Reading this article begs the question: Is it EVER OK for political persuasions to steer or prevent scientific research? Does the fact that a segment of the population has a vested intrest in something make ignoring or distorting science acceptable?
I must have missed something, because while the report does mention political pressure and protest, that is not steering or preventing the research anyhow.
It’s certainly valid to let human rights concerns steer science, if we you want to call those political - for example, I’d never support experimentation on unwilling participants.
I’m also… let’s say “intrigued,” Don67, that you characterize what is happening in that report as “ignoring or distorting science.”
Yes, always.
All avenues of scientific research cannot be funded equally. Some branches of inquiry are more promising to benefit people than others, or the benefits may differ. Should we fund research into breast cancer, or shift some into more deadly but less common diseases such as pancreatic cancer? What about research into more “commercial” areas, like telecommunications, or “pure science” like astrophysics? The decisions as to which types of research should be prioritized over others, and where their funding comes from, fall under the broad heading of politics.
Incidentally, I see that Michael Bailey is in favor of this experiment. So it’s probably a bad idea in the first place.
Since when has politics NOT steered science, I ask?
Interestingly, Ayn Rand wrote up a treatment for a movie about the Manhattan Project, with the goal of making it obvious that such a project could only have happened in an atmosphere allowing the free exchange of information (the fact that the project was Top Secret notwithstanding) and the dictatorial Nazis, for all their strutting pompous yakity-yak about superiority, were exiling and limiting the very people who were needed to contribute to this great leap forward.
Nothing came of it, though, and she threw herself into working full time on Atlas Shrugged.
Anyhoo, it’s good that people are allowed to voice protest at fields of research that offend them. It’s better that the research can continue anyway.
The only explanation I can think of for the OP’s question is that Don26 has been reading up on science history and is projecting an impression that scientists are by and large wealthy individuals working alone, following their personal interests.
Actually there is one other explanation I can think of, but it’s not very charitable.
We can learn about something and choose not to use our knowledge. Finding a biological/genetic basis for sexual orientation seems like a worthy project. It certainly wouldn’t prevent us from banning genetically modifying our fetuses.
I’m pretty leery of the idea of “fixing” behavior prior to birth. Say we found a gene for a violent temper. Well, that might be a good thing to excise. But what if that gene is also linked to risk taking and initiative. Maybe we’d lose a lot of potential firefighters or entrepeneurs. I think society benefits from a diversity of personalities, even the negative ones.
Did anyone read the linked article? The motive wasn’t moral; it was FINANCIAL. If sheep don’t breed, for whatever reason, wool and lamb chops will become awfully expensive.
People’s politically correct viewpoints are screwing (pun intended) the sheepherders.
Did YOU read the article? Everybody understands the motive. The activists are concerned about what else could come from the research.
You make it sound like there’s a gay plague endangering herds of sheep. The story says one in ten rams is a bachelor. I am sure that rate is not changing, and that pretty much one sheep out of ten has been fabulous since time immemorial, so it’s not going to destroy the farmers or drive the price of lambchops through the roof. The farmers just want a better return on the investment they make in the rams.
The project is going on, so I don’t see how they’re screwed. So far, everybody has agreed that it’s normal and acceptable for politics to impact science in various ways, so I’d say it’s okay that we’re considering the impact, albeit completely theoretical, that this work could have on humans.
Don67, whether or not Martina Navratilova and company are right or entitled to be concerned about this research, I’d hardly call this “political correctness,” or as I mentioned earlier, “ignoring or distorting science.”
Ever? I think you’d be better off enumerating the fairly narrow range of situations where society and/or the government has no business interfering with scientific research.
Consider jose Delgado and his work on brain control chips. He used radio-controlled electric chips implanted in the brains of live animals to control their emotions and behavior. In his most famous experiment, he waved a red flag at a bull. When it charged, his assistant activated a chip that made the bull turn aside. By the early 1970’s he was conducting preliminary experiments with human beings.
Then, due to public pressure, all his funding dried up and the experiments with brain-control chips stopped. They have never been resumed.
Of course one might argue that our society could have continued the research and simply banned the use of the chips on unwilling subjects. But I think we have to respect the viewpoint that humanity is better off with governments and other authorities not having the option of using the chips, rather than giving them a stack of chips and depending on their good nature to refrain from using them inappropriately.
As Menocchio said, it is both acceptable and inevitable that politics will influence what lines of scientific research will or will not be funded/pursued. OTOH, it is never acceptable to let political, or economic, factors lead to the distortion of the results of scientific research. Regarding which, see global-warming skepticism and the various astroturf groups that promote it.