In science, you often find what you look for. "Are Jews more predisposed to financial fraud than non-Jews?" Do you want the answer to that question? How conf

In science, you often find what you look for. "Are Jews more predisposed to financial fraud than non-Jews?" Do you want the answer to that question? How confident are you that you want it? What do you think are the odds that launching that study will benefit the world? What statistical test would you prefer, and what is the balance between type 1 and type 2 error rates? What sort of group is likely to want to fund that study? If you perform 30 of these studies and find that for P>0.05, 3 of them do show a statistically significant result, how do you think that is going to impact society? Do you think it will mean the same thing to scientists as to non-scientists? Acknowledging that society incorporates a longstanding war of dueling narratives, and that scientific studies are a part of that, becomes an unfortunate necessity. I have watched geeky friends go from "Science must prevail over politics" to alt-right eugenicists, and I have watched alt-right eugenicists weaponize "Science must prevail over politics" for the sake of promoting what looks more than a little bit like ethnic cleansing. It is often easier for a group to make obviously poor decisions due to internal conflict, than for an individual who can consolidate a worldview. As a collective group, we have gotten a lot dumber than we were in recent memory.