6 ms·

Unfortunately most research on social capital and mistrust has been desk-drawered or heavily self censored due to the political implications. https://www.chron

Unfortunately most research on social capital and mistrust has been desk-drawered or heavily self censored due to the political implications. https://www.chronicle.com/article/robert-putnam-and-the-ethics-of-delay/ https://www.chronicle.com/article/robert-putnam-and-the-ethi... https://www.city-journal.org/html/bowling-our-own-10265.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/bowling-our-own-10265.html

manux 6y ago
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The first link seems to heavily imply so, but that's not obvious to me. > Academics aren’t supposed to withhold negative data until they can suggest antidotes to their findings. That seems incredibly naive. If an academic finds a way to create a potent poison, it would be unethical to disseminate that knowledge without an antidote. Why would this be different?
- mjburgess 6y ago
  Well, academics routinely do disseminate such knowledge. Not least, to appeal to the community to find such a solution. It is highly unlikely a researcher in "finding X" is an expert in "solving X" or otherwise has the capacity to do so. The "head in the sand" approach here doesn't "ease community tensions" it does precisely the opposite: prolong them for fear open investigation "goes against the consensus".
- seneca 6y ago
  > If an academic finds a way to create a potent poison, it would be unethical to disseminate that knowledge without an antidote. Why would this be different? Well, that metaphor doesn't apply here. The research shows that something we're already doing is potentially harmful. A more accurate metaphor would be discovering milk is actually poisonous as currently processed, and withholding the research for fear of disrupting the dairy industry (which the researcher happens to be a member of). Your mistake is in presupposing the goodness of the thing the research is revealing to be potentially harmful. Hiding science that disagrees with your preconceived ideas is a dangerous path to take. You strengthen your position by whittling away the pieces that disagree with reality and updating your approach, not by denying reality and insisting you were right all along.
pjc50 6y ago
Thinly veiled campaigning for the return of segregation? Because nothing increases trust like "whites only" signs?
- mjburgess 6y ago
  Where in any of that was "the return of segregation"? Research seems to show social cost to cultural diversity. Research not published for fear of appearing to oppose diversity. And you go ahead and do precisely what he was afraid of... Social research isn't published precisely for this reason...
- kyrieeschaton 6y ago
  > Data collected by eminent political scientist suggests ethnic diversity, amongst other things, massively lowers social trust > "Wow just wow what a 'racist campaign for the return of segregation'" I wonder why it is so difficult to do or publish research in this area?
  - clairity 6y ago
    for one, editorializing by using an emotionally-charged term like "massively", which indicates bias, and incidentally lowers trust. in any case, it's not ethnic diversity that impacts social trust but (sub-)cultural friction, which can happen between subsets ('tribes") of the same ethnicity (which is mostly a superfluous distinction anyway). tabs vs spaces, for instance. we like to imagine mountains out of molehills and then point to our mounded constructions to prove how we're so irreconcileably different, but it's often a thin veil over an insecure assertion of authority and superiority.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    Well, I mean of course an Old Boy's Network has more trust. An echo chamber is trusting yourself and the other members - even when that trust is misplaced. [ETA: does someone think I'm implying that's a good thing? It's not. It's bad for everyone, even the perpetrators.]
- hinkley 6y ago
  To be fair, the author of the findings was trying to avoid such things happening, which were obvious to him. From the first link, it appears those efforts did not pay off.
kmeisthax 6y ago
Self-censorship is not a bad response, given that the immediate and obvious problem is that conservatives will latch onto this and see "See? That's why we need to close the borders and deport all brown people!" That's a preposterous conclusion not supported by the actual evidence, but you'll wind up giving people like them ammunition. Remember: they won't listen to you a week later when you publish follow-up studies, or suggest possible remedies for the problem. Because they're not interested in the actual scientific truth, they just want to have an excuse to engage in the exact kinds of social distrust the study is trying to measure.
throwaway2245 6y ago
These links cover one person's research, the same person as the parent article, via press releases seeking controversy and attention for his commercial work. His work doesn't appear to have been desk-drawered or self-censored.
- kyrieeschaton 6y ago
  He delayed publication for years (in the proverbial desk drawer) while he attempted to develop a positive and politically acceptable spin on the results (self censorship). He is also probably one of the top ten most prestiguous living social scientists. Consider the incentives of researchers with less accumulated social capital who are far easier to attack for their findings.
- dudeman13 6y ago
  Holding on to publishing the results because you don't like the political consequences sounds like self-censorship to me
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    It's "self-censorship" no more than I am self-censoring myself right now, in this comment. Reinvigorating your old work for publication, once you have a commercially viable avenue to promote it, is pretty average capitalism. Plenty of work that is politically awkward is published under a strict pseudonym. This wasn't - and the author's position is that it was their choice not to publish.

manux 6y ago

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The first link seems to heavily imply so, but that's not obvious to me. > Academics aren’t supposed to withhold negative data until they can suggest antidotes to their findings. That seems incredibly naive. If an academic finds a way to create a potent poison, it would be unethical to disseminate that knowledge without an antidote. Why would this be different?

mjburgess 6y ago
Well, academics routinely do disseminate such knowledge. Not least, to appeal to the community to find such a solution. It is highly unlikely a researcher in "finding X" is an expert in "solving X" or otherwise has the capacity to do so. The "head in the sand" approach here doesn't "ease community tensions" it does precisely the opposite: prolong them for fear open investigation "goes against the consensus".
seneca 6y ago
> If an academic finds a way to create a potent poison, it would be unethical to disseminate that knowledge without an antidote. Why would this be different? Well, that metaphor doesn't apply here. The research shows that something we're already doing is potentially harmful. A more accurate metaphor would be discovering milk is actually poisonous as currently processed, and withholding the research for fear of disrupting the dairy industry (which the researcher happens to be a member of). Your mistake is in presupposing the goodness of the thing the research is revealing to be potentially harmful. Hiding science that disagrees with your preconceived ideas is a dangerous path to take. You strengthen your position by whittling away the pieces that disagree with reality and updating your approach, not by denying reality and insisting you were right all along.

pjc50 6y ago

Thinly veiled campaigning for the return of segregation? Because nothing increases trust like "whites only" signs?

mjburgess 6y ago
Where in any of that was "the return of segregation"? Research seems to show social cost to cultural diversity. Research not published for fear of appearing to oppose diversity. And you go ahead and do precisely what he was afraid of... Social research isn't published precisely for this reason...
kyrieeschaton 6y ago
> Data collected by eminent political scientist suggests ethnic diversity, amongst other things, massively lowers social trust > "Wow just wow what a 'racist campaign for the return of segregation'" I wonder why it is so difficult to do or publish research in this area?
- clairity 6y ago
  for one, editorializing by using an emotionally-charged term like "massively", which indicates bias, and incidentally lowers trust. in any case, it's not ethnic diversity that impacts social trust but (sub-)cultural friction, which can happen between subsets ('tribes") of the same ethnicity (which is mostly a superfluous distinction anyway). tabs vs spaces, for instance. we like to imagine mountains out of molehills and then point to our mounded constructions to prove how we're so irreconcileably different, but it's often a thin veil over an insecure assertion of authority and superiority.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Well, I mean of course an Old Boy's Network has more trust. An echo chamber is trusting yourself and the other members - even when that trust is misplaced. [ETA: does someone think I'm implying that's a good thing? It's not. It's bad for everyone, even the perpetrators.]
hinkley 6y ago
To be fair, the author of the findings was trying to avoid such things happening, which were obvious to him. From the first link, it appears those efforts did not pay off.

kmeisthax 6y ago

Self-censorship is not a bad response, given that the immediate and obvious problem is that conservatives will latch onto this and see "See? That's why we need to close the borders and deport all brown people!" That's a preposterous conclusion not supported by the actual evidence, but you'll wind up giving people like them ammunition. Remember: they won't listen to you a week later when you publish follow-up studies, or suggest possible remedies for the problem. Because they're not interested in the actual scientific truth, they just want to have an excuse to engage in the exact kinds of social distrust the study is trying to measure.

throwaway2245 6y ago

These links cover one person's research, the same person as the parent article, via press releases seeking controversy and attention for his commercial work. His work doesn't appear to have been desk-drawered or self-censored.

kyrieeschaton 6y ago
He delayed publication for years (in the proverbial desk drawer) while he attempted to develop a positive and politically acceptable spin on the results (self censorship). He is also probably one of the top ten most prestiguous living social scientists. Consider the incentives of researchers with less accumulated social capital who are far easier to attack for their findings.
dudeman13 6y ago
Holding on to publishing the results because you don't like the political consequences sounds like self-censorship to me
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  It's "self-censorship" no more than I am self-censoring myself right now, in this comment. Reinvigorating your old work for publication, once you have a commercially viable avenue to promote it, is pretty average capitalism. Plenty of work that is politically awkward is published under a strict pseudonym. This wasn't - and the author's position is that it was their choice not to publish.