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Comment by Faark | Hacker News Reader

He isn't just doing research and let the conservatives vs feminists argue by themselves. The article makes this quite obvious by him choosing a specific platform and ranting against feminists over and over again. It's ridiculous how people will argue they "just present facts" while doing so.

But there is another options over the apparently impossible goal of researchers being 100% neutral: Everyone acting responsible.

Like Nature not screwing up with this apparently shitty article. Or him Cahill not going to a heavily slanted platform to push his message. And yes, for a lot of researchers that means publishing their findings in a way that makes it harder for motivated actors to abuse it. I understand this is additional work, and likely not fun kind. But especially on currently "hot" topics, this will help us all. Just like we in software should actively try to avoid building the tools necessary for a dystopian future.

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The problem is that many of these motivated actors are in academia. Think about the cases we've heard about somebody in academia being accused of sexism because they didn't kowtow to the values the types of feminists hold that Cahill mentions. A mathematics paper caused an uproar because somebody tried to show that it's mathematically possible for sex differences to appear

On that note, your software development comparison is apt: there are people in software development who explicitly want to build tools that lead towards a dystopia. They just believe it won't be a dystopia.

I don’t think Rivin is making out too well as a result of that effort; the editors told him no in no uncertain terms

> A mathematics paper caused an uproar because somebody tried to show that it's mathematically possible for sex differences to appear

That sounds indeed like a motivated actor. I'm not familiar with such a case, so lets keep it at that joke response.

> The problem is that many of these motivated actors are in academia.

Science and academia are part of society and thus will always have to some degree follow norms. To think the process of gaining knowledge can be perfectly separated is naive. Resources are limited, so we don't want to support crap science. Attention is limited, so the same is true for magazines. As such, it cannot be avoided to reflect the highly divided political sphere to some degree in science. Trying to minimize this seems good. But the author seems quite fine with getting the outside involved, since he expect it to help him for now.

> Or him Cahill not going to a heavily slanted platform to push his message.

But these platforms are often the only ones willing to publish unfashionable science of the kind that Cahill is working on.

And if Nature chooses not to publish unfashionable science, then perhaps it is not as neutral as we might think?

That would indeed be problematic, but is not what happened here. To quote the article:

> Meghan Daum: Why did you choose to publish in Quillette?

> Larry Cahill: Because the editor asked me. [Others] didn’t ask me. When I contacted Nature saying I felt they needed to do something to undo the damage they had done with that review, they did say I could submit a letter to the editor, but I chose not to do that. But when [Quillette editor Claire Lehmann] asked me to write a piece, I said sure.

I had that particular line in mind when I wrote my comment, and I stand by my statement. The most that Nature offered was to maybe publish a letter to the editor. A letter to the editor is not the same as an article in the same publication.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Nature offer the letter because it is the standard way to respond in such situations?

I didn't read this as them denying to publish something more extensive because of the topic. They obviously didn't go far beyond that & help him create it, but I'd not expect them to. I do expect this to be something the ideological opposition would do further their agenda. And all I want is people to take responsibility and resist such a deal, unless they actually of what that group stands for. Don't make a deal with the devil. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Nature offer the letter because it is the standard way to respond in such situations?

Standard? Probably. Sufficient? Likely not.

Accepting a letter to the editor would give Cahill a platform to share his disagreement, without Nature having to actually admit error or fault. I think that an error like this probably should require some sort of acknowledgement from the original article's authors and/or the editorial staff.

> Don't make a deal with the devil. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

Quillette is hardly the devil.

Every comment supporting censorship here is just restating the pro-authoritarian censorship rhetoric. Not a single comment on Cahill's points or research.

Cahill, his platform he publishes on and everyone else is allowed to be biased. Just like feminists and the publications they use are allowed to be biased. For every person who thinks Cahill is dangerous, a lot more think feminists are dangerous. But I wouldn't support silencing feminists, just like I wouldn't support silencing Cahill and stopping scientific research.

If you don't like someone's research or position, then show where the research went wrong. As I said, people tend to support censorship ( especially in research and academia ) when facts and reality go against their worldview. This is true whether it is religious conservatives or feminists.

As for software development, the industry should be politically and ethically amoral. There is nothing ethical or unethical about software. No more than hammer makers are ethical or unethical.

The dyspotian future is being created by authoritarian feminists who want to politicize and censor everything from social media to scientific research. That's what I feel we should be worried about.

I can imagine where you're coming from and doubt we'd have much of a fruitful conversation, so I'll focus only on your first part:

> Every comment supporting censorship here is just restating the pro-authoritarian censorship rhetoric. Not a single comment on Cahill's points or research.

Let me repeat: I'm indeed not familiar with Cahill's work beyond this article. The article seems mostly fine, but appears to used by motivated actors to push an agenda. I advocate for people resisting against the latter part. We should generally, within reason, try to be aware what effects we have on society and should try to only change it for the better. Our free society requires a high degree of cooperation and will have a hard time to continue to exist without stuff like that. And would probably be replaced by something more authoritarian.

Thus I find you calling this "pro-authoritarian censorship rhetoric" kinda funny. Are you call it "pro-authoritarian cleanliness rhetoric" when Dr. Peterson advocates for people to "clean their room"? Or is this just a derogatory reaction against something you disagree with?

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