this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
267 points (97.5% liked)
Science Memes
14312 readers
1697 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
you are literally responding to a scihub post. the founder of scihub is a communist. the founders of lemmy are communist. you are a star trek fan. it was made by A COMMUNIST.
what is going on in your brain?
I'm sorry, is there something inherent in communism that suggests we should be anti-intellectual because racism exists? There are valid criticisms of racism in all aspects of our society, yes including academia. But "the dominant source of academic science is race science" therefore we need barriers to all science ain't it
Cut the bullshit and just tell us how badly you enjoy calipers and racism masquerading as science.
I'm very aware of the history of race science. Tell me what that has to do with physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and exactly why we should "require many barriers to science" today because the already thoroughly refuted race science existed? Because that is what the other commenter stated.
Race science is just an example of how academic science hasn't always acted responsibly. research should and is subject to ethical considerations and responsible inovation meaning that science should be done in the public interest
it would be science to create a new hyper infectious strain of smallpox and there should be barriers to stop someone doing that
There are ethical barriers to stop those kind of things. Militaries are going to ignore those ethical considerations, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. There was tremendous outcry when irresponsible researchers in China genetically modified fetuses in hopes of making them immune to HIV, without any consideration for the ethics of the situation.
Is academic ethics perfect? Of course not. But it exists and I don't see any proposals for a better system.
It's not different from the abortion debate. Abortion is already regulated quite well by medical ethics. Will that prevent 100% of morally reprehensible situations from occurring? Of course not. But that does not mean we need additional legal regulation (which wouldn't prevent, but only punish anyway.)
There is already effort to improve the racist, sexist barriers to performing academic science and to call out questionable science (particularly medical science, which is probably the worst offender for perpetuating racist and sexist science right now). Those efforts are precisely why we're seeing such a backlash from the white supremacists these days. Just look at what they're targeting - critical race theory and intersectional feminism. Those are academic corrections to academic problems.
I know there are barriers to unethical research I am in favour of those barriers.
You're conjuring up a false exaggerated position no one here took ("require many barriers to science") and making dubious excuses for "shitty" science under pretense of "release all the science, shitty/false or otherwise" idealism.
EDIT: Fine. You quoted one person. That doesn't justify making dubious excuses for "shitty" science under pretense of "release all the science, shitty/false or otherwise" idealism.
That's a literal word for word quote from the comment I was originally replying to. I didn't exaggerate anything.
Is someone still publishing caliper head measurements in 2023 that you're aware of? No. Just like no one is publishing flat earth "studies" even though some idiot members of the public think that's fun right now. And no one is publishing about the aether. Who is the arbiter of what compromises junk science, if not the scientific community? The founder of SciHub is a communist. Release all the science.
Are you doing a blowhard long winded workaround way of calipers-free-but-still-racist "shitty" science under pious pretenses of it still being scientific enough to get attention?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyin6uipy4
It's clearly a losing battle within that community if you're making excuses for "shitty" science getting attention that it both doesn't deserve and that will actually harm people.
No more than you're suggesting that there are racist astronomy studies being published, even though I could choose to disingenuously represent your position with that statement.
Racist studies need to be refuted. It's not that hard. Restricting access to all science (which I see you now notice is what that other commenter was suggesting) isn't going to magically stop racist studies from being published.
And again, who are you suggesting should be the arbiter?
Are you suggesting there should be no arbiter?
I've said exactly what I think. The scientific community is the arbiter, as it is now.
That arbiter is not doing a good job considering the proliferation of antivax, race "science," and climate change denialism, among other things.
Feel as above the fray as you like, but normalizing the mass distribution of junk/shit or otherwise false science under some lofty ideal of "the free marketplace of ideas will select for the correct data" is clearly, demonstratively, and repeatedly not doing that and hasn't in the past either.
You have utterly no idea what's even present in scientific publications. Antivax and climate change denialism are not rampant in published science. They're rampant amongst ignorant members of the public. That's not even remotely the fault of science.
And here's a summary of the current state of race science:
"Race does not stand up scientifically, period."
https://www.scribd.com/article/350285350/What-Both-The-Left-And-Right-Get-Wrong-About-Race
Someone else responded better than I could to what amounts of your wall of arrogance that was toward someone with an opinion and a take so similar to yours that it applies to you as well.
It's not never ending. We're very critical of the racism and sexism in medical research. And the younger generations of doctors are far more aware of it.
We used to butcher women in radical mastectomy surgeries and we don't do that anymore. We used to do medical experiments on black Americans without telling them and we don't do that anymore. For everything that you can point to as a current problem, I can point to another thing that used to be a problem and now has been corrected.
And still none of that has anything to do with physics, chemistry, materials science, geology, oceanography. You can't just say "racism impacts some sciences therefore we shouldn't do science at all"
You're demonstratably actively and overtly ignoring examples given to you, right now, showing just how flawed your claimed "critical" status is of such issues.
Yes, you have that ivory tower of yours crammed so high that you're willfully ignoring intersectional issues that do affect the application, interpretation, even the funding and political will to allocate resources to such fields.
That only demonstrates that correcting the process and actively rejecting bad/false science requires ongoing vigilance, not smug and arrogant dismissal of concerns.
No one said that and you're willfully ignorant at this point.
You think it's anti-intellectual to address intersectional society-wide concerns? Is it truly "intellectual" to pretend that they didn't happen or that they only happened in the past?
It is the pinnacle of ideological arrogance to believe that scientific fields, as practiced by scientists, exist in perfectly sealed vacuums that require no interaction with government or society and that every experiment that is funded, all research undertaken, is powered by sheer scientific purity instead of the unfortunate material realities of funding and decisions made of "what" is researched and for how long.
It does affect all of the above fields if funding and resources are wasted in pursuit of junk science. Announcing that such junk should be "free" and distributed out there under the belief that it will magically be banished by the light of truth and cease being distributed entirely because it is wrong with no other actions necessary is willful ideological ignorance.
Lord in heaven above, this child. You haven't listened to a single word I've said and you're just repeating yourself. Have a good night.
Assuming people that disagree with you are children, and using that for insult purposes only demonstrates your contempt, even hatred, of children.
You failed to address what I talked about so of course I repeated myself. You had nothing to respond to but your own arrogant dismissal of issues and your empty sense of superiority.
You're hilarious. Thank you for the entertainment. Have a good night
So much for your fedora-tipping farewell. You needed to add just how not mad you are at having uncomfortable issues brought up that you failed to address.
No I'm just amusing myself at this point because I can tell you're one of those people who needs to have the last word
You're trying to win a last word game while demonstrating how very not mad you are in the most transparent way possible.
You had nothing from the start but your bloviating arrogance, and now you have nothing left but enraged immaturity after calling me a child (because children are contemptible to you, Redditbrained as you are).
Since you're not posting anything of value (and didn't do so before) I'll just repost a reflection of what you're continuing to do.
You're ignoring the history of academic science.
https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu/report
https://slaveryandjustice.brown.edu/
https://slavery.virginia.edu/
https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/nzo1tx4elaerg13akjwxuve3pv9sb03a
https://news.emory.edu/features/2021/09/emory-unpacks-history-of-slavery-and-dispossession/index.html
And on and on.
And that's just the university system. Then you have actual laboratories. Los Alamos is notorious for being a massive "consumer" of indigenous women and girls of the slave trade. Current astronomy observatories on Mauna Kea are there against the will of the colonized Hawaiians and for years have destroyed their environment, their sovereignty, their health, and have contributed massively to the sex trade in Hawaii. The indigenous are a barrier to the planned 30m telescope there. Are you arguing that this barrier should be removed? Are you saying astronomy cannot possibly intersect with the structures of racism, settler colonialism, and genocide?
We do not need to be anti-intellectual to erect barriers to settler violence that impinge on science. Those barriers are important, and we need more of them. If we are to undo the harm of centuries of European imperialism, it will be a massive project that will hinder scientific inquiry in many ways. Establishing a "no barriers to science stance" creates an ideological commitment to the already existing conflict between justice and science that has been raging for centuries upon centuries.
I am very aware of all of this and it does not have anything to do with the output of most scientific endeavors. The colonialist history of the building of those telescopes doesn't make the astronomical data collected with them somehow racist, and putting up barriers to sharing that data isn't going to fix the racism involved in the administration of those institutions.
We need to change the way we practice academic science just like we need to change the way we practice at every other institution that was built by colonialist "enlightenment." But saying somehow that SciHub is wrong and wet shouldn't promote open sharing of scientific output isn't going to change those institutions.
Also the entire history of academic science is one of evolving standards of practice based on updated ethical standards. In the beginning, experiments were performed without regard for the harm done to human, animal, or environment, and these days we have many ethical standards against those harms. In fact, I will point out that you're sharing data from academic sources who are criticizing academic history which is how it always has been done.
It does when you keep proclaiming the distribution of "all" science, false/shitty and whatnot, if you're arbitrarily in favor of it under some pious ideal of "set it all free."
Don't try to equivocate your way out of this. The practice of science does harm. Setting "remove all barriers to science" as your slogan is problematic. If you want to equivocate, advocate for a slogan change to "Remove all barriers to distributing the outputs of scientific research to any and all people free of charge".
Don't strawman. No one claimed the data was racist. The 30M is not history, it's the future. The US occupation of Hawaii is still illegal under US and UN law. It's not historical colonialism, it's present day colonialism. The indigenous people who were disenfranchised are still there, still occupied, still dying from water pollution, land pollution, and destruction of their food sources and ways of living. And the way we conduct science is actively playing a part in that occupation.
I have been very clear that the slogan is problematic. Scihub's missing of free information flow is not.
Brown University was the first, and it happened because the president they chose was both the first black person and the first woman to ever be president at any Ivy League institution. Harvard University didn't do - its undergrads did all the work and went public with it. The process of dismantling is ongoing, it's very slow, and all the while the white supremacist structure that undergirds the academy remains and continues to dominate decision making.
In one big voice all of the university trustees have linked arms and established that any students and professors speaking and acting tor Palestinian liberation are to be condemned. The academy may do incremental reforms, but their power is not subject to incremental reforms because it is structural. As a communist, you should understand this. If you don't understand, I'm happy to help you work through it. But don't give me this incremental ethical reform bullshit. It comes nowhere near addressing the white supremacist structure that the academy participates in.