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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)
499 points Bostonian | 3 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.585s | source
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standardUser ◴[19 Nov 24 11:32 UTC] No.42182314[source]▶
I sympathize with her. There's a big movement in this country that defines itself largely by opposing what its perceived enemies support. When science (or culture) makes a reasonably sound assertion, and it's met with an opposition that wields rhetoric like a weapon with no regard for rationality, it's tempting to fight fire with fire. And when the victims of that opposition are among the most marginalized in society, it's easy to feel like you have the moral high ground.

Maybe in culture it's ok to fight dirty and stretch some truths in order to force newer perspectives into the zeitgeist. Maybe it's even neccesary when the opposition is willing to lie outright, and loudly, as a first resort. But that doesn't work with science. Even if the motivations are pure, it's destined to backfire. It should backfire. Science itself is under assault and losing its ability to hold together some semblance of a shared reality. If people start to believe that science is just as corruptible as journalism because of shitty science journalists, we're fucked.

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rayiner ◴[19 Nov 24 12:09 UTC] No.42182559[source]▶
It’s misguided and toxic to center your worldview around the “most marginalized” or to think that focusing on them somehow gives you the moral high ground or frees you from the obligation to play by the meta-rules of society and its institutions. Or to think that your worldview somehow has a monopoly on helping marginalized people. You invoke “rationality” but as Spock would say, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
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1. llm_trw ◴[19 Nov 24 13:14 UTC] No.42183048[source]▶
>“the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

The brewer, the baker and the candle stick maker need a new kidney, liver and heart. Thank you for volunteering to be killed so we can harvest your organs and keep the many alive.

Alternatively don't base your world view on a TV show from the 1960s.

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2. vundercind ◴[19 Nov 24 15:21 UTC] No.42184389[source]▶
Even in the movie's own terms, that's an ethical aphorism spoken by a character to justify his act of self sacrifice, and to comfort a great friend that he's coming to his unfortunate end on his own terms and for his own reasons and, in Spock's way, as an act of love, in a sense.

It's not, like, "go shit on minorities if it makes the majority's utility-units increase".

3. tzs ◴[19 Nov 24 15:30 UTC] No.42184546[source]▶
There was a story in Analog a few years ago called "Dibs" if I recall the title correctly about a world that worked like that.

Whenever someone could be saved by a transplant they would find possible donors and send them a notification that one of their organs could save someone. Usually after a few weeks the potential donor would get notification that the person who needed the organ has died. During the time between those two notifications the dying person was said to have dibs on the organ.

Occasionally someone would get a second notification about someone having dibs on another one of the organs while someone already had dibs on one of their organs. Again what usually is that those people would die soon and the person would go back to nobody having dibs on any of their organs.

Sometimes though a person with people having dibs on two of their organs would get notified that a third person now had dibs on one of their organs. That was enough that the needs of the many thing kicked in and they were required to give up those organs, which would usually be fatal.