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Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by eirikbakke on Saturday August 12, 2023 @11:55AM (#37101458)
Exactly. In the words of Mike Stonebraker, "stake out a controversial claim and prove it true" is pretty standard career advice for junior faculty who are trying to get tenure. (At least in Computer Science.)
Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by izzydata on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:10PM (#37102204)
Isn't the whole idea of the scientific method is that you don't prove things true? You just test things enough until you are not able to prove it false?
Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by bee_rider on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:18PM (#37102283)
The specific example (computer science) coincidentally does allow for proofs, because it is mostly math, but I think they actually are just using the word prove informally here.
Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by fwungy on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:28PM (#37102368)
The incentives of science are often orthogonal to making a career in science.
Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by leereeves on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:22PM (#37102320)
> At least in Computer Science

Computer Science rarely intersects with politics.

If a scientist's novel claim (however well proven) offends a powerful group, their career is over.

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by dmbche on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:39PM (#37102460)
Not if it's got strong evidence - there is still no strongevidence for the lab leak so it's a moot point.

Do you have something with strong evidence that ruined someones career in the last 50 years?

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by leereeves on Saturday August 12, 2023 @02:33PM (#37102938)
Larry Summers was forced out of Harvard in part for mentioning the greater male variability hypothesis. James Damore was forced out of Google for similar reasons.

This despite fairly strong evidence for that hypothesis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#Modern_...

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by dmbche on Saturday August 12, 2023 @03:09PM (#37103244)
"Following the end of Clinton's term, Summers served as the 27th president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with Andrei Shleifer, and a 2005 speech in which he offered three reasons for the under-representation of women in science and engineering, including the possibility that there exists a "different availability of aptitude at the high end", in addition to patterns of discrimination and socialization.[8]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers

I think we're quite far from "strong evidence" anyway if you want to argue that there's "less aptitude at the high end" of either gender.

I'm more thinking of something falsifiable maybe? You know, strong evidence?

Ps: He's still employed by Harvard, I'm not seeing a ruined career here.

Edit: "The company fired Damore for violation of the company's code of conduct.[2] Damore filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, but later withdrew this complaint. A lawyer with the NLRB wrote that his firing was proper.[3][4][5][6] After withdrawing this complaint, Damore filed a class action lawsuit, retaining the services of attorney Harmeet Dhillon,[7][8] alleging that Google was discriminating against conservatives, whites, Asians, and men.[9][10] Damore withdrew his claims in the lawsuit to pursue arbitration against Google.[11]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_...

This guy is not a scientist and was fired by a private company for his conduct - has nothing to do with the subject.

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by leereeves on Saturday August 12, 2023 @08:30PM (#37105454)
> A 2021 review investigating different hypotheses behind the discrepancy of sexes in STEM jobs summarizes the greater variability research with respect to this question. Given that research finds greater variability in males with in quantitative and nonverbal reasoning,[32] they hold that this can explain some, but not all of the difference seen in STEM occupations.[33] With regard to the question of whether these results are due to societal influences or of biological origins, they hold that the results showing greater variance at a very young age (for instance IQ differences in variability between the sexes is visible from a young age on [34]) lend credence to the theory that biological factors might explain a large part of the observed data.
Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by dmbche on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:02PM (#37105628)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5141512/

IQ tests are not reliable when not heavily weighted on the culture of the person taking them (and even then - the same people taking the same tests get different results). Translating a test induces a bias. Even in the same language, cultural differences can make questions more or less difficult to understand.

The simple fact of being in a "test" environnement is something that will be more comfortable to some than others - based on background.

Meaning if you even believe IQ tests are somewhat valid on an individual basis, it's ludicrous to draw conclusions on comparisons between groups; they have to take the same test to be comparable, but giving the same test to groups of different backgrounds will yield different results, because tests aren't weighted.

That's all separate from the current replication crisis in psychology and the fact that intelligence is not even a clearly defined trait (thus we cant test for it).

So yeah no - no strong evidence in sight.

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by leereeves on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:18PM (#37105716)
You're looking for a level of evidence that doesn't exist in any social science.

So I suppose I have to concede your original claim (now that we've narrowed it down): if someone somehow established a level of evidence that revolutionized social science and rendered all previous work meaningless, then they probably could get away with offending powerful groups.

Until then, scientists are wise to tread carefully.

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by dmbche on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:19PM (#37105724)
Hence why there is a replication crisis.

There are many claims can be proven that aren't social science, you're the one unable to show an example of a scientist that had solid evidence of something and ruined their career and artififially confining it IQ - one of the most contentious subjects you can look for. I'm sure there are falsifiable claims in social sciences too.

Maybe look into something like medecine or physics? Something falsifiable, following the sientific method.

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by leereeves on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:24PM (#37105744)
> Hence why there is a replication crisis.

Also, perhaps, why politicians and activists have so much influence on science.

Which doesn't contradict what I said at all, but confirms it: they do have that influence.

Requesting "strong evidence" isn't much of a solution unless you have some concrete ideas about how to obtain that.

> There are many claims can be proven that aren't social science ... Maybe look into something like medecine or physics

Social science is the field where politics trumps science. It's what I'm talking about.

Politicians and activists don't care about physics and everyone wants people to have effective medicine, so there's no conflict in those fields.

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by dmbche on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:48PM (#37105872)
I disagree - feel free to try and find an example of your claim
Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by leereeves on Saturday August 12, 2023 @10:05PM (#37105968)
I've already cited examples. You dismissed them because they don't fit your arbitrary narrow criteria.

Want another? Stephen Hsu. Forced to resign for discussing research that found no racial bias in incidents of officer-involved shootings.

Another? After more than a decade at Harvard without complaints, Roland Fryer had several complaints filed against him shortly after he published research showing that Black and Hispanic Americans were no more likely than white Americans to be shot by police in a given interaction with police.

I'm sure you'll find reasons to dismiss these as well.

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by dmbche on Saturday August 12, 2023 @10:32PM (#37106122)
Roland Fryer is currently employed by Harvard and was suspended for a sexual misconduct investigation that he appologised for.

Please understand you are the person doing politics instead of science here and think about what you're trying to accomplish.

Edit : it's hard to refute good science in a line or two - i couldn't do it if you had legit claims, but you don't

Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by toomim on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:39PM (#37102469)
Good point. Although this is changing now with AI and whatnot.
Re:We Need Scientific Dissidents Now More Than Ever by chmod600 on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:50PM (#37102564)
There's some nuance here. Research dollars get allocated in interesting ways that often reinforce the most mainstream approaches.

And once some start down an approach (and become invested in it) there can be various kinds of resistance to going a different path.

In fields that have social or political implications there are also strong forces pushing, as well.

I'm not saying these effects are always overriding the desire for novelty in all cases, but it certainly happens.