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Absolutely absurd, and shows how politicized by the state, and its official ideology, science has become. It reminds me of this example of life immitating sati

Absolutely absurd, and shows how politicized by the state, and its official ideology, science has become. It reminds me of this example of life immitating satire: https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1421619700312809473?s=20 https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/142161970031280947...

nefitty 5y ago
This is sort of like when doctors prescribe ibuprofen without explaining the research backing their decision. Are these decisions based on research or purely ideology? I'm starting to see my faith in these institutions erode at an alarming rate. The other day I rewatched an old episode of Bullshit, and it turns out smoking bans in the early 2000's were predicated on bad science. There was no significant evidence that second hand smoke causes cancer. Throw in COVID, political correctness, Omicron and the reproducibility crisis hitting cancer research and I'm suddenly feeling really fucking alone on the plane of authority.
- adolph 5y ago
  > suddenly feeling really fucking alone on the plane of authority. Maybe you are in fact alone on a plane you call authority.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    To clarify, I meant that as a figure of speech. As in, there's different contexts of reality that individuals can look to, for example family, work, etc. On my personal view of the context of authority figures, it seems to be more and more vacant as time goes on. I did not mean I'm physically in an airplane. Sorry for the mix up.
    - adolph 5y ago
      In terms of ways of understanding described in David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity” you are on a path that may lead to understanding the world more clearly. Relativism The misconception that statements cannot be objectively true or false, but can be judged only relative to some cultural or other arbitrary standard. Instrumentalism The misconception that science cannot describe reality, only predict outcomes of observations. Justificationism The misconception that knowledge can be genuine or reliable only if it is justified by some source or criterion. Fallibilism The recognition that there are no authoritative sources of knowledge, nor any reliable means of justifying knowledge as true or probable.
bytelines 5y ago
>Human geneticists have mostly abandoned the word “race” when describing populations in their papers, according to a new study of research published in a leading genetics journal. That’s in line with the current scientific understanding that race is a social construct, and a welcome departure from research that in the past has often conflated genetic variation and racial categories, says Vence Bonham, a social scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute who led the study. >But alternative terms that have gained popularity, such as “ancestry” and “ethnicity,” can have ambiguous meanings or aren’t defined by genetics, suggesting researchers are still struggling to find the words to accurately describe groups delineated by their DNA, according to the study. >In the 19th and 20th centuries, many geneticists embraced the idea that there were races, such as “Negroid” or “Caucasian,” that were distinct biological groups; such “race science” helped perpetuate discrimination and inequality. Which part of this is absurd, exactly?
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Race as a category is incredibly useful for science, and using it is standard practice in forsensic investigations for example.
  - bytelines 5y ago
    > Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Source?
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      From 2007, when this dogma was still not dominant across the scientific disciplines: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 >>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and anthropologists at four northeastern universities. Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint. Moreover, this research shows that the usual “constructionist” versus “essentialist” dichotomy a blunt tool for characterizing the debate about race; a third platform—“antiessentialism”—must be taken into account. Recognizing antiessentialist discourse calls for a reevaluation of prior research that emphasizes socioeconomic status and professional affiliation as influences on interviewees' concepts of race; this project demonstrates that such tectors do little to distinguish essentialist from antiessentialist veiwpoints. The very fact that this satire account repeatedly predicts the course taken by the scientific and academic establishment tells us that ideology is the dominant guiding force of the process: https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1339977959508226048?s=20 https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/133997795950822604...

nefitty 5y ago

This is sort of like when doctors prescribe ibuprofen without explaining the research backing their decision. Are these decisions based on research or purely ideology? I'm starting to see my faith in these institutions erode at an alarming rate. The other day I rewatched an old episode of Bullshit, and it turns out smoking bans in the early 2000's were predicated on bad science. There was no significant evidence that second hand smoke causes cancer. Throw in COVID, political correctness, Omicron and the reproducibility crisis hitting cancer research and I'm suddenly feeling really fucking alone on the plane of authority.

adolph 5y ago
> suddenly feeling really fucking alone on the plane of authority. Maybe you are in fact alone on a plane you call authority.
- nefitty 5y ago
  To clarify, I meant that as a figure of speech. As in, there's different contexts of reality that individuals can look to, for example family, work, etc. On my personal view of the context of authority figures, it seems to be more and more vacant as time goes on. I did not mean I'm physically in an airplane. Sorry for the mix up.
  - adolph 5y ago
    In terms of ways of understanding described in David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity” you are on a path that may lead to understanding the world more clearly. Relativism The misconception that statements cannot be objectively true or false, but can be judged only relative to some cultural or other arbitrary standard. Instrumentalism The misconception that science cannot describe reality, only predict outcomes of observations. Justificationism The misconception that knowledge can be genuine or reliable only if it is justified by some source or criterion. Fallibilism The recognition that there are no authoritative sources of knowledge, nor any reliable means of justifying knowledge as true or probable.

bytelines 5y ago

>Human geneticists have mostly abandoned the word “race” when describing populations in their papers, according to a new study of research published in a leading genetics journal. That’s in line with the current scientific understanding that race is a social construct, and a welcome departure from research that in the past has often conflated genetic variation and racial categories, says Vence Bonham, a social scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute who led the study. >But alternative terms that have gained popularity, such as “ancestry” and “ethnicity,” can have ambiguous meanings or aren’t defined by genetics, suggesting researchers are still struggling to find the words to accurately describe groups delineated by their DNA, according to the study. >In the 19th and 20th centuries, many geneticists embraced the idea that there were races, such as “Negroid” or “Caucasian,” that were distinct biological groups; such “race science” helped perpetuate discrimination and inequality. Which part of this is absurd, exactly?

CryptoPunk 5y ago
Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Race as a category is incredibly useful for science, and using it is standard practice in forsensic investigations for example.
- bytelines 5y ago
  > Race being a social construct is an idea of social justice ideology, not of science. Source?
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    From 2007, when this dogma was still not dominant across the scientific disciplines: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20832348 >>Sociological literature frequently claims that scientists across the disciplinary spectrum have arrived at the common conclusion that race is socially constructed, not biologically anchored. I investigate contemporary scientific thinking about race by interviewing more than 40 biologists and anthropologists at four northeastern universities. Contrary to sociologists' expectations, racial constructionism is revealed to be a minority viewpoint. Moreover, this research shows that the usual “constructionist” versus “essentialist” dichotomy a blunt tool for characterizing the debate about race; a third platform—“antiessentialism”—must be taken into account. Recognizing antiessentialist discourse calls for a reevaluation of prior research that emphasizes socioeconomic status and professional affiliation as influences on interviewees' concepts of race; this project demonstrates that such tectors do little to distinguish essentialist from antiessentialist veiwpoints. The very fact that this satire account repeatedly predicts the course taken by the scientific and academic establishment tells us that ideology is the dominant guiding force of the process: https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1339977959508226048?s=20 https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/133997795950822604...