Science is uncertain endeavor. Especially when it comes to phenomena / events that occur within a certain region of spacetime scale close to what we experience. But people tend to not like uncertainty. They like the word to be predictable.
The main type of science denialism I see is people ignoring the error bars / qualifications on scientific claims. Part of this is done by press offices and the media trying to generate buzz and prestige. Another more cynical group of people do it for profit.
Typically the people I see who cry about censoring of science are the same type of people who cry about free speech when they get banned from a board. If you are a tenured professor you can research pretty much whatever. Just don’t expect a big time journal or conference to broadcast your work if it’s not addressing a “hot” topic. But at the end of the day that’s fine right? We scientists do this for the love of scientific inquiry, not money and status right? /s
I don't know who this is written for. The people who value the notion of truth already defend it and the ones that don't are destroying it on purpose. Neither side will be swayed by this.
This is an apathetic and narrowly political opinion. It's written because the author was inspired to write it. You should evaluate it based on the content provided, not who you need to assume it's influential towards. Even then, how could you possibly know how many minds it could change? You're enforcing your cynicism and hoping others will follow your despair with no evidence to support it.
> The problem arises when truth 2.0 becomes hypertrophic, self-righteous, rigid and unconnected with reality, which marks a transformation into ideology.
Ideology is the always a way of interpreting the Real into the Symbolic. If you don't think you have an ideology, congrats on having the dominate ideology. Ideology allows people to take the incomprehensible Real and distill it into the comprehensible Symbolic. The process itself is naively invisible in daily naive life. So much so, that the obviousness of it is reversed in order to justify the ideological process itself.
The author makes the uncritical assumption that his ontological conclusions exist as objective reality. And it's this confusion that is-and-ought are two sides of the same coin.
The whole 1.0 vs 2.0 conceptualization is a red herring based in a reactionary call to simpler times.
nonetheless, to witness the entire cognitive process of the author, as misguided as you find their conclusions, is a positive constructive experience isn't it?
IMO, the main point of the article is to assert that in some fields (medicine and science) this "assumption that his ontological conclusions exist as objective reality" is needed, and that to do away with this 'assumption' is 'irrational' and sends one down the path towards authoritarianism.
As soon as science become politicized, it becomes rotten to the core. Science is weak because it must analyze all hypothesis, and masses of people can’t study all of them, while little groups of people with powerful decisions will always be perverted by interests.
Traditional societies are lead by traditions, but modern societies are driven by the ideal that science can measure everything. It sounds as stupid as architectural experiments of the 1960ies. As soon as science drives society, it becomes a tool of power, and the one who can pervert science can gain power.
Science has always been driven by power. We tell ourselves it isn't precisely to hold power today and trick ourselves that there is a distinction between science that isn't politicized (which happens to agree with what I think) and science that is politicized (which happens to disagree with what I think). Making this distinction is itself politicizing science.
These kinds of posts always devolve into flamewars on HN. I posted an Ask HN a couple years ago about "Is there a place on HN for interesting yet flame-war inducing topics?", and came to the conclusion (which was actually a shift in my opinion before I asked the question on HN) that no, in actuality, there is not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29532676
Unfortunately, you are correct. I genuinely try to bring a rational, calm, fact oriented dialog about leftist ideas (decommodification of housing, trans regret rates, social and anthropological science/history around queer issues, systemic inequality, etc.) and largely the conversations I have get one great, engaged response and a whole lot of flames.
I had a fantastic discussion about the history of socialism on the African continent here, with one strongly anti-socialist person. And we both had to slap away people who just wanted to dunk on the "other team". It's unfortunate, really.
Mostly this concept is used to brutalize perceived threats to the professions more than guide their inquiry and work. Produce good results using the truth you work with and it will speak for itself. If instead you take it as a rallying cry to crush other intellectual traditions or nascent cultural experiments you are doing more damage to what you say you value than any opponent could dream.
The author had me until half way through, when he started to babble about "Cultural Marxism", revealing the length of his own bias and lack of knowledge outside his own field.
I am honestly concerned about how modern social-media related amplification moralism (aka Cancel Culture) may impact Science in general. Not for the reasons the author claim - at all - though. My perception, and fear, is that the current generation is overly concerned with "feeling good" to the point esoteric pseudocience is taking over important fields like medicine, with stuff like Homeopathy becoming accepted as medical practice in some countries.
The author, however, seems to be simply ranting about science taking a direction he personally does not like, and trying to sugarcoat his own prejudice in citations to credible sources.
There is NUMEROUS scientific evidence that demonstrated over and over again that the LACK of diversity in science has held us back tremendously in many fields, Medicine in particular. Years of experiments made by white men on white men, failing to take into account gender, ethnicity and other types of variations, leading to theories and therapies that only work as intended on white men.
Introducing diversity as a scientific requirement makes sure the very designing of experiments is less biased, as people with different backgrounds participate in the process.
I find it really ironic that people who supposedly understand the importance of variation in experimental samples can't see the importance of variation in experiment t designers.
Does anyone know what the author means with the citation dates in:
"Bertrand Russell has argued that philosophical (“scientific”, note by the author) inquiry must stay value-free (Russell, 1956, 2007) "
I was somewhat enjoying the article, but hitting these dates attributed to Bertrand Russel (who died in 1970) made me think of these GPT generated essays that manage to look authentic but commit stupid errors. I was then terrified of being fooled by generative text and now I need to be sure before I can keep reading through.
Dude comes out as a bit alarmist but not enough for it to get flagged
In France issues of race have direct outcomes on healthcare, for example there is a very difficult line when recommending medical care based on racial predisposition to medical disorders. For example, communicating that there are elevated rates of sickle cell anemia in blacks, leaves medical professionals struggling for words at the detriment of those groups that would benefit from treatment.
The truth in medicine is that we don't really know a lot. The truth is that not every treatment works on everyone, for known and unknown reasons. The truth is that modern medicine has only been around since around the 1930s.
In science there are useful models and unhelpful models.
Well science don't prove things anyhow, it's inductive. Theory of gravity is "just a theory" too, and Newtonian descriptions of it work well enough. That's just what all theories are and will be, descriptions and predictions based on evidence that will evolve as we make better predictions. There ain't no such thing as "just a theory" because theory is the best you get.
I'm always surprised by the anti-trans comments on Hacker News. "You should be able to own your devices and alter them however you want" seems to be in conflict with "but I don't want people altering their bodies."
This is why I vote Republican now. I grew up hating the religious right in the 90's for attacking science when it contradicted the Bible. But their efforts never actually affected the practice of scientific research.
[+] [-] pfisherman|3 years ago|reply
The main type of science denialism I see is people ignoring the error bars / qualifications on scientific claims. Part of this is done by press offices and the media trying to generate buzz and prestige. Another more cynical group of people do it for profit.
Typically the people I see who cry about censoring of science are the same type of people who cry about free speech when they get banned from a board. If you are a tenured professor you can research pretty much whatever. Just don’t expect a big time journal or conference to broadcast your work if it’s not addressing a “hot” topic. But at the end of the day that’s fine right? We scientists do this for the love of scientific inquiry, not money and status right? /s
[+] [-] JamesBarney|3 years ago|reply
And most of those decisions are made in heavily politicized process.
[+] [-] Eddy_Viscosity2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] realce|3 years ago|reply
Can't a cigar just be a cigar?
[+] [-] ForRealHere|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kelseyfrog|3 years ago|reply
Ideology is the always a way of interpreting the Real into the Symbolic. If you don't think you have an ideology, congrats on having the dominate ideology. Ideology allows people to take the incomprehensible Real and distill it into the comprehensible Symbolic. The process itself is naively invisible in daily naive life. So much so, that the obviousness of it is reversed in order to justify the ideological process itself.
The author makes the uncritical assumption that his ontological conclusions exist as objective reality. And it's this confusion that is-and-ought are two sides of the same coin.
The whole 1.0 vs 2.0 conceptualization is a red herring based in a reactionary call to simpler times.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] donnowhy|3 years ago|reply
IMO, the main point of the article is to assert that in some fields (medicine and science) this "assumption that his ontological conclusions exist as objective reality" is needed, and that to do away with this 'assumption' is 'irrational' and sends one down the path towards authoritarianism.
This involves more epistemology than usual
[+] [-] eastbound|3 years ago|reply
As soon as science become politicized, it becomes rotten to the core. Science is weak because it must analyze all hypothesis, and masses of people can’t study all of them, while little groups of people with powerful decisions will always be perverted by interests.
Traditional societies are lead by traditions, but modern societies are driven by the ideal that science can measure everything. It sounds as stupid as architectural experiments of the 1960ies. As soon as science drives society, it becomes a tool of power, and the one who can pervert science can gain power.
[+] [-] kelseyfrog|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ForRealHere|3 years ago|reply
I had a fantastic discussion about the history of socialism on the African continent here, with one strongly anti-socialist person. And we both had to slap away people who just wanted to dunk on the "other team". It's unfortunate, really.
[+] [-] kingkawn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guhcampos|3 years ago|reply
I am honestly concerned about how modern social-media related amplification moralism (aka Cancel Culture) may impact Science in general. Not for the reasons the author claim - at all - though. My perception, and fear, is that the current generation is overly concerned with "feeling good" to the point esoteric pseudocience is taking over important fields like medicine, with stuff like Homeopathy becoming accepted as medical practice in some countries.
The author, however, seems to be simply ranting about science taking a direction he personally does not like, and trying to sugarcoat his own prejudice in citations to credible sources.
There is NUMEROUS scientific evidence that demonstrated over and over again that the LACK of diversity in science has held us back tremendously in many fields, Medicine in particular. Years of experiments made by white men on white men, failing to take into account gender, ethnicity and other types of variations, leading to theories and therapies that only work as intended on white men.
Introducing diversity as a scientific requirement makes sure the very designing of experiments is less biased, as people with different backgrounds participate in the process.
I find it really ironic that people who supposedly understand the importance of variation in experimental samples can't see the importance of variation in experiment t designers.
[+] [-] guhcampos|3 years ago|reply
"Bertrand Russell has argued that philosophical (“scientific”, note by the author) inquiry must stay value-free (Russell, 1956, 2007) "
I was somewhat enjoying the article, but hitting these dates attributed to Bertrand Russel (who died in 1970) made me think of these GPT generated essays that manage to look authentic but commit stupid errors. I was then terrified of being fooled by generative text and now I need to be sure before I can keep reading through.
[+] [-] tootallgavin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenport|3 years ago|reply
In France issues of race have direct outcomes on healthcare, for example there is a very difficult line when recommending medical care based on racial predisposition to medical disorders. For example, communicating that there are elevated rates of sickle cell anemia in blacks, leaves medical professionals struggling for words at the detriment of those groups that would benefit from treatment.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mannyv|3 years ago|reply
In science there are useful models and unhelpful models.
[+] [-] micahdeath|3 years ago|reply
I prefer math where it isn't truth but fact.
[+] [-] BestGuess|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 57354737|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 2649121323|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ForRealHere|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fallingknife|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenport|3 years ago|reply
We are decades behind because of religious fundamentalists.
Just because you are unaware of the damage doesn't mean it didn't happen.