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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”

#511

Post by MichaelCollins »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #500
MichaelCollins wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it depends how you look at it. The intensity of the conflict has diminished, but I think the scope of the conflict has increased. There are fewer bombs going off, but there seems to be a lot more family estrangement due to political differences. The partisan lines in my extended family haven't changed for as long as I can remember, but there are fewer get-togethers and more political arguments at the dinner t…

I think it depends on what's considered political. Family estrangement due to religious differences (such as marrying a catholic) was so commonplace it was practically a sitcom joke. There was also family estrangement about potentially dating outside your race.

Heh, my family is mixed Lutheran and Catholic, but that's not the line it split along. My mother and her sister are Lutheran, while their husbands are Catholics. I'm aware of this social schism only in the academic sense; it's not something I've ever personally seen or experienced.

These are people who more or less believe the same sort of thing, but disagree about which party will best implement it. It's a difference that used to not matter very much; my cousins were raised almost identically to me and my siblings. There is no real difference in social or economic class, lifestyle, or community. Simply partisan affiliation.

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

#512

Post by narrator »

jwarden wrote: post #440
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…

The statement from Nature has been very carefully worded. The quote in the parent comment seems to suggest that perfectly valid scientific findings should be withheld if there is a possibility that bad people would misuse them. The consequence of this of course would be a complete victory of "Blank Slate"[1] Dogma (because any scientific finding that finds differences between social groups could be misused to undermi…

Imagine the confusion that would result by future CRISPR modifications to adults that would increase intelligence by replacing genes found in less intelligent people with genes found in more intelligent people. Imagine if those genes are only found in certain races. I guess we can't have that according to the journal's rules, can we? You will simply not be allowed to research or publish that because it would break the "blank slate" narrative even though it would provide a huge benefit to humanity.

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

#513

Post by spoonjim »

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #142

From the article: > Science has for too long been complicit in perpetuating structural inequalities and discrimination in society. > Finally, authors should use inclusive, respectful, non-stigmatizing language in their submitted manuscripts. > Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. —- To me, this sounds like a clergyman espousing articles of faith and commandments.

It's like they jotted down what they heard from a bullhorn at a protest and typed it up.

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

#514

Post by Banana699 »

devindotcom wrote: post #315

Quoted post unavailable.

>disingenuous and ill-informed vitriol in this thread.

"Why are people mad when I want to censor science and make it worship my false idol ?? it's so unfair"

>These guidelines are very like existing ethics guidelines found at universities and research institutions around the world

Show me a respectable university that tells scientists to "Consult with advocacy groups" before they publish any results, and I will show you a university that used to be respectable but now isn't.

>If that causes them to second guess whether the research they are conducting is worthwhile

Ah yes, it's all them second-guessing themselves. This won't be used to censor scientists at all, those scientists will just, spontaneously, see the error of their bigoted and heretical science, and refuse to publish it by themselves.

>How about large scale human vivisection?

Nice try, but this is about research methodology. The posted censorship guidelines is dealing with the final results of research, the papers, not the used methodology. We had ethics board since the 1970s and 1980s, you're not inventing anything useful.

It's amazing how desperate some people are to try to justify their nonsense.

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

#515

Post by benhoyt »

dkonofalski wrote: post #387
geoduck14 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. People forget things like: Jesus' disciples witnessed his miracles and wrote about them, other nonbiblical scholars wrote about Jesus and his miracles, there was recorded evidence to his death, there were witnesses to his ascension, 11 of the 12 apostles died for believing that Jesus was God (the 12th was Peter, marooned on Patmos, also for believing Jesus was God)

None of those things are true. The earliest known manuscripts of any biblical text post-dates Jesus by 300 years. There are no eyewitness accounts in existence. Non-biblical scholars did not write about Jesus and the only mentions that we have of his existence are from someone who was shown to forge documents (Josephus) and Roman documents using general terms that refer to a criminal as "someone claiming to be the Me…

> The earliest known manuscripts of any biblical text post-dates Jesus by 300 years.

It's easy to make bold statements, but that definitely doesn't match what most historians, Christian and secular, claim. (And I believe several of your other claims have been largely discredited, even by secular historians.)

Bart Ehrman, a New Testament historian who is well known for his critical eye on this stuff (he was a Christian but later became an atheist), dates the NT books between 50 and 120 AD, and from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament, the latest date scholars give is 150 AD. Other scholars date the NT books from between 70 and 90 AD.

The 300 AD date you're referring to may be when the New Testament was approved as "canon" by the church. Again from that Wikipedia article:

> The earliest known complete list of the 27 books is found in a letter written by Athanasius, a 4th-century bishop of Alexandria, dated to 367 AD. The 27-book New Testament was first formally canonized during the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) in North Africa.

See also the first answer here: https://www.quora.com/Was-the-first-gospel-written-300-years... and https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/how-new-testament-w... which notes that:

> By the time of Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165 AD) and Irenaeus (ca. 130-202 AD) we find extensive quotations from New Testament books; while the First Letter of Clement, addressed to the church in Corinth, quotes Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.

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

#516

Post by dissent »

bglazer wrote: post #485

This is in Nature Human Behavior. This is a social science/psychology journal, a field which is suffering from the reproducibility crisis, perhaps worse than any other field. So, any result in this field should be viewed with significant skepticism. This is true for research into population group differences, and extremely true for IQ research into race, which is almost hopelessly noisy and confounded. It is a simple…

The Orwellian bit comes once the quality gates are in place and get subverted for political means.

But even if that doesn't happen, I disagree strongly. Extremism doesn't need scientific backing and never has. They'll take it if convenient, but they can quite easily justify their actions without it. Truth and critical thinking are the solution, not the cause.

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

#517

Post by blep_ »

blueflow wrote: post #54
giraffe_lady wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What would you do when someone says "Women are inferior because the Sun shines?"

Regardless of the rest of this conversation, we should at least ban the publishing of obvious bullshit with no attempt to establish causality as science. This is in that category.

I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here.

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

#518

Post by dsign »

I think we are taking this wrong. Nature's real problem is that they get too many submissions and they need a way to weed them out. They will do that even by offending the cultural minority that prefers truth over ultimate political correctness (as if that can be even be achieved!).

But our problem is that Nature's loudspeakers are too loud, which ultimately benefits nobody. Researchers and the public should simply give more stock to other publications.

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

#519

Post by bergenty »

bobsmooth wrote: post #469
bergenty wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical or mental pain and anguish

So we need Big Brother to protect us from facts that will harm us.

We need the government to protect us from a lot of things that can harm us.

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

#520

Post by hilbert42 »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #390
brightball wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 90s before mass internet adoption, it sure felt like it. We had disagreements, but nothing compared to what we see today.

Humans are social in so far as they derive benefit from society. But they have always resented society to varying degrees. In the past, people's resentment was mostly expressed in casual ways because a society tends to suppress crazy behaviour. But the social media business profits from this social resentment.

Right, social media is the updated form of sensational headlines selling newspapers. And such headlines have always played on difference, resentment and moral values. And the more glaring and outrageous they are the more business profits from them.

This is a serious issue for society to resolve, especially given the clear evidence that many people cannot distinguish sensationalism from fact and are thus influenced by it.

Given the billions of dollars profit involved and the social media addiction problem it has to be one of the most intractable problems of our age to solve.

But solve it we must.

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