I don't really agree with that. I don't have any real love for HBD, but IMO science is about the pursuit of truth. People should be free to advance theories, no matter how implausible or distasteful I may find them, if they can provide the proof to back them up. If it turns out they're right, then we need to face that with our eyes open rather than trying to shut them down by saying "ha you can't have the data, sucks to suck".
On top of that, as @Conservautism pointed out the NIH is a branch of the federal government. As a taxpayer, I don't want them to have any ability to deny access to their datasets. I paid for that, and I expect it to be publicly available.
Persuit of truth is important, but so is keeping a lid on data which can be misused. As far as I know, there's data that Joe Public just can't get about nuclear weapon internals, for example. I suppose they're treating 'which genes make you smart anyway' as similarly hazardous research. I can't blame them.
Persuit of truth is important, but so is keeping a lid on data which can be misused.
Can I see a cost-benefit analysis on whether it's worth it to keep that particular data secret? Even a very handwavy one?
Of course I can't, and it's because of a rather fundamental reason: having anything like that in public betrays the very truth it was intended to conceal. If you publicly claim that the public can't see data X because it might lead to the harmful belief in the conclusion Y, the public will assume that the conclusion Y is true based on your claim. So you need to equivocate and obfuscate.
Worse, since such decisions are made by nominally democratic institutions they can't be made even in secret, because if someone leaks the meeting notes it would be a huge scandal. So they aren't made rationally at all.
Consider for example the messaging "masks don't work, you should not buy masks so that there's enough left for doctors" from the early Covid days. Oh if only there were a behind-closed-door meeting between various senior WHO and CDC officials where they decided that they must lie to the public to address the mask shortages and this particular lie is the best they could do and it's worth it even taking into account long term consequences for trust in institutions.
I conjecture that such a meeting couldn't have happened because nobody wanted to destroy their career by calling for it and speaking plainly in case it's leaked. I point out that now when you can think about clearly it for five minutes it's obvious that the adopted policy was extremely stupid, proves that there was no such meeting, the policy was a result of bureaucrats acting on pure instinct, wink-wink nudge-nudge, no conscious deliberation at all.
So IMO this is the main problem with "keeping a lid" on things: unless you know exactly what you're doing (such as in not publishing nuclear weapon technologies), object-level lies infect all meta-levels, if you lie about the existence of certain data you have to lie about lying about that, and about whether you would lie in such situations, and so on. Which not only produces much more and much more dangerous lies that you'd initially expect, but also prevents you from thinking rationally about whether it's actually worth it.
I blame them for that, because this isn't nuclear weapons data or even close to it. It's not, in fact, dangerous in any way. They are simply trying to close off research they are ideologically opposed to, and that is about as against the spirit of science as one can get.
That's very dramatic and all, but not really the basis for sound public policy. Anyone can claim that (thing they don't like) is dystopian. That doesn't justify saying "no, the truth in this case could be too dangerous so we won't allow anyone to seek it".
How is denying people the data they need to conclusively bury the conspiracy theory that whites are keeping black people down because of their unconscious racism helpful ?
The assumption promoted at US taxpayer's expense is that whites are subconsciously evil and oppressing blacks. The rhetoric allowed is .. worrying.
But allowing the claims that whites are conspiring or unconsciously cooperating in keeping blacks down - that is not supposed to lead to any problems ?
This is a wild supposition. What they're preventing is embryo selection for intelligence, or worse, people monkeying around with CRISPR. If it prevents HBD studies that's just icing.
They aren't preventing embryo selection for intelligence, though. CRISPR is of no use for anything serious, you can remove point defects with it but the error rate is abysmal so doing anything affecting many genes is impossible.
I suppose they're treating 'which genes make you smart anyway' as similarly hazardous research. I can't blame them.
I can. If society makes policy on the supposition that all groups have the same inborn potential to develop their cognitive ability (or worse, the supposition that all groups have the same average cognitive ability, IQ test results be damned), then someone must be to blame for the unequal societal outcomes between groups, and modern-day witch-hunters will cause more and more damage to society, inflicting ever worse punishments on the successful, and, as their actions continue to fail to equalize societal outcomes, they can be expected to get ever more confused and angry at how powerful and well-hidden the witchcraft must be, until we reach truly civilization-crashing levels of war on competence. Egalitarian ideology in a non-egalitarian reality is dangerous, and we would do better to be willing to face the truth, whatever it turn out to be.
Perhaps, but they also aren't using assertions about nuclear weapon details to justify public policy that disadvantages me based on my immutable characteristics.
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Notes -
I don't think that NIH wants to be in the Eugenics business, so they're taking steps to avoid it.
Indeed, and in complaining about it I think people are revealing more about themselves than they they are their opposition.
I don't really agree with that. I don't have any real love for HBD, but IMO science is about the pursuit of truth. People should be free to advance theories, no matter how implausible or distasteful I may find them, if they can provide the proof to back them up. If it turns out they're right, then we need to face that with our eyes open rather than trying to shut them down by saying "ha you can't have the data, sucks to suck".
On top of that, as @Conservautism pointed out the NIH is a branch of the federal government. As a taxpayer, I don't want them to have any ability to deny access to their datasets. I paid for that, and I expect it to be publicly available.
Persuit of truth is important, but so is keeping a lid on data which can be misused. As far as I know, there's data that Joe Public just can't get about nuclear weapon internals, for example. I suppose they're treating 'which genes make you smart anyway' as similarly hazardous research. I can't blame them.
Can I see a cost-benefit analysis on whether it's worth it to keep that particular data secret? Even a very handwavy one?
Of course I can't, and it's because of a rather fundamental reason: having anything like that in public betrays the very truth it was intended to conceal. If you publicly claim that the public can't see data X because it might lead to the harmful belief in the conclusion Y, the public will assume that the conclusion Y is true based on your claim. So you need to equivocate and obfuscate.
Worse, since such decisions are made by nominally democratic institutions they can't be made even in secret, because if someone leaks the meeting notes it would be a huge scandal. So they aren't made rationally at all.
Consider for example the messaging "masks don't work, you should not buy masks so that there's enough left for doctors" from the early Covid days. Oh if only there were a behind-closed-door meeting between various senior WHO and CDC officials where they decided that they must lie to the public to address the mask shortages and this particular lie is the best they could do and it's worth it even taking into account long term consequences for trust in institutions.
I conjecture that such a meeting couldn't have happened because nobody wanted to destroy their career by calling for it and speaking plainly in case it's leaked. I point out that now when you can think about clearly it for five minutes it's obvious that the adopted policy was extremely stupid, proves that there was no such meeting, the policy was a result of bureaucrats acting on pure instinct, wink-wink nudge-nudge, no conscious deliberation at all.
So IMO this is the main problem with "keeping a lid" on things: unless you know exactly what you're doing (such as in not publishing nuclear weapon technologies), object-level lies infect all meta-levels, if you lie about the existence of certain data you have to lie about lying about that, and about whether you would lie in such situations, and so on. Which not only produces much more and much more dangerous lies that you'd initially expect, but also prevents you from thinking rationally about whether it's actually worth it.
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I blame them for that, because this isn't nuclear weapons data or even close to it. It's not, in fact, dangerous in any way. They are simply trying to close off research they are ideologically opposed to, and that is about as against the spirit of science as one can get.
I would say that moves towards a GATTACA world are dangerous.
That's very dramatic and all, but not really the basis for sound public policy. Anyone can claim that (thing they don't like) is dystopian. That doesn't justify saying "no, the truth in this case could be too dangerous so we won't allow anyone to seek it".
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How is denying people the data they need to conclusively bury the conspiracy theory that whites are keeping black people down because of their unconscious racism helpful ?
The assumption promoted at US taxpayer's expense is that whites are subconsciously evil and oppressing blacks. The rhetoric allowed is .. worrying.
But allowing the claims that whites are conspiring or unconsciously cooperating in keeping blacks down - that is not supposed to lead to any problems ?
This is a wild supposition. What they're preventing is embryo selection for intelligence, or worse, people monkeying around with CRISPR. If it prevents HBD studies that's just icing.
They aren't preventing embryo selection for intelligence, though. CRISPR is of no use for anything serious, you can remove point defects with it but the error rate is abysmal so doing anything affecting many genes is impossible.
None of what you said will stop folks from trying, and some poor mutants who had no say in the matter will live with the consequences.
They'd not even be born, dude.
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We didn't invest scientists with the moral authority to decide what uses of knowledge are good.
Actually we did, you just weren't informed.
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I can. If society makes policy on the supposition that all groups have the same inborn potential to develop their cognitive ability (or worse, the supposition that all groups have the same average cognitive ability, IQ test results be damned), then someone must be to blame for the unequal societal outcomes between groups, and modern-day witch-hunters will cause more and more damage to society, inflicting ever worse punishments on the successful, and, as their actions continue to fail to equalize societal outcomes, they can be expected to get ever more confused and angry at how powerful and well-hidden the witchcraft must be, until we reach truly civilization-crashing levels of war on competence. Egalitarian ideology in a non-egalitarian reality is dangerous, and we would do better to be willing to face the truth, whatever it turn out to be.
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Perhaps, but they also aren't using assertions about nuclear weapon details to justify public policy that disadvantages me based on my immutable characteristics.
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