The re-enchantment of the world

Nature Human Behaviour has a new editorial that has to be read in full to understand what’s going on in academia today, Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans. But this section jumps out for an intersection of vacuousness combined with expansiveness:

Yet, people can be harmed indirectly. For example, research may — inadvertently — stigmatize individuals or human groups. It may be discriminatory, racist, sexist, ableist or homophobic. It may provide justification for undermining the human rights of specific groups, simply because of their social characteristics.

Along with other Springer Nature colleagues, we led the development of new guidance that addresses these potential harms and is incorporated in our research ethics guidance. This guidance extends consideration of the principles of ‘beneficence’ and ‘non-maleficence’ — key elements of all ethics frameworks for research with human participants — to any academic publication.

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Editors, authors and reviewers will hopefully find the guidance helpful when considering and discussing potential benefits and harms arising from manuscripts dealing with human population groups categorized on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age, disease, (dis)ability or socioeconomic status.

In this guidance, we urge authors to be respectful of the dignity and rights of the human groups they study. We encourage researchers to consider the potential implications of research on human groups defined on the basis of social characteristics; to be reflective of their authorial perspective if not part of the group under study; and to contextualise their findings to minimize as much as possible potential misuse or risks of harm to the studied groups in the public sphere. We also highlight the importance of respectful, non-stigmatizing language to avoid perpetuating stereotypes and causing harm to individuals and groups.

Advancing knowledge and understanding is a fundamental public good. In some cases, however, potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication. Academic content that undermines the dignity or rights of specific groups; assumes that a human group is superior or inferior over another simply because of a social characteristic; includes hate speech or denigrating images; or promotes privileged, exclusionary perspectives raises ethics concerns that may require revisions or supersede the value of publication. For example, the guidance helps in considering whether it is ethically appropriate to question a social group’s right to freedom or cultural rights, above and beyond any considerations of scientific merit.

On the one hand, this is only formalizing the current culture of science. Most young researchers are highly sensitive to these issues, and the older ones who are not will eventually leave the field. But there is some disturbing stuff in there: “may decline publication (or correct, retract, remove or otherwise amend already published content).” You read that right, they reserve the right to expurgate already published literature (it’s mostly online/digital now).

To some extent, there have always been lines in scientific research. The question is where you draw the line. The sorts of people who write up these sorts of editorials live in a monoculture, where everyone agrees on the same values, and what is, and isn’t, licit. They aren’t given to reflecting on the historical precedent for the patterns that self-censorship takes.

Right now the public, and elites, give broad license to academics to publish whatever they want. Despite some political objections to research, the broadly understood idea is that science, and scholarship, by its nature will push the boundaries, even blaspheme, in the quest for truth. This is not always comfortable, but it has paid massive dividends to our civilization. It’s a bargain that the public makes, funding research out of the government budget, even though science is something many of them view ambivalently (but everyone likes nice gadgets!).

Most Americans don’t have strong opinions about physics or geology. But they do have opinions on morality and ethics. If scientists now begin to explicitly admit that they are engaged in a highly moralistic enterprise, expect that the public will also offer up their opinion as a rejoinder.

In the near term, most of the scientists who sign on to these sorts of statements are worried about things like studying group differences in intelligence or sexual orientation. But avoiding this is to some extent a fait accompli. Social norms will prevent this stuff from being explored too much I believe (at least in the West). But that’s not the case in other characteristics, because scientists are not sensitive to everything, because not everyone is part of their ingroup.

Here’s a concrete example. What if researchers find that not only is strong religiosity and social conservatism correlated with lower IQ, but that the same GWAS hits that predict lower IQ also predict religiosity and socially conservative viewpoints? Most scientists don’t know strongly religious people or social conservatives, but I do, and I kow they are a bit offended by these sorts of findings. But, they also understand that science is in the game of truth, not sparing their feelings, sentiments and self-image. Usually, they will concede the research is a legitimate enterprise even if they balk at accepting the specific results.

Now, imagine a future where scientists are quite open that their findings must aim to elevate rather than denigrate. Religious and socially conservative people will feel denigrated, and perhaps they’ll hold scientists to account based on their own avowed values. I doubt most scientists will react positively since they don’t view these groups as legitimate victim categories, but as groups that align with oppressors (honestly, some probably start out thinking “let’s study these evil people and see if we can fix them!”). They will ignore their complaints. Will these groups have any recourse? Of course, once science becomes polarized, then funding will be under consideration. Once scientists give up their moral legitimacy as cold hard practitioners of truth, as opposed to social and political creatures, then it is in the realm of the latter that the game will be played.

This is not to say that scientists were ever objective. They’re human. But in past generations, there was a sense that in some cases, in some instances, they had to put aside their views. To give a concrete example, I know the case of an eminent geneticist who spoke in front of a conservative group, even though his own politics leaned toward socialism.  My understanding is that when queried about this choice he stated that he believes in setting aside politics when it comes to science. Today this would be seen as a regressive viewpoint. Most young geneticists would I’m sure avoid speaking in front of a conservative group.