"Now that many university presidents have agreed to implement many of the demands, I believe that the conflict between truth and social justice is likely to become unmanageable."
Can someone ELI5 what is this conflict between truth and social justice Haidt refers to?
What is equity if not equality then? (Honest question, as I just assumed it was equality as generally that's something we've been historically striving for.)
Equity is equality of outcomes (done by explicitly redirecting resources as needed to get this result). As opposed to equal opportunity which is what is generally meant by "equality".
Or to ELI5 it's treating people differently to get them all to the same position, instead of treating everyone the same. The argument for "equity" is then that we aren't all starting from the same place. It's the same line of reasoning that justified affirmative action in the US.
Opportunities and rights on the one hand, outcomes on the other. e.g.
- Equality: We are both free to operate in an open market to secure the best outcomes for ourselves
- Equity: You made $1000, I made $100, we both get $550
Wokes will bend over backwards to paint equality as an impossible project, claiming that it is doomed because of historical white supremacy, generational oppression, moon phases, etc. We're asked to believe uncritically that the goal of equal opportunity is equal outcome, and commanded to pursue equal outcome at all costs lest we are labeled racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynist; de-platformed from all social media and made infamous and unemployable so we can't work to support our families. Equality is the American civil rights movement, equity is literally communism.
There’s a lot of nonsense to unpack in that comment.
Equity is not “literally communism”, it’s the pretty simple understanding that if you always start 40 meters ahead of someone in a 100 meter race, you’re likely to always finish first and they won’t have a chance.
So we put more (and therefore unequal) resources into helping the competitor who’s having to run 40 more meters than you.
That's incorrect. The goal or schema of communism is not "equal outcomes". That might be the crude rubric of some state capitalist societies of the past, e.g. equal wages regardless of rank, but in true communism the abundance of resources permits anyone to have their needs met and for anyone to realize their full abilities.
One can criticize its naivety. But please do not conflate it with the mean and frankly misanthropic world view of the woke crowd, in which large swathes of humanity are condemned to endless self flagellation.
Don't worry, they are pretty interchangeable, depending upon context. The dictionary definitions show both can be used for the same meaning, say for equal rights and for actual equal carving out of resources and means. Or something specific in the case of finance or law. And the woke crowd evidently have their own stricter definitions of both.
I'd avoid using either in any polemic for a better world, and stick to the original words of the communist manifesto, which have not been bettered: from each according to their ability, to each according to their need!
The key quote is this: "most academic work has nothing to do with diversity, so these mandatory statements force many academics to betray their quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth by spinning, twisting, or otherwise inventing some tenuous connection to diversity."
In other words a researcher studying a topic unrelated to diversity will need to lie by claiming that there is a link.
"Our lab specializes in developing hypergraph analysis techniques with applications in cybersecurity. The success of these techniques will force threat actors to innovate in order to survive. As more diverse organizations are more innovative [1][5][26] and threat actors are rational and well-informed [9][10], we expect our efforts to encourage threat actors to become more diverse as more effective cybersecurity techniques pressure them to adapt and innovate.
As threat actors account for a non-trivial fraction of global economic activity [6], we expect our research to play an active role in the co-creation of a more inclusive and diverse lifeworld for the people of earth."
This is a bad example: local knowledge (popular scams, exploits, software, etc) does play a nontrivial role in determining what the population of threats looks like; this activity is in part socially determined. So having a more diverse crowd of researchers -- with all else equal -- can improve your research group's understanding of what threats are out there. Diversity gives you edge here. Unless of course, the graph analysis research isn't really about the applications and that was just some bullshit to drum up funding.
It was a satirical example of "bullshit" application writing. I personally don't dispute the relevance of diversity (variously operationalized) within human knowledge production institutions.
I do - I think reasonably - dispute the applicability of the outputs of many of our knowledge production institutions to social justice questions. (Just as I don't dispute that there are, conversely many which are).
If we find ourselves in a situation where we can't make a useful distinction between research that is and isn't relavent to social justice, I think we're at risk of our language seeming vaccuous and nonsensical.
I didn't claim I agree or disagree with this. I answered GP's question on Haidt's argument, especially because I found the other reponses didn't do justice to Haidt by focusing on research that would contradict the dominant narrative. As far as I could tell from the article he didn't allude to that.
The question that triggered his reaction is (quoting from the article) 'whether and how this submission advances the equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals of SPSP.' Indeed in principle they could just answer that it doesn't. What is left out here is why they are asking this. If the purpose of the question is unclear then researchers may feel incentivised to lie to 'fit' the requirements.
My personal view is that this is much ado about nothing. More likely than not most people will ignore the answers. There will, however, be reviewers who use that to reject papers.
It's actually even worse. It is enough for research to not actively promote "social justice" (which is of course anything but social or just) to get the boot.
So everything must be politicised. "How does your new caching algorithm promote social justice?". (If the same criteria were applied in CS).
> It must be so difficult being so offended by the regular function of language. Context matters in language, and meanings and vocabulary change over time as contexts change.
The sheer irony of someone who's in favor of linguistic prescriptivism typing this out (when master record and master key have no linguistic relationship to master/slave) is astounding.
It seems to me that the real snowflakes are those who got out of their way to have the convention changed. But then again, I am just a slav who thankfully doesn't have to live in the shithole that is contemporary usa (or the valley).
"Snowflake?" Either you're projecting, or that doesn't mean what you think.
Don't forget that there were people like Rich Salz who took their ball and ran home crying[0] because of a freaking word. Was this just a fit of temporary 2020-insanity that was going around? Nope - apparently 1 year on, it's still intolerably reeecist to have a "master key" in cryptography.[1]
Are you offended when someone expresses that they want to "master the art of pasta making?" The word 'master' has many meanings, only one of which relates to slavery; every color of people on the planet has practiced slavery at some point; your boogeyman white people stopped practicing it a century and a half ago; yet just the existence of the word prevents you from being able to push code to a repo. And you call other people snowflakes...
"The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." - Kendi
Kendi is a key promoter of "anti-racism", which is described in the above quote.
Many institutions are signing on to this agenda, which requires people to view everything through this ideological (social justice) lens and to participate in discriminatory activity as described above. This lens ensures that instead of seeking truth, you will just find more social injustice. A demon under every rock, if you will.
Did you notice that that promotes an eternal cycle of hatred? Because present day discrimination would mean discriminating against yesterday's powerful, and thus future discrimination will be the opposite. That someone, who seriously wrote something like that, has got influence is not a good sign.
Let's apply this to a material, concrete condition that exists in our world.
We can all hopefully agree that:
A) Redlining existed
B) Redlining was explicitly racist
C) Redlining has impacts that are still felt today
Let's use an antiracist lens to talk about it and compare to a modern, liberal "just don't be racist" lens.
The standard liberal response is, "well, redlining is over, and we know now not to do that. So, problem solved, right?"
The antiracist lens might be, "there are still people suffering from the impact of Redlining. The people who benefited from it should be helping those who suffered from it." In this case, wealthy white folks explicitly benefited from Redlining. Maaaaaybe we should tap on the shoulders of wealthy white folks and say, "hey, there was a major injustice done very recently, we want to fix it, and since you benefitted from it, we're asking you to pay a slightly larger share in fixing it."
We're getting now to one of the bigger problems with the philosophy you're describing: What's "you" here? Is "you" people in the same genetic category as the people who benefited from redlining. Those who happen to look like these people, but share actual no genetic ancestry (say, because they were immigrants) or perhaps do not share the privilege (say, because they were born poor or had other disadvantages) might take exception. Push them too hard, you become the oppressor.
There's then a Kafkaesque attitude that manifests that says, "I don't care what your protestations are on this topic, nor will I hear your case, you belong to X [ where X is social group, economic class, identity group, race, or whatever ] and you should accept sacrifices for the great good. Full stop. If you deny it you're the enemy."
That's one reason why many people view highly "corrective" actions in the realm of social relations or economic re-organizations with a strong amount of terror. We certainly have strong examples of terror manifesting in the 20th century in completely separate parts of the world and at massive scale - always for the greater good.
It's totally fair to say, "wait, this person busted ass and bought in, having come from nothing. Maybe they shouldn't have to pay more." But also, the neighborhood has benefited, and that's reflected in better schools, better amenities, etc. Maybe we should find ways to ensure those better off areas help lift up the less fortunate ones.
Regarding your second point, that you belong to X, so you are the enemy. I agree. Except on economic class. For context, I made roughly $850k last year, and my taxes were paltry. It is because of people in my economic class and above they we have a lot of the problems we do.
If you make a million a year, you can absolutely afford to give more.
(I do this by spending my money on mutual aid projects, bail funds, debt relief, community owned housing, forest conservation, etc. I put about $350k into community projects that had little to no direct benefit for me. I say this only to deal with the inevitable, "why don't you put your money where your mouth is" comments I receive when I say we wealthy folks should be taxed much more.)
That wasn't reparations, that was retribution for slave labor for those forced to work in German factories. It's a start, but also about two orders of magnitude less than what Germany should pay, given the atrocities they committed in Poland. About 2-3 millions of civilians were killed during the whole war (and I mean ethnic Poles, not the Jews living in Poland, which are additional 3 millions victims)
> standard liberal response is, [...] So, problem solved, right?
Well, there's the problem. You can't declare something fixed, and you have to have standards to check against. Those people just aren't trying and you can't write every "standard liberal" off because you personally know lazy ones.
But yes, the race-blind answer would be to help people still experiencing those first-order (lack of ownership) and second-order (lack of generational equity) problems by tackling obstacles to low-end ownership and invest in wealth and estate planning classes, assisting with secondary education, etc.
A multitude of strategies and a goal of trying those and other things until the original victims are helped, while trying not the name those victims explicitly. In doing so, helping anyone similarly disadvantaged.
> antiracist lens might be, [...] wealthy white folks [...] you benefitted from it, we're asking you to pay a slightly larger share in fixing it.
The anti-racist lens mentions race a lot. I'm not just saying that to be snarky but because I believe that's harmful. Like the news reporting thoughtlessly about suicides.
But I don't see in that view is any concern for finding the unfair beneficiaries - merely all white people. This is where it goes from looking racist to being racist.
Most damningly, anti-racists don't have any consistent or desirable ideas on what the problems are or how the funds would go to help. It's all about race, categorizing and separating and stigmatizing by race, and confiscating by race, but barely if ever about defining and planning to fix the problems for people of any race, let alone all.
> people in my economic class [from another post]
I feel that this class-based analysis is much more useful and less counter-productive.
Haidt gave a lecture on the topic at Duke in 2016. It's titled, "Two incompatible sacred values in American universities." It's on the YouTube channel of Duke's political science department.
It's been a while since I've watched the lecture, but what I remember is that Haidt sees the academy seeking truth as (potentially?) incompatible with the academy seeking social justice. As such, he anticipates a day when universities will have to choose individually which path they will follow.
I suspect that's the context in which Haidt is making this decision.
It goes a little bit beyond this. You're supposed to do research with an open mind and allow your conclusions to reveal themselves through the course of study. Swearing that your research advances the goals of anti-racism and equity means that your research can only have pre-formed conclusions.
It completely taints your research and any results you might come to.
That sounds nice, but the de facto the purpose of a university is the furtherance of the intellectuals.
The scientific method's purpose is to get closer to the truth.
Some research does happen at universities, but academia in its current state is far from the ideal vessel for that. (Especially when it comes to softer sciences.)
Ah yes, the always correct "society" should be heavy handed, to counter unnecessary heavy-handed university administration. That is just shifting the tyranny of the majority from an internal to a less qualified external source. Universities' end should be pursuit of the truth, not society's "goals". If society must intervene, it should be to uphold the pursuit of truth, not its own goals. That is a tall task, but lets at least aim in the right direction.
This comment is also a bit odd given the context of the last 5 years of society being ever more overrun by anti-intellectualism, that is diametrically opposed to higher learning.
> society being ever more overrun by anti-intellectualism, that is diametrically opposed to higher learning.
This has been ongoing for ever. This happens because there's a big overlap between rich, powerful, and educated groups, and there's simply a fuckton of bad "us vs them" arguments that pick one easy to identify trait and attack anyone using that.
And of course the ongoing globalization led to a lot of job displacement. Whole regions suffered and continue to suffer heavily, and ... while the whole country reaps the benefits the affected areas only got a lip service. (And of course a lot of federal transfer payments.) This created a big group ripe for populist resentment, ready to project the drawbacks of free markets onto whatever Trump said. China. Mexico. Millenials. Green stuff. Welfare queens.
One way to look at it: this is like requiring all Maths research to be applied mathematics, because we demand to get the social benefits right now and it is your job to find it. I don't know if they actually verify what you wrote in your declaration and how.
Is it really a conspiracy when we're watching exactly what the theorists said would happen, happen?
An earnest, good-hearted, and well-cited author and scientist is removing himself from academia because of the ever-accelerating creep of DEI influence into entirely unrelated work. This sounds like exactly what the so-called 'conspiracy theorists' were trying to warn us about back in 2012 or so.
If anything, your comment really just solidified to me that maybe we should have taken those folks a bit more seriously, and encouraged folks like you to quiet down. :)
Something of almost no significance to freedom of speech.
Universities are advising their staff not to council in favour of abortion or offer condoms for the purposes of birth control (but OK for purposes of diseas prevenion). Violating these rules can result in felony convictions.
This is what an attack on freedom of speech looks like. And the consequences are of far more significance in this case.
Being fired for bringing the university in to disrepute barely even registers.
So if you want to know whether someone's position on free speech is hysterical posturing, or whether it's genuine, you can compare their reaction on these two paired issues.
I'm confused, you think adding restrictions to what someone is and isn't allowed to publish has no significance to freedom of speech?
> Violating these rules can result in felony convictions.
Can you provide us with an example of a university prof being given a felony sentencing for providing counsel related to abortion? It was a bizarre thing to bring up and admittedly just sort of reads like American fear-mongering. You're coming at this from a very strange angle, you're gonna need a better formed argument if you want to change any minds here.
The way I read it was he was removing himself from an organization, not from academia entirely.
This particular organization wants to follow the antiracist line of thinking, and they probably feel that strengthens their community. He's perfectly entitled to leave it and complain about it. But, the organizations reasons for making people who join the organization align with this values statement seems like it should be their prerogative.
Maybe they feel like to grow as an organization, they need to ask their community to that line of thinking. If they have done the work to understand that's what they should do, isn't it correct, even if they lose a researcher like Haidt?
Pro-tip: being a "toxic toss-pot" should not be a reason for getting fired. People should not be fired for any non-criminal behavior outside of their workplace, even if it's racist.
Employers who fire people over non-criminal supposedly "racist" behavior should be sued and made to pay big bucks.
Being a toxic toss-pot should very much be a reason to be fired. Toxic people are notoriously destructive to the work environment, almost always in a greater degree to what they add -- even if they are top performers. Removing them can result in a more productive/creative team who can now thrive in their absence.
Are they more destructive than woke activists? I very much doubt that.
Your employer has no business judging you for how you (non-criminally) behave outside your working time. Firing over any such non-criminal behavior should be punishable severely.
I agree they shouldn't if its outside working time, but they can and should fire you for being an asshat at work.
Also, sounds like you think all 'woke activists' everywhere are always destructive. Which is an interesting take. At what point does someone cross the line to become an inherently destructive 'woke' person?
a) call/protest for firing people for said outside-of-work activities
b) protest/lobby for legislation changes restricting freedom of speech in any way
c) protest/lobby for any sort of affirmative action policies
d) protest/lobby against enforcing criminal laws because they disproportionally affect minorities (when said disproportionate effect is a result of minorities committing said crimes at higher rates)
I have question, because some of these would result in 'woke activists' on the right as well as the left.
> protest/lobby for legislation changes restricting freedom of speech in any way
There are conservative politicians, florida in particular, that have passed legislation banning CRT and gender studies. Is this not a restriction of free speech?
Toby Price was fired for reading a popular children's book to children. Was this not a form of censorship?
> protest/lobby for any sort of affirmative action policies
Does this mean that that discrimination based on race/gender be allowed or not allowed? Should bakers in an open market be permitted to say no to gay wedding cakes? Should banks be able to say no to non-white loan applicants?
> protest/lobby against enforcing criminal laws because they disproportionally affect minorities (when said disproportionate effect is a result of minorities committing said crimes at higher rates)
Does uneven enforcement count as a factor? White suburban teens smoke pot (in states where its still illegal) at rates the same as non-white urban teens, but enforcement is highly disprortionate. So what's the solution to that?
CRT and gender studies should not be part of the high school curriculum in public schools and should not receive any sort of government funding in universities because at best they are pseudoscience. Private institutions not receiving government funding should teach whatever they like, including white nationalism.
Discrimination based on race should either be allowed in all circumstances or disallowed in all circumstances. Affirmative action is discrimination based on race so it's hypocritical to have this as government policy while explicitly prohibiting discrimination against minorities.
Uneven enforcement calls for punishing those not enforced against, not letting guilty minorities walk.
Any further attempts of sealioning will be ignored.
so "restricting freedom of speech in any way" really means it can be restricted in some cases. This was your definition, not mine.
Again interesting that you consider discrimination based on race in all cases as an acceptable position equal to no discrimination based on race.
The unequal enforcement bit would mean that white neighborhoods should be given the same level of enforcement as minority ones. Is that really what you want? Where literally everyone is treated by the police exactly how they treat minorities?
I consider "restrictions of freedom of speech" justified only in the context of employment, during work hours, where said restriction directly influences your working output. If public school teachers want to teach woke pseudoscience on their own premises, during their off hours, using their own money, that's OK.
I have absolutely no problem with increasing policing in white neighborhoods. The risk to people who are not criminal lowlifes is not zero, but is negligible. And I place 0 weight on the lives and well-being of criminal lowlifes.
So, "restricting freedom of speech in any way" is actually "restricting freedom of speech in any way unless during working hours and influences working output". This revised definition now supports the use of DEI in the OP article.
I will take your word that you'd be happy with increased policing even if it affected you personally, but I doubt that if you actually experienced it that you would be happy with the outcome.
It's actually not consistent (and the example is compelled speech not restricting speech). But then again, I shouldn't be breaking what I said earlier about responding to sealioning.
It didn't take long for my point to be proven in a dramatic act of unaware self-parody. Thanks for making it perfectly clear to OP (I mean, original question asker) - if OP was indeed, genuinely unaware of what far right wing narcissistic rage looks like, which i kind of doubt.
I can be racist (teach white nationalism), you can't call me racist (that's the dread cultural cultural marxism again!). I should be subject to no laws (that restrict fascist propagandisation or mobilisation), but laws that restrict the rights of women, blacks, degenerate leftists etc. should be enforced presumably to the point of street execution (it's your own fault! gotta obey those laws!)
Reading comprehension lacking again. As I stated clearly in a comment above, I support banning employers from firing anyone over anything non-criminal they are doing during off-hours.
Also, I don't know exactly how far this is from the "opinion" of the so-called "labor movement" given that something closer to this than to anglosphere practice is the reality in most of continental Europe currently.
Attacking "Political Correctness" in a vague and non-specific way lets you sound noble.
As soon as you specify what that means in practice you just sound like a nasty bully (at best), so best leave that implied.
But a quick glance as the history of social science that these things are a direct response to, would reveal people "proving" that various groups are inferior in ways that mirror contemporary prejudices and reinforce right-wing politics that consistently builds hierarchical models to justify current social inequalities.
I think this is the quote you mean, which sounds very very different to yours?
a newly adopted requirement that everybody presenting research at the group's conferences explain how their submission advances "equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals."
You're getting downvoted and flagged because you're breaking the site guidelines by going on about getting downvoted and flagged. It's tedious and off topic. Please stop now.
This comment doesn't really explain the conflict, if it was a response to the ELI5 request.
Instead it seems to be at best discounting that there is a conflct to explain or at worse is participating in the conflict by defending one side of it.
I think a stronger case could in theory be made that the conflict is non existent but it's a harder position to advocate.
does it rly change anything? like, take sports. asians have some structural advantages (endomorphism and limb to body ratio) for lifting, west africans at mnay explosive/power sports (fast twitch muscle concentration, arms/legs to body), east africans at long-distance running etc. (lighter structure, efficient muscles over long term), whites at swimming (shoulder structure & torso length).
should we stop large swathes of research into athletic performance? bc i guess it doesn't provide sufficiently "antiracist" outcomes?
Studies that show the genetic diversity of the continent of Africa are in fact "anti-racist".
They truthfully reveal that the psuedoscientific 19th century ideas we refer to as race had no scientific basis. Some people really haven't taken this "truth" well though.
They still try to fit every new fact into their old model.
Like "West African Scorpios" are much more open to emotion, while "East African Scorpios" are open to new experience. So should we stop all research into Astrology?
Yes, because it's psuedoscientific nonsense that only distracts from the actual truth.
This current controversy includes the attempts to stop exactly this, with rules saying if you do medical research, and classify people by "race" then you need to explain who made this classification and why. Because a Brazilian looking a photos might put people into different races than an American or Japanese researcher, which might differ from the subjects chosen race, which definately differs from their genetic race, because genetic races don't exist.
i mean, i agree they're imperfect but there's also not "0 basis". if nothing else they may continue to associate with stuff because society often sees them as coherent groupings.
but cool, now suppose some study has a result i can't spin as "anti-racist". what do?
also you seem well-intentioned but your definition seems wildly different from kendi's defining anti-racism to include support for present discrimination to "remedy" past.
yeah, i've read it. they're requiring people to write statements on whether/how their research advances the stated goals of the society in this area. next year, they will make it part of the scoring rubric for submissions.
here's the thing: "anti-racism" is being used as a motte-and-bailey argument. it's basically dogwhistling an intent to promote present discrimination (c.f. kendi) even if they're using a different definition that doesn't explicitly state that, because it's how that term has been widely used and understood. but when people take issue with it, they can be like "oh our definition doesn't say that." and ngl i find it pretty disingenuous.
I don't understand the argument that genetics isn't correlated with race. I would imagine a better argument is that it's a spectrum - but the fact is that when plotting the principle components of any large scale set of human genetic data from around the world, self reported race actually clusters (PC isn't even a clustering technique) quite well. So the fact that the axes of tbe largest explained variance of the data (PC_0 and PC_1) correlates with self reported race is hard to mend with the idea that is loudly exclaimed in academia that race isn't genetic. Am I missing some important subtlety here?
While I agree that we need to do as much as possible to eradicate the awful racism we see in far too many places today, this idea to turn a blind eye to the largest explained variance in large scale genetic studies by saying it doesn't exist is perplexing.
It's correct to say that: there is a genetic history to all humans, and that history roughly correlates with pre-scientific clustering of humans by visible attributes.
The academic claim that "Race is not scientific" is really an overstatement of the case being made by people who are very optimistic but also fairly good at overlooking some fairly well understood science. It's not a universally held opinion but most people who disagree with it are fairly circumspect because it's very easy to get cancelled by talking about race and science in public.
What's that research going to be used for? Will it become of the basis of policy that says 'only asians are allowed to enter the power lifting club', 'only east africans on the running team', 'only white land owning men are allowed to vote'.
Setting aside the question of whether the truth should be suppressed because of consequences, this kind of research could very easily be beneficial.
Suppose you find out that the green people from East Arbitria are less productive. The immediate effect is that an innocent objective employer who being tried for discrimination or hated by a community no longer has to suffer- the cruelty of the universe is no longer being made anyone's fault. The secondary effect is that we now have grounds to investigate why Arbitrarians have that disadvantage. Maybe green people have a harder time metabolizing a nutrient; a non-issue with the diet/climate/lifestyle of Arbitria. An update to health recommendations later and millions of people's lives are improved.
It would also mean that people could use this to say "All East Arbitaria people are less productive than all other ethnicities, therefore I shall ban them from my workplace. I am not anti-Arbitrian, I am just using the latest science". And of course these things are always statistical and so high performing East Arbitarians are going to be shut out of work because of this study.
The point is, there is a history of race-based discrimination in the world and researchers can't just pretend that it doesn't still exist when constructing these kinds of studies and how their outcomes could be used negatively by both benevolent and malevolent actors. It isn't just 'truth or not truth', also because lots of sociological studies aren't repeatable and many others suffer all sorts of issues with methods, populations, etc. Measuring people is crazy hard to do reliably. Anyway, my hot take is that its not a simple question and does not have a simple answer.
1. we don't know how a piece of research will be used because we don't even know what the outcome will be.
2. rarely is a piece of research only used for 1 thing, and even if someone uses it wrongly, maybe someone else uses it for good purpose or builds on it for an important discovery.
3. the correct answer is to address the person attempting to abuse the data when that person does it not to attempt to suppress that information by preventing the research or limiting how it's done.
4. are you saying we shouldn't do research on e.g. whether certain groups are better at lifting because it could be abused?
The question of whether certain research should be banned because of the potential outcomes is one with deep philosophical roots and the basis of much science fiction. The 'just because we could do something, doesn't mean we should' question. I don't think there is a single absolute answer to this, as context matters.
What I do see is a long history of race-based 'science' being used to justify some pretty terrible policies and laws.
One might respond along the lines of: "why are we investing in ways to operationalize a concept of 'superiority' in the first place?"
The long lesson from the history of this research is that it produces garbage wrapped in a thin veneer of credibility, and becomes a weapon to justify or deepen real existing problems. It doesn't matter if it gets debunked eventually, the problem is how it is used now."
edit: (I don't know that I'm happy with either pole in this debate, but it seems like a good thing to worry about)
> One might respond along the lines of: "why are we investing in ways to operationalize a concept of 'superiority' in the first place?"
Becomes sometimes it's important. The efficacy of modern medicine is not uniform across ethnic groups. To deny this fact would effectively be to deliberately withhold treatment from some groups of people. Does that seem fair and just to you?
That's not fair, they should encourage people to include:
> Diverse research participants (e.g., understudied or underserved populations)
or in case it's due to the team they should also probably encourage:
> Diverse members of the research team (e.g., those from underrepresented sociodemographic backgrounds, from an array of career stages, from outside the United States, or with professional affiliations that are not typical at SPSP such as predominately undergraduate serving institutions, minority-serving institutions, or outside academia)
Hopefully if thay do that won't be portrayed as a bad thing by anyone.
Can someone ELI5 what is this conflict between truth and social justice Haidt refers to?