
The Bioethics Dilemma - mhb
http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/steven-pinker-and-the-real-value-of-bioethicists
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reasonattlm
Bioethics in its present incarnation is a fine example of perverse incentives
at work. The people involved are rewarded when they invent problems, slow down
progress, and add expense to development; their very jobs depend on providing
a supply of spanners in the works. The whole field should be thrown out of
polite society and all of the funding they siphon away from actually making
progress in medicine redirected to productive use.

~~~
freshhawk
It's just the same file-drawer effect that happens in all media.

The bioethicist who argues that the net positive effects of CRISPR will
outweigh the potential harm doesn't get quoted.

Same as the doctors who argued that ebola wasn't a danger to Americans.

I don't see why the blame should be put on the field.

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Mz
_We must not succumb, in other words, to science-fiction scenarios that have
little likelihood of materializing._

An awful lot of what we do today was merely a _science-fiction scenario_ in my
youth. The person claiming we do not need to contemplate the ethics of such
scenarios is scarily dangerous.

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fiatmoney
Unless a "bioethicist" can make testable predictions, there is no reason you
should listen to them when formulating policy. They are secular priests,
nothing more.

~~~
dalke
Should we listen to a 'public intellectual' who doesn't make testable
predictions?

~~~
splawn
Imo, no. I try not to buy into any concept if there is no way for anyone to
ever understand it. Honestly, would doing so even be considered intellectual?

~~~
dalke
The first ~20% of the article concerns comments by "Steven Pinker, cognitive
psychologist and public intellectual", written in an op-ed piece. There are no
testable predictions. Therefore I think fiatmoney is saying that we should
ignore Pinker's comments.

As regards your comments, many ethical concepts are not testable in any
meaningful way. What limits should be placed on vivisection? Should we use
prisoners as research guinea pigs? Should prisoners be required to participate
in medical experiments as part of their incarceration? When is it okay for a
doctor to put the interests of the government ahead of the health of the
patient?

That doesn't mean there is no way to understand these issues.

~~~
fiatmoney
Pinker is making testable hypotheses. He is explicitly claiming "bioethicists
hold back research; jurisdictions that listen to them will have worse
outcomes". He's furthermore claiming "not listening to bioethicists will not
result in Mengele 2.0". These are both falsifiable.

Bioethicists are capable of formulating predictions too, they just prefer not
to, or to make them but formulate the decision rule as ignoring them, since it
diminishes their self-claimed moral authority.

It would be easy to _make_ a prediction like "governments which experiment on
prisoners will begin imprisoning people explicitly to experiment on them" or
"vivisectrixes will experience high rates of PTSD" (look, I just did!) but
instead it's usually "dignity of man etc nazi atrocities etc ethics requires a
balancing test", with themselves as the balancer, which they are of course
well suited for on account of tenure or something.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Pinker is making testable hypotheses. He is explicitly claiming
> "bioethicists hold back research; jurisdictions that listen to them will
> have worse outcomes".

But testing that one means having jurisdictions that don't listen to
bioethicists, and researching into things that bioethicists say should be left
alone. Yes, we can test that...

> He's furthermore claiming "not listening to bioethicists will not result in
> Mengele 2.0". These are both falsifiable.

But only at the price of not listening to bioethicists and seeing if we get
Mengele 2.0. I'm not sure that I want to run that test - at least one of the
outcomes extracts too high a human price.

> It would be easy to make a prediction like "governments which experiment on
> prisoners will begin imprisoning people explicitly to experiment on them" or
> "vivisectrixes will experience high rates of PTSD"...

Yes, but testing them requires governments experimenting on prisoners, and
vivisection, respectively. Again, I don't want to test the predictions at that
price.

If you need a testable prediction to understand why vivisection is horrible
and should be avoided, your sense of ethics is _extremely_ foreign to mine...

