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'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

wsj.com

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Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#51

Post by elfexec »

Aren't a lot of topics already taboo in science/academia? I'd say cancel culture has been in science for a while now. Afterall it is part of academia.

Didn't a female brown university professor's study on transgenders get "canceled" because it offended some people not too long ago?

Didn't Bret Weinstein, a biology professor, at some college in oregon get "canceled" not too long ago?

Didn't Jordan Peterson get "canceled" not too long ago?

Academia and journalists have been canceling people for a while now. Was WSJ asleep for the past decade?

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#53

Post by bsder »

RickS wrote: post #46
bsder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You argument might be okay when you only used social "sciences". Once you start trying to attack climate change, you lose all your credibility. This is something that has MOUNTAINS of evidence that is quite clear and gets even clearer with the passage of time.

Parent comment: > 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 severely one sided science for decades. Your comment: > Once you start trying to attack climate change, you lose all your credibility I am a firm believer in climate science, but this reaction suggests that the post you're replying to…

> I am a firm believer in climate science, but this reaction suggests that the post you're replying to is correct.

Sorry, there are things in this world called facts. There are things in this world that are empirically correct. As far as science can determine, climate change is factual and real. If that isn't your position, you really don't believe in climate science. And I'm calling you out on it--this isn't a "truthiness" zone.

The climate politics, aka what should be done about it, is a very different problem and falls under social and economic "science".

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#55

Post by Fishysoup »

triceratops wrote: post #43
natalyarostova wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone came up with novel and valid research that disputes some specific claims of climate change I'd wager the research would have a difficult time being published and the author would be considered to be a denier.

You are right. That's because muddying the waters, obfuscation, saying "the science isn't settled" has been used in bad faith in the past. It's tainted an entire branch of scientific thought. There are certainly individual claims of climate change that are probably not entirely correct. That's how science works - hypotheses are made, experiments run, some are disproved and others continue to stand. Anyone who works t…

Read the reply just above yours. I'm not a climate scientist but I am a scientist, and contradicting, competitive studies are the norm. If they didn't exist no progress would ever be made. If you're gonna make up demons you should know how the thing you're trying to vilify operates at any level.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#56

Post by alasdair_ »

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…

>I'm not suggesting choosing between left and right, only pointing out that the bias is pervasive and undeniable.

Can you point to specific examples of this where the science is actually robust and well documented but has somehow been blocked from being published or otherwise stopped due to this pervasive bias?

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#57

Post by thomaskcr »

bsder wrote: post #53
RickS wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent comment: > 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 severely one sided science for decades. Your comment: > Once you start trying to attack climate change, you lose all your credibility I am a firm believer in climate science, but this reaction suggests that the post you're replying to…

> I am a firm believer in climate science, but this reaction suggests that the post you're replying to is correct. Sorry, there are things in this world called facts . There are things in this world that are empirically correct . As far as science can determine, climate change is factual and real. If that isn't your position, you really don't believe in climate science . And I'm calling you out on it--this isn't a "t…

Facts are things like CO2 levels are rising, ocean temperatures are rising, etc.

What will happen as a result of those changes and how it will impact us are models. The application of those models fed by assumptions for the trends/changes in the parameters are forecasts. Forecasts and models aren't facts.

So are you defending the facts? Or are you calling your favorite models/forecasts facts and saying no one can question them?

Seems to me that science education is as much an issue as the taboos...

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#58

Post by 0xy »

bsder wrote: post #53
RickS wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent comment: > 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 severely one sided science for decades. Your comment: > Once you start trying to attack climate change, you lose all your credibility I am a firm believer in climate science, but this reaction suggests that the post you're replying to…

> I am a firm believer in climate science, but this reaction suggests that the post you're replying to is correct. Sorry, there are things in this world called facts . There are things in this world that are empirically correct . As far as science can determine, climate change is factual and real. If that isn't your position, you really don't believe in climate science . And I'm calling you out on it--this isn't a "t…

Climate change is empirical fact, the extent of climate change is not. Within the scientific community, there are wildly differing theories about impact and causes.

As for climate modeling, there are WILD differences in projections.

This is why there are constant "X years until point of no return!" articles in tabloid media, which are all different and usually incorrect.

Immediately shooting people down for being anti-science for suggesting the impact is on the lower end of the prediction spectrum is not scientific.

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#59

Post by dang »

euroPoor wrote: post #16
sandoooo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wsj article is actually fairly accurate, since it has basically listed all the same arguments. The question is the last point: assuming everything else here is true, is this sufficient grounds for deplatforming? Do you want to live in a world where it is? Edit: apparently the HN answer is: yes, we totes do.

Do you want your children to live in a world with +4 degrees because some purely financially motivated people stopped progress on the environmental protection front?

Come on you guys, please keep predictable rhetoric off this site. It's tedious and we're here for curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?

#60

Post by dang »

reaperducer wrote: post #21
euroPoor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want your children to live in a world with +4 degrees because some purely financially motivated people stopped progress on the environmental protection front?

I want my children to live in a world where they are free to think and to read and to listen to a wide variety of opinions, and not just parrot those that come from the loudest voices.

Come on you guys, please keep predictable rhetoric off this site. It's tedious and we're here for curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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