Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

This whole debate is surrealist.

Bigotry and intolerance are fundamentally irrational and illogical, so the so-called "left-bias" of science is just science being itself.

Now the comments in this HN page and the reason.com article are completely ignoring that, and only considering everything through a political filter.

Is "intolerance" objectively defined?

Easy enough: make matter things that have no reason to matter.

Like what the skin color has to do with how good your physician is? Nothing.

Science is smart enough to propose the adequate metrics, in this case it does absolutely not include melanin.

I don't think this applies to the particular problems being discussed. Certainly it's irrational to discriminate (as you say in a related comment), but the examples discussed in the article are not cases of Scientific American simply declaring that principle, but rather making other errors, or proclaiming a rather different political point of view.

(If you think the "social justice" movement is simply about -- or even supports -- the nondiscrimination principle you mention in a related comment, you are mistaken! And if you support it because you support that principle, I recommend looking more into what the SJers actually believe, because you may find that you're not in as close agreement with them as you assumed you were...)

> Like what the skin color has to do with how good your physician is? Nothing.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Malpractice and disciplinary rates among Black and Latin physicians are higher: https://www.library.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Medica...

> After controlling for a number of other variables, Latino/a and Black physicians were both more likely to receive complaints and more likely to see those complaints escalate to investigations. Latino/a physicians were also more likely to see those investigations result in disciplinary outcomes. On the other hand, some other minority physicians — in particular Asian physicians — actually saw reduced likelihoods of receiving complaints, or of those complaints escalating to investigations. These observations remained even after controlling for age, gender, board certification, and number of hours spent on patient care.

Until a few years ago, if my physician was educated in the United States and were Asian American they had to have a measurably better academic track record to overcome anti-Asian bias in university admissions. Does that mean they are a better physician? Probably not - in my experience the difference between good and bad in a medical context is patience and care, not knowledge. However it’s not absurd to make the opposite claim.

Similarly, there is a body of scholarship that suggests that black physicians trust black patients more than white physicians trust black patients. If I am black, does the color of my physician matter when I talk about something hurting? The evidence suggests that it might.

The fundamental flaw in basing your moral philosophy in measurable metrics is that metrics are noisy and that noise will often undermine your point. Instead, you should be making a purely moral point: my doctor’s skin color shouldn't matter and I will act to make the world I live in more similar to this ideal. That moral point is the driving force behind the civil rights progress that has been made.

Now do it outside the country, and I anticipate the results don't replicate, meaning your cited study probably fails replication.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Let's imagine MCAT scores directly determine malpractice rates. If one country practices race based affirmative action in medical school applications, and another country does not the we should expect the former to see a disparity but not the latter.

Why would we expect this trend to replicate across countries which have different medical training systems?

It's left leaning universities that push for affirmative action policies, which do judge people based on their melanin.

>Bigotry and intolerance are fundamentally irrational and illogical, so the so-called "left-bias" of science is just science being itself.

TIL science ignores sex differences in body strength and endurance, racial differences in average IQ, the Putnam study on diversity and social capital, racial differences in aggression and their link to violent crime, and studies on the effects (irreversible) puberty blockers have on kids, among other things.

You can dislike these results, you can tell me I'm a bigot for even bringing them up, but you cannot correctly dispute them on the grounds of scientific inquiry. The fact that Scientific American would even try, as they have now for years, tells you all you need to know about their attachment to reality.

Deciding "what matters" isn't a question of science, it is a question of dominance and self-interest. You seem intent on dominating others and denying their legitimate self-interests.

(EDIT: I had not read thoroughly your comment, see my PS below for a direct reply.)

Your point is to use a proxy for the variable that really matters.

Unfortunately that proxy is neither reliable, nor has good impact on the society in general.

It is better to just use the pertinent variables directly without a proxy.

Your physician is good if e.g. they have also a research formation, if their patients are satisfied and have a good recovering rate for illnesses that promise recovery, etc.

PS: ok, I see that you also point to variable trust from the patient to the physician based on superficial criteria. I hope that can change in the near future when everybody has the mindset "the appearance is not what matters". The patients themselves will benefit from growing their openmindedness.

Same as my other comment.

Don't use a proxy.

What matters is a matter of causality, which is inside the realm of science.

The fact that many variables are correlated doesn't condone using any of them as an evaluation criteria.

See my other comment on stat proxies.

That is intended to be a transient mechanism, to evolve towards a more balanced status quo after it has ended.

Is it defensible to claim that men don't commit more violent crime than women? Sure, men are convicted of violent crimes at a higher rates, but convictions for violent crimes is just a proxy for the true violent crime rate. If we want to make th claim that there's a disparity here we shouldn't use a proxy.

Of course, that logic doesn't work because convictions for crime is a pretty good proxy. If I want to discredit it, I'd have to actually explain why convictions for violent crime don't correspond to the true crime rates. If you have cause to think that malpractice lawsuits and disciplinary actions are not a good proxy for poorly administered medical care, I'm all ears.

We agree to disagree.

Btw, criminal conviction related to the profession is not a proxy, it is really one of the things that matter, measured directly. So you're mixing concepts.