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Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexi

Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. [..] Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication. "The teachings of the Church must not be undermined by heliocentrism or evolution research, so findings in those areas will be strictly filtered for heresy before publication. But those findings that support the Church will be permitted, and loudly trumpeted as scientific proof of our dogma."

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
Well connected - and I think this comparison is becoming more apt each passing day. These statements and policies are just so… egotistical… for lack of a better word. What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? How can you claim to respect all humans when you don’t respect the human cognitive ability to disagree? Thanks for posting.
- anon291 4y ago
  Exactly, the process of applying scientific results to human society falls well within the realm of politics. We should not allow scientific bureaucrats to have a say in the kinds of policies implemented, but rather limit their contribution to answering empirical questions based on inquiries presented by actual politicians.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    Which minority making up 13% of the population ... One can lie with facts quite easily. It used to be that liberals could explain this. Somehow in the last 10 years the current crop of policy leaders decided this is too hard to explain so instead we would ban wrong think and everything will be hunky dory. This has lead to such hilarious things as people publicly saying how thankful they are to have 4 jabs and getting covid: https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1559145992594784256 https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1559145992594784256 after saying the vaccines are 100% effective: https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1377618480527257606 https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1377618480527257606
- blueflow 4y ago
  > What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? Did we ever agree? I always felt like Democracy is some kind of status quo between the incompatible.
  - brightball 4y ago
    In the 90s before mass internet adoption, it sure felt like it. We had disagreements, but nothing compared to what we see today.
    - forbiddenvoid 4y ago
      I don't think this is true. I think a lot of people were insulated from information that created a perception for them that those disagreements didn't exist. A lot of people are surprised to find out that people who don't live near them don't share their values.
      - brightball 4y ago
        Oh, that was always true. It just wasn’t possible for those people to spend all day yelling at each other for it. The context of the disagreements was largely limited to newspapers and politicians. Some assumption of professionalism, editing and journalistic integrity was included with nationwide dialogues. The internet, Twitter, political amplification, bot amplification, media consolidation, etc have made it 1000x worse. Before, you could disagree on a topic and go about your day. Now you are beaten over the head with every topic constantly to remind you how much you disagree with it.
        forbiddenvoid 4y ago
        Some people could disagree on a topic and go about their day. That isn't true for everyone. One person's disagreement is another person's human rights. A lot of people prefer the comfort of ignorance to the discomfort of that knowledge.
        4y ago
- mgoldstein5 4y ago
- silicon2401 4y ago
  > What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? "We" always agree on what the good is. If YOU don't agree, well, we'll have to sort that out, won't we?
  - 0xChain 4y ago
- fatherzine 4y ago
  Q: What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? A. I am right and you are evil. Age old conflict resolution method.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    He with the biggest gun wins. Now I'm not exactly sure why the side which is currently stoking the culture war is also the one that's disarmed itself, but here we are.
    - landryraccoon 4y ago
      I’m curious, I genuinely dont know what sides you’re talking about. Who do you think is stoking the culture war?
      - worthless-trash 4y ago
        Those repeating the mantra.
        pc86 4y ago
        I see folks across the political spectrum all repeating different mantras. Who are you referring to?
        worthless-trash 4y ago
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        Which side is currently trying to make science fit their world view?
- hilbert42 4y ago
  In philosophy good is known as a simple notion, that is it cannot be reduced further. We cannot define its length, breadth etc., even adding very or little to it doesn't put a measure on it. Saying '0.5' or '10%' of good is essentially meaningless. Good and bad, etc. are metaphysical constructs and thus we have a fundamental problem when using these terms in connection with Science which intrinsically and inextricability measurement-driven. We need to be very careful using these terms when we're referring to or discussing Science and scientific research or conflict will be inevitable.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > In philosophy good is known as a simple notion, that is it cannot be reduced further That is the position of some philosophers – it is G. E. Moore's famous doctrine that the good is simple, undefinable, irreducible to anything non-ethical – which Moore defended through his "open question argument", a staple of undergraduate introductory courses on the philosophy of ethics. However, it is worth pointing out that far from all philosophers agree with that position–indeed, my armchair impression is that, in contemporary academic philosophy, objectors to Moore's position outnumber his supporters. > Saying '0.5' or '10%' of good is essentially meaningless. That's another topic of philosophical dispute. Many classical utilitarians were quite convinced it was meaningful to speak in that way – hence Jeremy Bentham's felicific calculus. I believe that approach has few supporters in contemporary philosophy – but, while there is widespread agreement it is a failure, there is far less agreement on exactly why. And, Bentham's felicific calculus is not entirely dead – outside of philosophy, it is the direct intellectual ancestor of the economist's utility function.
    - hilbert42 4y ago
      Having been brought up on G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica not to mention the work of Russell and Whitehead I'd have to say what I said as a first-pass comment. However I agree with you, things are never quite as simple as they seem when one grinds them fine, also time and ideas move on. In discussions such as this I like to use the analogy of Newton's Laws of Motion which after hundreds of years still work well for 'everyday' use but they're all but useless in other endeavors such as our phones' GPS - to get there we had to progress through Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics to Relativity over several hundred years. The same applies to philosophy and philosophical argument and it's why I find it so interesting. As you're aware, like other disciplines, philosophy is built on earlier work - from the Ancient Greeks through Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume and so on, so it's not unreasonable to expect philosophy to have moved on from G.E. Moore's time. Nevertheless, I had to start somewhere and Moore's points are reasonably relevant. In the light of modern-day thinking it's not unreasonable to examine Bentham's and Mills' ideas and philosophers should continue to do this no matter the era they're working in. That said, it's not a matter of discarding old ideas but that of refinement. we cannot deprecate utilitarianism ideas without taking into account what they have contributed to both philosophy and to the world in a practical sense - as clearly all modern cities incorporate utilitarian principles to varying degrees. If we are to deprecate them then we must give explicit arguments for doing so. As you correctly point out we should question Bentham's felicific calculus and similarly I'd add to that the then notion of measuring 'happiness' in units of utiles and 'unhappiness' in even less familiar disutiles. It made sense to use these calculi in Bentham's time. Then the conceptual framework encapsulating the notion of utility would have been better understood and appeared more useful if there were ways to measure the effectiveness of its outcomes. Nowadays we've moved on for reasons too complex to discuss here and I won't mention them as they will be familiar to you. Anyone who would insist in trying to do quantitative measurements in this now-simplistic and anachronistic framework would seen a little daft. So quo vadis? Let's look at a parallel: physics has moved on from the Newton's comparatively simple notion of force to the more sophisticated useful concepts of energy and momentum, similarly so too has philosophy but unlike physics, it has yet to come to any widely accepted conclusions in this particular matter. I believe Bentham and Mills were on the right track however, they were bedeviled in their efforts (as we still are) to 'quantify' abstract notions - those that we're taking about here. Putting a 'measure' on abstract notions is needed if we're to put them to practical use in the real world. (Perhaps we should wheel in A.J. Ayer or his modern cohorts here for we've a language/nomenclature problem: people need to have a comprehensive understanding of any new language - i.e.: the meaning of any new definitions.) Thus, for this purpose, it seems logical to me to separate the 'theoretical' approach of Moore, Russell, Whitehead et al from this new thought, and it needs to be a radical break. Berkeley's questioning the existence of the quad's tree or Russell's questioning the reality of the table at which he's sitting through doubts about the viability of his sense datum have no place here. (Physicists didn't make progress in QFT (part of Quantum Mechanics) until they learned to solve seemingly intractable math issues such as 'infinites' (akin to dividing by zero). This was a damned hard effort and took many years but it only came about after they recognized the need for a solution was essential if they were to make further progress. It's clear to me philosophy has problems of this nature and magnitude and the subject we're discussing here is one of the most significant of them.) Why is this important you may well ask. Because the world's in a mess and that's because society's also in a horrible mess - the Nature article which we're responding to here illustrates the point. Our ethics are all over the place, values and value systems are no longer consistent as they were once were when the Church ruled our lives, and so on. And we desperately need a coherent, realistic and practical responses from philosophy/philosophers. Simply, the profession isn't leading the way as it ought to be, it should have been much more proactive decades ago and taken the leadership after the churches vacated their traditional role. What worries me about the second part of your response isn't that philosophers are questioning the empiricist reasoning of the likes of Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, etc. or Moore's Principia Ethica for that's what philosophers do, rather it's the milieu in which they're now operating which is seemingly putting strictures on what they do. Like fashion, a set of cultural boundary conditions is determining what they actually do in practice. (BTW, I accept with Academia in the horrible state it's currently in at present that challenge is more than unusually difficult.) There's more than a hint of postmodernism in your response. That's not a criticism of you the messenger but rather it's echoing my concern that we no longer have time to luxuriate in many of postmodernism's excesses. Simply, time is desperately short, philosophers must be proactive now. You only have to read the posts to this story on HN to realize the diversity of opinion and the lack of agreement and cohestion in respect of core values amongst this group. Outside this community views will be even more diverse.
eli_gottlieb 4y ago
>research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. Do these people think there are motherfucking X-Men living among us who we want to save from stigma? These kinds of statements read like the authors don't actually believe people are meaningfully equal.
- dcow 4y ago
  Exactly. What happens when some research may feel socially dirty but is actually a huge boon to some group? I can’t stand the privilege required to say you know better for some other group. Let groups of people stand up for themselves and call out BS when they see it. How can the hegemony possibly understand the feelings of minority groups?
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  > Do these people think there are motherfucking X-Men living among us In fact, there are. You know, we all have genetic differences, and most studies do not account for these genetic differences. So a medicine that helps one person might cause drug induced Lupus in another. Lithium is a good example of this stigma. I have Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder and Lithium is constantly forces on me even though it does not work. I am what they call a "Lithium Non-Responder" and this has bee shown to be linked to varying genetics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814312/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814312/ The stigma is that researchers still think there is only one genetic human. And what do you think the X-Men was about? It was about genetic difference and mental health. It is about trying to have people see that we have value that others cannot see because all they see is the illness.
  - implements 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbamazepine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbamazepine can be effective for those for whom Lithium is ineffective or causes adverse reactions.
immigrantheart 4y ago
Seems that they show their true colors.
setgree 4y ago
> In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication. I see a counterfactual claim ("may outweigh") and therefore an opportunity for some causal identification, i.e. a scientific answer! An RCT would be ideal, but we might also look to the literature on attitude change in general to see how new information impacts discourse and attitudes. Here's a few things off the top of my head: * https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/692739 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/692739 * https://alexandercoppock.com/graham_coppock_2021.html https://alexandercoppock.com/graham_coppock_2021.html * https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-071620-030619 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-... I think that in general, researchers find racial/prejudicial attitudes very resistant to change, either in an anti-prejudicial or "confirm my existing biases" direction...
dcow 4y ago
Moreover, how can any of these be enforced, and by whom? At least you know who your church authority figures are and who to criticize. Where do we even start if we let Twitter outrage decide whether science is potentially harmful and should be allowed or not? This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled.
- Enginerrrd 4y ago
  >This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled. I hate to make the comparison because it's such a trope, but, IMO this is one of the most insidious things the Nazis did to indoctrinate the population: They did things like send people into schools and they would cherry-pick the weakest, least intelligent, least-liked Jewish kid they could find and set him alongside the most athletic, attractive, smart, well-liked Aryan looking kid. They'd bring them both up in front of the class and from that point on, they'd use "scientific" discussion and observation of their qualities to convince the kids that the Aryan kids were superior in every way. I'll tell you what, I was a pretty savy independent thinker and empathetic kid, but I really think I might have fallen for that type of technique, masquerading as science.
  - SubiculumCode 4y ago
    and this is, if you read the actual guidelines proposed, exactly what they are guarding against: inappropriate overgeneralization.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - timr 4y ago
      Guarding against overgeneralization is not something we need new scientific heresy rules to prevent. It's already part of being a good scientist. It's also a subjective bar, and adding "inappropriate" to that makes it entirely fungible. Moreover, I've spent the last 2+ years horrified by how willing "scientists" have been to generalize to wild real-world conclusions from miniscule data based on Twitter outrage, so I have zero faith that a board of clerics is going to use these rules with magnanimity. Whichever political faction that controls the board will be tempted to define "inappropriate" to mean "whatever conclusion we don't like". Just to make it concrete: run an RCT that shows that masks don't have any effect on Covid transmission? Good luck getting that published in a top journal, even today. With these new rules, literally anyone who doesn't like the conclusions will claim that the result is an "overgeneralization". There will be no study large enough to satisfy the clerisy...unless The Science says something approved, of course. --- Edit: and lest you think I am exaggerating with my example, consider the following, directly quoted from the new guidelines: > Harms can also arise indirectly, as a result of the publication of a research project or a piece of scholarly communication – for instance, stigmatization of a vulnerable human group or potential use of the results of research for unintended purposes (e.g., public policies that undermine human rights or misuse of information to threaten public health). They're literally saying that they're open to censoring research that might be "misused" to "threaten public health". And they've defined it broadly enough that pretty much anything that displeases "a vulnerable human group" can be covered. Convenient.
UnpossibleJim 4y ago
>>Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication<< Are they really advocating for self censorship in the sciences? And when the whims of societal taste turn or, God forbid (and yes, I put this with all irony intended), Twitter decides it doesn't like an opinion for five minutes... does science self censor then as well?
- rrauenza 4y ago
  David Shor was ostracized for presenting this research: https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow... > Shor, citing research by Princeton political scientist Omar Wasow, suggested that these incidents could prompt a political backlash that would help President Donald Trump’s bid for reelection. At the same time, he noted that, historically, nonviolent protests had been effective at driving political change “mainly by encouraging warm elite discourse and media coverage.”
  - UnpossibleJim 4y ago
    If people are truly worried about electing people like Donald Trump they'll broaden education and, in particular, education in the hard sciences like maths and computer science to bolster critical thinking and logic. At that point we won't elect reality show hucksters who blatantly lie and foment sedition.
    - nradov 4y ago
      And yet a surprising number of violent terrorists have engineering degrees. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-sociology-archives-europeennes-de-sociologie/article/why-are-there-so-many-engineers-among-islamic-radicals/91ED8BEFDE3793834667750B31575422# https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-...
      - UnpossibleJim 4y ago
haunter 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
bjt2n3904 4y ago
Science must always report the truth. What was the old saying? "That which can be destroyed by truth, should be"? Whenever science attempts to prop up political regimes by obscuring the truth, then tragedy and travesty occurs.
- nomel 4y ago
  > Science must always report the truth. The only way I can interpret their statement is that harmful truths actually do exist, they're known, but we must ignore them.
  - nomel 4y ago
    It's this, or they know it will eventually be. Otherwise, why would this be needed?
bergenty 4y ago
There is a difference here. One was to maintain the power of a theocracy while the other is to protect the lives of individuals. Is it the right course of action? I don’t know but the motivations are definitely not analogous.
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  Salvation of every last immortal human soul was a deep and abiding concern of the church. A lot more so than the "woke" of today who would happily brand newborn babies of the wrong color into oppression hierarchies.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  The stated, overt goal of that theocracy was to save the souls of individuals. I’m not sure this distinction is as real as you state.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  A theocracy is nothing more then a "protect the rights of individuals" for contract safety (marriage), primitive justice and against more then absolute ruler overreach, going heywire and corrupt. This whole machine will reincarnate again and again though. With fairytale or without, the part of society not trusting the judical system to uphold contracts and social safety, will make there voices heard in pseudo religion after pseudo religion. Let me venture into the testable area. I venture the guess, that the more reliable and longer existing a states social safety net is, the more religion will be absent from its society. It should also corellate with reliability of the justice system.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
> "The teachings of the Church must not be undermined by heliocentrism or evolution research, so findings in those areas will be strictly filtered for heresy before publication." This is actually a bit of a historical myth that due to anti-religious bias prevails widely. Contrary to widespread belief, the works of Charles Darwin were never on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books, nor did the Catholic Church ever state that Evolution as a theory could not be believed, but rather emphasized that a few specific theological events (a garden in which man fell) must remain, though the lead-up to those events was not rigidly defined. This is also why a Catholic priest is responsible for the Big Bang theory. As for heliocentrism, this is also baloney as it was initially proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, who was not censored for his beliefs[1], and also served as a Catholic canon (religious member but not necessarily a priest). This idea was backed by Galileo using astronomy, however, Galileo was tried for writings other than his heliocentrism that were arguably heretical (including attacks on the Pope within his work) and not necessarily for the heliocentric view itself, as seen by the Church making Copernicus mandatory reading in some universities for astronomy courses. [1] The Roman Inquisition would later censor it for a short time, however, their main requirement was that it definitions be changed from fact to theory, and the Roman Inquisition actually used 13 mathematical arguments of their own from the astronomer Tycho Brahe, versus only 4 theological ones. The Spanish Inquisition never censored the book. Even though Brahe was later proven incorrect in his arguments, he was still one of the most accurate astronomers of the era, and Johannes Kepler (of the Kepler Space Telescope fame) would later use his measurements to create the 3 planetary laws of motion. In any event, it would appear that this censorship of Copernicus requiring revisions before publications was due to Copernicus' overconfidence in potentially erroneous mathematics, rather than a theological dispute.
- phaistra 4y ago
  Can you provide some books or links if so that I can read up on these misconceptions?
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    Try here for a purely academic overview (no religious Catholic websites or other "biased" commentators for this), that was also very recent. There are plenty of other sources, but this was just what I found first that was academic in scope. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_7 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_... I would also recommend reading about Nicolas Copernicus (geocentrism before Galileo), as well as Georges Lemaître (Catholic Priest who had idea for Big Bang), and Gregor Mendel (before Evolution, experiments with Genetics). Example: "In Spain, new cosmological discoveries and ideas were discussed at both the universities and at the Casa and Consejo. For example, Jerónimo Muñoz (ca. 1520–1591), who taught astronomy and mathematics at the universities of Valencia and Salamanca, was one of the many European scientists to observe and write about the supernova of 1572. For Muñoz, the supernova challenged the Aristotelian notion that change was impossible in the celestial realm. In some of his unpublished work and letters to other European astronomers like Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), he espoused an understanding of the relationship between the celestial and terrestrial realms drawn from Stoic philosophers. He denied the existence of celestial orbs and instead asserted that the planets moved through the heavens like birds through the air or fish through the water. He also discussed Nicolaus Copernicus’ (1473–1543) heliocentric system with his students, although he did not endorse it (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 57). In fact, as Victor Navarro-Brotóns has shown, “the work of Copernicus circulated freely in sixteenth-century Spain, where its technical and empirical aspects were greatly admired and used” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63). In 1561, the statutes of the University of Salamanca specified that in the second year of the astronomy course the professor must teach either “the Almagest of Ptolemy, or its Epitome by Regiomontanus, or Geber, or Copernicus,” and that the students could vote on which text they wanted (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 55). In 1594, these statutes were amended and the teaching of Copernicus was made mandatory, no longer subject to the vote of the students (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59). The 1594, statutes were reproduced with no change in 1625, despite the prohibition of Copernicus’ work by the Roman Inquisition in 1616 (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 60). In fact, De revolutionibus was “never placed on any Spanish Inquisitorial index” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63), which does not mean Spanish astronomers were free to adopt heliocentrism but does indicate that it was possible to teach and discuss Copernicus in Spanish universities. As Navarro-Brotóns notes, only one Spanish scholar, Diego de Zúñiga (1536–1597), is known to have actually endorsed the Copernican system. Others used the Prutenic tables, which were calculated using Copernicus’ mathematical models, and other parameters drawn from De revolutionibus, in much the same way that Copernicus was taught at the University of Wittenberg (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59; Westman 1975). Finally, interest in Copernicus spread outside universities, because the Prutenic tables and other technical aspects of Copernicus’ work had applications in navigation. For example, Juan Cedillo Diaz (ca. 1560–1625), who studied at Salamanca and became chief cosmographer at the Consejo de Indias and professor at the Mathematical Academy in Seville in 1611, made a free Spanish translation of the first three books of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus sometime between 1620 and 1625 (Granada and Crespo 2019; Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63; Esteban Piñeiro and Gómez Crespo 1991)."
al_mandi 4y ago
I'm a person of faith. At the same time, we point out that the religion of "scientism" exists whether people admit it or not, especially when they claim that they "believe in science". Correct faith and science are not contradictory. And those people mix up belief in the unseen with blind faith without proof or evidence.
- teawrecks 4y ago
  I think your view on this is being influenced by the limitations of the language you're using. When a religious person says they "believe" something, it means they operate as if it were true even though they have no evidence to indicate it as such (a.k.a. the god of the gaps). When a scientist says they "believe" something, it means all evidence gathered so far indicates that it is true, but if more data comes in and a different conclusion is drawn, then the belief should be abandoned. These are two entirely different concepts, but in English we tend to just say "believe". The scientific "belief" is more akin to a mathematical theorem: - if X, then Y - All data indicates X is probably true, so for now I believe Y. - New data indicates X is probably false, so I no longer believe Y. And of course when you're engineering something, it's not that simple because you need contingencies. X may have a 99% chance of being true, but you still need to have a plan for for that 1% case. None of this is something that religion considers whatsoever; with religion, a belief is true and anything contrary to that belief is considered false, even if that thing is a measurement of reality itself. There are still huge swaths of people who believe a person thousands of years ago was immaculately conceived, walked on water, turned water into wine, all things that you and I know are inconsistent with reality. But all contrary evidence simply doesn't matter, the "belief" remains. This is the antithesis of science.
  - humanrebar 4y ago
    > When a religious person says they "believe" something, it means they operate as if it were true even though they have no evidence to indicate it as such (a.k.a. the god of the gaps). In practice religious (or spiritual) people are a rather diverse bunch and it's not all that helpful to paint with too broad of a brush. I will point out that in at least Christian theology, "faith" and "trust" are basically synonyms. In the original Greek of the New Testament, it's literally the same word. In that sense, making choices based on trust in God or making decisions based on trust in science are really fairly similar. And quite often they're not contradictory either. For example, both science and scriptures say worrying is bad for you, so someone can try to minimize worry based on faith in science and faith in scripture simultaneously. I'll also point out that a lot of the "scientific" objections to religions boil down to metaphysical disagreements about the nature of observation of the nature of a (notional, at least) deity. I put "scientific" in scare quotes because science itself only makes sense given some assumptions, like the axiom that it's reasonable to assume things do not exist until it's definitely proven they do. That's a valid opinion, but it's not scientific as such. Another common assumption is that a creator and a fossil record (for instance) are somehow incompatible. As if a creator can create the cosmos but a fossil record is a bit much somehow. Anyway, I think folks would find each other more thoughtful and reasonable if they'd take some time to listen more. There are lots of misconceptions in all directions in these discussions.
silicon2401 4y ago
Beautifully put. What I loved about science growing up is that it valued truth and knowledge (or such was the impression I had of science in history). If someone argues for self-censoring truth/knowledge to avoid XYZ values today, they would've been the same people to argue self-censoring the truth about heliocentrism yesterday. It's a tragedy to see science fall prey to dogmatism and I hope we can see some kind of new field emerge that has the courage to pursue truth first and worry about implications second.
teawrecks 4y ago
The first part is just basic science: don't draw generalized conclusions from data that was poorly sampled. But I agree the second part is questionable. Scientists shouldn't decide whether something is right or wrong. They just conduct experiments, gather data, draw conclusions, and share the results. Obviously they should consider the ethical impacts of conducting their experiments, but beyond that, all valid conclusions should be welcome.
antiquark 4y ago
> ableist This seems like an implicit denial that people can have different abilities.
- warning26 4y ago
  Yeah I never really got the whole "ableist" thing; for example, obviously someone who can't see is less capable of performing visual tasks than someone who can. Does that mean shipping a device with a screen is ableist because not everyone can take advantage of the fact that it has a screen?
  - userbinator 4y ago
    Unfortunately that is really how some of these people (don't) think. There's even dystopian sci-fi with that theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron The worst part is that they've infected organisations who have huge amounts of power over the population.
  - bcrosby95 4y ago
    I know many people that are sensitive on this issue and none of them would call that ableist. I'm sure they exist but focusing on the extremes of a movement don't do anyone any favors For example, most people on this site are a fan of open source. How would they feel if anytime the subject came up people talked only about the ideas of Stallman?
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      > I know many people that are sensitive on this issue and none of them would call that ableist. I think this overton window keeps shifting and there is no one courageous to say "No, this is unreasonable". It is not just happening in this one instance but the entire culture; we have now instituted things like "birthing persons". We can't even call "Fathers" and "Mothers" anymore. We are too coward to speak up and risk our jobs. The chilling effect is real. This house of cards is going to fall hard and fast.
armchairhacker 4y ago
This reminds me of the short story in “I, Robot” (Asimov) about the robot who could read people’s minds. The robots in that world were hard-coded to be incapable of injury humans, and the mind-reading robot considered emotional damage “injury”. Of course the robot got into a paradox where it had to hurt someone’s feelings, so it just…died.
- deleted 4y ago
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- pryce 4y ago
  Perhaps it's wise for everyone to carefully distinguish physical injury versus emotional damage. Perhaps it is true that we can tie ourselves into knots if we treat emotional damage as completely equivalent to physical injury. And, perhaps also, notorious serial sexual harassers groping apparently hundreds of women (such as our man Asimov) have something of a vested interested in teaching us all that emotional damage in important ways doesn't count. What's interesting to me, revisiting Asimov after medical school, is that we are unable to create a workable definition of pain that is absent an emotional component. This is of course not to claim there are no important ways that physical violence and non-physical emotional harm differ.
abeppu 4y ago
I think that's a pretty unreasonable comparison. There's a difference between religious dogma which makes claims about reality, and norms or ethics. Discrimination and harm as discussed in this document isn't about factual findings, but is about "superiority or inferiority of one human group over another" (i.e. a value judgement), "the rights and dignities of an individual or human group" (i.e. social norms and conventions), "text or images that ... disparage" (again, value judgement), "embody singular, privileged perspectives" (an issue of viewpoint, not disagreement about facts in reality). None of these prevent researchers from sharing their evidence-based conclusions, only the projection of value, status, dignity, or privilege onto those findings. As a society, we can agree to be civil, respectful and uphold particular values while we investigate objective reality. Trying to claim that an ethical stance for non-discrimination is equivalent to creationism or geocentrism is making type error; one makes claims about norms and how we should behave, and one makes claims about how the world works whether irrespective of our beliefs or behavior.
- elefanten 4y ago
  But that’s not what the quoted text is saying. It’s saying research whose outcomes could be “harmful” (where the definition of “harmful” is very broad) may have harms that “outweigh” the benefits… implying it shouldn’t be done. And now you’ve attached a high leverage handle to research allocation/gatekeeping and put it in deeply politicized hands that don’t care about the research.
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    The difference between your two takes appears to be a Motte and Bailey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy The question isn't whether abeppu's stance is valid, the question is: does their stance fully encompass the argument. elefanten appears to be suggesting abeppu's stance is a Motte - that they're arguing a more defensible position (you shouldn't be able to publish research claiming one race is superior to another) rather than the real Bailey (anything deemed "harmful" can be filtered from scientific literature). The difference between these two arguments is pretty significant.
stonogo 4y ago
This strikes me as an incredibly bad faith interpretation of the article. I do not understand how this widespread determination to pretend that scientific research is "just another religion" got so popular but I do understand the practical effect is to convince people that their superstitions are as valuable as research, which is just going to lead to another Dark Ages. Nevertheless, your immediate leap to political conspiricy is tiring, irrelevant, and ultimately pointless. Science (as in organized, rigorous research efforts) has had a problem with respecting human rights for most of its history. This ethical guidance is here to prevent horrible shit like the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Operation Upshot-Knothole downwinders, the CDC Tuskegee Study, and so forth. The sociopathic robots who believe that research must ignore human dignity in order to be valid are not correct. There is still room in research to treat human beings like human beings, regardless of the destructive paranoia currently en vogue on web forums.
slothtrop 4y ago
Indeed. I'm tired of paradigmatic nonsense. Scott Alexander had a good piece about that relatively recently.
rowanG077 4y ago
Very frightening that something like this is posted on Nature.com. Burying the truth because it might be inconvenient.
jwarden 4y ago
The statement from Nature has been very carefully worded. The quote in the parent comment seems to suggest that perfectly valid scientific findings should be withheld if there is a possibility that bad people would misuse them. The consequence of this of course would be a complete victory of "Blank Slate"[1] Dogma (because any scientific finding that finds differences between social groups could be misused to undermine the human rights of one group). And yet the statement never quite explicitly says findings should be withheld only because they could be misused. Rather it says that research that contains contain hate speech, etc. should perhaps not be published. It says authors should consider the potential harm of their research, and so on. The intended result I think is a sort of chilling effect with plausible deniability. It pleases the inquisition, and at the same time leaves the scientists with a remainder of self-respect. I am not sure how long this delicate truce can last. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate
- Retric 4y ago
  “Researchers should be free to pursue lines of inquiry and the communication of knowledge and ideas without fear of repression or censorship. At the same time, they have the ethical obligation to uphold intellectual integrity and avoid preventable harms that may arise in the course of research or its communication.” Alternatively, it could be saying a lot of bullshit gets published because people are incentivized to publish crap research (see replication crisis). So, if you know it’s crap and it’s also likely to be harmful perhaps consider before you publish it. And that’s the thing, if you assume the worst interpretation possible you can be offended by anything.
  - dcow 4y ago
    My charitable interpretation is that Nature is just reminding the academic community that you can’t research social constructs because they’re all made up and the points don’t matter, use more “scientific” terms, plz. But then why write what was wrote? Why build up a “science can be socially harmful” thesis and then argue that may and could should govern is and does? Science should always be accurate. Nature didn't just learn this, that’s been the status quo all along. The only reasonable interpretation is that Nature is defending a change. To your example: you don't need social constructs to explain the replication crisis (“studies that leverage socially constructed ideas can be replicable). You don’t need social harm either (non-replicable studies that are socially good exist). You said it best yourself: if you assume the worst interpretation possible, you can be offended by anything. Nature is asking researchers to assume the worst interpretation of their results and, if it would be socially harmful, please not to publish them. And BTW you were wrong to ask the question in the first place since social constructs are post modern and reject western liberal interrogation.
pryce 4y ago
This alarmist comparison of yours would impress basically no one who has studied in relevant fields, such as bioethics. The relationship between ethics and research has a fascinating and sobering history, one full of richness, horror, and a good deal of quiet ego shattering awe at all the multitude of different ways of being human we have previously organised to eradicate. The calls you see for greater attention to be paid to ethics in research are not coming from a sense of obsequioous piety and genuflection toward establishment interests wielding political power, but the exact opposite—a call to consider the effects on groups not wielding power, such as different minorities—and obscuring this crucial difference, the way your analogy does, comes pretty close to leaving your readers less informed about the issue of research ethic rigor than they were before encountering your comment. Bioethics researchers are regularly coming across questions like this one: Gay and lesbian people are no longer considered as having a disease or disorder by any reputable medical organisation, are experiencing, broadly, a widening acceptance from different societies and their governments. At the same time, there several prominent nations attempt to criminalise, suppress, ostracise and otherwise punish people for being gay or lesbian. Suppose tomorrow a set of genes are discovered that are strongly or even absolutely predictive of homosexual orientation. What would that look like for our society, when people could say have an embryological test that indicates whether their fetus is gay or not. Would we allow terminating pregnancy on the basis that the parents don't want to have a gay or lesbian child? What would the outcome of having a 'gay test' availble look like in the hands of oppressive regimes, like the Russian Federation. Would having that technology spark a literal genocide of sexual minorities there? Perhaps you feel you can dismiss this as maybe you (mistakenly or not) picture your own country as unlikely to regress to legally enabling persecution of gay or lesbian people, and think issues outside your own country don't matter. I can tell you there is basically no country in the world that people in the trans community would feel safe in, if we took my above example of 'suppose someone invented a genetic test for being gay or lesbian' and replaced that hypothetical example to detect trans people and/or gender dysphoria instead.
- trashtester 4y ago
  If a group has power to prevent other people from writing or saying things about them that they do not like, even otherwise legitimate scientific findings in a scientific journal, I would say it is proof that they DO have power. Kind of like how Putin and Xi are able to prevent citizens in their respective countries to write bad things about them. > Would we allow terminating pregnancy on the basis that the parents don't want to have a gay or lesbian child? Let's assume we're both pro choice, why should a mother be forced to carry a child in her womb that she doesn't want to give birth to? How would sexual orientation be different from having an abortion after getting pregnant because it contradicts with her vacation plans, career or maybe the father was not one she wanted to have babies with? Ok, I do know why, because it's the same as when people do not want to allow abortion when a baby is likely to have Down's syndrome or some other condition when born, as it is seen as invalidating the identity of those who already born with the same condition. In my opinion, though, as long as we prioritize the interests of the mother (lets say that most will do that at least for the first trimester), the mother should decide what conditions are justifiable for having the abortion.
refurb 4y ago
You know any time someone says "Although [academic] freedom is fundamental, it is not unbounded.", watch out! It's a common trope many use to slowly whittle away freedoms. A more accurate rephrasing would be "Your rights are all ready limited, so limiting them more shouldn't cause any concern," It's lazy thinking, because whatever limitations are in place today, have no bearing on the validity of the limitations the author is proposing - those should be viewed independently and skeptically. What people don't realize is that when your freedoms are taken away, it's not some evil dictator yanking them from your clutches and you are beaten down by armed thugs, it's you and fellow citizens willfully giving them up for "the greater good".
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ghost_of_cato 4y ago

DiggyJohnson 4y ago

Well connected - and I think this comparison is becoming more apt each passing day. These statements and policies are just so… egotistical… for lack of a better word. What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? How can you claim to respect all humans when you don’t respect the human cognitive ability to disagree? Thanks for posting.

anon291 4y ago
Exactly, the process of applying scientific results to human society falls well within the realm of politics. We should not allow scientific bureaucrats to have a say in the kinds of policies implemented, but rather limit their contribution to answering empirical questions based on inquiries presented by actual politicians.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Which minority making up 13% of the population ... One can lie with facts quite easily. It used to be that liberals could explain this. Somehow in the last 10 years the current crop of policy leaders decided this is too hard to explain so instead we would ban wrong think and everything will be hunky dory. This has lead to such hilarious things as people publicly saying how thankful they are to have 4 jabs and getting covid: https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1559145992594784256 https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1559145992594784256 after saying the vaccines are 100% effective: https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1377618480527257606 https://twitter.com/AlbertBourla/status/1377618480527257606
blueflow 4y ago
> What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? Did we ever agree? I always felt like Democracy is some kind of status quo between the incompatible.
- brightball 4y ago
  In the 90s before mass internet adoption, it sure felt like it. We had disagreements, but nothing compared to what we see today.
  - forbiddenvoid 4y ago
    I don't think this is true. I think a lot of people were insulated from information that created a perception for them that those disagreements didn't exist. A lot of people are surprised to find out that people who don't live near them don't share their values.
    - brightball 4y ago
      Oh, that was always true. It just wasn’t possible for those people to spend all day yelling at each other for it. The context of the disagreements was largely limited to newspapers and politicians. Some assumption of professionalism, editing and journalistic integrity was included with nationwide dialogues. The internet, Twitter, political amplification, bot amplification, media consolidation, etc have made it 1000x worse. Before, you could disagree on a topic and go about your day. Now you are beaten over the head with every topic constantly to remind you how much you disagree with it.
      - forbiddenvoid 4y ago
        Some people could disagree on a topic and go about their day. That isn't true for everyone. One person's disagreement is another person's human rights. A lot of people prefer the comfort of ignorance to the discomfort of that knowledge.
        4y ago
mgoldstein5 4y ago
silicon2401 4y ago
> What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? "We" always agree on what the good is. If YOU don't agree, well, we'll have to sort that out, won't we?
- 0xChain 4y ago
fatherzine 4y ago
Q: What happens when we stop agreeing on what the “good” is? A. I am right and you are evil. Age old conflict resolution method.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  He with the biggest gun wins. Now I'm not exactly sure why the side which is currently stoking the culture war is also the one that's disarmed itself, but here we are.
  - landryraccoon 4y ago
    I’m curious, I genuinely dont know what sides you’re talking about. Who do you think is stoking the culture war?
    - worthless-trash 4y ago
      Those repeating the mantra.
      - pc86 4y ago
        I see folks across the political spectrum all repeating different mantras. Who are you referring to?
        worthless-trash 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      Which side is currently trying to make science fit their world view?
hilbert42 4y ago
In philosophy good is known as a simple notion, that is it cannot be reduced further. We cannot define its length, breadth etc., even adding very or little to it doesn't put a measure on it. Saying '0.5' or '10%' of good is essentially meaningless. Good and bad, etc. are metaphysical constructs and thus we have a fundamental problem when using these terms in connection with Science which intrinsically and inextricability measurement-driven. We need to be very careful using these terms when we're referring to or discussing Science and scientific research or conflict will be inevitable.
- skissane 4y ago
  > In philosophy good is known as a simple notion, that is it cannot be reduced further That is the position of some philosophers – it is G. E. Moore's famous doctrine that the good is simple, undefinable, irreducible to anything non-ethical – which Moore defended through his "open question argument", a staple of undergraduate introductory courses on the philosophy of ethics. However, it is worth pointing out that far from all philosophers agree with that position–indeed, my armchair impression is that, in contemporary academic philosophy, objectors to Moore's position outnumber his supporters. > Saying '0.5' or '10%' of good is essentially meaningless. That's another topic of philosophical dispute. Many classical utilitarians were quite convinced it was meaningful to speak in that way – hence Jeremy Bentham's felicific calculus. I believe that approach has few supporters in contemporary philosophy – but, while there is widespread agreement it is a failure, there is far less agreement on exactly why. And, Bentham's felicific calculus is not entirely dead – outside of philosophy, it is the direct intellectual ancestor of the economist's utility function.
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    Having been brought up on G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica not to mention the work of Russell and Whitehead I'd have to say what I said as a first-pass comment. However I agree with you, things are never quite as simple as they seem when one grinds them fine, also time and ideas move on. In discussions such as this I like to use the analogy of Newton's Laws of Motion which after hundreds of years still work well for 'everyday' use but they're all but useless in other endeavors such as our phones' GPS - to get there we had to progress through Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics to Relativity over several hundred years. The same applies to philosophy and philosophical argument and it's why I find it so interesting. As you're aware, like other disciplines, philosophy is built on earlier work - from the Ancient Greeks through Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume and so on, so it's not unreasonable to expect philosophy to have moved on from G.E. Moore's time. Nevertheless, I had to start somewhere and Moore's points are reasonably relevant. In the light of modern-day thinking it's not unreasonable to examine Bentham's and Mills' ideas and philosophers should continue to do this no matter the era they're working in. That said, it's not a matter of discarding old ideas but that of refinement. we cannot deprecate utilitarianism ideas without taking into account what they have contributed to both philosophy and to the world in a practical sense - as clearly all modern cities incorporate utilitarian principles to varying degrees. If we are to deprecate them then we must give explicit arguments for doing so. As you correctly point out we should question Bentham's felicific calculus and similarly I'd add to that the then notion of measuring 'happiness' in units of utiles and 'unhappiness' in even less familiar disutiles. It made sense to use these calculi in Bentham's time. Then the conceptual framework encapsulating the notion of utility would have been better understood and appeared more useful if there were ways to measure the effectiveness of its outcomes. Nowadays we've moved on for reasons too complex to discuss here and I won't mention them as they will be familiar to you. Anyone who would insist in trying to do quantitative measurements in this now-simplistic and anachronistic framework would seen a little daft. So quo vadis? Let's look at a parallel: physics has moved on from the Newton's comparatively simple notion of force to the more sophisticated useful concepts of energy and momentum, similarly so too has philosophy but unlike physics, it has yet to come to any widely accepted conclusions in this particular matter. I believe Bentham and Mills were on the right track however, they were bedeviled in their efforts (as we still are) to 'quantify' abstract notions - those that we're taking about here. Putting a 'measure' on abstract notions is needed if we're to put them to practical use in the real world. (Perhaps we should wheel in A.J. Ayer or his modern cohorts here for we've a language/nomenclature problem: people need to have a comprehensive understanding of any new language - i.e.: the meaning of any new definitions.) Thus, for this purpose, it seems logical to me to separate the 'theoretical' approach of Moore, Russell, Whitehead et al from this new thought, and it needs to be a radical break. Berkeley's questioning the existence of the quad's tree or Russell's questioning the reality of the table at which he's sitting through doubts about the viability of his sense datum have no place here. (Physicists didn't make progress in QFT (part of Quantum Mechanics) until they learned to solve seemingly intractable math issues such as 'infinites' (akin to dividing by zero). This was a damned hard effort and took many years but it only came about after they recognized the need for a solution was essential if they were to make further progress. It's clear to me philosophy has problems of this nature and magnitude and the subject we're discussing here is one of the most significant of them.) Why is this important you may well ask. Because the world's in a mess and that's because society's also in a horrible mess - the Nature article which we're responding to here illustrates the point. Our ethics are all over the place, values and value systems are no longer consistent as they were once were when the Church ruled our lives, and so on. And we desperately need a coherent, realistic and practical responses from philosophy/philosophers. Simply, the profession isn't leading the way as it ought to be, it should have been much more proactive decades ago and taken the leadership after the churches vacated their traditional role. What worries me about the second part of your response isn't that philosophers are questioning the empiricist reasoning of the likes of Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, etc. or Moore's Principia Ethica for that's what philosophers do, rather it's the milieu in which they're now operating which is seemingly putting strictures on what they do. Like fashion, a set of cultural boundary conditions is determining what they actually do in practice. (BTW, I accept with Academia in the horrible state it's currently in at present that challenge is more than unusually difficult.) There's more than a hint of postmodernism in your response. That's not a criticism of you the messenger but rather it's echoing my concern that we no longer have time to luxuriate in many of postmodernism's excesses. Simply, time is desperately short, philosophers must be proactive now. You only have to read the posts to this story on HN to realize the diversity of opinion and the lack of agreement and cohestion in respect of core values amongst this group. Outside this community views will be even more diverse.

eli_gottlieb 4y ago

>research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics. Do these people think there are motherfucking X-Men living among us who we want to save from stigma? These kinds of statements read like the authors don't actually believe people are meaningfully equal.

dcow 4y ago
Exactly. What happens when some research may feel socially dirty but is actually a huge boon to some group? I can’t stand the privilege required to say you know better for some other group. Let groups of people stand up for themselves and call out BS when they see it. How can the hegemony possibly understand the feelings of minority groups?
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
> Do these people think there are motherfucking X-Men living among us In fact, there are. You know, we all have genetic differences, and most studies do not account for these genetic differences. So a medicine that helps one person might cause drug induced Lupus in another. Lithium is a good example of this stigma. I have Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder and Lithium is constantly forces on me even though it does not work. I am what they call a "Lithium Non-Responder" and this has bee shown to be linked to varying genetics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814312/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814312/ The stigma is that researchers still think there is only one genetic human. And what do you think the X-Men was about? It was about genetic difference and mental health. It is about trying to have people see that we have value that others cannot see because all they see is the illness.
- implements 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbamazepine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbamazepine can be effective for those for whom Lithium is ineffective or causes adverse reactions.

immigrantheart 4y ago

Seems that they show their true colors.

setgree 4y ago

> In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication. I see a counterfactual claim ("may outweigh") and therefore an opportunity for some causal identification, i.e. a scientific answer! An RCT would be ideal, but we might also look to the literature on attitude change in general to see how new information impacts discourse and attitudes. Here's a few things off the top of my head: * https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/692739 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/692739 * https://alexandercoppock.com/graham_coppock_2021.html https://alexandercoppock.com/graham_coppock_2021.html * https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-071620-030619 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-... I think that in general, researchers find racial/prejudicial attitudes very resistant to change, either in an anti-prejudicial or "confirm my existing biases" direction...

dcow 4y ago

Moreover, how can any of these be enforced, and by whom? At least you know who your church authority figures are and who to criticize. Where do we even start if we let Twitter outrage decide whether science is potentially harmful and should be allowed or not? This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled.

Enginerrrd 4y ago
>This is worse than religion because it’s pretending to be rational. And many many people will be fooled. I hate to make the comparison because it's such a trope, but, IMO this is one of the most insidious things the Nazis did to indoctrinate the population: They did things like send people into schools and they would cherry-pick the weakest, least intelligent, least-liked Jewish kid they could find and set him alongside the most athletic, attractive, smart, well-liked Aryan looking kid. They'd bring them both up in front of the class and from that point on, they'd use "scientific" discussion and observation of their qualities to convince the kids that the Aryan kids were superior in every way. I'll tell you what, I was a pretty savy independent thinker and empathetic kid, but I really think I might have fallen for that type of technique, masquerading as science.
- SubiculumCode 4y ago
  and this is, if you read the actual guidelines proposed, exactly what they are guarding against: inappropriate overgeneralization.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - timr 4y ago
    Guarding against overgeneralization is not something we need new scientific heresy rules to prevent. It's already part of being a good scientist. It's also a subjective bar, and adding "inappropriate" to that makes it entirely fungible. Moreover, I've spent the last 2+ years horrified by how willing "scientists" have been to generalize to wild real-world conclusions from miniscule data based on Twitter outrage, so I have zero faith that a board of clerics is going to use these rules with magnanimity. Whichever political faction that controls the board will be tempted to define "inappropriate" to mean "whatever conclusion we don't like". Just to make it concrete: run an RCT that shows that masks don't have any effect on Covid transmission? Good luck getting that published in a top journal, even today. With these new rules, literally anyone who doesn't like the conclusions will claim that the result is an "overgeneralization". There will be no study large enough to satisfy the clerisy...unless The Science says something approved, of course. --- Edit: and lest you think I am exaggerating with my example, consider the following, directly quoted from the new guidelines: > Harms can also arise indirectly, as a result of the publication of a research project or a piece of scholarly communication – for instance, stigmatization of a vulnerable human group or potential use of the results of research for unintended purposes (e.g., public policies that undermine human rights or misuse of information to threaten public health). They're literally saying that they're open to censoring research that might be "misused" to "threaten public health". And they've defined it broadly enough that pretty much anything that displeases "a vulnerable human group" can be covered. Convenient.

UnpossibleJim 4y ago

>>Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication<< Are they really advocating for self censorship in the sciences? And when the whims of societal taste turn or, God forbid (and yes, I put this with all irony intended), Twitter decides it doesn't like an opinion for five minutes... does science self censor then as well?

rrauenza 4y ago
David Shor was ostracized for presenting this research: https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow... > Shor, citing research by Princeton political scientist Omar Wasow, suggested that these incidents could prompt a political backlash that would help President Donald Trump’s bid for reelection. At the same time, he noted that, historically, nonviolent protests had been effective at driving political change “mainly by encouraging warm elite discourse and media coverage.”
- UnpossibleJim 4y ago
  If people are truly worried about electing people like Donald Trump they'll broaden education and, in particular, education in the hard sciences like maths and computer science to bolster critical thinking and logic. At that point we won't elect reality show hucksters who blatantly lie and foment sedition.
  - nradov 4y ago
    And yet a surprising number of violent terrorists have engineering degrees. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-sociology-archives-europeennes-de-sociologie/article/why-are-there-so-many-engineers-among-islamic-radicals/91ED8BEFDE3793834667750B31575422# https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-...
    - UnpossibleJim 4y ago

haunter 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

bjt2n3904 4y ago

Science must always report the truth. What was the old saying? "That which can be destroyed by truth, should be"? Whenever science attempts to prop up political regimes by obscuring the truth, then tragedy and travesty occurs.

nomel 4y ago
> Science must always report the truth. The only way I can interpret their statement is that harmful truths actually do exist, they're known, but we must ignore them.
- nomel 4y ago
  It's this, or they know it will eventually be. Otherwise, why would this be needed?

bergenty 4y ago

There is a difference here. One was to maintain the power of a theocracy while the other is to protect the lives of individuals. Is it the right course of action? I don’t know but the motivations are definitely not analogous.

lr4444lr 4y ago
Salvation of every last immortal human soul was a deep and abiding concern of the church. A lot more so than the "woke" of today who would happily brand newborn babies of the wrong color into oppression hierarchies.
DiggyJohnson 4y ago
The stated, overt goal of that theocracy was to save the souls of individuals. I’m not sure this distinction is as real as you state.
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
A theocracy is nothing more then a "protect the rights of individuals" for contract safety (marriage), primitive justice and against more then absolute ruler overreach, going heywire and corrupt. This whole machine will reincarnate again and again though. With fairytale or without, the part of society not trusting the judical system to uphold contracts and social safety, will make there voices heard in pseudo religion after pseudo religion. Let me venture into the testable area. I venture the guess, that the more reliable and longer existing a states social safety net is, the more religion will be absent from its society. It should also corellate with reliability of the justice system.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

> "The teachings of the Church must not be undermined by heliocentrism or evolution research, so findings in those areas will be strictly filtered for heresy before publication." This is actually a bit of a historical myth that due to anti-religious bias prevails widely. Contrary to widespread belief, the works of Charles Darwin were never on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books, nor did the Catholic Church ever state that Evolution as a theory could not be believed, but rather emphasized that a few specific theological events (a garden in which man fell) must remain, though the lead-up to those events was not rigidly defined. This is also why a Catholic priest is responsible for the Big Bang theory. As for heliocentrism, this is also baloney as it was initially proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, who was not censored for his beliefs[1], and also served as a Catholic canon (religious member but not necessarily a priest). This idea was backed by Galileo using astronomy, however, Galileo was tried for writings other than his heliocentrism that were arguably heretical (including attacks on the Pope within his work) and not necessarily for the heliocentric view itself, as seen by the Church making Copernicus mandatory reading in some universities for astronomy courses. [1] The Roman Inquisition would later censor it for a short time, however, their main requirement was that it definitions be changed from fact to theory, and the Roman Inquisition actually used 13 mathematical arguments of their own from the astronomer Tycho Brahe, versus only 4 theological ones. The Spanish Inquisition never censored the book. Even though Brahe was later proven incorrect in his arguments, he was still one of the most accurate astronomers of the era, and Johannes Kepler (of the Kepler Space Telescope fame) would later use his measurements to create the 3 planetary laws of motion. In any event, it would appear that this censorship of Copernicus requiring revisions before publications was due to Copernicus' overconfidence in potentially erroneous mathematics, rather than a theological dispute.

phaistra 4y ago
Can you provide some books or links if so that I can read up on these misconceptions?
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Try here for a purely academic overview (no religious Catholic websites or other "biased" commentators for this), that was also very recent. There are plenty of other sources, but this was just what I found first that was academic in scope. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_7 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_... I would also recommend reading about Nicolas Copernicus (geocentrism before Galileo), as well as Georges Lemaître (Catholic Priest who had idea for Big Bang), and Gregor Mendel (before Evolution, experiments with Genetics). Example: "In Spain, new cosmological discoveries and ideas were discussed at both the universities and at the Casa and Consejo. For example, Jerónimo Muñoz (ca. 1520–1591), who taught astronomy and mathematics at the universities of Valencia and Salamanca, was one of the many European scientists to observe and write about the supernova of 1572. For Muñoz, the supernova challenged the Aristotelian notion that change was impossible in the celestial realm. In some of his unpublished work and letters to other European astronomers like Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), he espoused an understanding of the relationship between the celestial and terrestrial realms drawn from Stoic philosophers. He denied the existence of celestial orbs and instead asserted that the planets moved through the heavens like birds through the air or fish through the water. He also discussed Nicolaus Copernicus’ (1473–1543) heliocentric system with his students, although he did not endorse it (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 57). In fact, as Victor Navarro-Brotóns has shown, “the work of Copernicus circulated freely in sixteenth-century Spain, where its technical and empirical aspects were greatly admired and used” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63). In 1561, the statutes of the University of Salamanca specified that in the second year of the astronomy course the professor must teach either “the Almagest of Ptolemy, or its Epitome by Regiomontanus, or Geber, or Copernicus,” and that the students could vote on which text they wanted (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 55). In 1594, these statutes were amended and the teaching of Copernicus was made mandatory, no longer subject to the vote of the students (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59). The 1594, statutes were reproduced with no change in 1625, despite the prohibition of Copernicus’ work by the Roman Inquisition in 1616 (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 60). In fact, De revolutionibus was “never placed on any Spanish Inquisitorial index” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63), which does not mean Spanish astronomers were free to adopt heliocentrism but does indicate that it was possible to teach and discuss Copernicus in Spanish universities. As Navarro-Brotóns notes, only one Spanish scholar, Diego de Zúñiga (1536–1597), is known to have actually endorsed the Copernican system. Others used the Prutenic tables, which were calculated using Copernicus’ mathematical models, and other parameters drawn from De revolutionibus, in much the same way that Copernicus was taught at the University of Wittenberg (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59; Westman 1975). Finally, interest in Copernicus spread outside universities, because the Prutenic tables and other technical aspects of Copernicus’ work had applications in navigation. For example, Juan Cedillo Diaz (ca. 1560–1625), who studied at Salamanca and became chief cosmographer at the Consejo de Indias and professor at the Mathematical Academy in Seville in 1611, made a free Spanish translation of the first three books of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus sometime between 1620 and 1625 (Granada and Crespo 2019; Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63; Esteban Piñeiro and Gómez Crespo 1991)."

al_mandi 4y ago

I'm a person of faith. At the same time, we point out that the religion of "scientism" exists whether people admit it or not, especially when they claim that they "believe in science". Correct faith and science are not contradictory. And those people mix up belief in the unseen with blind faith without proof or evidence.

teawrecks 4y ago
I think your view on this is being influenced by the limitations of the language you're using. When a religious person says they "believe" something, it means they operate as if it were true even though they have no evidence to indicate it as such (a.k.a. the god of the gaps). When a scientist says they "believe" something, it means all evidence gathered so far indicates that it is true, but if more data comes in and a different conclusion is drawn, then the belief should be abandoned. These are two entirely different concepts, but in English we tend to just say "believe". The scientific "belief" is more akin to a mathematical theorem: - if X, then Y - All data indicates X is probably true, so for now I believe Y. - New data indicates X is probably false, so I no longer believe Y. And of course when you're engineering something, it's not that simple because you need contingencies. X may have a 99% chance of being true, but you still need to have a plan for for that 1% case. None of this is something that religion considers whatsoever; with religion, a belief is true and anything contrary to that belief is considered false, even if that thing is a measurement of reality itself. There are still huge swaths of people who believe a person thousands of years ago was immaculately conceived, walked on water, turned water into wine, all things that you and I know are inconsistent with reality. But all contrary evidence simply doesn't matter, the "belief" remains. This is the antithesis of science.
- humanrebar 4y ago
  > When a religious person says they "believe" something, it means they operate as if it were true even though they have no evidence to indicate it as such (a.k.a. the god of the gaps). In practice religious (or spiritual) people are a rather diverse bunch and it's not all that helpful to paint with too broad of a brush. I will point out that in at least Christian theology, "faith" and "trust" are basically synonyms. In the original Greek of the New Testament, it's literally the same word. In that sense, making choices based on trust in God or making decisions based on trust in science are really fairly similar. And quite often they're not contradictory either. For example, both science and scriptures say worrying is bad for you, so someone can try to minimize worry based on faith in science and faith in scripture simultaneously. I'll also point out that a lot of the "scientific" objections to religions boil down to metaphysical disagreements about the nature of observation of the nature of a (notional, at least) deity. I put "scientific" in scare quotes because science itself only makes sense given some assumptions, like the axiom that it's reasonable to assume things do not exist until it's definitely proven they do. That's a valid opinion, but it's not scientific as such. Another common assumption is that a creator and a fossil record (for instance) are somehow incompatible. As if a creator can create the cosmos but a fossil record is a bit much somehow. Anyway, I think folks would find each other more thoughtful and reasonable if they'd take some time to listen more. There are lots of misconceptions in all directions in these discussions.

silicon2401 4y ago

Beautifully put. What I loved about science growing up is that it valued truth and knowledge (or such was the impression I had of science in history). If someone argues for self-censoring truth/knowledge to avoid XYZ values today, they would've been the same people to argue self-censoring the truth about heliocentrism yesterday. It's a tragedy to see science fall prey to dogmatism and I hope we can see some kind of new field emerge that has the courage to pursue truth first and worry about implications second.

teawrecks 4y ago

The first part is just basic science: don't draw generalized conclusions from data that was poorly sampled. But I agree the second part is questionable. Scientists shouldn't decide whether something is right or wrong. They just conduct experiments, gather data, draw conclusions, and share the results. Obviously they should consider the ethical impacts of conducting their experiments, but beyond that, all valid conclusions should be welcome.

antiquark 4y ago

> ableist This seems like an implicit denial that people can have different abilities.

warning26 4y ago
Yeah I never really got the whole "ableist" thing; for example, obviously someone who can't see is less capable of performing visual tasks than someone who can. Does that mean shipping a device with a screen is ableist because not everyone can take advantage of the fact that it has a screen?
- userbinator 4y ago
  Unfortunately that is really how some of these people (don't) think. There's even dystopian sci-fi with that theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron The worst part is that they've infected organisations who have huge amounts of power over the population.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  I know many people that are sensitive on this issue and none of them would call that ableist. I'm sure they exist but focusing on the extremes of a movement don't do anyone any favors For example, most people on this site are a fan of open source. How would they feel if anytime the subject came up people talked only about the ideas of Stallman?
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    > I know many people that are sensitive on this issue and none of them would call that ableist. I think this overton window keeps shifting and there is no one courageous to say "No, this is unreasonable". It is not just happening in this one instance but the entire culture; we have now instituted things like "birthing persons". We can't even call "Fathers" and "Mothers" anymore. We are too coward to speak up and risk our jobs. The chilling effect is real. This house of cards is going to fall hard and fast.

armchairhacker 4y ago

This reminds me of the short story in “I, Robot” (Asimov) about the robot who could read people’s minds. The robots in that world were hard-coded to be incapable of injury humans, and the mind-reading robot considered emotional damage “injury”. Of course the robot got into a paradox where it had to hurt someone’s feelings, so it just…died.

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pryce 4y ago
Perhaps it's wise for everyone to carefully distinguish physical injury versus emotional damage. Perhaps it is true that we can tie ourselves into knots if we treat emotional damage as completely equivalent to physical injury. And, perhaps also, notorious serial sexual harassers groping apparently hundreds of women (such as our man Asimov) have something of a vested interested in teaching us all that emotional damage in important ways doesn't count. What's interesting to me, revisiting Asimov after medical school, is that we are unable to create a workable definition of pain that is absent an emotional component. This is of course not to claim there are no important ways that physical violence and non-physical emotional harm differ.

abeppu 4y ago

I think that's a pretty unreasonable comparison. There's a difference between religious dogma which makes claims about reality, and norms or ethics. Discrimination and harm as discussed in this document isn't about factual findings, but is about "superiority or inferiority of one human group over another" (i.e. a value judgement), "the rights and dignities of an individual or human group" (i.e. social norms and conventions), "text or images that ... disparage" (again, value judgement), "embody singular, privileged perspectives" (an issue of viewpoint, not disagreement about facts in reality). None of these prevent researchers from sharing their evidence-based conclusions, only the projection of value, status, dignity, or privilege onto those findings. As a society, we can agree to be civil, respectful and uphold particular values while we investigate objective reality. Trying to claim that an ethical stance for non-discrimination is equivalent to creationism or geocentrism is making type error; one makes claims about norms and how we should behave, and one makes claims about how the world works whether irrespective of our beliefs or behavior.

elefanten 4y ago
But that’s not what the quoted text is saying. It’s saying research whose outcomes could be “harmful” (where the definition of “harmful” is very broad) may have harms that “outweigh” the benefits… implying it shouldn’t be done. And now you’ve attached a high leverage handle to research allocation/gatekeeping and put it in deeply politicized hands that don’t care about the research.
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  The difference between your two takes appears to be a Motte and Bailey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy The question isn't whether abeppu's stance is valid, the question is: does their stance fully encompass the argument. elefanten appears to be suggesting abeppu's stance is a Motte - that they're arguing a more defensible position (you shouldn't be able to publish research claiming one race is superior to another) rather than the real Bailey (anything deemed "harmful" can be filtered from scientific literature). The difference between these two arguments is pretty significant.

stonogo 4y ago

This strikes me as an incredibly bad faith interpretation of the article. I do not understand how this widespread determination to pretend that scientific research is "just another religion" got so popular but I do understand the practical effect is to convince people that their superstitions are as valuable as research, which is just going to lead to another Dark Ages. Nevertheless, your immediate leap to political conspiricy is tiring, irrelevant, and ultimately pointless. Science (as in organized, rigorous research efforts) has had a problem with respecting human rights for most of its history. This ethical guidance is here to prevent horrible shit like the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Operation Upshot-Knothole downwinders, the CDC Tuskegee Study, and so forth. The sociopathic robots who believe that research must ignore human dignity in order to be valid are not correct. There is still room in research to treat human beings like human beings, regardless of the destructive paranoia currently en vogue on web forums.

slothtrop 4y ago

Indeed. I'm tired of paradigmatic nonsense. Scott Alexander had a good piece about that relatively recently.

rowanG077 4y ago

Very frightening that something like this is posted on Nature.com. Burying the truth because it might be inconvenient.

jwarden 4y ago

The statement from Nature has been very carefully worded. The quote in the parent comment seems to suggest that perfectly valid scientific findings should be withheld if there is a possibility that bad people would misuse them. The consequence of this of course would be a complete victory of "Blank Slate"[1] Dogma (because any scientific finding that finds differences between social groups could be misused to undermine the human rights of one group). And yet the statement never quite explicitly says findings should be withheld only because they could be misused. Rather it says that research that contains contain hate speech, etc. should perhaps not be published. It says authors should consider the potential harm of their research, and so on. The intended result I think is a sort of chilling effect with plausible deniability. It pleases the inquisition, and at the same time leaves the scientists with a remainder of self-respect. I am not sure how long this delicate truce can last. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate

Retric 4y ago
“Researchers should be free to pursue lines of inquiry and the communication of knowledge and ideas without fear of repression or censorship. At the same time, they have the ethical obligation to uphold intellectual integrity and avoid preventable harms that may arise in the course of research or its communication.” Alternatively, it could be saying a lot of bullshit gets published because people are incentivized to publish crap research (see replication crisis). So, if you know it’s crap and it’s also likely to be harmful perhaps consider before you publish it. And that’s the thing, if you assume the worst interpretation possible you can be offended by anything.
- dcow 4y ago
  My charitable interpretation is that Nature is just reminding the academic community that you can’t research social constructs because they’re all made up and the points don’t matter, use more “scientific” terms, plz. But then why write what was wrote? Why build up a “science can be socially harmful” thesis and then argue that may and could should govern is and does? Science should always be accurate. Nature didn't just learn this, that’s been the status quo all along. The only reasonable interpretation is that Nature is defending a change. To your example: you don't need social constructs to explain the replication crisis (“studies that leverage socially constructed ideas can be replicable). You don’t need social harm either (non-replicable studies that are socially good exist). You said it best yourself: if you assume the worst interpretation possible, you can be offended by anything. Nature is asking researchers to assume the worst interpretation of their results and, if it would be socially harmful, please not to publish them. And BTW you were wrong to ask the question in the first place since social constructs are post modern and reject western liberal interrogation.

pryce 4y ago

This alarmist comparison of yours would impress basically no one who has studied in relevant fields, such as bioethics. The relationship between ethics and research has a fascinating and sobering history, one full of richness, horror, and a good deal of quiet ego shattering awe at all the multitude of different ways of being human we have previously organised to eradicate. The calls you see for greater attention to be paid to ethics in research are not coming from a sense of obsequioous piety and genuflection toward establishment interests wielding political power, but the exact opposite—a call to consider the effects on groups not wielding power, such as different minorities—and obscuring this crucial difference, the way your analogy does, comes pretty close to leaving your readers less informed about the issue of research ethic rigor than they were before encountering your comment. Bioethics researchers are regularly coming across questions like this one: Gay and lesbian people are no longer considered as having a disease or disorder by any reputable medical organisation, are experiencing, broadly, a widening acceptance from different societies and their governments. At the same time, there several prominent nations attempt to criminalise, suppress, ostracise and otherwise punish people for being gay or lesbian. Suppose tomorrow a set of genes are discovered that are strongly or even absolutely predictive of homosexual orientation. What would that look like for our society, when people could say have an embryological test that indicates whether their fetus is gay or not. Would we allow terminating pregnancy on the basis that the parents don't want to have a gay or lesbian child? What would the outcome of having a 'gay test' availble look like in the hands of oppressive regimes, like the Russian Federation. Would having that technology spark a literal genocide of sexual minorities there? Perhaps you feel you can dismiss this as maybe you (mistakenly or not) picture your own country as unlikely to regress to legally enabling persecution of gay or lesbian people, and think issues outside your own country don't matter. I can tell you there is basically no country in the world that people in the trans community would feel safe in, if we took my above example of 'suppose someone invented a genetic test for being gay or lesbian' and replaced that hypothetical example to detect trans people and/or gender dysphoria instead.

trashtester 4y ago
If a group has power to prevent other people from writing or saying things about them that they do not like, even otherwise legitimate scientific findings in a scientific journal, I would say it is proof that they DO have power. Kind of like how Putin and Xi are able to prevent citizens in their respective countries to write bad things about them. > Would we allow terminating pregnancy on the basis that the parents don't want to have a gay or lesbian child? Let's assume we're both pro choice, why should a mother be forced to carry a child in her womb that she doesn't want to give birth to? How would sexual orientation be different from having an abortion after getting pregnant because it contradicts with her vacation plans, career or maybe the father was not one she wanted to have babies with? Ok, I do know why, because it's the same as when people do not want to allow abortion when a baby is likely to have Down's syndrome or some other condition when born, as it is seen as invalidating the identity of those who already born with the same condition. In my opinion, though, as long as we prioritize the interests of the mother (lets say that most will do that at least for the first trimester), the mother should decide what conditions are justifiable for having the abortion.

refurb 4y ago

You know any time someone says "Although [academic] freedom is fundamental, it is not unbounded.", watch out! It's a common trope many use to slowly whittle away freedoms. A more accurate rephrasing would be "Your rights are all ready limited, so limiting them more shouldn't cause any concern," It's lazy thinking, because whatever limitations are in place today, have no bearing on the validity of the limitations the author is proposing - those should be viewed independently and skeptically. What people don't realize is that when your freedoms are taken away, it's not some evil dictator yanking them from your clutches and you are beaten down by armed thugs, it's you and fellow citizens willfully giving them up for "the greater good".

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ghost_of_cato 4y ago