• BluJay320@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    Well, I wouldn’t say all barriers…

    Ethical matters, such as experimentation on animals and especially humans, need barriers in place. We don’t need another Josef Mengele

    But I agree with the intended sentiment

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Also, we need barriers related to quality, otherwise you get shit like Andrew Wakefield trying to sell his alternative vaccine, and in the process creating the modern antivax movement

      • sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net
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        1 year ago

        On board with both of you.

        Science that isn’t ethical science is a huge problem we can’t just wave away, and science that isn’t good science is also a huge problem we can’t just wave away.

        On the other hand, good science that is also ethical science can be immensely useful when it helps to describe the world and predict things that could happen accurately.

  • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    Uhhhh, the dominant historical source of academy science is race science. We require many barriers to science because science has historically been completely entrenched in oppression and it hasn’t really ever stopped

    • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      i believe this is addressed somewhere on the scihub website. racial hatred and bigotry is a barrier to science. the founder of scihub is a communist

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I agree with the sentiment in the context of it being a file sharing site for academic texts but it’s not worded so well barriers in the way of science could also include ethical concerns to certain kinds of experiment

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Racial hatred and bigotry are individualistic barriers to science.

        Racialized capitalism is the foundation of the modern university. Harvard resisted getting rid of its slaves and when they did they bought and sold people in the Caribbean outside of the reach of US law. Disgustingly high numbers of medical schools were built on the basis of dissecting and experimenting on black and indigenous people.

        Most ivy league schools still have the remains of scores of black and indigenous people in their museums, their libraries, and even their classrooms. Entire skeletons of enslaved people were prepared for classroom demonstrations and used in contemporary memory!

        The money for these universities came from the slave trade and from slave labor. The schools themselves were often built with slave labor. The patrons of the university funded race science to justify the structures of racism.

        It has nothing to do with racial hatred and bigotry.

        The structural racism funded the creation and expansion of universities. MIT would not exist if it weren’t for the need for textile producers to build machines to make more money so the money that got poured into MIT was the money that was extracted from slave labor picking cotton.

        Undoing this harm and bringing about justice through reparations is going to really undermine university endowments. It’s going to require removing names of buildings, dishonoring scientific “heroes”, and preventing it from happening again is going to be seen as barriers to science.

    • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Can you explain what you mean about historical race science? I’ve never heard of it.

      Either way, even shitty science should be freely accessible so your point doesn’t make any sense.

      • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Either way, even shitty science should be freely accessible so your point doesn’t make any sense.

        It really shouldn’t. We saw through the COVID vaccine hysteria just how harmful shitty science can be. A lot of people died completely preventable deaths because we live under the illusion that reason prevails under the free marketplace of ideas or some nonsense like that.

        • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Strong disagree, given the vaccine hysteria was on the part of the deniers. The science supported and continues to support the vaccines effectiveness and safety. It’s primarily people who aren’t scientists and don’t know how to interpret medical studies that are claiming that they are dangerous or ineffective.

          Nice to meet you, I’m a medical scientist that specializes in Alzheimer’s research. Absolutely none of my colleagues think vaccines are dangerous.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            The media and the general population do not recognize any one single specific scientific organization as an authority to depend upon, so being smug about your claimed place in the ivory tower does nothing to stop people from getting false science from somewhere other than that ivory tower.

            EDIT: And how exactly are those masses that you condescend to supposed to distinguish “shitty” science from outright false science? And why should “shitty” science things be given validity and attention (which may well include race science because you never said otherwise in this thread) while you somehow distinguish that away from antivax nonsense? They’re both nonsense but you seem to be making pious excuses for one kind of it.

            Stating “post all the science” must feel good to say but it does nothing to stop the posting of false science calling itself science and many people going along with that. You yourself claimed (or feigned) ignorance of race science as false science, which shows just how insidious such things really are.

            • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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              1 year ago

              Good. There isn’t a single scientific organization, given the whole point of science is democratizing information research.

              General populace are supposed to rely on the top researchers in their field to disseminate information. These top researchers are usually the least controversial which is why they are trusted by the (again) democratized scientific community. I’ll say this because a lot of people don’t realize it: if you have any controversy in your past regarding misinformation or “fixing” results, and it ever gets out, you are immediately shunned and your work will never be looked at seriously again. You will lose your job and all credibility immediately. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it is heavily discouraged.

              If we want to combat misinformation we should be encouraging people to trust scientists and not get information from organizations with ulterior motives.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                If we want to combat misinformation we should be encouraging people to trust scientists

                That sounds really grand on paper but in reality the societal definition of who a scientist is (and who is a credible scientist) is blurred to the point that you can piously disavow antivax conspiracy theories (some of them pushed by quack scientists with dubious qualifications) but also proclaim that even “shit science” should be freely released for all to see (with “race science” being mentioned in particular with you glibly disavowing knowledge of it) and you still haven’t provided a distinct measurable difference between the two.

                You really seem to be more in favor of “race science” than antivax nonsense, and they are both nonsense.

                • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  I’m not saying trust any random person who calls themself a scientist. Myself included.

                  I’m saying people should trust reputable scientists at the top of their field. Ideally, journalists should do the leg work to identify these people and give them a voice, and describe why they should be trusted.

                  That doesn’t happen with nearly all right-leaning journalistic publications, unfortunately, resulting in a huge population not knowing who to trust or just mistrusting scientists in general.

                  Edit: I realize I didn’t answer your point on freedom of access. I do firmly believe all science should be accessible, because no single study should ever be taken as fact. Science works through repetition, and if you have a study that disagrees with nearly everything else then it’s either a brand new way of looking at things (and will be supported in the future) or is junk (and will be ignored). But just because something is junk doesn’t mean we should prevent people from accessing it.

      • Posadas [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Can you explain what you mean about historical race science? I’ve never heard of it.

        Basically it boils down to making up any bullshit excuses possible to justify us-foreign-policy

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Race science is the science that emerged to rationalize and justify the structure of racism. It is the science that emerged to justify political race structures. Race science is what allowed black and indigenous children to be ripped away from their parents while other parents watched and participated and said “This is good”.

        That race science was funded by the elite or society. They extracted wealth through settler colonialism and racialized capitalism and then donated it to the universities as “philanthropy” and used their influence to direct more research into race science and other endeavors to maximize their profits.

        Making research freely available is not removing all barriers to science. It is removing but one barrier to science. There are many other barriers that exist, have existed, or could exist.

        In this way, saying that all barriers to science must be removed ignores the historical facts that the origins of academic science in the US are rooted almost entirely in race science. Even medical schools were locations of mass racialized atrocities where black and brown bodies were bought, imported, experimented on, killed, and desecrated in order to meet the demands of donors and chasing more endowment money. That science was used to further establish the schools’ reputation and revenue streams.

        Fixing this will be seen as a barrier to science, as fixing it required dismantling major portions of the socio-politico-economic structures that maintain academies of science. Reparations alone would make many scientific institutions disappear overnight.

        • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          I understand the historical context but many of us scientists strive to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. Nearly every grant I apply to has a secondary version that prioritizes racially and ethnically diverse applicants. Half of articles I see published are now acknowledging the racial divide in science and striving to recruit more minority populations.

          I’m applying to a federal grant now (K01) and I am required to state my strategy for ensuring representation of gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status in my recruitment population. I have a section of my grant discussing how the presentation of Alzheimers differs in black communities.

          We definitely have more work to do, but it’s not like we’re pretending the racial divide doesn’t exist.

          • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            Nearly every grant I apply to has a secondary version that prioritizes racially and ethnically diverse applicants

            That’s diversity at best and tokenism at worst and has no impact on what science has inherited. Black people working on chemical warfare doesn’t make it less structurally racist.

            Half of articles I see published are now acknowledging the racial divide in science and striving to recruit more minority populations.

            Doesn’t reduce the billions of dollars current institutions have extracted by consuming black and brown bodies.

            We definitely have more work to do, but it’s not like we’re pretending the racial divide doesn’t exist.

            It’s not a racial divide. It’s a racist structure. We ARE pretending like racism doesn’t exist in the way that it does but instead exists as not enough representation. Racism isn’t a lack of representation. It’s much much much bigger than that, and fixing it doesn’t require more representation to happen first.

            • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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              1 year ago

              Intentional racism is no longer an issue due to nearly every (reputable) publication’s requirement of a institutional review board. This is to prevent exactly what you describe.

              Unintentional racism, yes I agree that’s a problem.

              But come on. We’ve made huge strides in this over the past few decades.

              • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                Intentional racism is no longer an issue due to nearly every (reputable) publication’s requirement of a institutional review board. This is to prevent exactly what you describe.

                This is LAUGHABLE

                Unintentional racism, yes I agree that’s a problem.

                You really gotta study what’s been written about racism. It’s not what you think it is, apparently.

                But come on. We’ve made huge strides in this over the past few decades.

                Nah, we really haven’t. Representation is better. White supremacy is still killing millions.

                • Dr Cog@mander.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  So your response is “no, u?”

                  I’m happy to have this conversation but you really need to contribute more. I’ve described numerous ways we currently combat racism in science. Would you like to provide a recent example of racist science that we can discuss?

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Lysenkoism

        The man was operating at the same time as other scientists who were just starting to create hypotheses that DNA was the physical manifestation of their theorized concept of a “gene”. He denied the existence of the gene because he, correctly, established that his data contradicted the oversimplified view of genetic inheritance. His data showed that somatic changes were part of what an offspring inherited. Lo and behold, he was talking about the current field of study we call “epigenetics”. His “eugenics” theories were nothing like those of race scientists. Instead, his theory was that the state must produce a healthy society in order to produce healthy people. Lo and behold, we find that trauma transmits to offspring and that the traumas of slavery (for example) are passed down from generation to generation. This position cannot be accounted for in the genetic theories of the time, and as such he rejected those theories. In essence, Lysenkoism is actually an attempt at thinking of biology dialectically, and that does indeed make it Marxist-Leninst.

        And, like anything else in science, the dominant power structure must do everything it can to dismiss and denigrate anyone that correctly pointed out critiques of their work. For almost 200 years we taught doctors in training that the human body had 78 organs. We finally updated that to 79 in 2012, despite the overwhelming evidence from 3 separate researchers and papers. The doctor who made the claim that stood the test of 100+ years was an English knight. The researchers who contradicted him were Italian and American. The Italian contradicted him 5 years before his own book was published. But, the dominant culture must be correct. The British empire is also the structure that maintained the incorrect science that the brain and lymph system were not connected, despite detailed anatomical sketches from non-English doctors showing otherwise. That position was held for centuries until it was finally overturned in 2015, but not before much controversy that it couldn’t be possible and those other doctors were probably just obsessed with something irrational.

        The claim of Lysenkoism being eugenics “just like what the imperialists did” is just completely ahistorical and requires a desire to absolve one’s own national project through the use of projection. Lysenko’s theories, and the policies that were built on them, failed in many ways and caused a lot of harm, none of which holds a candle to child separation, centuries of mass rape, and centuries of forced sterilization (which, we must acknowledge, continued well into the 1960s in the USA).

        Lysenko was wrong about a lot of things, and was right about very little. But the idea that his contrarian position to the dominant theories of genetics is to be mocked or even vilified is a completely ideological position firmly seated in the imperialist camp.

    • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Do you understand that the primary barriers being referred to here are intellectual property? I suspect you aren’t in favor of propritarian intellectualism. What do you think those racist academies opinions on intellectual property has been?

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Do you understand that the primary barriers being referred to here are intellectual property?

        I understand that anyone who knows what SciHub is about would infer that. It’s not what the slogan says. It says remove all barriers in the way of science. The slogan is problem.

      • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        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?

        • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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          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

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I’m sorry,

            smuglord

            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.

            • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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              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.

              • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                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

                • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                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.

                • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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                  1 year ago

                  “requires many barriers to science”

                  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.

          • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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              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.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                it does not have anything to do with the output of most scientific endeavor

                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.”

              • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                it does not have anything to do with the output of most scientific endeavors

                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”.

                The colonialist history of the building of those telescopes doesn’t make the astronomical data collected with them somehow racist

                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.

                But saying somehow that SciHub is wrong and wet shouldn’t promote open sharing of scientific output isn’t going to change those institutions.

                I have been very clear that the slogan is problematic. Scihub’s missing of free information flow is not.

                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.

                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.

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    Love it, doubly so since it has a raven on it.

    New desktop after I run it thru Upscayl.