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

nature.com

611–620 of 883 posts

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

#611
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the linked policy says almost the exact opposite of Fermi's statement, implying that ignorance is sometimes better than knowledge: "...considerations of harm can occasionally supersede the goal of seeking or sharing new knowledge, and a decision not to undertake or not to publish a project may be warranted."

I know the people behind statments like these are coming to it with extremly unintelligent and bad faith definitions and intentions, but the actual words are actually correct. If you had the option to delay humanity's discovery of atomic bombs to late 20th century or after, and therefore delay any substantial deep understanding of the atomic physics beneath, you would probably do it. If you had the atomic bomb, you p…

The only reason we know that atomic physics leads to mass destruction is because we followed through with the R&D. We only know that the web is used to spread propaganda and track dissidents because we developed it so far for these problems to develop.

You can't block technology based on understandings of consequences that you dont gain until the technology matures. We can't see the future.

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

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think trans activism with kids is a severe violence. You think trans activism is equivalent to shooting someone? I mean, i think most people are going to dismiss you as crazy if you think words and ideas of any form are equivalently violent to shooting someone in the head. At the very least you would need to back up such a radical proposition with some very compelling arguments.

Then perhaps you should be a little less materialist? Psychological violence can be more terrible than physical violence. And ideologies caused more damages and deaths in history than any conventional "war".

I am really looking forward a trans revolution, with rainbow coloured flags and a trans-dictatorship to dominate the world...

... or maybe there is no ideology, but just people claiming some basic rights?

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

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which side is currently trying to make science fit their world view?

I'm still not sure what you're trying to say. My first guess is that climate change deniers are the biggest culprits of trying to make science fit a contradictory world view, and my second guess would be anti-vaccine advocates.

Yes, anti-nuclear activists and supporters of MRNA treatments are indeed two very dangerous factions of the anti-science crowd.

Unfortunately it's not only limited to the left wing of the political spectrum.

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

#614
post #21

Enrico Fermi comes to mind: “Whatever Nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.” I guess he wasn’t talking about the magazine…

> ignorance is never better than knowledge this is a moral judgement and a strong claim. I can think of a few types of knowledge off the top of my head that aren't making the world a better place Something like learning how to tie a noose: this is (in most cases) bad knowledge. This isn't something anyone should learn unless they need it for something that isn't its best known purpose when it comes to something like…

You are conflating knowledge and arbitrarily constructed definitions. My understanding of knowledge is that it is based in some objective ground rather than a changeable definition.

Race and gender are social constructs, not objective facts of reality. I agree though, discard social constructs.

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

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen several videos of entirely black crowds looting stores. How is this Trump's fault? How is this "pure white supremacy"?

How is this "pure white supremacy"? That's an easy one. America has had a couple of centuries of systemic racism keeping majority-black communities poor, uneducated, and not particularly fearful of prison (relative to majority-white communities). When you combine that poverty with an easy opportunity to loot something valuable in a situation where there's a perception of not being caught due to the chaos, people will…

[deleted]

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

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen several videos of entirely black crowds looting stores. How is this Trump's fault? How is this "pure white supremacy"?

How is this "pure white supremacy"? That's an easy one. America has had a couple of centuries of systemic racism keeping majority-black communities poor, uneducated, and not particularly fearful of prison (relative to majority-white communities). When you combine that poverty with an easy opportunity to loot something valuable in a situation where there's a perception of not being caught due to the chaos, people will…

Guess what keeps those black neighbourhoods poor? Lack of progressive taxation, which also impacts poor people of all other colors as well, including whites.

Many Americans are obsessed with race, but really the main source of inequality is money these days. Fix the money issue and all poor people will benefit, including minorities. Take more money from the rich and use it to fund public services, education regardless of people's skin color.

Now, obviously black people are poor because of historical actions which might count as "white supremacy" (like trans-atlantic slave trade), but you don't fix the issue by blaming white people, you fix it by taxing the rich.

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

#617
post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "trans activism with kids" What does this even mean? Medical care?

I guess promoting and using kids with psychological problems as icons for the ideology...

what "ideology"?

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

#618

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…

IQ research is the one area in social sciences that does not suffer from reproducibility crisis. You're clearly not against it because of reproducibility; you are against it because it goes against your ideological worldview. > Second, research results in population group differences are social poison. They are memetic viruses that fuel violent extremism. We had a full summer of violent riots because of the "Black Li…

> IQ research is the one area in social sciences that does not suffer from reproducibility crisis.

This isn’t true. Areas like psychophysics have similar extremely high reliability. Economics did quite well compared to political science and sociology. Social psychology and personality psychology were and are unusually bad.

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

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ research is the one area in social sciences that does not suffer from reproducibility crisis. You're clearly not against it because of reproducibility; you are against it because it goes against your ideological worldview. > Second, research results in population group differences are social poison. They are memetic viruses that fuel violent extremism. We had a full summer of violent riots because of the "Black Li…

Quoted post unavailable.

Wikipedia says violence broke out a day after the George Floyd incident [1]:

> After the main protest group disbanded on the night of May 26, a much smaller group, numbering in the hundreds, spray-painted the building, threw rocks and bottles, broke a window at the station, and vandalized a squad car. A skirmish soon broke out between the vandals and protesters trying to stop them. At around 8 p.m., police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators, some of whom had thrown water bottles at police officers.

That was long before Trump was taking any action. Let's not give a bad politician credit he doesn't deserve.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests

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

#620

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…

> This should be handled with care, and extra consideration should be given to whether the tenuous, fallible results from this research will result in violence. What is "results in violence" though? One person's violence would be another person's justice. I think trans activism with kids is a severe violence. Would research in allowing transgenderism for children be considered violence or not in your eyes? I'm sure t…

Well words like "transgenderism" don't even mean anything and are just far-right buzzwords to scare people like you, so consider first looking into what's informing your worldview. It's certainly not anything approaching objectivity
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