Vortex: Hello, dear Psience Quest members. Dr. Henry Bauer and I are back here, to continue and conclude our discussion about science.
Scientific research now depends on getting funds from government or industry. In both cases, the what research gets done is decided outside the scientific community. When research is funded by industry, sometimes publication of results is prevented if the sponsor doesn’t like their effect on its business.
Several of the MEDICINE books show how drug companies can bias clinical trials.
As to conflicts of interest, here’s what I wrote in my last book, Science Is Not What You Think: How It Has Changed, Why We Can’t Trust It, How It Can Be Fixed (McFarland 2017):
”Consider a hypothetical personal situation. You are a teacher. One of the pupils in your class is your own daughter. You believe in awarding grades purely on the basis of students’ performance. You also want your daughter to get high grades and to build self-esteem as she learns. There is a conflict of interest between what you as a teacher want to do and what you as a parent want for your daughter, and you are caught in the middle. When it comes time to award grades, you may in fact assign to your daughter exactly the same grade as you would have assigned any other student who performed as she did — but there is simply no way to know whether or not you did that. That you firmly and honestly believe that you did is no proof; and other people are likely to have a nagging suspicion that the conflict of interest may have warped your judgment. (And if your daughter’s grade is not as high as she thinks she deserves, she may have a well-founded suspicion that you overcompensated in order not to appear to be favoring her.)
Her suspicion and the likely opposite suspicions of others would be very well founded. It might not in fact have happened in this particular instance, but there is no doubt that overall, on average, conflicts of interest influence behavior, which means that they actually do affect it significantly some of the time.
For example a survey revealed that physicians with financial interests in clinical laboratories had prescribed lab tests more often than did physicians with no such financial interest. There may well be nothing deliberately corrupt here or in similar circumstances. It could be that the physicians who invested in clinical labs in the first place did so because they already believed in the value of doing every conceivable clinical test, in other words these particular physicians would prescribe just as many tests even if they had no investment in the labs. Nevertheless, they do have a bias toward more testing, a bias not shared by other physicians — for if the tests concerned were known beyond any doubt to be cost-effectively useful, then all or most physicians would be prescribing them. The existence of a conflict of interest means that there is a definite tendency toward a particular type of behavior, even if the person concerned is acting out of completely honest motives and is not aware of doing anything inappropriate.
This basic fact about conflicts of interest seems to be widely misunderstood nowadays, for instance when people talk about “apparent” conflicts of interest. There is no such thing. What such talk tries to say is that the existing conflict of interest did or does or will do no harm — but that cannot be known. The only way to avoid possible consequences of conflicts of interest is to avoid conflicts of interest altogether (Stark 2000).
That is widely misunderstood, overlooked, or wished away. People and institutions try to evade this logic and the existing actual evidence by talking not only about “apparent” conflicts of interest but also about supposedly “negligible” conflicts of interest. For instance, the Commonwealth of Virginia defines “negligible” in monetary terms, which a few years ago meant less than $13,000 annually. Even a moment’s thought makes plain that what is negligible for some would not be so for others. There is simply no way to get around the fact that any conflict of interest is likely to result in action that is biased. “Apparent”, “negligible”, and other euphemisms and evasions pretend to be able to judge that a given conflict of interest or type of conflict of interest will not have seriously damaging consequences. Such predictions cannot be sound or accurate (Bauer 1994).”
HOWEVER: I believe that it’s quite proper for moral, religious, etc. attitudes to decide what things should NOT be studied at all: anything that could be studied only by hurting people. There are also some topics likely to be controversial, like using fertilized embryos and aborted fetuses as a source of stem cells.
At any rate, I think rationality and attempted objectivity should underlie moral views. I don’t think a proper morality could urge actions that are objectively unrealistic.
(This post was last modified: 2019-03-25, 03:22 PM by Vortex.)
In the first part of the interview, we talked about science as such. Now, we will turn to the specific stage of science that we are facing nowadays, with all its problems and the potential solutions for these problems. But we should start with a kind of short historical survey, so we would be able to understand our current situation better.
Dr. Bauer, you interpret history of science as passing through three distinct, and differing, stages. So, can you tell us more about this three-stage model of yours? What were the main stages of the development and change of science? Why the modern science is not the same phenomenon that it once was, and is notably different?
Dr. Henry Bauer: The birth of “modern” science came with “The” Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, and there have been three distinctly different stages of scientific activity since then. In the first stage, amateurs were seeking to satisfy their curiosity about how the world works. There were essentially no controlling interests other than truth-seeking. Missteps resulted chiefly from the inherent difficulty of making discoveries and from such inherent human flaws as pride and avarice. The second stage, roughly the 19th century, saw science becoming a career, a plausible way to make a living, not unlike other careers in academe or professions like engineering: respectable and potentially satisfying but not any obvious path to great influence or wealth. Inevitably there were conflicts of interest between furthering a career and following objectively where evidence pointed, but competition and collegiality served well enough to keep the progress of science little affected by conflicting career interests. The way to get ahead was by doing good science. In the third and present stage, which began at about the middle of the 20th century, science faces a necessary change in ethos as its centuries-long expansion at an exponential rate has changed to a zero-sum, steady-state situation that has fostered intensely cutthroat competition. Science’s remarkable previous successes led industry and government to co-opt and exploit science and scientists. Those interactions offer the possibility for individuals to gain considerable public influence and wealth. That possibility tempts to corruption. Outright fraud in research has become noticeably more frequent, and public pronouncements about matters of science are made for self-interested bureaucratic and commercial motives. The public cannot now rely safely on the soundness of advice from the scientific community.
Those words come from the Abstract of my article, “Three Stages of Modern Science”, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 27 (20130 505–513; online at
Vortex: The most peculiar and feature of the current corporate stage of science is the notion of the “scientific consensus”. This “consensus” idea always seemed quite strange to me, since it is a direct reversal of the very basic principles of scientific research and conduct.
The strength of science comes from the fact that it is simultaneously socially communal and intellectually adversarial. This means that scientists should not engage in rivalry and mutual hostility on interpersonal and intergroup level – they should rather work together to achieve better results – but, at the same time, they should always debate each other, criticise each other and verify each other’s work. And there should no theory and no observation in science that is immune to this organised mutual skepticism and is forbidden for discussion.
Yet recently this classic adversarial approach to the intellectual process in science was largely given up and replaced with the novel consensual approach. This approach insist on necessity of forming the “expert consensus” on any issue – especially on the issues that are highly socially, politically or economically significant. This consensus is effectively a currently dominant academic position being turned into a prescriptive, oftentimes effectively compulsory, societal commandment which is supposed to be a choiceless basis for any personal conduct or public policy related to any consensus-related issue. The positions and attitudes of anyone who does not comply to it are stigmatised as being “anti-science” and a threat to the people (sometimes, even to the world itself). The “consensus” is also an intellectual dogma within the scientific community itself, with any attempts to doubt and criticise it, let alone disavow and reject it, being branded as dangerous “denialism”.
Such consensual approach to intellectual side of science, in my strong opinion, is a serious menace both to society and to science itself, since it effectively transforms any provisional and controvertible scientific position whose proponents attained a leading role within academia (and, thus, the dominant source of academic influence on a general society) into an indubitable, obligatory statement of faith.
Being thus elevated into the realm of the sacred, such faith-based, societally enforced “scientific consensus” turns into a triple danger:
- first, it thwarts the progress of science itself, since the freedom to criticise the dominant models and to present the alternative ones is the bedrock of the scientific progress – progress which manifest itself by overthrowing provisional consensuses, not by maintaining them indefinitely;
- second, it may lead to the negative, possibly even disastrous, consequences to society and environment, since the perpetuation of the consensus requires silent disregard or furious dismissal of its obvious failures;
- third, it is an affront to intellectual integrity, as well as simple personal dignity, of people, since it is based on a demand to abandon individual critical thought and personal conscience in favour of unquestioning and unwavering belief in the intellectual and moral authority of currently dominant forces and groups within the scientific community.
In my view, if one intends to take a position on a scientific controversy, one needs to look at the evidence and argumentation presented by the sides, not on their social status and standing: contrarian claims should be treated with the same combination of open-mindedness and critical objectivity as the dominant ones. Knowledge about the social component of the controversy does has its uses, of course – it is important to understand what biases and prejudices are characteristic for each of the sides, to make proper adjustment when evaluating their theoretical and empirical claims. But such social adjustments can only work properly if made for all sides of the controversy (and there can be more than two of them), not just the opposing ones. It is laughably easy to notice the subjectivity in others’ apparently objective assessments; it is tremendously hard to honestly embrace the fact that you are not immune to the influences of your own personal subjectivity – and, together with your allies and supporters, of the collective subjectivity as well.
And you, Dr. Bauer – what do you think? What do you think about the notion of the “scientific consensus”? When did this notion arise in the first place (in its recent iteration, at least)? Why scientific knowledge is always provisional and controvertible, with temporary consensuses inevitably overthrown? What are scientific revolutions, what role do they play in scientific progress, and how can our knowledge of the history of science help us to understand it? What role do criticism of the current “scientific consensus” play, why such challenges are necessary for the scientific progress, and why critics of current consensuses should not be dismissed as “deniers” or “denialists”? What perils can an uncritical acceptance of modern consensuses pose?
Dr. Henry Bauer: I agree fully that the present emphasis on consensus is damaging. As I pointed out in Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How Dominant Theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth (2012), on many topics quite legitimate minority views are being suppressed.
However, I don’t think there was ever a time when all interactions were constructive and friendly, there were always rivalries and competition (e.g., who invented the calculus, Leibniz or Newton? Who discovered Neptune, LeVerrier or Adams? ; but there was not an organizational structure powerful enough to enforce any one viewpoint. Bernard Barber, “Resistance by scientists to scientific discovery” (Science 1961, 134: 596-602), surveyed the way in which new ideas have always been resisted, until the evidence becomes overwhelming and a new theory or paradigm (Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) wins out.
Nowadays however there are interests apart from the researchers themselves who may be vested in the status quo and resist change. Official bodies like the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention or the Food and Drug Administration will not easily admit mistakes, for example about approving a new drug; and the pharmaceutical industry of course resists any evidence that a drug might not be as good as advertised, or might even be harmful. So it is much harder nowadays to correct mistakes.
I think the best statement about consensus is from Michael Crichton: “I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way” (lecture, “Aliens cause global warming”).
More surprising, President Eisenhower understood more than 50 years ago the danger of consensus science: “in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite” (farewell speech, 1961 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp)
Vortex: Now we can turn to examination of the common pressures on science which leads to the transformation of the leading intellectual models in science into the socially imposed “scientific consensuses”. Since – and it is, in my opinion, the most crucial moment – the “scientific consensus” as it is presented nowadays has quite little to do with science at all. It is a claim of political, economic and social domination justified with the emotionalised appeal to the authority of capital-S “Science”.
In the area of politics, “scientific consensus” has turned into the rhetorical instrument in the Left-versus-Right political battle. Both sides are fond of appealing to consensus if they like the specific notions that are currently dominant within the scientific community, and are eager to reject it if they dislike them. Two good examples of such politically motivated consensus appeals are controversies concerning anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Many (but not all) modern Leftists, with their anti-capitalist and pro-environmental approach, are sympathetic to the dominant scientific position of planetary warming caused by emissions of energy industry yet are antipathetic to equally dominant scientific stance on the safety of genetically modified agriculture produced by the biotech industry; so, they appeal to the “scientific consensus” on AGW issue and yet simultaneously reject it on the GMOs issue. On the opposite side, represented by pro-capitalism and anti-environmental Rightists, the situation is likely to be the opposite: consensus on AGW is rejected and yet consensus on GMOs safety is accepted.
Of course, both sides accuse each other of “politicisation of science”. And both sides are, sadly, correct – as long as they are speaking about their opponents, since, being vigilant to the political infiltration of the scientific process practiced by the opposite side of the political spectrum, they are usually quite lenient, if not affirmative, to the analogous infiltration practiced by the ones sharing their political positions.
However, the political influence of both Left and Right on science is relatively small compared to the influence of the dominant political force in modern Western societies, the Center. Political Center is the one that defines what social and intellectual “mainstream” is, and it constantly uses its influence to keep away anyone perceived by Centrists as “radical” or “fringe” elements. Because of Centrist domination, both largely Right-leaning critics of AGW and predominantly Left-leaning critics of GMOs are dismissed and denigrated. Centrists may appeal to consensus constantly and in all cases, since they are the ones who can decide what consensus is.
What is common to the overwhelming majority of people participating in any of these three political camps – Right, Left or Center – is the fact that their political affiliations strongly influence their scientific positions. But there is a few – very few – people who try to look at scientific issues as on genuinely, not just rhetorically, non-political ones. Dare I say, I am one of them.
For me, political preferences and scientific positions are two different venues that are intellectually independent. If one evaluates a certain political position as desirable, it does not automatically mean that one should accept any scientific model that is likeable to the most people holding such a position: for example, I support environmentalism and socialism as political stances, yet I still have strong intellectual doubts about the AGW as a scientific model. The opposite is also true: if someone’s stances in the scientific area are motivated by undesirable political ideas, it is not a reason to reject such scientific stance, which should still be analysed on its own intellectual merit: while most (yet not all) critics of AGW are indeed the supporters of free-market capitalism, which, in my opinion, is a misguided political choice, it is not a reason to ignore or dismiss scientific counterarguments and counterevidence presented by them against AGW.
Dr. Bauer, what is your opinion about politicisation of science? How can political institutions and movements instill bias into the scientific study? Why all political forces and positions – be they “Right”, “Left” or “Center” – are not innocent in this regard? And how you deal with the fact that the positions you maintain on many scientific issues, such as AGW, contradict the ones held by people with whom you are close on political issues?
Dr. Henry Bauer: It’s human to accept easily what fits with our general worldview, philosophy, ideology, religious or political or whatever. So lefties, environmentalists, easily believe AGW, whereas righties, usually thinking financially, disbelieve AGW because trying to stop it would disrupt economies.
Like you I’m inclined towards socialism and environmentalism, but try hard to form opinions based on facts; see my blog post “A politically liberal global-warming skeptic?”. https://scimedskeptic.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/a-politically-liberal-global-warming-skeptic/
It’s very frustrating to me that people I largely agree with on social and political matters disagree with me about AGW and about HIV/AIDS. Similarly with intellectual or scientific anomalies. I’ve long been a member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, founded to provide a scientifically rigorous forum for topics dismissed by the mainstream; psychic phenomena, Loch Ness monsters, UFOs, etc. Most commonly, the ufologists tend to be dismissive of parapsychology, and vice versa, and both are dismissive of Loch Ness monsters, and they accept HIV/AIDS theory…
I find it quite possible to have good relations with people who disagree with me on particular topics. In most cases we just don’t talk about what we don’t share in some way, there are plenty of things in common: wishing good healthy life, enjoying common interests in swimming, bridge, books…. With really close friends we can talk about disagreements, and I’ve been able to modify my own opinions when the reasons are offered by a close friend.
As you say, very few people try hard enough to go only by the facts. And of course no one has the time to really look into the facts on ALL those subjects.
Vortex: Well, political pressure on science is not the only one that is significant nowadays. The economic, especially commercial, pressure is no less real.
The commercialisation of science is notable everywhere, yet it is especially notable in medical and pharmacological research. The attempts of Big Pharma to influence scientific research for its own profit are numerous and well-documented. The same works for biotech industry. Other branches of modern corporate economy are also far from clean in this regard.
Of course, it would be too much to claim that each and every study sponsored by the industry and commerce is therefore useless – as much as the political affiliations of the scientific organisations should not in themselves be a sufficient reason for their political opponents to dismiss every model proposed by them or every evidence presented by them. The economic conflicts of interest, as well as political conflicts of affiliation, may indeed motivate researchers to fudge their results – but such extreme cases of direct fraudulence are not something happening every day. Yet such economic and political conflicts has a notable long-term tendency to instill a bias in the research projects of even honest scientists, thwarting their observational, interpretative and evaluative activities in the direction where their biases lead them.
Dr. Bauer, what role does commercialisation play in science? How commercial organisations can influence and distort research? What are conflicts of interest, and what danger can they pose for the research process?
Dr. Henry Bauer: Whole books have been written about this, as well as many articles; see the bibliographies I’ve accumulated:
CRITIQUES OF CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE AND ACADEME
WHAT’S WRONG WITH PRESENT-DAY MEDICINE
Re commercialization, including its effects on universities, see (in the SCIENCE critique) the books by Greenberg, Krimsky, Mirowski, Radder. Stark gives important discussion including that conflicts of interest can never be “negligible” or “apparent”. When they exist, they exert influence. In the MEDICINE bibliography many books criticize the drug industry which seeks to commercialize illness.
Scientific research now depends on getting funds from government or industry. In both cases, the what research gets done is decided outside the scientific community. When research is funded by industry, sometimes publication of results is prevented if the sponsor doesn’t like their effect on its business.
Several of the MEDICINE books show how drug companies can bias clinical trials.
As to conflicts of interest, here’s what I wrote in my last book, Science Is Not What You Think: How It Has Changed, Why We Can’t Trust It, How It Can Be Fixed (McFarland 2017):
”Consider a hypothetical personal situation. You are a teacher. One of the pupils in your class is your own daughter. You believe in awarding grades purely on the basis of students’ performance. You also want your daughter to get high grades and to build self-esteem as she learns. There is a conflict of interest between what you as a teacher want to do and what you as a parent want for your daughter, and you are caught in the middle. When it comes time to award grades, you may in fact assign to your daughter exactly the same grade as you would have assigned any other student who performed as she did — but there is simply no way to know whether or not you did that. That you firmly and honestly believe that you did is no proof; and other people are likely to have a nagging suspicion that the conflict of interest may have warped your judgment. (And if your daughter’s grade is not as high as she thinks she deserves, she may have a well-founded suspicion that you overcompensated in order not to appear to be favoring her.)
Her suspicion and the likely opposite suspicions of others would be very well founded. It might not in fact have happened in this particular instance, but there is no doubt that overall, on average, conflicts of interest influence behavior, which means that they actually do affect it significantly some of the time.
For example a survey revealed that physicians with financial interests in clinical laboratories had prescribed lab tests more often than did physicians with no such financial interest. There may well be nothing deliberately corrupt here or in similar circumstances. It could be that the physicians who invested in clinical labs in the first place did so because they already believed in the value of doing every conceivable clinical test, in other words these particular physicians would prescribe just as many tests even if they had no investment in the labs. Nevertheless, they do have a bias toward more testing, a bias not shared by other physicians — for if the tests concerned were known beyond any doubt to be cost-effectively useful, then all or most physicians would be prescribing them. The existence of a conflict of interest means that there is a definite tendency toward a particular type of behavior, even if the person concerned is acting out of completely honest motives and is not aware of doing anything inappropriate.
This basic fact about conflicts of interest seems to be widely misunderstood nowadays, for instance when people talk about “apparent” conflicts of interest. There is no such thing. What such talk tries to say is that the existing conflict of interest did or does or will do no harm — but that cannot be known. The only way to avoid possible consequences of conflicts of interest is to avoid conflicts of interest altogether (Stark 2000).
That is widely misunderstood, overlooked, or wished away. People and institutions try to evade this logic and the existing actual evidence by talking not only about “apparent” conflicts of interest but also about supposedly “negligible” conflicts of interest. For instance, the Commonwealth of Virginia defines “negligible” in monetary terms, which a few years ago meant less than $13,000 annually. Even a moment’s thought makes plain that what is negligible for some would not be so for others. There is simply no way to get around the fact that any conflict of interest is likely to result in action that is biased. “Apparent”, “negligible”, and other euphemisms and evasions pretend to be able to judge that a given conflict of interest or type of conflict of interest will not have seriously damaging consequences. Such predictions cannot be sound or accurate (Bauer 1994).”
Vortex: Well, the second external cause of the research bias – the economic incentives – was, in fact, the easiest one to identify and to accept, that’s why I was quite short when I was writing about it. The first cause of such bias I mentioned – political influences – is much harder for the people to notice, as long as it’s their political notions, not their opponents’ ones, that are being forced into the scientific process.
Yet there is the third external cause of scientific bias, and it is even more painful for the acceptance, for the simple reason that almost anyone – including myself! – share this bias in some form and to some degree. This is moral bias. I think, I should use an example – an example I have one used already, yet good enough to be used again – of my own to demonstrate how it works.
My ethical position is egalitarian one: I maintain that every human being is entitled to the universal human dignity, and should be treated as an equal, a friend, rather than as a boss or as a subordinate. Such as my strong and decisive moral choice, and it is incompatible with the moral stances that insist on a fundamental inequality of human beings, such as racism. So, what should I do with racists’ scientific claims, such as the ones concerning the apparent racial disparities in IQ testing? Should I just analyse them objectively, as any other claims in the area of science? Or should I dismiss them on ethical reasons?
Of course, here I, with my understanding of the difference between intellectual and social, rational and ethical, should say “of course, I should analyse them impartially”. This would be a truly scientific approach to the controversy. Yet I cannot say it this way – in this specific case, my own bias, my deep ethical dedication to equality and dignity of human beings, is stronger than my ability to maintain a rational impartiality. And, therefore, I, in not-so-rational way, maintain that the fundamental moral imperative of equal respect and equal treatment of the people of different racial heritages is more important than inevitably controversial and provisional scientific results. Scientific models come and go, yet the basic moral principles can and should be more persistent. I understand that such position of mine is based on social sensitivity, rather than on intellectual reflexivity. Yet it is what it is.
But this social sensitivity, while being consciously and willfully preferred by me to the intellectual reflexivity when apparent racial disparities are debated, is not overwhelming enough to let me turn into an outright intellectual dishonesty. So, despite my decisive moral rejection of the seemingly scientific claims of innate racial inequality, I will NOT:
- insist that research-based claims of hierarchical racial differences are “pseudo-science”, “junk science” etc. – since I haven’t studied them in sufficient detail, I have no intellectual right to make such claims (even if I would want to do so);
- declare that researchers claiming aforementioned results are “insane”, “evil”, “bigoted” etc. – without scrutinising the evidence in detail, I simple cannot honestly state that they are following their subjective biases more than objective evidence (even if I will subjectively suspect that they do follow their biases rather than evidence – yet my own subjective feelings are not objective arguments);
- demand that such research and researchers performing it should be censored or “no-platformed” – I understand too well that such demands (as well as ANY demands of censorship, in fact) would be based on the subjective moral condemnation that I do feel towards racism and racists, rather than on objective assessment of actual evidence and argumentation, assessment which is socially possible only if ALL sides of ANY controversy are allowed to present their case publicly, without fear of silencing and persecution.
Dr. Bauer, I think you do understand what I’m talking about, don’t you? So, what do you think about the moral influences and pressures on the scientific process – ones that go beyond of the scientific ethics (which we have discussed before), and enter the area of the general social mores and customs? How strong can such moralistic bias be? Why is it crucially important to remember that the basic ethical demand of the scientific work is maintenance of objectivity, rather than support of extra-scientific societal ethical ideas?
Dr. Henry Bauer: You say “every human being… should be treated as an equal”. I agree IF you mean on things like civil rights. But not on matters like how to build a bridge, or who should be president.
What you should do with “racists’ scientific claims” is to expose their “science” as faulty. Yes, you should analyze objectively the claims about IQ, and point out for instance that “IQ” is only defined by the means used to measure it and is NOT what is meant when we speak of intelligence.
I think the chief thing wrong with racism is the assumption that all members of some defined race are the same, concerning whatever particular thing is being focused on (Intelligence? Sexual habits? etc.).
I think every person is unique and should be treated as such, which is why I deplore political correctness (PC) — like racism, it treats all members of some defined group as somehow the same (ALL women and ALL blacks need affirmative action, for instance). See the talk I gave at a conference: “Diversity and Identity”, https://mega.nz/#!NbAR3DyB!sw3rX_K9bVUvT5yLSeNHWYA5IfF1480-2cTtpULJ3-Y.
I edited an anti-PC newsletter for years, available at https://web.archive.org/web/20131030115950/http://fbox.vt.edu/faculty/aaup/index4.html.
I think in fact you, Vortex, DO apply objective reasoning when you put your moral attitude ahead of “inevitably … provisional scientific results”: you are pointing out that whatever “scientific” claims are made in support of racism, they are at best provisional and therefore not valid for actions that harm human beings. I think your moral stance on racism is based on your rationally based view that all the “scientific” claims are wrong about people of some race being inherently inferior, meaning not fully human.
I think our moral attitudes are always based on what we believe to be really (objectively) true. We tend to attribute our moral attitudes to “feelings”; but I agree with cognitive psychologists like Albert Ellis and Maxie Maultsby that our feelings are determined by our intellectual beliefs (and I recommend books like Maultsby’s “Coping Better”).
The point of doing science is to get a grasp of actual reality, so scientific research must not be done under the influence of any ideological, political, religious, ethical, moral attitudes, anything that gets in the way of gaining true knowledge.
HOWEVER: I believe that it’s quite proper for moral, religious, etc. attitudes to decide what things should NOT be studied at all: anything that could be studied only by hurting people. There are also some topics likely to be controversial, like using fertilized embryos and aborted fetuses as a source of stem cells.
At any rate, I think rationality and attempted objectivity should underlie moral views. I don’t think a proper morality could urge actions that are objectively unrealistic.
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