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I disagree 100% in this specific case. The Republican Party is choosing to deny climate change, to root out the EPA, to get rid of the NOAA, of all things. This

I disagree 100% in this specific case. The Republican Party is choosing to deny climate change, to root out the EPA, to get rid of the NOAA, of all things. This is a cult whose brains have been seized, like in mad cow disease. It must be rooted out. EVERY science publication should come out and do an explicit disendorsement of Trump and the entire party, even if they don't endorse KH.

avazhi 2y ago
You're missing the point. Everything you said could be true, but it does no good for Nature or any other ostensibly neutral and apolitical scientific organisations to make express political endorsements. Scientists and others who regularly read Nature don't need Nature to tell them who to vote for, nor is Nature going to change their view one way or the other; and by the same token, the very people Nature might like to imagine it could persuade to vote for Harris are the very last people who would ever read a Nature feature article about Federal science funding. But those people - the ones who would never read this kind of article voluntarily and for information's sake - will absolutely latch onto the fact that Nature is making an explicit Harris endorsement and bashing Trump, and this will be irrefutable evidence that science, scientists, and the scientific gatekeepers are all beholden to 'the Left'. Thus, Trump voters will not unreasonably see any and all scientific conclusions as government-sponsored lies and all scientific outputs as somewhere along the spectrum of mind control nanobot devices. In short there is absolutely no reason for Nature to be expressly partisan, and every reason for it NOT to be. It's bad enough that a sizable portion of the American public think 5G is reading their minds and that the US government is somehow orchestrating hurricanes - giving them actual fact evidence that the industry is biased against them just ensures they'll never listen to anything that industry says (Exhibit A: Vaccines). There's just no upside to Nature doing this.
- exe34 2y ago
  this is the classic disempowering rhetoric that you should not talk about politics and religion - the two biggest forces in society that will screw your life and that of your children the most if you let them.
  - avazhi 2y ago
    What’s disempowering is sending a family member a link to a study demonstrating that COVID vaccines reduce one’s risk of long COVID or dementia, and having that family member say ‘Oh this is Nature, they hate Trump and I’m not interested in reading something from this.’ And for what? So a bunch of PhDs can virtue signal to one another that they’re all voting for the same candidate?
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      If your family member is a die-hard Trump supporter, they're not going to care about what any science publication says. They're already a lost cause. We're talking about people who think taking horse dewormer or injecting themselves with bleach is going to cure their COVID. When one "side" is explicitly making itself the enemy of actual scientists, when exactly is it OK to call a spade a spade, in your book?
    - exe34 2y ago
      maybe that's natural selection in action? if they love trump more than their health, I'm happy for their sacrifice if it gives future generations a chance.
    - legacynl 2y ago
      So people shouldn't write what they care about, just so they don't offend uneducated rednecks who might stumble on an article that's not meant for them anyway? If you have a family member who distrust msm and 'the globalists' then you're not going to convince them with a nature article anyway. You have to understand that these maga-cultists don't use logic. Just like religion their beliefs are based on faith. Faith is exactly believing something despite facts and arguments. Someone who has drank the kool-aid and has progressed to the level of; "they said something bad about X, so they must be on the other side and I shouldn't trust anything they say", cannot be brought back with scientific proofs and logical arguments. If you want your trump-family to stop taking bleach you cannot just argument against bleach. You have to repair their trust in science, education, the government, etc. Not talking politics, but just sending snarky links to science they don't understand anyway is not doing your family a service.
- legacynl 2y ago
  > giving them actual fact evidence that the industry is biased against them This isn't "actual fact evidence" though. The industry bias you perceive is towards the truth, not a particular side.
- sriram_malhar 2y ago
  It is not about an upside to Nature. By banding together with the leading science publications, it is an upside to society. They don't have to endorse, but they must always call out politicians/policies that will set back science or scientific temper back a few decades. This is not about someone like Deepak Chopra with some quaint view of "quantum"; this is about the most powerful political force that institutionalizes bad faith arguments against science and scientific institutions. Let me give you another example. The Modi govt. in India is right wing Hindu, and keep touting Ancient Hindu science. They rammed through a track by that name at the prestigious (well, until then) 102nd assembly of the Indian Science Congress. Read the following account of one of the papers submitted and weep. https://scroll.in/article/698616/pilots-in-magic-suits-could-steer-vedic-planes-between-planets-says-paper-at-indian-science-congress https://scroll.in/article/698616/pilots-in-magic-suits-could... Now, if it was one crank submission, one can laugh it off. But now there are "cow science" institutes all over India, I kid you not, with prominent politicians claiming that cows are immune to radiation etc. These are official government backed places. I would very much like the scientific establishment and their mouth pieces (Nature, SciAm, etc) to openly disendorse the govt, and to mock the science roundly. I am tired of equal sized megaphones for illiterate people.

avazhi 2y ago

You're missing the point. Everything you said could be true, but it does no good for Nature or any other ostensibly neutral and apolitical scientific organisations to make express political endorsements. Scientists and others who regularly read Nature don't need Nature to tell them who to vote for, nor is Nature going to change their view one way or the other; and by the same token, the very people Nature might like to imagine it could persuade to vote for Harris are the very last people who would ever read a Nature feature article about Federal science funding. But those people - the ones who would never read this kind of article voluntarily and for information's sake - will absolutely latch onto the fact that Nature is making an explicit Harris endorsement and bashing Trump, and this will be irrefutable evidence that science, scientists, and the scientific gatekeepers are all beholden to 'the Left'. Thus, Trump voters will not unreasonably see any and all scientific conclusions as government-sponsored lies and all scientific outputs as somewhere along the spectrum of mind control nanobot devices. In short there is absolutely no reason for Nature to be expressly partisan, and every reason for it NOT to be. It's bad enough that a sizable portion of the American public think 5G is reading their minds and that the US government is somehow orchestrating hurricanes - giving them actual fact evidence that the industry is biased against them just ensures they'll never listen to anything that industry says (Exhibit A: Vaccines). There's just no upside to Nature doing this.

exe34 2y ago
this is the classic disempowering rhetoric that you should not talk about politics and religion - the two biggest forces in society that will screw your life and that of your children the most if you let them.
- avazhi 2y ago
  What’s disempowering is sending a family member a link to a study demonstrating that COVID vaccines reduce one’s risk of long COVID or dementia, and having that family member say ‘Oh this is Nature, they hate Trump and I’m not interested in reading something from this.’ And for what? So a bunch of PhDs can virtue signal to one another that they’re all voting for the same candidate?
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    If your family member is a die-hard Trump supporter, they're not going to care about what any science publication says. They're already a lost cause. We're talking about people who think taking horse dewormer or injecting themselves with bleach is going to cure their COVID. When one "side" is explicitly making itself the enemy of actual scientists, when exactly is it OK to call a spade a spade, in your book?
  - exe34 2y ago
    maybe that's natural selection in action? if they love trump more than their health, I'm happy for their sacrifice if it gives future generations a chance.
  - legacynl 2y ago
    So people shouldn't write what they care about, just so they don't offend uneducated rednecks who might stumble on an article that's not meant for them anyway? If you have a family member who distrust msm and 'the globalists' then you're not going to convince them with a nature article anyway. You have to understand that these maga-cultists don't use logic. Just like religion their beliefs are based on faith. Faith is exactly believing something despite facts and arguments. Someone who has drank the kool-aid and has progressed to the level of; "they said something bad about X, so they must be on the other side and I shouldn't trust anything they say", cannot be brought back with scientific proofs and logical arguments. If you want your trump-family to stop taking bleach you cannot just argument against bleach. You have to repair their trust in science, education, the government, etc. Not talking politics, but just sending snarky links to science they don't understand anyway is not doing your family a service.
legacynl 2y ago
> giving them actual fact evidence that the industry is biased against them This isn't "actual fact evidence" though. The industry bias you perceive is towards the truth, not a particular side.
sriram_malhar 2y ago
It is not about an upside to Nature. By banding together with the leading science publications, it is an upside to society. They don't have to endorse, but they must always call out politicians/policies that will set back science or scientific temper back a few decades. This is not about someone like Deepak Chopra with some quaint view of "quantum"; this is about the most powerful political force that institutionalizes bad faith arguments against science and scientific institutions. Let me give you another example. The Modi govt. in India is right wing Hindu, and keep touting Ancient Hindu science. They rammed through a track by that name at the prestigious (well, until then) 102nd assembly of the Indian Science Congress. Read the following account of one of the papers submitted and weep. https://scroll.in/article/698616/pilots-in-magic-suits-could-steer-vedic-planes-between-planets-says-paper-at-indian-science-congress https://scroll.in/article/698616/pilots-in-magic-suits-could... Now, if it was one crank submission, one can laugh it off. But now there are "cow science" institutes all over India, I kid you not, with prominent politicians claiming that cows are immune to radiation etc. These are official government backed places. I would very much like the scientific establishment and their mouth pieces (Nature, SciAm, etc) to openly disendorse the govt, and to mock the science roundly. I am tired of equal sized megaphones for illiterate people.