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Comment by tynpeddler | Hacker News Reader

And just to show how complicated science in general is, your thinking is another example of bias. Requiring a higher burden of proof for findings that someone might be uncomfortable with is bad science. The burden of proof must be equally high for everyone.

The real problem here isn't the science, is the pseudo-science and the journalism. It's pretty common for people to take single studies out of context and act as if their cherry picked study is the final word. Science journalists are supposed to bridge the gap between experts and laymen, but there seems to be very few good science journalists, and there seems to be lots of hacks and conmen.

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>> Requiring a higher burden of proof for findings that someone might be uncomfortable with is bad science.

That is not my comment. My comment claims that cultural bias can influence the result of scientific studies and we must be vigilant not to let this happen.

Do you disagree?

Didn’t you say that one result as opposed to the other should be considered extremely suspicious and looked at again multiple times? Should the opposite result also be viewed this way?

I said that, yes. I didn't say anything about results that make people uncomfortable. Can you explain why you brought up the subject?

>> Should the opposite result also be viewed this way?

Does the opposite result coincide with a commonly held preconception?

I think what they are arguing is that, YOU are feeling uncomfortable with one of the results, and thus are biased toward exploring it more than the other which validates your views. You here are showing that bias again by saying that because the opposite coincides with commonly held preconceptions, it should be taken without as much scrutiny. If this isn't what you meant I apologize but that sure seems to be what you are saying.

It's very unpleasant to take part in an online conversation only for people to try to psychoanalyse you and discern hidden motives in your comments.

My comment says what I meant to say. What it doesn't say, I didn't mean to say on the subject. Responses to what I didn't say are none of my business and I won't bother with them any more.

> Does the opposite result coincide with a commonly held preconception?

The only reasonable answer is "It doesn't matter." As long as the result is reproducible, coinciding with commonly held preconceptions or not is of no relevance whatsoever. All results need to be equally validated for reproducibility.

You don’t seem to think bias is reproducible.

It is, but the scientific method is the best we have to eliminate bias. If the study design is sound and the results reproduce it is a fact. Now it may well be the study design is biased, but since it is documented anyone who sees a new bias is welcome to design a new study that eliminates that (I write this as if doing a scientific study is easy, in the real world it isn't but I'll ignore that real objection). There are also interesting meta-studies that eliminate some bias.

>> I didn't say anything about results that make people uncomfortable.

Perhaps you didn't realize that going against cultural bias (your term in another comment) make many people uncomfortable.

But what does that have to do with my comment? Did I say anything about making people uncomfortable?

> Does the opposite result coincide with a commonly held preconception?

Why should the result that goes against the commonly held preconception be under greater scrutiny? If any difference would exist in scrutiny, it should obviously ask more from a result that goes against the general preconception.

That is of course true.

What you might be missing is that the current leftist consensus dominating western universities is a strong form of cultural bias.

You're just stealing cows again, coming up with a clever argument against the studies you don't like while defending the studies you do.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

"Requiring a higher burden of proof for findings that someone might be uncomfortable with is bad science. The burden of proof must be equally high for everyone."

If the burden of proof is set at the level in which a statement can be made such that there is evidence that cannot be explained by other phenomena then both of you can be correct.

(TBH I don't agree that one level of skepticism should be warranted for all things. If someone claimed P=NP my expectations are significantly higher than if someone claimed that HN commentors primarily comment in English.)

I agree that some things would require more evidence, but it's problematic when that is applied simply because they results are inconvenient in one way or another, and when it keeps being applied so the results never have to be acknowledged. Look at climate change. People are far to willing to discount information that is at odds with their preconception of the world. To differing degrees, this is a problem on both sides.

"... it's problematic when that is applied simply because they results are inconvenient in one way or another..."

IMO the problem is that it's not 'simply' because the results are inconvenient in one way or another. That seems like a rather handwavy or dismissing cognitive understanding of what the person is saying. In their perception it is because a given conclusion has a known and studied bias- this isn't particularly simple, nor is it about inconvenience. It is that the evidence provided may have caveats that have also been studied that would skew the evidence to be explained by other factors.

This is similar to the claim about the convtroversies behind global warming or antivax, except the amount of evidence is overwhelming such that the scientific consensus of possible skew is extremely low. I don't know (and have not heavily researched) if brain architecture and gender identity and human behavior (as a trifecta) have the same amount of evidence (I was under the impression that the technology to study the brain architecture is new enough that the research hasn't been wholly settled- if this is incorrect let me know).

The problem with making statements on tangential points on a charged topic is that everyone will reinterpret it to apply specifically towards points it wasn't intended to. :/

I wasn't using "simply" to say that explains all objections, I was saying of the objections we should be wary of ones that might be because of confirmation bias, and how that can sometimes lead to apparent lack of consensus where there is one.

That is, if you take the calls for additional scrutiny and filter them to account for confirmation bias, we should consider that outcome as well as how thorough the study was when deciding how much additional confirming reports are required to start considering the results worth mentioning. Surely, if it goes against the common knowledge of a large percentage of the population, that's reason enough to follow up in detail, but we should not shy away from the truth because it is inconvenient, whatever it may be. At to be perfectly clear, this isn't some veiled statement about topics here, it's a general statement about the utility of science and how we can use it effectively to better ourselves.

Please inform me where I've misinterpreted your phrasing. I am responding to you assuming you intend for best-faith discussion but may be misunderstanding the person you are responding to if you are concluding it is one of "simply" and "inconvenience", the second word you used again to describe the position.

I'm not always neurotypical in my understanding so please clarify if I'm misunderstanding you: Is your position not that you believe the poster is creating an unfair framework of skepticism on how convenient evidence is?

> the second word you used again to describe the position.

I didn't describe "the" position, or any single position. That seems to be the crux of misinterpreting my comment.

I should have included it in the reply, but I was responding specifically to the idea, in semi-isolation, of "TBH I don't agree that one level of skepticism should be warranted for all things." and how we should be careful that we don't allow it to go to the other extreme, as (it has for some subset of people) in the example I gave.

> Is your position not that you believe the poster is creating an unfair framework of skepticism on how convenient evidence is?

My point, as it often is, since I find some themes cause me to comment over and over, is that both the extremes of a spectrum are often unappealing but in different ways, and a middle ground is often best. While applying the exact same level of scrutiny to all things isn't useful or efficient, neither is allowing political, economic and cultural narratives to the degree that we never accept results that are "inconvenient" in that they run counter to those narratives. The example given was one where it is inconvenient politically and economically to accept the results of man made climate change. Culturally, that could be results on the effects of marriage, or religion, or lack of religion.

My statement should have been interpreted as a refinement on a specific point, not necessarily supporting or refuting anything absolutely.

I have to ask- who said anything about "inconvenient" results?

I think you've made the mistake of thinking that since I commented commented downthread from your comment, it necessarily applies directly for or against your comment.

I chose the word inconvenient on purpose, to encompass results that are against someone's economic interest as well as those against their specific views on a topic.

It's meant as a general statement about the idea of requiring more or less evidence for specific results, and where I think we should be wary of this going awry.

But why introduce this term, "inconvenient", when it has nothing to do with the original comment?

Because I was making a tangential point that had little to do directly with the original comment (if by original you mean your top level one). I was responding specifically to "TBH I don't agree that one level of skepticism should be warranted for all things." as I just wanted to flush out that that concept a bit more. Usually, I quote what I'm responding to, but I was on my phone earlier, and the inconvenience that causes sometimes outweighs my desire to do so for the sake of clarity.

You may note that I clearly steered my example away from the topic at hand to avoid getting it tied up in a topic that I think is contentious because it affects people's personal interpretation of themselves. I did so by steering it to another charged topic, but one a little less tied to an individual and one that has numerous examples of very thorough science. I'm not sure why I chose inconvenient specifically, other than it encapsulated colloquially what I was trying to express. It's been used for the same purpose previously, and famously so, in "An inconvenient truth", so perhaps that affected my choice.

I get the feeling you really want me to apply the word inconvenient towards the topic at hand and your statement in some way. Honestly, since your comment is mostly about making sure we take it carefully and really understand it, I'm not sure I have a useful way to apply it without being ham-fisted and forcing it, which I would prefer not to do. If I had to apply it towards the topic of cognitive differences between the sexes (or even the races), I would say it applies only inasmuch as if the science disagrees with (or as you state, conveniently agrees with) the popular narratives, we should still look at them closely and follow the science, but we should be careful not to let our preconceptions steer us from changing our view little by little and more evidence comes in. I seriously doubt any neurological differences amount to much in comparison to natural variation and environmental factors, but I also don't think it's fair of me to prevent future people from having a better understanding of how, in general, their neurological processes might differ from other people in positive and negative ways in multiple different aspects, and how to take advantage of or mitigate them as needed.

As an example of this, my oldest daughter has ADHD. In her junior year of high school, she's finally learning techniques to mitigate the problems this causes for her (as well as the benefits), Having an explanation and template for her behavior and how we should interpret it was invaluable to us. It's not perfect (what template could be when applied to an individual?), but it did help us all channel our frustrations into useful life strategies, as parents and for her as a child. If an area of research that yields better understanding of our minds overall hampered because of our inability as a society to accept where it conflicts with our ideas of equality (as weirdly disjointed and unevenly applied as those are), then I think we are all worse off for it.

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