Science And The End Of Inquiry

Ideologues always believe they have all the answers

Sotonye

Science has reached the point of pronouncing the final completion of its wisdom, an end to the dark age of inquiry and the rise of the era of enlightenment, with the termination of all human-related questions in social justice.

The scientist has no need to investigate into any matter where human beings and their differences are concerned, she has a priori knowledge received from on high. Observation of phenomena, theories of their provenance, testing hypotheses, posing conclusions, this is the process of an inferior epistemology. 

This is the implied message in Nature’s new piece on the importance of avoiding any possible stigmatization of minority communities through research into their differences. All minority demographics lie beyond the scope of our questions, and the matter is permanently settled. Here are a few excerpts from the prestigious scientific journal: 

Although academic freedom is fundamental, it is not unbounded. The same ethical considerations should underlie science about humans as apply to research with human participants.

Well-established ethics frameworks govern the conduct of studies with human participants. Research ethics bodies use these frameworks to examine prospectively whether research projects involving human participants align with ethical principles.

However, these frameworks apply to research involving the participation of humans and do not generally consider the potential benefits and harms of research about humans who do not participate directly in the research. Such research is typically exempt from ethics review.

Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics.

One of the lower rules of empiricism, that you can’t derive an ought from an is, has been dispensed with. There’s no longer any chance to intently separate our discoveries from our responses to them, to decide to treat people the same even when we find new ways in which they’re different. The assumption is that all discoveries necessarily have moral underpinnings, a very religious idea. David Hume would not be happy, but what can he say in face of the new, perfect wisdom? 

All knowledge sits beneath the new knowledge, all goals are subordinate to the new, glorious goals, the article goes on to say plainly:

 Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication.

Researchers should be free to pursue lines of inquiry and the communication of knowledge and ideas without fear of repression or censorship. At the same time, they have the ethical obligation to uphold intellectual integrity and avoid preventable harms that may arise in the course of research or its communication.

There’s the ought-is problem again! And a small snippet of Nature’s proposed research submission and publication guidelines: 

Additionally, we require that all content submitted for publication be respectful of the dignity and rights of individuals and human groups. Researchers are asked to carefully consider the potential implications (including inadvertent consequences) of research on human groups defined by attributes of race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age, disease, (dis)ability or other status, to be reflective of their authorial perspective if not part of the group under study, and contextualise their findings to minimize as much as possible potential misuse or risks of harm to the studied groups in the public sphere.

You have to understand how all this seems from the perspective of a minority. These new beliefs are aimed at people who look like me, and they make us sound like endangered animal species helpless to save themselves. There used to be a trend I remember in grade school where more affluent female classmates would scold their less well-off peers about recycling and make a thing of it, even though the whole school recycled, specifically because their favorite animals were the sea turtles off the coast of California, and where they’d share on Facebook the large donations their families would make to wildlife reserves in Africa. These women felt so strongly about those frail creatures, but now I am that frail creature! 

The assumption is that entire groups are too weak and pitiful to handle negative discoveries about themselves, and adherents to the new faith actually believe they’re doing minorities a favor by advancing this idea. I reject it outright, nearly every black person and minority I’ve ever met would reject it outright (and the recent massive red-shift in Hispanic voting habits lends support here). I'm not sure if there’s any way to even believe what the new enlightened class believes unless you have literally no idea that non-whites are not caricatures from film and television.

But alas, this is where we are, there’s no stopping this train now, no matter how ridiculous and insulting and dangerous it is. The new ascendant philosophy is here to stay, which presents a number of problems for the highly competent, but staunchly non-conformist people who’d like to join those institutions that, like Nature, have now become religious orders. 

We’re seeing levels of dysfunction that I never could’ve imagined, and everyday I think about how I wish I could read the works of future historians, I want so badly to see how they’ll characterize the civilization-scale meltdown of our day. I think it would be hilarious. But more important than that, I hope that they don’t repeat the same mistakes again.

Source: Time Well Spent