5 ms·

> I think it is remarkable that a racist argument against a description of nature could even gain a foothold in the physics community. And, Germany was a corne

by wslh 3y ago

> I think it is remarkable that a racist argument against a description of nature could even gain a foothold in the physics community. And, Germany was a cornerstone in physics in the late XIX and early XX centuries. This shows a bad aspect of humans in the quest for truth. If many scientists are involved in nationalism, antisemitism, etc what can we expect of less rational people? Not saying that we need to be completely rational though but it is interesting when bad emotions beat rationality in smart people as a topic itself.

Viliam1234 3y ago
I suspect many scientists are not especially rational outside their field of study. Probably worse, being scientific authorities can make them overconfident.
- croes 3y ago
  Isn't there a study that shows that new theories don't get accepted because people got convinced by evidence but the supporters of the old theory just die of age?
  - jabl 3y ago
    It's a common quip attributed to Max Planck, not really a study. Developed more thoroughly into a theory e.g. by Thomas Kuhn, see his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re... Some broadly similar ideas in the philosophy or science were also explored by Feyerabend in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method
strogonoff 3y ago
It’s good to remember that scientists are just as capable of violence (if anything, they can be better at it). It might also be a mistake to think that rational people are inherently less violent towards other people. Finally, I reckon it’s especially dangerous to think the Nazi did what they did just because of “bad emotions”. The trolley problem adjacent research has shown (if inconclusively) that more rational people are more likely to be OK being a cause of harm to other people to achieve some goal. In those experiments such goal is usually “save more people”, but all you need is to define some terms and “kill some now” might seem imperative to “save more later” to a sufficiently rational, long-term-thinking, “smart” person. So the Nazi did, and there is much less conjecture here since it’s mostly well-documented. They were specifically inspired by natural sciences, including the then-new Darwin’s theory of natural selection. If anything, their shtick might’ve been to overcome the “bad” (for the Nazi) emotions that one may experience when sending some disabled person or a Jew to death. Which, according to them, had to be done since they were detrimental to survival of humanity (as Nazis defined it, of course) by polluting its genetic pool—so they were taught to train themselves to treat Jews as non-human bedbugs, stripped Jews of citizenship, disciplined fellow Germans who dared to shake hands with a Jew, etc. To Nazis emotions were a hindrance, they included the “irrational” compassion, and we might be better off remembering that when we discuss rationality, which consequentialism tends to go hand in hand with. Addendum: An obvious argument can be made that Nazis were “not rational enough”, i.e. the problem is not with rationality per se but only with rationality based on premises that we now know are wrong. That, however, shows nothing because if we’ve learned anything it should be not to assume that now we have finally got all of our premises in order and possess absolute truth and complete understanding of reality.
- lukan 3y ago
  "To Nazis emotions were a hindrance, they included the “irrational” compassion" Have a look at Rosenbergs influental writings for instance. Or well, "Mein Kampf". It is not a rational, but very emotional work. All of their ideology starts with mysticism around nationalism. Finding greatness while giving yourself up to the higher rightful order. The Volk, connected by blood.* All "rationality" was applied after that premise. *The right blood of course. Investigated, determined and mandated by buerocrats with pseudoscientific methods.
  - strogonoff 3y ago
    You’re right, it’s more nuanced than that and cannot be reduced just to rationality. I’d be the first to agree that neither rationality nor emotion is alone enough. Defeat in WWI has contributed to emotional context a lot. However, to say it was all just emotion and post-rationalization is to oversimplify even more. The two were intermingled even since 19th century (e.g., Lamarck).
    - lukan 3y ago
      "However, to say it was all just emotion and post-rationalization is to oversimplify" Sure. I remember from Mein Kampf, where Hitler talks about his Antisemitism. His Intuition always advised against it, but with his rational mind, step by step he came to the logical conclusion, that yes, the jews are basically to blame for everything. (Interesting that he remarks, that his intuition left him for some years, after he made that "rational" decision) It was twisted all around.
      - strogonoff 3y ago
        As Kahneman wrote, rationality is logical coherence, a rational person can believe in ghosts if the rest of their beliefs are consistent with ghosts. A rational person can prefer to be hated instead of loved, if it’s consistent. Most of the book is about economics and rational behavior in terms of utility, but that part seems to apply here as well. Logical coherence is always internal, it can only be complete within itself and will inevitably conflict with external reality and other internally coherent beliefs. It’s possible for a Nazi to be extremely rational in this way, whereas a reasonable person cannot be entirely rational by definition.
arp242 3y ago
Scientists are not more rational people than $anyone_else. And being more or less rational does not make one any less capable of emotions, hatred, evil, or all sorts of other bad things.
- trott 3y ago
  > Scientists are not more rational people than $anyone_else. Well, scientists disagree with you [1] [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-think-theyre-more-rational-than-other-people/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-think-...
  - arp242 3y ago
    *Some scientists. And that agrees with what I said?
  - genericuser128 3y ago
    Most people probably think they are more rational than average.
avgcorrection 3y ago
> This shows a bad aspect of humans in the quest for truth. If many scientists are involved in nationalism, antisemitism, etc what can we expect of less rational people? Not saying that we need to be completely rational though but it is interesting when bad emotions beat rationality in smart people as a topic itself. This framing is interesting considering how HN is such an IQ-worshipping forum: The context is the most pig-headed, blatant racism imaginable—doesn’t even try to rationalize it, just “Jewish Physics”—and then we pivot to how these exalted rational people (translation: physics-smart specifically) must clearly be more rational than “less rational people” (average people?) and in turn how racist they (less rational people) must be. So we went from blatant racism exhibited by physicists to inferring how these scientists must be leagues better than “less rational people” in terms of racial tolerance or rationality with regards to race (if race is even a thing). Except the only thing we have in front of us is racism expressed by physicists. Not commoner racism. So what grounds do we have to expect “less rational people” to be more or less racist than these exalted scientists? Absolutely nothing. Imagine if a gaggle of biologists in Antarctica committed mass murder of another group of scientists and smeared their blood in some Satanic ritual. I bet the conclusion would be to speculate about how less rational people would be even more inhumane and cruel if they had to live through an Antarctic winter or two? Absolutely bonkers.
schlauerfox 3y ago
Don't dismiss the cultural ubiquity in the 20th century of eugenics, like phrenology and misapplication of Darwin's works just because we know it to be pseudoscience now and even then, it's origins in American slavery justification and being taken up by Germany, doesn't mean it didn't give a horrible false authority to all kinds of horrors.

by wslh 3y ago

Viliam1234 3y ago

I suspect many scientists are not especially rational outside their field of study. Probably worse, being scientific authorities can make them overconfident.

croes 3y ago
Isn't there a study that shows that new theories don't get accepted because people got convinced by evidence but the supporters of the old theory just die of age?
- jabl 3y ago
  It's a common quip attributed to Max Planck, not really a study. Developed more thoroughly into a theory e.g. by Thomas Kuhn, see his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re... Some broadly similar ideas in the philosophy or science were also explored by Feyerabend in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Method

strogonoff 3y ago

It’s good to remember that scientists are just as capable of violence (if anything, they can be better at it). It might also be a mistake to think that rational people are inherently less violent towards other people. Finally, I reckon it’s especially dangerous to think the Nazi did what they did just because of “bad emotions”. The trolley problem adjacent research has shown (if inconclusively) that more rational people are more likely to be OK being a cause of harm to other people to achieve some goal. In those experiments such goal is usually “save more people”, but all you need is to define some terms and “kill some now” might seem imperative to “save more later” to a sufficiently rational, long-term-thinking, “smart” person. So the Nazi did, and there is much less conjecture here since it’s mostly well-documented. They were specifically inspired by natural sciences, including the then-new Darwin’s theory of natural selection. If anything, their shtick might’ve been to overcome the “bad” (for the Nazi) emotions that one may experience when sending some disabled person or a Jew to death. Which, according to them, had to be done since they were detrimental to survival of humanity (as Nazis defined it, of course) by polluting its genetic pool—so they were taught to train themselves to treat Jews as non-human bedbugs, stripped Jews of citizenship, disciplined fellow Germans who dared to shake hands with a Jew, etc. To Nazis emotions were a hindrance, they included the “irrational” compassion, and we might be better off remembering that when we discuss rationality, which consequentialism tends to go hand in hand with. Addendum: An obvious argument can be made that Nazis were “not rational enough”, i.e. the problem is not with rationality per se but only with rationality based on premises that we now know are wrong. That, however, shows nothing because if we’ve learned anything it should be not to assume that now we have finally got all of our premises in order and possess absolute truth and complete understanding of reality.

lukan 3y ago
"To Nazis emotions were a hindrance, they included the “irrational” compassion" Have a look at Rosenbergs influental writings for instance. Or well, "Mein Kampf". It is not a rational, but very emotional work. All of their ideology starts with mysticism around nationalism. Finding greatness while giving yourself up to the higher rightful order. The Volk, connected by blood.* All "rationality" was applied after that premise. *The right blood of course. Investigated, determined and mandated by buerocrats with pseudoscientific methods.
- strogonoff 3y ago
  You’re right, it’s more nuanced than that and cannot be reduced just to rationality. I’d be the first to agree that neither rationality nor emotion is alone enough. Defeat in WWI has contributed to emotional context a lot. However, to say it was all just emotion and post-rationalization is to oversimplify even more. The two were intermingled even since 19th century (e.g., Lamarck).
  - lukan 3y ago
    "However, to say it was all just emotion and post-rationalization is to oversimplify" Sure. I remember from Mein Kampf, where Hitler talks about his Antisemitism. His Intuition always advised against it, but with his rational mind, step by step he came to the logical conclusion, that yes, the jews are basically to blame for everything. (Interesting that he remarks, that his intuition left him for some years, after he made that "rational" decision) It was twisted all around.
    - strogonoff 3y ago
      As Kahneman wrote, rationality is logical coherence, a rational person can believe in ghosts if the rest of their beliefs are consistent with ghosts. A rational person can prefer to be hated instead of loved, if it’s consistent. Most of the book is about economics and rational behavior in terms of utility, but that part seems to apply here as well. Logical coherence is always internal, it can only be complete within itself and will inevitably conflict with external reality and other internally coherent beliefs. It’s possible for a Nazi to be extremely rational in this way, whereas a reasonable person cannot be entirely rational by definition.

arp242 3y ago

Scientists are not more rational people than $anyone_else. And being more or less rational does not make one any less capable of emotions, hatred, evil, or all sorts of other bad things.

trott 3y ago
> Scientists are not more rational people than $anyone_else. Well, scientists disagree with you [1] [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-think-theyre-more-rational-than-other-people/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-think-...
- arp242 3y ago
  *Some scientists. And that agrees with what I said?
- genericuser128 3y ago
  Most people probably think they are more rational than average.

avgcorrection 3y ago

> This shows a bad aspect of humans in the quest for truth. If many scientists are involved in nationalism, antisemitism, etc what can we expect of less rational people? Not saying that we need to be completely rational though but it is interesting when bad emotions beat rationality in smart people as a topic itself. This framing is interesting considering how HN is such an IQ-worshipping forum: The context is the most pig-headed, blatant racism imaginable—doesn’t even try to rationalize it, just “Jewish Physics”—and then we pivot to how these exalted rational people (translation: physics-smart specifically) must clearly be more rational than “less rational people” (average people?) and in turn how racist they (less rational people) must be. So we went from blatant racism exhibited by physicists to inferring how these scientists must be leagues better than “less rational people” in terms of racial tolerance or rationality with regards to race (if race is even a thing). Except the only thing we have in front of us is racism expressed by physicists. Not commoner racism. So what grounds do we have to expect “less rational people” to be more or less racist than these exalted scientists? Absolutely nothing. Imagine if a gaggle of biologists in Antarctica committed mass murder of another group of scientists and smeared their blood in some Satanic ritual. I bet the conclusion would be to speculate about how less rational people would be even more inhumane and cruel if they had to live through an Antarctic winter or two? Absolutely bonkers.

schlauerfox 3y ago

Don't dismiss the cultural ubiquity in the 20th century of eugenics, like phrenology and misapplication of Darwin's works just because we know it to be pseudoscience now and even then, it's origins in American slavery justification and being taken up by Germany, doesn't mean it didn't give a horrible false authority to all kinds of horrors.