Exactly. In the words of Mike Stonebraker, "stake out a controversial claim and prove it true" is pretty standard career advice for junior faculty who are trying to get tenure. (At least in Computer Science.)
And once some start down an approach (and become invested in it) there can be various kinds of resistance to going a different path.
In fields that have social or political implications there are also strong forces pushing, as well.
I'm not saying these effects are always overriding the desire for novelty in all cases, but it certainly happens.
Computer Science rarely intersects with politics.
If a scientist's novel claim (however well proven) offends a powerful group, their career is over.
Do you have something with strong evidence that ruined someones career in the last 50 years?
This despite fairly strong evidence for that hypothesis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#Modern_...
Both made the mistake of citing research that contradicts diversity initiatives.
I think we're quite far from "strong evidence" anyway if you want to argue that there's "less aptitude at the high end" of either gender.
I'm more thinking of something falsifiable maybe? You know, strong evidence?
Ps: He's still employed by Harvard, I'm not seeing a ruined career here.
Edit: "The company fired Damore for violation of the company's code of conduct.[2] Damore filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, but later withdrew this complaint. A lawyer with the NLRB wrote that his firing was proper.[3][4][5][6] After withdrawing this complaint, Damore filed a class action lawsuit, retaining the services of attorney Harmeet Dhillon,[7][8] alleging that Google was discriminating against conservatives, whites, Asians, and men.[9][10] Damore withdrew his claims in the lawsuit to pursue arbitration against Google.[11]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_...
This guy is not a scientist and was fired by a private company for his conduct - has nothing to do with the subject.
It's certainly falsifiable. Research could have shown no evidence of the variability. That didn't happen.
What are you looking for? Evidence as strong as the evidence in physics? No one gets that in the social sciences.
IQ tests are not reliable when not heavily weighted on the culture of the person taking them (and even then - the same people taking the same tests get different results). Translating a test induces a bias. Even in the same language, cultural differences can make questions more or less difficult to understand.
The simple fact of being in a "test" environnement is something that will be more comfortable to some than others - based on background.
Meaning if you even believe IQ tests are somewhat valid on an individual basis, it's ludicrous to draw conclusions on comparisons between groups; they have to take the same test to be comparable, but giving the same test to groups of different backgrounds will yield different results, because tests aren't weighted.
That's all separate from the current replication crisis in psychology and the fact that intelligence is not even a clearly defined trait (thus we cant test for it).
So yeah no - no strong evidence in sight.
So I suppose I have to concede your original claim (now that we've narrowed it down): if someone somehow established a level of evidence that revolutionized social science and rendered all previous work meaningless, then they probably could get away with offending powerful groups.
Until then, scientists are wise to tread carefully.
There are many claims can be proven that aren't social science, you're the one unable to show an example of a scientist that had solid evidence of something and ruined their career and artififially confining it IQ - one of the most contentious subjects you can look for. I'm sure there are falsifiable claims in social sciences too.
Maybe look into something like medecine or physics? Something falsifiable, following the sientific method.
Also, perhaps, why politicians and activists have so much influence on science.
Which doesn't contradict what I said at all, but confirms it: they do have that influence.
Requesting "strong evidence" isn't much of a solution unless you have some concrete ideas about how to obtain that.
> There are many claims can be proven that aren't social science ... Maybe look into something like medecine or physics
Social science is the field where politics trumps science. It's what I'm talking about.
Politicians and activists don't care about physics and everyone wants people to have effective medicine, so there's no conflict in those fields.
Want another? Stephen Hsu. Forced to resign for discussing research that found no racial bias in incidents of officer-involved shootings.
Another? After more than a decade at Harvard without complaints, Roland Fryer had several complaints filed against him shortly after he published research showing that Black and Hispanic Americans were no more likely than white Americans to be shot by police in a given interaction with police.
I'm sure you'll find reasons to dismiss these as well.
Edit: As I said, Roland Fryer was at Harvard for more than a decade without incident. It's more than a little suspicious that there was an investigation immediately after he published his research.
And are you just going to ignore Stephen Hsu?
Edit 2: "I gladly will not research your claims further"
I knew you wouldn't in the first place. You've been dismissing any evidence that contradicts your narrow world view.
Edit 3: "Feel free to eat bags friend". I see you've deleted that and all your other unreasonable comments. I'll leave the quotes here though, because you did say these things.
Edit 4: "why keep editing your comment?" Because HN admins don't like long threads like this and have set up a rule that says I'm "posting too fast".