance appear to fall into the following categories: * They threaten the objectivity of science * They prevent the publication of "heretical"/"non-PC" results * They are too vague I strongly recommend that people…

The whole point of science is to find the truth, not to only find the truths that we feel comfortable with.

Of course many scientists throughout history have sucked at that at various times, but that doesn't make it a bad ideal.

Re: “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans”

#328

Post by tzs »

phaistra wrote: post #129
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The teachings of the Church must not be undermined by heliocentrism or evolution research, so findings in those areas will be strictly filtered for heresy before publication." This is actually a bit of a historical myth that due to anti-religious bias prevails widely. Contrary to widespread belief, the works of Charles Darwin were never on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books, nor did the Catholic Church…

Can you provide some books or links if so that I can read up on these misconceptions?

For heliocentrism the article "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown and Down-and-Dirty Mud-Wrassle" by Michael F. Flynn from the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Analog is pretty good. Here's a scan online [1].

The Church's position at the time was that God made the universe, and if empirical evidence from observing that universe clearly showed that it did not work the way the Church thought the Bible said it worked, then the Church must have misinterpreted the Bible.

Galileo's problems came from a combination of several factors, none of which stem from proposing a non-geocentric universe.

1. Galileo's heliocentric theory wasn't actually better at explaining observations than geocentric theories were. Galileo, like the Church believed in an intelligently designed universe created by an all-powerful God. He believed that such a God would choose laws of physics that were beautiful and elegant.

Where his heliocentric approach would require something non-beautiful or inelegant to fit observation he dismissed the observations as optical illusions or observational error.

It's commonly believed that the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus rule out geocentric theories, but that is not quite correct. They rule out the Ptolemaic system which was the leading geocentric theory, but they do not rule out the Tychonic geocentric system.

2. He had a very big ego.

3. He was an asshole. He was very intolerant and rude to his rivals and to those he considered to be his inferiors. And thanks to that big ego "inferiors" included pretty much everyone else.

4. He was a celebrity who was regularly invited to hang out with the rich and powerful.

5. He had an atrocious sense of politics. He either failed to realize or ignored that some of the people he was an asshole towards had the wealth and power to make his life miserable if he didn't stop being an asshole toward them.

[1] https://faculty.fiu.edu/~blissl/Flynngs.pdf

Post reply on HN