Live data from Hacker News

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

nature.com

541–550 of 883 posts

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

#541

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…

If extremely sexist groups were discussing PCOS as proof of the inferiority of women, would it therefore be a good idea to assess all research involving ovaries and refuse to publish anything that made PCOS seem harmful?

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

#542
post #431

I did try to read it in good faith and give it the benefit of the doubt, but there's about 20 red flags in the article. With the ultimate smoking gun "to consult with advocacy" groups. Advocacy groups as gatekeepers for scientific publication. It's impossible to get a more biased, emotional and fatalistic view on science. The next articles on the website: "Marginalized" people struggling to attend conferences (due to…

Pre-biasing results isn't science, it's propaganda.

I'm all about getting behind the idea that how we extrapolate and apply scientific discoveries and progress should be mindful of basic human rights and decency for all.

But the idea that the scientific findings themselves should be scoped to a specific perspective in order to disseminate is backwards hogwash as empty of scientific merit as the Church telling Galileo to rework his calculations to put Earth back in the center of the solar system.

It seems like we're no longer as a society making the case for the underlying pragmatism of equality (a trivial case to make) and are instead spending undue resources babysitting the idea as if it can't stand on its own or else it might hurt itself in its confusion.

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

#543
post #480

Here's an example of scientific research being questioned for such ethical reasons, in a less familiar area. A genetic cure for hereditary deafness looks possible. Here's the objection: "Members of the signing Deaf community argue that research which aims to eliminate or cure deafness is a form of cultural genocide. The argument goes like this: the use of gene therapy to cure hereditary deafness would result in small…

Can I infer from this comment that you disapprove of the Deaf community's stance on this? If so, I suggest reaching out to your local Deaf community and spending some time with them. Maybe take an ASL class. You will find that, indeed, there is a unique culture in the Deaf community. You may not end up agreeing that deafness should never be cured, but it will at least give you some context you seem to be missing. Sin…

(I'm not that person, but I have opinions on this. I'm also not deaf, but I am autistic, and the autistic community has a lot of parallels to this that I can't help but notice.)

> because she can't sign as fluently as a child who grew up signing, and the majority of the community is against implants

This is two separate issues.

I view the first as like any other language fluency thing: should English-speaking communities ostracize members who are less fluent in English? If they're extremely non-fluent, to the point of not being able to communicate at all, then there is no morality here; it's kind of just an unfortunate thing that happens as a result of non-communication, like if I (a non-Mandarin speaker) showed up to a Mandarin-speaking social group and tried to be their friend. If they just have a thick accent and word things oddly sometimes, doing so might be an asshole move.

The second is entirely the community's problem. People should, at least, have the option of curing (even partially) their own deafness, without facing weird stigma from other people who choose not to do so. It is ridiculous to ostracize other people for doing things that they feel improve their own lives, even if you would not make that same change to yourself.

In our universe where we don't yet have a good way of doing so, what this means is that research into developing better implants is a good thing. Forcing implants on all deaf people would be immoral, as would forcing any other medical thing on people. But just making the option available is not.

I don't know how this translates to children too young to meaningfully consent, and I will stubbornly refuse to form an opinion on that because it depends on factors that I know nothing about. I don't think it matters, because it is immoral to hold back things from consenting adults solely because we haven't decided whether children should have them too.

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

#544
post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those repeating the mantra.

I see folks across the political spectrum all repeating different mantras. Who are you referring to?

No post body was provided.

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

#545

"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." If it's good research, then it shouldn't have any of these biases. Stigmatization and restrictions of rights is a policy issue. Science is not policy . I think we need to promote this separation more. Too often I see "but the study…

This infuriated me during the Covid pandemic. “The science says we need to close schools”. No, the science at most says that Covid will spread more slowly if we close schools. Whether that’s worth it or not is a political question, not a scientific one.

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

#546
post #125
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Editors, authors and reviewers will hopefully find the guidance helpful when considering and discussing potential benefits and harms arising from manuscripts dealing with human population groups categorized on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age,…

> How do you effectively discuss, and communicate, that for example sickle cell anaemia or lactose intolerance affects people of African descent, or skin cancer is prevalent in people of European ancestry? And that poor and badly educated people are susceptible to bad diets, lifestyles and medical issues that are a consequence of that? Don't worry, it says in the guidelines that race and ethnicity aren't real: > Race…

> Race and ethnicity are sociopolitical constructs. Humans do not have biological races, at least based on modern biological criteria for the identification of geographical races or subspecies.

The first sentence is a liberal shibboleth: it has no more meaning than "colors (of light) are social constructs", or "embryos are sovial constructs." People will go to war over whether and where the lines of "sociopolitival constructs" get drawn...

...and the second sentence is that war, attempting to deny that genetic or biological information can inform sociopolitical categorizations.

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

#547

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…

Ah yes, because the best way to get groups to not spout misleading rhetoric is to unabashedly bias the publications in the other direction.

Giving validity to the claim that a particular perspective is being actively suppressed historically works out great in reducing that viewpoint...

Maybe they'd be better off restricting publishing to studies reproducing earlier results or meta-analysis, encouraging more rigorous standards without legitimately adding a bias.

But if this is genuinely about reducing racist or sexist misappropriation of research to legitimize those views, this is exactly the sort of measure that is going to backfire by giving the broad lack of supporting evidence for those positions a legitimate claim of explicit censorship.

It no longer matters if there are barely any reproducible results supporting their views, as pointing out that asymmetry is rendered an argument from silence in the face of active censorship.

This is a bad idea coming from a good place.

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

#548

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#549

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…

Bad people will use whatever they have at hand to justify their actions. If there wasn't a paper to discuss there would be something else. That being said it's a disaster how many people go into social sciences and waste their lives on useless research.

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

#550

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…

No post body was provided.
Post reply on HN