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Comment by tjr225 | Hacker News Reader

Are abstracts typically filled with this much editorial? I’m no climate science denier but adjectives like “sad” seem insanely out of place in something like this…

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I agree with this, and not sure why it is being downvoted. Another small part that jumps out:

>We take issue with these stances

I didn't realize science was about 'taking stances', I thought it was about conducting specific methodical experiments in an unbiased way to reach an unknown conclusion.

(edit: something something appeal to emotion)

Most of science is looking at a bunch of evidence and hypotheses ("stances") and seeing which are least improbable given the available evidence.

Taking issue with the positions of others is a perfectly normal part of the scientific process. I am not sure where your definition of 'what science is about' comes from but it can't possibly be true, if you think about it for a bit.

As to the votes, there's a specific guideline about that kind of comment:

Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.

>Taking issue with the positions of others is a perfectly normal part of the scientific process.

Sure. I'm sure Copernicus took issue with the earth-centric position of the church. We all know who was correct in the end. I'm just saying that evoking emotion in the abstract of a paper seems a bit of a reach.

>can't possibly be true, if you think about it for a bit.

Hmm. I said that I thought science was about conducting experiments in an unbiased way to come to a conclusion. Maybe I was really way off base. I will think about it a bit more.

>As to the votes, there's a specific guideline about that kind of comment

I wasn't aware of this, so thanks for the input. I'm still not sure it applies here though. tjr225 was asking a question about the editorializing or emotion or whatever behind the abstract in a paper. I don't think its just picking something provocative to complain about, I think it's a legitimate concern about the infusion of emotion into science.

It applies because it's a microscopic part - literally one word - in a long detailed paper about something completely different. The issue isn't 'legitimacy' or even rightness (although I think the idea expressed in the comment is straight up wrong) - it's that it isn't particularly interesting or on topic. It requires a big leap into grandiosity to make it so - a single word in an abstract doesn't say anything about 'the infusion of emotion into science'.

Edit: Incidentally, 'Copernicus took issue with the church position' is, inadvertently, an oversimplification similar to the one you're making in 'how science works'. The 'Copernican Revolution' is a big topic in the history and philosophy of science. For a very short outline, scihub up

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2825071

Copernicus wouldn't qualify as science under your definition of what science is about either.

Hmm, alright. I feel like I understand where you are coming from, but I'm not sure you understand where I'm coming from. Yes, the original comment pointed out one word. But clearly there was more than just that one word that held the sentiment. It's like picking up a leaf from an oak tree and saying "it's an oak tree" and then you say "well, that was only one leaf".

Zooming out, and reading the abstract for a third time, I can clearly see the implicit bias. (I'm not saying people are wrong for how they feel, (I actually feel the same way) I'm just saying it's not science. Of course the rest of the paper may be a bunch of great science, but I, and others, are just asking to keep the emotion out of the lab.)

I only used the word 'sad' as an example... I can see how that is unclear. The entire abstract seemed very editorialized to me. And I feel the same way that you do, too.

Re-read the abstract; the word "sad" is only a facet of the editorialized nature of the thing.

But clearly there was more than just that one word that held the sentiment.

The comment doesn't show that, it just complains about the one word.

I can clearly see the implicit bias. [...] I'm just saying it's not science.

It's a big claim that's not much related to the post. Can it be an interesting topic of discussion? Absolutely. But the onus is on the commenter to support it, to make it interesting, to present some sort of argument, to spur some kind of interesting discussion. Throwaway comments about a single word don't do that which is why they are discouraged.

Of course science is about discussing stances. Conclusions and hypotheses are stances taken on an interpretation of data. The authors present data and demonstrate why a particular stance would be a misinterpretation.

> I thought it was about conducting specific methodical experiments in an unbiased way to reach an unknown conclusion.

How could you specify an experiment to conduct to test whether a conclusion is valid without an apriori examination of said conclusion (stance) and determining what evidence would support or refute it?

it is sad that we have done this to the world.

I agree; but is sadness any sort of scientific measure? Does it have any place in an abstract or a scientific study? I don’t think so. It seems weird to me.

It’s a three-letter glimpse into what motivated these scientists to write the paper; I think we can acknowledge it and move on without losing sight of scientific rigor.

Tt appears to be a pretty sound review of evidence, and then a discussion and conclusions section where the results of the review are interpreted and implications are discussed. Seeing "sad" appear in an abstract is sort of unusual. However in the discussion in the review the arguments about morality etc are a bit more sophisticated, but I reckon it isn't too odd to have a value claim on the implications of the review being unfortunate, since they have real implications for human wellbeing. If the same sentiment was couched in normal amounts of academic jargon, you would likely not have noticed.

There is no gain from rejecting different types of truth that don’t adhere to a single way of producing it.

True, but don't worry. Sooner or later we'll kill ourselves off and mother nature will spring back to life.

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