4 ms·

Rather than suppressing research, wouldn't a simple primer on "why the paper shouldn't be used for hate" suffice, similar to the warning label on a pack of ciga

Rather than suppressing research, wouldn't a simple primer on "why the paper shouldn't be used for hate" suffice, similar to the warning label on a pack of cigarettes? (Unlike cigarettes which are universally harmful, it's unlikely these papers do any real harm to an educated reader. They are only harmful when used completely out-of-context by a moron.) There is some grand irony that hate groups point to racial differences in "intelligence" specifically. I doubt the members of these groups are in the upper tail of the bell curve...

_ofdw 4y ago
I think it's equally dangerous to write off extremism as the product of stupid people. Hitler certainly wasn't a dunce, for example.
dariosalvi78 4y ago
I read that this is the intention, so when some content that can be used for harm (in a discriminatory or racist way for example), authors should make all the needed considerations, including confounding factors, in their research and their paper. For example, say someone publishes statistics about school grades and race, and, maybe unsurprisingly, black people in the US turn out to have lower average grades, what does that say about black people? Here lies the responsibility of the researcher to make it clear that the problem is social rather than genetical, either using statistical means to remove confounders, or by highlighting this when discussing the numbers. Actually unless the purpose of the research itself is to extract those social differences, why would you stratify your cohorts by race in the first place? Even seemingly innocuous decisions, like stratifying (because, why not?, you have the data) may have consequences, or may hide biases, if they are not considered with care. Ask anybody doing ML how confounders are behind every corner in whatever messy human data you collect! Then there are other topics which specifically look into, say, sex and brain composition etc. Those may be scientifically sound, but ethically more controversial. I am happy I don't work in that field...

_ofdw 4y ago

I think it's equally dangerous to write off extremism as the product of stupid people. Hitler certainly wasn't a dunce, for example.

dariosalvi78 4y ago

I read that this is the intention, so when some content that can be used for harm (in a discriminatory or racist way for example), authors should make all the needed considerations, including confounding factors, in their research and their paper. For example, say someone publishes statistics about school grades and race, and, maybe unsurprisingly, black people in the US turn out to have lower average grades, what does that say about black people? Here lies the responsibility of the researcher to make it clear that the problem is social rather than genetical, either using statistical means to remove confounders, or by highlighting this when discussing the numbers. Actually unless the purpose of the research itself is to extract those social differences, why would you stratify your cohorts by race in the first place? Even seemingly innocuous decisions, like stratifying (because, why not?, you have the data) may have consequences, or may hide biases, if they are not considered with care. Ask anybody doing ML how confounders are behind every corner in whatever messy human data you collect! Then there are other topics which specifically look into, say, sex and brain composition etc. Those may be scientifically sound, but ethically more controversial. I am happy I don't work in that field...