9 ms·

Racial 'science' was used by the Nazi's to justify antisemitism, eugenics, and everything they did beyond that. The scientific method is important to be used,

Racial 'science' was used by the Nazi's to justify antisemitism, eugenics, and everything they did beyond that. The scientific method is important to be used, but don't trust something just because another person believes it to be science. You need the hypothesis and the verification method. Others (all of us) have the obligation to challenge both the hypothesis as well as the verification methods.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
scblock 9y ago
So, 'science' not science? Got it. That was a pretty quick Godwining, by the way.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Those views really were thought to be rational and scientific at the time they were promulgated, though, and Nazism was only their most extreme expression.
  - iguy 9y ago
    The problem with the Nazis is that they were genocidal maniacs, not that they p-hacked their scientific papers. Genocidal maniacs have spouted many creeds, some of which sound much nicer (like brotherly love & eternal life... or equality of mankind & ownership of the means of production) and they are still evil. Because mass murder is wrong. Full stop. I think it's really dangerous to tie the wrongness of the supposedly scientific facts they spouted to the wrongness of their deeds. Dangerous because if it turns out they were right about some point, then you look like an idiot and have to change your tune. And dangerous because it warps subsequent science, to avoid such embarrassment. They believed in breeding a master race. In response to this, the acceptable opinion in the West ever since seems to have been that this is impossible, that humans are unique among creatures on this planet in that they are immune to the pressures of selective breeding. We can double the size of our chickens (and breed tame foxes, and smart dogs) but humans are apparently immutable. This is creationist nonsense, and it becomes more and more obviously nonsense every year. We need not have painted ourselves into such a stupid corner.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      So if the Nazis weren't mass-murders, and instead just had an ideology revolving around the inherent inferiority of anyone other than Aryans (naturally that would probably include bans on intermarriage, restrictions on social race-mixing, and the like), that would have been alright? I don't think I agree. Frankly, genocide, or at least dehumanization and extreme indifference, seems like the logical endpoint of sincere belief in the concept of a "master race" which is inherently good and is hamstrung by perfidious inferior races. Once you've determined that a member of one race is worth less than another, it's natural to judge that the death of a member of this inferior race would be justifiable to save the race of a member of the superior race, and in this way the concept of genocide becomes, in your mind, a "defensive" action.
      - iguy 9y ago
        They would not have acquired much notoriety by believing these things in private. It's their actions which got them into the history books. If I'm not mistaken, the Brahmins tick most of your boxes. Are they alright? Some would argue that they go in for a bit of dehumanization... but nobody is proposing a world war to stop them. Actually I'm alright with people believing lots of crazy shit, in private. Because I think intellectual monoculture is pretty dangerous.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        Well, I don't know, the Indian government seems to think caste discrimination is a real problem (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India). I certainly would object quite strenuously to a government that operated on caste principles and enforced caste segregation and diminished rights for some castes. World War II did not begin because of Nazis' views on Jews, so I don't know that that part of the question really makes sense. I do find it a little strange how many people want to turn the concept of "diversity" on its head and tell me the real diversity problem is that we don't let enough people with racist views into power.
        9y ago
- monocasa 9y ago
  The issue is that it's not easy for the populace to tell the difference between 'science' and science in a lot of cases. You see this on all parts of the political spectrums. Soviet Lysenkoism, left wing anti vax crap, and neo liberal austerity. EDIT: Krugman had this to say about the R&R austerity paper "What the Reinhart-Rogoff affair shows is the extent to which austerity has been sold on false pretenses. For three years, the turn to austerity has been presented not as a choice but as a necessity. Economic research, austerity advocates insisted, showed that terrible things happen once debt exceeds 90 percent of G.D.P. But "economic research" showed no such thing; a couple of economists made that assertion, while many others disagreed. Policy makers abandoned the unemployed and turned to austerity because they wanted to, not because they had to." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt Particularly telling: "The paper was published in an annual 'Papers and Proceedings' edition of The American Economic Review that was not subject to the same peer-review standards that other editions use before publication"
  - merpnderp 9y ago
    The same Krugman who pronounced the markets would never recover from Trump's election or that since we didn't pass a large enough stimulus we were doomed to low GDP growth rates forever?
    - monocasa 9y ago
      Don't just listen to Krugman, read how monetary policy for the better part of a decade was based on a paper that wasn't peer reviewed, but was held up as irrefutable 'science'. Politicians latched on to it because it told them what they wanted to hear.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Paul Krugman was wrong on different issues, thereby completely proving everyone who agreed with him on this other issue wrong. Got them.
      - merpnderp 9y ago
- merpnderp 9y ago
  So you'd ignore one of the most horrific and important examples of widely accepted science going wrong because of an internet meme?
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    Science didn't go wrong. The data was bad, the processes were bad, there was no replication. How was that science?
    - genericone 9y ago
      I think that is simply another misinterpretation of what people mean when the word science is used. What was said above was "one of the most horrific and important examples of widely accepted science". Important words here are "widely accepted science". So science didn't go wrong, the LABEL of science was attached to something that didn't meet the scientific method. That something was then sold to people in power, and the science LABEL was used to convince people of the correctness of that something.
    - foldr 9y ago
      >The data was bad, the processes were bad, there was no replication. People are really quick to say this, but how many people have actually studied the 'racial science' literature of the 20s and 30s and figured out to what extent it meets the methodological standards of today? Yes, we know that they drew incorrect (and reprehensible) conclusions. It doesn't necessarily follow that their methods were any worse (epistemically speaking) than methods that currently pass muster.
      - lotsofpulp 9y ago
        Studies about people in general are of poor quality, due to difficult to define metrics. Even today, psychology and sociology studies aren't rigorous for the simple reason that it's hard to measure these things. Biological studies are hard too, it's hard to suss out the confounding variables and mechanisms of bodily functions. Just the premise of the "racial science" studies would render them invalid, how could they even have controlled for the myriad variables that we have no idea how to control today?
- genericone 9y ago
  To be fair, I took a step back from saying Hitler, and I said Nazis, I was one step removed from invoking Godwin's law in its formal definition. More seriously, it wasn't just this group that believed in this stuff, it was the many many institutions in the western world, as emodendroket points out. Certain departments at Yale, most notably, supported eugenics. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/american-eugenics-society-1926-1972 https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/american-eugenics-society-1926-... edited portion in case people think I meant all of Yale, bad generalization, my bad.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

scblock 9y ago

So, 'science' not science? Got it. That was a pretty quick Godwining, by the way.

emodendroket 9y ago
Those views really were thought to be rational and scientific at the time they were promulgated, though, and Nazism was only their most extreme expression.
- iguy 9y ago
  The problem with the Nazis is that they were genocidal maniacs, not that they p-hacked their scientific papers. Genocidal maniacs have spouted many creeds, some of which sound much nicer (like brotherly love & eternal life... or equality of mankind & ownership of the means of production) and they are still evil. Because mass murder is wrong. Full stop. I think it's really dangerous to tie the wrongness of the supposedly scientific facts they spouted to the wrongness of their deeds. Dangerous because if it turns out they were right about some point, then you look like an idiot and have to change your tune. And dangerous because it warps subsequent science, to avoid such embarrassment. They believed in breeding a master race. In response to this, the acceptable opinion in the West ever since seems to have been that this is impossible, that humans are unique among creatures on this planet in that they are immune to the pressures of selective breeding. We can double the size of our chickens (and breed tame foxes, and smart dogs) but humans are apparently immutable. This is creationist nonsense, and it becomes more and more obviously nonsense every year. We need not have painted ourselves into such a stupid corner.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    So if the Nazis weren't mass-murders, and instead just had an ideology revolving around the inherent inferiority of anyone other than Aryans (naturally that would probably include bans on intermarriage, restrictions on social race-mixing, and the like), that would have been alright? I don't think I agree. Frankly, genocide, or at least dehumanization and extreme indifference, seems like the logical endpoint of sincere belief in the concept of a "master race" which is inherently good and is hamstrung by perfidious inferior races. Once you've determined that a member of one race is worth less than another, it's natural to judge that the death of a member of this inferior race would be justifiable to save the race of a member of the superior race, and in this way the concept of genocide becomes, in your mind, a "defensive" action.
    - iguy 9y ago
      They would not have acquired much notoriety by believing these things in private. It's their actions which got them into the history books. If I'm not mistaken, the Brahmins tick most of your boxes. Are they alright? Some would argue that they go in for a bit of dehumanization... but nobody is proposing a world war to stop them. Actually I'm alright with people believing lots of crazy shit, in private. Because I think intellectual monoculture is pretty dangerous.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Well, I don't know, the Indian government seems to think caste discrimination is a real problem (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India). I certainly would object quite strenuously to a government that operated on caste principles and enforced caste segregation and diminished rights for some castes. World War II did not begin because of Nazis' views on Jews, so I don't know that that part of the question really makes sense. I do find it a little strange how many people want to turn the concept of "diversity" on its head and tell me the real diversity problem is that we don't let enough people with racist views into power.
        9y ago
monocasa 9y ago
The issue is that it's not easy for the populace to tell the difference between 'science' and science in a lot of cases. You see this on all parts of the political spectrums. Soviet Lysenkoism, left wing anti vax crap, and neo liberal austerity. EDIT: Krugman had this to say about the R&R austerity paper "What the Reinhart-Rogoff affair shows is the extent to which austerity has been sold on false pretenses. For three years, the turn to austerity has been presented not as a choice but as a necessity. Economic research, austerity advocates insisted, showed that terrible things happen once debt exceeds 90 percent of G.D.P. But "economic research" showed no such thing; a couple of economists made that assertion, while many others disagreed. Policy makers abandoned the unemployed and turned to austerity because they wanted to, not because they had to." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_in_a_Time_of_Debt Particularly telling: "The paper was published in an annual 'Papers and Proceedings' edition of The American Economic Review that was not subject to the same peer-review standards that other editions use before publication"
- merpnderp 9y ago
  The same Krugman who pronounced the markets would never recover from Trump's election or that since we didn't pass a large enough stimulus we were doomed to low GDP growth rates forever?
  - monocasa 9y ago
    Don't just listen to Krugman, read how monetary policy for the better part of a decade was based on a paper that wasn't peer reviewed, but was held up as irrefutable 'science'. Politicians latched on to it because it told them what they wanted to hear.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Paul Krugman was wrong on different issues, thereby completely proving everyone who agreed with him on this other issue wrong. Got them.
    - merpnderp 9y ago
merpnderp 9y ago
So you'd ignore one of the most horrific and important examples of widely accepted science going wrong because of an internet meme?
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  Science didn't go wrong. The data was bad, the processes were bad, there was no replication. How was that science?
  - genericone 9y ago
    I think that is simply another misinterpretation of what people mean when the word science is used. What was said above was "one of the most horrific and important examples of widely accepted science". Important words here are "widely accepted science". So science didn't go wrong, the LABEL of science was attached to something that didn't meet the scientific method. That something was then sold to people in power, and the science LABEL was used to convince people of the correctness of that something.
  - foldr 9y ago
    >The data was bad, the processes were bad, there was no replication. People are really quick to say this, but how many people have actually studied the 'racial science' literature of the 20s and 30s and figured out to what extent it meets the methodological standards of today? Yes, we know that they drew incorrect (and reprehensible) conclusions. It doesn't necessarily follow that their methods were any worse (epistemically speaking) than methods that currently pass muster.
    - lotsofpulp 9y ago
      Studies about people in general are of poor quality, due to difficult to define metrics. Even today, psychology and sociology studies aren't rigorous for the simple reason that it's hard to measure these things. Biological studies are hard too, it's hard to suss out the confounding variables and mechanisms of bodily functions. Just the premise of the "racial science" studies would render them invalid, how could they even have controlled for the myriad variables that we have no idea how to control today?
genericone 9y ago
To be fair, I took a step back from saying Hitler, and I said Nazis, I was one step removed from invoking Godwin's law in its formal definition. More seriously, it wasn't just this group that believed in this stuff, it was the many many institutions in the western world, as emodendroket points out. Certain departments at Yale, most notably, supported eugenics. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/american-eugenics-society-1926-1972 https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/american-eugenics-society-1926-... edited portion in case people think I meant all of Yale, bad generalization, my bad.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]