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

nature.com

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

#461

Post by XorNot »

Faark wrote: post #394
monkeydreams wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know they literally can't hear it, but I always have the urge to tell Gen Y and later that for a minute in the mid-late 90's we had this shit mostly, not totally - that'll never happen - but mostly figured out. I disagree. We didn't have it figured out - it just did not get on many folk's radar because of the differences in network effects prior to the internet. If you were a lonely kid in a farming town who want…

Yes, outcasts used the internet to find and support each other online. And we noticed this great thing quite a while ago. But it seems only more recently did we also become aware of the other side... it similarly boosting toxic communities, isolated echo chambers, etc. If someone wanted to, lets say, "make love with toasters", he'd be looked at weird and gotten over it in the days before the internet. Now he'll find…

This post here is still engaging in armchair psych diagnosis. No behavior, regardless of what it is, is regarded as clinical pathology if it doesn't harm others or the individual.

Someone living a functional, happy, fulfilling life, while having sex with toasters as their main sexuality is a functional, happy person. There is no problem there.

Whereas someone doing this and say, neglecting other life functions, or injuring themselves, or reporting it as a compulsion they would like to stop, has now met the very base level criteria to be regarded as having a mental pathology.

But that's the bar: going through the DSM and matching symptoms doesn't make for a diagnosis if the symptoms don't cause the person unhappiness, or those who interact with them danger or harm.

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

#462

Post by peteradio »

deanCommie wrote: post #402
xdennis wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fa…

You're missing the point. You DO have personal information that you can do things with in your daily life. A simple example: challenging racist or sexist jokes from your friends.

What about yo momma jokes?

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

#463

Post by JBits »

alphabetting wrote: post #2

I posted this to garner some discussion but wanted to be clear it's not an endorsement. The new IRB ethics guidelines Nature is pushing here is absurd and would be a disaster in my opinion.

I genuinely don't understand what is so problematic about this article. Is the article's guidelines even binding in the first place? Many here seem to be saying that this editoral is promoting censorship, but that's not my interpretation at all. It just seems to be encouraging "respectful, non-stigmatizing language to avoid perpetuating stereotypes", avoid conflating different but similar terms and in particular asking people to be really clear about categories pertaining to people to avoid "potential misuse" by the media. All of this seems reasonable to me, and also good science.

While I haven't checked the codes of ethics cited in sociology or anthropoly, the article suggests that their recommendations aren't completely original. Obviously, since I've not looked into this, I'm not making any claims about this particular point.

While I admit that I did not read the full article in detail, since a number of people here are mostly discussing the fourth paragraph, or are discussing the first sentance on race, I wonder how many have actually read this properly.

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

#464

Post by throwayyy479087 »

wrp wrote: post #427

Reading the 395 comments so far, I see a lot of reference to the history of church censorship, but surprisingly, nothing at all about culture under the communist regimes of the 20th century, which I think is a much closer analogy. I spent a lot of time on the history of intellectual culture in the USSR back when it was a hot issue. The academic environment in the West today is giving me intense deja vu. Scholars are…

Both are because it's significantly easier to control thought (especially when you're in power) than it is to fix the issues people are thinking about.

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

#465

Post by mpalmer »

scelerat wrote: post #236
Dig1t wrote: post #192

I'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.

There is a quality of leftish ideas and initiatives that people find discomfiting, even those with liberal values like myself.

"Speech is violence" is an over-simplification of this quality. It is easy to dismiss in its sensationalism, and its lack of prominent examples.

It's a special case of the real insidiousness - what you should really be looking for when people say things that don't sound right to you:

    You are not only responsible for what you do and say, but for what anyone chooses to do or say as a result, at *any* time.
The legal definition of incitement is something like "the deliberate encouragement of imminent lawless action". Remove "imminent" and replace "deliberate" with "inadvertent" and you'll have something resembling a explanation of the impulse behind "speech is violence".

"Speech is violence" means that by expressing opinions that are critical of X (or arguments for policy that protects X), you are making it more likely that bad actors will commit violence against X.

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

#466

Post by thewanderer1983 »

tzs wrote: post #328
phaistra wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Another good introduction is "Worldviews" by Richard DeWitt. It's a introductory book on the philosophy of science but a big part of it discusses this.

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

#467

Post by nomel »

magicalist wrote: post #458
nomel wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fuck, let people live their lives. We all only get one. I think this is greatly simplifying the concerns that people have in transitioning minors, the statistically anomalous rise in minors that identify as trans [1], and the safety of puberty blockers. For example, see the data that guided the recent Swedish health board decisions to mostly stop puberty blockers. I'm pointing out "minors", because it's all I see i…

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm sorry, but it's not that simple. Transitioning should start before puberty, for best outcome. There's no way to not "think of the children" since the best outcome requires children: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31682347/

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

#468

Post by [deleted] »

magicalist wrote: post #458
nomel wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fuck, let people live their lives. We all only get one. I think this is greatly simplifying the concerns that people have in transitioning minors, the statistically anomalous rise in minors that identify as trans [1], and the safety of puberty blockers. For example, see the data that guided the recent Swedish health board decisions to mostly stop puberty blockers. I'm pointing out "minors", because it's all I see i…

Quoted post unavailable.

[deleted]

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

#470

Post by causality0 »

reb wrote: post #297
causality0 wrote: post #280

the guidance helps in considering whether it is ethically appropriate to question a social group’s right to freedom or cultural rights Somebody want to explain to me what the heck "cultural rights" are and how publishing data could interfere with them?

Sure: the LDS church teaches that pre-marital sex is a sin, and engaging in it is grounds for the termination of a variety of spiritual privileges, depending on the judgement of a local church leader. The legal freedom to live by that belief makes it a cultural right afforded to any practicing LDS person in the US. A scientist could perform research investigating the impact of those teachings. They might find that it…

Since LDS children are a subset of children, they should be required to take a comprehensive and accurate sex ed course in school. You have the right to teach your kids anything you want. You do not have the right to keep them ignorant of anything you want.
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