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All these scientific datasets gathered with taxpayers money should be made public. If people end up discovering "dangerous" patterns then well... so it's scient

All these scientific datasets gathered with taxpayers money should be made public. If people end up discovering "dangerous" patterns then well... so it's scientific progress. Sometimes they don't conform to our preferred bias.

pseudo0 4y ago
Could an entity with sufficient resources just FOIA the data? It does not appear to fall into any of the FOIA exemptions or exclusions. The closest would be #6, which protects information that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. But since researchers are accessing this data, shouldn't it already be very carefully anonymized? https://www.hhs.gov/foia/exemptions-and-exclusions/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/foia/exemptions-and-exclusions/index.htm...
halostatue 4y ago
The problem is that while the genomic data is fine, the attached metadata regarding "race", "intelligence", etc. is of questionable and deeply biased origin. GIGO. By providing blocks on certain types of research which are known to be flawed because they try to make the garbage metadata meaningful…some of the worst of the bad science performed over the last 200 years gets eliminated. Really, some of the ideas that exist that form the basis of IQ &c. aren’t much better than phrenology.
- rafaelero 4y ago
  The quality of the data is important in every research field and it is a factor widely and openly discussed whenever a new paper is out. We can't even start having a conversation over it if such datasets are not easily available.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  What makes the data questionable/biased?
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  There are many helpful questions that can be answered with imperfect data. What if you wanted to search populations with a high concentration of strongly retarded children to look for epidemics of birth defects, and then compare areas by race to see if it looked like there is any unexpected bias? A research block would stop this and other useful question from being answered. The data would easily suffice, whatever its defects, because you wouldn't need high-resolution IQ measurements, only enough to detect severe defects and you wouldn't need genetically-accurate racial identification, only a rough guess because that's what visible minority means. But because a bunch of pearl-clutchers are afraid of MAGAites the researcher trying to find and fix other cities like Flint Michigan would instead of demonized, denied tenure, and hounded out of academia.
Seattle3503 4y ago
My concern would be a Gish Gallop[1] if anyone in the public could claim to use this data for their purposes. But this is less of a concern with established researchers who have a reputation to consider. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

pseudo0 4y ago

Could an entity with sufficient resources just FOIA the data? It does not appear to fall into any of the FOIA exemptions or exclusions. The closest would be #6, which protects information that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. But since researchers are accessing this data, shouldn't it already be very carefully anonymized? https://www.hhs.gov/foia/exemptions-and-exclusions/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/foia/exemptions-and-exclusions/index.htm...

halostatue 4y ago

The problem is that while the genomic data is fine, the attached metadata regarding "race", "intelligence", etc. is of questionable and deeply biased origin. GIGO. By providing blocks on certain types of research which are known to be flawed because they try to make the garbage metadata meaningful…some of the worst of the bad science performed over the last 200 years gets eliminated. Really, some of the ideas that exist that form the basis of IQ &c. aren’t much better than phrenology.

rafaelero 4y ago
The quality of the data is important in every research field and it is a factor widely and openly discussed whenever a new paper is out. We can't even start having a conversation over it if such datasets are not easily available.
Rebelgecko 4y ago
What makes the data questionable/biased?
LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
There are many helpful questions that can be answered with imperfect data. What if you wanted to search populations with a high concentration of strongly retarded children to look for epidemics of birth defects, and then compare areas by race to see if it looked like there is any unexpected bias? A research block would stop this and other useful question from being answered. The data would easily suffice, whatever its defects, because you wouldn't need high-resolution IQ measurements, only enough to detect severe defects and you wouldn't need genetically-accurate racial identification, only a rough guess because that's what visible minority means. But because a bunch of pearl-clutchers are afraid of MAGAites the researcher trying to find and fix other cities like Flint Michigan would instead of demonized, denied tenure, and hounded out of academia.

Seattle3503 4y ago

My concern would be a Gish Gallop[1] if anyone in the public could claim to use this data for their purposes. But this is less of a concern with established researchers who have a reputation to consider. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop