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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”

#751

Post by [deleted] »

paganel wrote: post #572
Banana699 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> e.g. if climate is already worsening beyond human limits it's always good to know even Climate wouldn't have been worsened as much as it did without the technological advances provided by science. It's really, really difficult to cut the Amazonian forrest down using just axes and horse-drawn carts, but once you got mechanised stuff (with the help of science) then it becomes exponentially easier to do it (think just…

[deleted]

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

#753

Post by Nasrudith »

FabHK wrote: post #644
indymike wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The alternative was 20-30 million more dead people via conventional means. There were many teams around the world working to build the bomb. One always wonders about the German team and why they were not fir…

Agreed on the first half of your comment. Philosophy of science, however, is a well established, important, and fascinating field. Keywords: Positivists/Viennese circle, Karl Popper and falsification, Feyerabend and Against Method, Thomas Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, W. V. Quine and the Two Dogmas of Empiricism, the Science Wars.

I don't blame them for not wanting what appears to be a mix of philosophy into science though - in the same way it is understandable that people who never knew what suffrage was would oppose women's suffrage because they think it involves torment. Ignorant but understandable. Unfortunately, philosophy has a long history of actively defining itself as willfully not referencing reality for validation. Not wanting that mixed with science is understandable even if rooted in ignorance.

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

#754

Post by brushfoot »

n4r9 wrote: post #728
brushfoot wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is your concern more about the editors abusing their own guidelines in an unreasonable way, rather than the guidelines themselves? My concern is the suppression of knowledge out of the fear of potential interpretations. That's the explicitly stated goal of the guidelines, and I see it as a bad, dangerous way of thinking about science.

One interesting thing I've noticed from this thread is that the objections often use phrasing like "science should be ...". This of course raises the question why ought science be done in a certain way. The justification must ultimately be normative, e.g. "so we can reduce human suffering more effectively". I think some people have this idea that science can be cleanly divorced from values, but that doesn't make sens…

I like Carl Sagan's "science as a candle in the dark." A candle can be used to light a house or to burn it down.

What these guidelines say to me is, "Too many people want to burn the house down right now. Our solution is to stop making candles. We'll make wax figurines instead."

But what makes candles dangerous is also what makes them useful.

To me a better solution (to those of us who use candles for good) would be to help reform the arsonists. Why are there so many of them? Did they get the same education as others? Where do they get their news? What do they believe? What resources do they have or not have access to?

Otherwise, good actors are deprived of tools that would let them, as you said, and I agree, reduce human suffering more effectively.

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

#755

Post by macspoofing »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #739
macspoofing wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So now you're saying you actually meant just North America I said "our society" isn't performing abortions on female fetuses - so clearly I must have meant China and India - the two societies that are? And yes, I want to know why "our society" isn't.

OK, well, I guess you're right that "our society" does not value boys over girls as much as China and India. I don't really see the relevance if you're arguing "no, sex-selective abortions will not happen."

>I don't really see the relevance if you're arguing "no, sex-selective abortions will not happen."

OP argued that there will be abortions based on sexual orientation as a justification for hiding research results from the public. As one of my counter-arguments, I argued that this isn't inevitable by providing a counter-example of lack of sex-selective abortions in most of the world (specifically the society I grew up in).

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

#756

Post by dekhn »

Beltalowda wrote: post #522
Banana699 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On the other hand, nuclear physics is also used for things like treating cancer. In that sense it's the perfect analogy: you don't really know where your research will end up. Did Rutherford split the atom to cure cancer? No, of course not. Most (or all?) people working on particle physics in the early 20th century would have been quite surprised to learn it would be used as such down the line. > If you had the atomi…

As a counterexample, physicists did use particle physics for medical purposes very early on- E.O. Lawrence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Lawrence#Reception was using it for cancer treatments of various kinds in the 30s.

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

#757

Post by macspoofing »

bergenty wrote: post #334
macspoofing wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel like our society does require some gatekeepers and can’t be run well if it’s just vocal collectives yelling at each other. I'm glad you recognize in yourself that you can't be trusted with certain information and you need, personally, a big brother to lie to you. You do you. I'd appreciate if you didn't make the same assessment about me, and others.

Idealism is great, as an ideal. It starts to become a little delusional when you think your idealism lines up with reality.

I'm not sure I espoused any utopian view.

Reading back, I'm actually genuinely interested to know why you want a third-party 'gatekeeper' to protect you personally from certain kinds of (uncomfortable) scientific facts. I don't judge, you can make that decisions for yourself, but why do you personally want to write that blank-check to a third-party, so that they decide what scientific facts you should or shouldn't be allowed to learn? Maybe you can elaborate?

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

#758

Post by dkonofalski »

al_mandi wrote: post #455
dkonofalski wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just because that prayer lead to a miracle in the past, doesn't mean you can demand that God grants the same miracle again in different circumstances. Why not? If a god has shown that they can intervene in the physical world we live in, why shouldn't we be able to test that?

God does not obey your or anyone else's whim. The Quran says: > He cannot be questioned about what He does, but they will ˹all˺ be questioned. -- https://quran.com/21/23 I posted this lecture in another post, it's a good starting point: https://youtu.be/If3cNUixEBM

This assumes the presupposition that god exists and is real which, as is the entire point of this thread, relies on a belief without evidence. You can't use the actions of a "god" as evidence for the existence of that god without evidence of those actions.

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

#759

Post by dkonofalski »

systemvoltage wrote: post #433
dkonofalski wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"You're not allowed to question it no matter what merit you have, no matter how logical and methodical your perspective is and regardless of the content of your argument; science is untouchable" Is this what happened, though? Outside of the politicization of COVID, the majority of the conversation that was anywhere near this was more simply "if you are going to question the people who are providing evidence, you mus…

Absolutely, here is Stanford Prof that was cancelled. All of his viewpoints were grounded in science, but he was skeptical and simply raising the concerns such as "There is no high quality evidence for masks and we should conduct further studies" (Emphasis mine, he didn't say there was no evidence, just not good enough). Worth watching his interviews on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpnbMIOvbjc

That's not how evidence works. He either needs to show evidence that they don't work or he has to show why their evidence is unsatisfactory. Based on that video, he's done neither. Saying "nuh uh, your evidence is bad" is not an argument against the evidence.

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

#760

Post by brushfoot »

i_love_limes wrote: post #112

This has garnered quite a lot of reactions from the comments. I'd like to ask a genuine question about this, from the perspective of assuming that Nature is acting in good faith about this. Let's say someone has calculated the polygenic scores (PGS) of Heteronormativity, meaning that a model, can predict with a decent level of accuracy that someone will or will not be straight from their DNA. This, in an ideal world,…

> In the world we live in, this would be used to abort babies

It would also be used to support babies. Parents would be motivated to move to communities with support, education, affirmation.

Any helpful tool can also be harmful. The solution to misuse isn't enforced ignorance, it's education in virtue.

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