Re: nbc Jeff Jacoby on the looters nbc

On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 13:32:26 -0500, "Gumboman" <noemail@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>
>"Joe" <obri6133@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:1125941568.765042.184250@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Gumboman wrote:
>>> Given the evangelistas don't you think this should be made into a past
>>> tense
>>> sentence?
>>>
>>> > Obviously, there should be no
>>> > areas that are taboo to research and study.
>>>
>>> Like stem cells?
>>
>> Right....just like stem cells. Stem cells and inherited criminality.
>> They should both be examined, investigated and studied...absent any
>> political correctness bull*** from the right or left.
>>
>
>If there is a biological reason to study these things I can assure you some
>biologist somewhere will get around to doing the study. As long as it is
>peer reviewed, etc., I don't think many actual scientists (if any) would
>have any problems with it.
>

Jack,

You've probably never heard of Arthur Jensen then, have you?

And a study published in "Science" magazine earlier this year
demontstates the self-censorship imposed by scientists.

Jerry


Scientific Method: Self-Censorship
WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2005

(AP) Some scientists are thinking twice about doing or reporting on
certain research, reacting to political and social controversy in
addition to legal restrictions.

"It appears that controversy shapes what scientists choose to study
and how they choose to study it, and we need to look a little bit more
closely at the effects it might be having," said Joanna Kempner, a
researcher at the University of Michigan.

Kempner and co-authors from Brown University and the University of
Pennsylvania conducted in-depth interviews with 41 scientists engaged
in a variety of studies. They found that half felt constrained by
formal limits, but even more said they were affected by informal or
unspoken rules on what and how studies can be done. Their findings are
reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Science, in a paper
entitled "Forbidden Knowledge."

Formal limits include such things as the ban on federal funding for
most research on embryonic stem cells and restrictions on research
involving humans.

In many cases, too, scientific journals have their own rules, such as
refusing to publish material they think might be detrimental to
national security.

But there also are fears about the ire of interest groups, such as
opponents of animal testing, or about how a project would be perceived
by the public.

While formal and informal restrictions on research are not unusual,
Deborah G. Johnson of the University of Virginia said they are not
necessarily all bad.

"On the one hand, you want a profession to have norms and to have some
standards and some self-regulation. On the other hand, you don't want
there to be an environment of fear of repercussions if they do
something which they think is legitimate," said Johnson, who has
studied similar issues but was not part of Kempner's group.

One researcher, commenting on avoiding controversial work, told
Kempner's team: "I would like to lunatic-proof my life as much as
possible."

Another reported deciding not to do a study involving offering food
vouchers to drug addicts who tested clean.

"That was something that thought they couldn't do," Kempner said in a
telephone interview. "One researcher said, 'Can you imagine that as a
headline on the front page of the newspaper, that we're paying cocaine
addicts to stay clean?"'

Kempner said, "A lot of researchers that we spoke to were risk-averse
in terms of avoiding controversy." But, she added, "There were plenty
of people who said controversy is a good thing, because it opens up
topics to public debate."

Militant animal rights groups were a concern for many, who worried
about organizations that have invaded laboratories to set animals
loose and destroy research.

Kempner recalled one of her interviews. "All of a sudden he said, 'How
do I know you're not from an animal rights organization collecting
information to storm the place?"'

Sometimes commercial interests can get in the way of research, Kempner
added, saying there are cases when the pharmaceutical industry will
ask a researcher not to publish a particular finding.

Another example was a researcher who wanted to study what kind of
environments can lead to sexual harassment. "She couldn't find a
company that would let her ask those kinds of questions to employees,"
Kempner said. They didn't want anything that might give one of their
workers the idea to sue.

She also cited the case of an alcohol researcher who felt some studies
could not be done in this country, for example, a trial on whether
alcoholics could be taught to drink in moderation.

"Those kinds of studies, according to this researcher, couldn't be
done in the United States because we live in a culture that believes
addicts ... must quit cold turkey," and the work might undermine that
position, she said.

And there are cases of self-censorship, Kempner said.

"Sometimes researchers depend on particular groups to give them access
to data ... and very often they form attachments and really like what
the group is doing. So, if they have a finding that undermines what
the group is doing, they wouldn't publish it, some actually haven't
published it."

Kempner's research was funded by the Greenwall Foundation and the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.





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