
To do better science, admit that you’re not objective - tacon
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00669-2
======
leftyted
Nah. Do your best to be objective. The work you accomplish while attempting
objectivity will be better than the work you would have accomplished while
attempting to account for your lack of objectivity.

No one is counting on your work being perfect. Science is a communal activity
that self-corrects in the long-term.

To put it another way, here's Cormac McCarthy:

> You know, you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can
> never achieve, but which you never stop trying to achieve. But I think ...
> that's your signpost and your guide. You'll never get there, but without it
> you won't get anywhere.

More from the article:

> As I found while writing my 2019 book Superior: The Return of Race Science,
> geneticists today rightly treat eugenics as a laughable proposition...

If eugenics doesn't work then how come every single Border Collie is smarter
than every single English Bulldog?

> ... and the concept of biological race — the belief that humans can be
> subdivided into distinct groups with meaningful differences between them —
> as easily debunked nonsense.

You can divide humans into whatever groups you like based on whichever
criteria you like. The question is whether those groupings are _useful_ and
sometimes...they are. Whether you call those groupings "races" or something
else is a semantic argument.

~~~
datashow
"geneticists today rightly treat eugenics as a laughable proposition"? Really?
This author is not qualified to speak for geneticists.

Dawkins: It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral
grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of
course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth
wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/12289436869...](https://mobile.twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/1228943686953664512)

Crazy woke activitists like this author is not qualified to speak for science.
They think if something is politically wrong must also be scientifically
wrong. It is not.

~~~
throwaway6449
Dawkins hasn't been relevant in the field of evolutionary biology for 15+
years and I don't know why people pay attention to whatever he says just
because he built a brand about being an an edgy atheist.

There are literally dozens of arguments as to why 'eugenics' (beyond very
basic hanging fruit like eliminating monogenic diseases etc.) wouldn't work
and doesn't make sense to begin with and many of them have been spelled out in
the tweet's replies and blog posts, I'll let you do your homework.

~~~
datashow
> beyond very basic hanging fruit like eliminating monogenic diseases etc.

So it does work.

------
armatav
"When science is viewed in isolation from the past and politics, it’s easier
for those with bad intentions to revive dangerous and discredited ideas."

Shouldn't science always, without any exception, be viewed in isolation from
the past and politics?

I feel like the only reason this idea that science shouldn't revolve solely
around the practice of the scientific method, and the observation and
application of the results of experimentation, is being entertained is because
people are posting these viewpoints in high-profile places like Nature.

~~~
5cott0
>Shouldn't science always, without any exception, be viewed in isolation from
the past and politics?

Try telling that to Galileo.

~~~
throwaway6449
FYI, Galileo was called out because his science was considered shoddy at the
time, notably because of the poor quality of instruments that didn't take
things like parallax into account. That he turned out to be right afterwards
is more of a coincidence. Also, he called the Pope an idiot. The moral of the
story isn't that truth prevails despite the evil church, it's that no one
likes a contrarian smartass, especially when their arguments are wrong.

~~~
5cott0
we've reached peak "well ackshually..."

------
asurty
This reminds me of a first year engineering philosophy course I took where the
prof spent a good chunk of it trying to tell us there is no such thing as 100%
objective research then proceeding to tell us that our grades were 100%
objective after people complained about divergence between course averages
according to teaching assistants. :'D

~~~
fdgfhgjhkj
You clearly learned nothing in that class.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
What does “better” mean? Is it science that produces results that you like? It
is science that produces that produces useful technologies. Or is it science
that produces models that reflect reality.

If you go by the first two definitions then brining politics is helpful. If
you go by the third, then politics is decidedly unhelpful.

~~~
themodelplumber
We talk a lot about bad science, so I would guess that the opposite of that is
what the author may be talking about. Which is probably a good idea, since bad
science sucks and it's getting more air time than it used to.

"Better" could probably even be quantified in a helpful way if desired.

Politics are just another human factor. Stimulus and response. Can also be
quantified if addressed situationally. As a catch-all it's a low-leverage
descriptor though.

I like that the author is at least talking about this. It could lead to a
system-level improvement.

> models that reflect reality

Or models that elegantly allow for multiple perspectives while contributing to
a desired outcome. Reality when held up as an accountability target opens up a
bit of a can of worms, starting with the subjectivity question: Whose reality?
Or which reality? Humans are remarkable in their ability to create, entertain,
use, and appreciate even conflicting models of reality.

------
generationP
Start with yourself perhaps. The pigeonholing of heritability studies with
eugenicist policy is something laughable to everyone who isn't utterly
beclouded by FUD. And great job avoiding to refer to Noah Carl by name,
because just imagine someone googling for it and actually checking up on the
description (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Carl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Carl)
).

~~~
scott_s
> The pigeonholing of heritability studies with eugenicist policy

Where does the author do this?

~~~
dekhn
"As I found while writing my 2019 book Superior: The Return of Race Science,
geneticists today rightly treat eugenics as a laughable proposition, and the
concept of biological race — the belief that humans can be subdivided into
distinct groups with meaningful differences between them — as easily debunked
nonsens"

Many studies cluster people with different genetic histories into groups with
meaningful differences. This is important (for example) when treating people
with different genetic histories for disease. AFAICT the article's author gets
genetic history and social race mixed up, which does nothing to help their
article's point.

~~~
throwaway6449
Race isn't well-defined. You can't just wave it away with "uhh some
PCA/STRUCTURE plot yields clusters so race is real", that's not how popgen or
phylogeny works. Nor can you get away with "butbut muh genetic diseases!" when
these involve only a few genes that make up a tiny fraction of one's genome.
Of course modern scientists in relevant fields know this, that's why race has
been discontinued as a concept even though some people (old school doctors or
taxonomists or pioneer fund recipients) haven't gotten, or perhaps don't want
to get the memo.

------
austincheney
While I think of article as basic common sense I can see how people generally
fail at this. I used to be the A/B test engineer for Travelocity. Here are
some of the motivations I have observed that introduce bias generally (not
just in science):

Passive

* communication style

* a lack of self-reflection

* inadequate tests

* dishonesty (cognitive complexity)

Active

* prejudice

* dominance

* dishonesty (lying)

I often found that people are rarely introducing bias intentionally, though
that does happen. The reasons people attempted to intentionally introduce bias
was generally a way to improperly persuade people for a variety of unrelated
motivations.

Bias can be as simple as confusion as to a goal, such as when a person states
one thing but is actually hoping for something different. This is a
disconnection between a person's goal and the terms with which they are
willing or capable to express that goal. Reasons for that disconnect could be
offense or cultural conventions. This is more easily observable in children
who haven't yet mastered the communication skills to mask this confusion.

Sometimes bias creeps in because a person has a strong opinion of a subject
and instead of attempting a proof to qualify or disqualify their position on
the subject they will shift the evidence as necessary to manipulate an
audience. This is common in politics, particularly when the audience
themselves are preferentially biased to the emotionally loaded language they
are hearing over any complete or partial evidence supporting that language. To
some degree this sort of political manipulation is also most commonly
unintentional, though it appears exceedingly intention coming from many career
politicians.

Most frequently people introduce bias casually to achieve a form of social
agreement, because facts and evidence are less important, to many people, than
kindness and conformance. There is a sort security provided from achieving
stronger social bonds even if that means shifting ground to conform to a
different set of norms and values preferred by a group.

You wouldn't think any of this line of thinking would enter science or
experimentation, especially when those conducting the experiments are
experienced professionals, but it does. I have learned through other
professional experiences that objectivity is a personality trait that can be
tested for and measured. Objective personality types are rare. Everybody else
needs defined boundaries and everybody needs some manner of peer review.

~~~
rolltiide
there.is.nothing.wrong.with.a.passive.communication.style

change my view

~~~
austincheney
People are always communicating passively. A communications expert, which I am
not, will tell you that less than 20% of communication is the words from the
mouth even in a face to face oral conversation. Think of communication in 3
layers:

* the words

* the voice

* body language

Truth only occurs when those three layers are in agreement. This means people
are frequently untruthful and generally unaware of just how obvious their lack
of candor is to somebody who listens well. Since you are usually not in full
cognitive control over your voice and body language, and sometimes even over
your words, most of your communication will be passive regardless of your
intentions and level of control. It takes a higher state of awareness to be a
good liar and that can really age a person.

------
class4behavior
Subjectivity is not the core of the problem but the disregard of the
importance of reason. It is the idea that a philosophical conclusion is the
same as a political position and that any political thought itself is
inherently justified which is false.

------
sago
I don't disagree with the article. But I have a long-standing problem with
this post-modern representation of 'objectivity' as binary.

Yes, the tiniest bit of subjectivity makes something nonobjective. Okay, there
is absolutely nothing objective. But things can be more objectively true than
others. Science is more objective than theology. A spherical Earth more than a
flat one.

Treating objectivity as binary, to constantly make the point that nothing is
objective, invites the conclusion that everything is equally subjective. Which
is nonsense. I'd like to see us move beyond this black and white model. Post-
modernism made some good points (e.g. that those who claimed we could get to
100% objectivity were wrong). But being post-post-modern isn't the same as
rejecting them all.

~~~
dekhn
I think it's easier to just sort of think of this like probability and
statistics.

I start with an assumption: the universe does exist, it's real, and humans can
perceive the real universe, although likely with a bunch of filters and
biases. Then I also assume that through careful work (identifying filters and
biases, setting up good processes to avoid them) we can see the real universe
in a truthful way (Plato's cave allegory, and Descartes' Great Deceiver are
both interesting explorations into the limits of this idea).

I figure if either of those assumptions is violated (for example if there is
some sort of Great Deceiver) we can't really supercede them.

Then, based on those assumptions, I mainly focus on empiricism combined with
high quality experimental technique, and a relentless drive to reduce
variables which don't contribute directly to the system under study. Think of
Galileo's experiment dropping two balls of different mass. When he conducted
it in air, if he had used a feather, many people would conclude that heavier
objects fall faster. But if air effects are excluded (in vacuum), we can see
that feathers fall at the same velocity as heavy balls. This requires some
leaps of intuition and also some very careful experimental setup.

Once you've got to that point, you're well set up to start using the great
tools of science: microscope, telescope, spectroscope, precision clock. Those
immediately give you access to a whole collection of additional high quality
data that is not directly available to our senses and intuition. They allow
you to collect additional data, and help make confusing things like diseases
and stars make a lot more sense (germ theory of disease, our sun is a star
that is just very close, and our sun is composed of elements that exist on
earth).

Much of what science then studies is as close to objective as we can
realistically get- I don't worry too much that gravity, space, time, etc are
significantly different from how we perceive them in 4d (it would be
interesting if our mental filters really do warp the real universe in a way
that we see a very false representation of it).

Once you've reached that point you can build satellites and reduce the
likelihood a flat earth compared to a oblate spheroid model. But then it
starts to get hard: you will discover relativity and quantum mechanics, both
of which are _not_ intuitive and in fact completely counter all our normal
expectations. yet they are key theories that help us make and improve
technologies like GPS and transistors!

Right now some of the most interesting questions in science are about things
we don't have any good experimental apparatus to probe. QM is a great example-
we can do all sorts of amazing things with QM in the lab, but our brains can't
wrap around the underlying physics at all. Is QM the theory wrong? Is there a
better theory, one that's more intuitive and consistent with our daily lives?
Probably not; as much as I like the idea of a deterministic universe, it's
just an unlikely hypothesis to test.

I don't think post-modernism really was the origin of the idea that
objectivity was an ideal, not a real. I think most empiricists have implicitly
assumed that we have to work really hard to not fool ourselves.

I once saw an interesting talk, where the presenter didn't understand the
difference between relativism and relativity. So they argued that their
cosmology (native american) was just as valid as Einstein's theories. I can't
really see that as true. I think under _any_ reasonable subjective
determination, empirically determined theories of cosmology will do a better
job of explaining the observed universe than a spiritually derived one.

I recently learned of a term, "scientism" (after being accused of it while
arguing with a religion and philosophy professor who likes to mix buddhism and
christianity).

~~~
Der_Einzige
Why do we give Descartes credit with his skepticism when he couldn't even be
skeptical of his own conclusion, Cogito Ergo Sum. How do I know that I am
thinking? I need something better for an ontological proof than "just assume
it bro cus it appears to you"

I think that people assuming that the appearance of their thinking = thinking
is one of the worst philosophical mistakes that one can make.

You quote Plato with the allegory of the cave. That allegory is him patting
himself (and all other "Philosophers") on the back being like "well, if you
use dialectics which involves a back and forth between smart people for the
purpose of finding truth, than those who have been more rational and
dialectical are objectively more fit to rule because the see reality for what
it is". This is notably the first written, non-religious justification of
authority and hierarchy on the grounds that "the stupid farmers should not
rule because they are stupid and don't see reality for what it is"

Why should I assume that the appearance of rationality describes reality? Why
should I assume that the laws of thought correspond to the material world? I'm
tired of listening to folks tell me that we can metaphysical prove Aristotle's
the physical existence of the laws of logic (law of identity, law of excluded
middle, law of double negation elimination) when it's so bloody easy to find
counterexamples. Here's an easy one: "This sentence is false"

------
chromanoid
Isn't this called second-order cybernetics
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-
order_cybernetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_cybernetics))?

------
serioussecurity
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1540-5](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1540-5)

------
crimsonalucard
How can I trust such an admission of non-objectivity if the admission itself
isn't scientifically verified or objective?

------
sebastos
Wokeness has basically become a religion.

Wokeness begins, just like many religions, with an original, unforgivable sin.
That ultimate trespass becomes the lens through which all of modern life is
viewed, no matter how remote it sits in the past. Like a religion, wokeness
can't help but try to insert its core values of humility and service of the
Higher Purpose into everything, no matter how inappropriate. Its adherents are
pushy about how they want you to think, and what they want you to value,
because they believe there is a higher truth that pervades any worldly
endeavor. It has certain non-negotiable tenets, which it refuses to compromise
on despite the massive cognitive dissonance required to achieve such a stance
amidst the avalanche of evidence against them. If scientific or practical
empiricism seems to conflict with these pre-commitments, they will muddy the
water and move the goalposts. And of course, woke disciples reserve the right
to be massively offended if you blaspheme against one of these core
principles. Wokeness is perfectly eager to put its hand out to the state to
get a leg up on its authoritarian, missionary purpose. But they do this
because, like any other religion, they know that this will be best for all of
us in the end. And just like other religions, I imagine it finds comparisons
of this sort to be absurd; of course all of _those_ religions are evil,
they're the wrong ones!

Wokeness, just like a religion, gathered a following based on some
fundamentally decent ideas that lie near its center. But they come packaged
with a one-size-fits-all worldview that tries to bite off far, far more than
it can chew. Just like a religion, it doesn't necessarily reflect overmuch
about its practitioners that they have converted. That fact indicates at most
a slight inclination towards credulity and collectivism, as opposed to
individualism and free thinking. But just like religion, it could just as
easily represent the bad luck of growing up in the wrong area, or with the
wrong parents, or perhaps just bad enough circumstances to need that kind of
structure and externally-sourced meaning.

It seems that the agenda to put the whole world off of religion has not been
as successful as the average coastal intellectual might have thought. I can't
help but wonder whether we will be subject to the same ebb and flow of
authoritarianism that generations of Judeo-Christian and Islamic
constituencies exercised in the past. The church bumping against truth is a
story as old as time, but it seems like it's harder than we thought to really
learn that lesson.

Here we have a classic piece of Woken apologia trying to square classic Woken
ideals with the reality that there are groupings of genes amongst people. It
wants to smuggle faulty, incomplete understanding of genetics to avoid the
evidence written on the wall. It's not doing this for a nefarious purpose -
the Woken believe that all men and women should be treated equally, which is a
noble ideal. But the reason they think this is derived from a deeper truth,
which is that all men and women are fundamentally born as the same creature,
and then shaped purely by experience. They believe that because It Is Written.
Because that is True, things get tricky when they try to square the Truth with
the reality that there are non-trivial separations of historical development
in the human genome, and those genetic lines end up looking different because
of the forces that shaped them along their unique genetic history. Of course
this is common sense - anybody can tell that there are distinct groupings of
slightly-phenotypically-different people in the world, and the science
confirms this intuitive fact. So the Woken need to muddy the water by
reminding us the limits of our knowledge. What really counts as a race - can
you count me all the races? What are the motivations of these so-called
scientists trying to prop up the "theory" of race, a theory that need I remind
you became intimately linked to the Nazis?

When you read something like this, try to picture a Creationist with the same
general motives. The Creationist's letter wants to smuggle a faulty,
incomplete understanding of biology to avoid the evidence written on the wall
that evolution is real. It's not doing this for a nefarious purpose -
Creationists believe that we should all love and respect our fellow man. But
the reason they think this is derived from a deeper truth, which is that men
and women are God's people, made in God's image, as documented in the Bible.
They believe that because It Is Written. Because that is True, things get
tricky when they try to square the Truth with the reality that the evidence
for the nature of evolutionary history is written everywhere, and the fossil
record plainly confirms this. Of course, this is common sense - anybody can
see the inevitability of evolution once it's explained to them. So the
Creationists need to muddy the water by reminding us of the limits of our
knowledge. How many of these connecting fossils have we really found? What are
the motivations of these so-called scientists trying to prop up the "theory"
of evolution, a theory that need I remind you, was intimately linked with
Social Darwinism?

------
smitty1e
Well, we really have to scuttle the English language and Roman alphabet, for
reasons that should require no explanation among the truly woke.

------
dekhn
This article contains an almost certainly incorrect assertion: "As I found
while writing my 2019 book Superior: The Return of Race Science, geneticists
today rightly treat eugenics as a laughable proposition, and the concept of
biological race — the belief that humans can be subdivided into distinct
groups with meaningful differences between them — as easily debunked nonsens"

Race (the social construct) is a proxy which only loosely correlates with
genetic history. But, generally scientists believe that genetic history does
allow for distinct groupings with meaningful differences. A simple example
would be northern europeans with genetic differences that allow adults to
drink lactose from animal milk without getting sick (an example of mutation
natural selection).

It's not even controversial that higher skin melanin (associated with "black"
or "dark" skin) is protective against higher solar radiation, again this is
somethign that is part of genetic history, and also gets convolved with "race"
frequently.

Nothing I said above is eugenics as practiced by Galton (whom we also have to
thank for many important scientific contributions which last to today), or the
scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Lab. They are cold, hard facts supported by
immense data and are generally accepted within the field.

~~~
creddit
Yup. It’s also pretty obvious that eugenics would work since it works just
fine across plenty of other species (see dogs, cows, chickens, pigs, etc.).

This article is the identity politics monstrosity coming to take more control.

~~~
dekhn
I wouldn't use the term "eugenics" for that; I'd use the term "breeding". Part
of the problem is that the eugenicists got their scientific breeding ideas
mixed up with their nonscientific racism ideas.

And I think suggesting that people do human breeding for desired traits would
probably still be fairly unpopular.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> And I think suggesting that people do human breeding for desired traits
> would probably still be fairly unpopular.

Not necessarily; Yao Ming seemed to be pretty popular.

~~~
dekhn
That's... not really breeding in the scientific sense. Yes, having two tall
parents means you're likely to be tall (height is highly heritable), but
actual breeding would involve statistical populations, because nearly all
traits of interest are non-mendelian, and come from effects from a wide range
of genes. And also, it seems probably that you would also have to select
against negative traits (for example, breeding very tall people -> all sorts
of disorders).

~~~
thaumasiotes
> That's... not really breeding in the scientific sense.

...because? He comes from an intentional breeding program on the part of the
Chinese government. What more do you want? There's a big difference between
"what are we doing?" and "how much are we doing it?".

