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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 21 2017, @12:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-ignoring-ignorance dept.

From the I've-heard-enough-and-won't-take-it-anymore department, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39024648

The BBC reports that former Congressman Rush Holt, now part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is the spokesman for a movement "standing up for science".

His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that science is disregarded by President Trump.

Scientists across the US plan to march in DC on 22 April.

[...] "To see young scientists, older scientists, the general public speaking up for the idea of science. We are going to work with our members and affiliated organisations to see that this march for science is a success."

Mr Holt made his comments at the AAAS annual meting in Boston as President Trump appointed a fierce critic of the Environmental Protection Agency as its head. Scott Pruitt has spent years fighting the role and reach of the EPA.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:12PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:12PM (#469798) Journal

    I guess I still don't see the issue here, but perhaps that's because I don't read this blog or know what you're talking about.

    Still, from your description, I don't exactly see how this is at all confusing the identity of "science" in some sort of Orwellian fashion. The guy apparently has views on topics outside of his field. Sometimes he posts them on his personal blog. So? Does he claim that his views on immigration or whatever should be respected AS "SCIENCE"? I would sincerely doubt it. And if you don't like these posts, why not just stop reading them? Or argue with him if you want, or whatever. Or if it offends you so much to even see such posts, I guess unsubscribe to his feed or whatever?

    As you yourself said in replying to my other post, there's a pretty clear and obvious dividing line between scientific research that appears to be legit vs. stuff that's overtly politically biased. It sounds like this guy has two very different things -- one is "science" and the other is just his personal rants or whatever. But your initial post in this thread was claiming that some sort of confusion ("doublethink") could result in misunderstanding what "science" is due to guys apparently like this one. I still don't get that.

    I get that the guy posts some stuff you don't agree with and wish he wouldn't. But it's his own blog, so I don't see the problem. And you clearly seem to believe his actual research is interesting and free enough from whatever bias might theoretically leech over that you still respect it and want to read the research.

    Lots of public figures use their personal platforms to allow them to comment on stuff outside of their fields. Heck, we see actors and other miscellaneous folks doing this all the time on Twitter. But until someone steps over the line and says something like "You must believe my views on immigration because I'm a scientist!" or "If someone doesn't agree with me on immigration, they must be a bad scientist!" or whatever (which would obviously be inappropriate and trying to exert overt bias WITHIN science), I really don't see the connection between rants on a personal blog and the definition of "science."

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  • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday February 21 2017, @07:48PM

    by meustrus (4961) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @07:48PM (#469847)

    My interpretation of this "problem" about scientists talking outside their field:

    The premise is that being a Scientists affords someone social status. Calling yourself a Scientist (or cargo culting the appearance of one, i.e. I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV) gives your opinions an authority based on your audience's love of Science. Therefore, Scientists shouldn't abuse their authority to influence opinions outside of their field.

    If that is indeed the problem people have with this...well that's not a very big problem. It would only affect people who both like science and don't understand it. That's because anybody who understands science knows that validity comes from your evidence, not your authority.

    You'll never be able to get people to stop proclaiming their opinions anyway. The best you can do is to make the gullible people to actually understand how science works. It shouldn't be hard, because the only gullible people you need to educate are the ones who already like science.

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:10PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:10PM (#469882)

      By analogy the dude we're discussing has a PHD and its quite legit to call him "doctor".

      Now if he parrots D party line politics while under cover of academic authority and achievement, well OK whatever.

      Lets try an experiment and put the good doctor in a labcoat (I don't think theoretical physicists wear lab coats, but whatever) and give him a stethoscope and have him make a commercial for tobacco companies explaining how smoking is really healthy for people and he's a doctor so he should know.

      I think people would rightly get wound up about that, as part of the reason we give people like that status and authority and titles of nobility (the degree granting system) and enormous amounts of taxpayer support is we trust them not to mislead us.

      And with respect to quantum computing, the dude we're talking about does a hell of a great job upholding that moral and ethical deal. But when he starts pimping obsolete political views, or making misleading TV commercials about the health benefits of smoking, well, thats kinda breaking the deal.

      AK, if I read him right, is promoting the idea that if the dude was just a random schlub on the internet it wouldn't matter. But he's not. He's a taxpayer supported, grant of nobility holding, authority figure representing "science". So that's a problem.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:13PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:13PM (#469883) Journal

      Therefore, Scientists shouldn't abuse their authority to influence opinions outside of their field.

      I wish someone would actually post a link to whatever blog is being discussed here, because it's kind of meaningless to discuss this all in the abstract.

      But what I'm really confused about is why Scientists (now they get a capital 'S') should be held to any different standard for a personal blog, compared to any other profession. If a medical doctor had a personal blog and mostly pointed to interesting medical research he was reading that week, but then once in a while he went into a rant on immigration, I wouldn't assume that such judgments should given additional weight because he's a doctor, anymore than if he posted his favorite wines in his blog that we should assume his opinion is better "because he's a doctor" or if he posted a movie review of something he saw recently that we should give it greater weight "because he's a doctor."

      Why should someone's opinions on politics be any more problematic on a personal blog than opinions on wine or movies or their favorite brand of dress shirts? NONE of that has to do with Science, so why are we so concerned about political opinions specifically?

      If we're really talking about a personal blog here, I really don't get this AT ALL.

      But, you're right that Scientists shouldn't "abuse their authority" -- that would happen if a Scientist in an official capacity made a statement. If the university CS department has a blog, and he posted a rant on immigration there, that might be construed as abusing authority. If he was hired to give a science lecture and included a rant on immigration, that might be construed as abusing authority. But if he expresses personal opinions on his blog or Facebook or in a private conversation at a bar, how exactly could he be abusing his authority as a Scientist?

      From VLM's description, it sounds like this blog may be 95% hard science and 5% rant. In that case, I might agree that maybe it's a poor choice to mix the two, just because it seems to be going after different audiences. Perhaps he could set up some division and have two different blogs or whatever. But that's purely to make it easier to communicate with specific audiences, not because I find anything unethical about it.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:47PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:47PM (#469894)

        But if he expresses personal opinions on his blog or Facebook or in a private conversation at a bar, how exactly could he be abusing his authority as a Scientist?

        Ah it took awhile but I think we're finally coming to a meeting of the minds. Or maybe you're gonna be really pissed off at me. Well whatever anyway:

        Think late 80s, Joseph Campbell, "The Power of Myth"

        That stuff isn't just for weird far away long ago civilizations. All civilizations have archetypes. Including ours.

        Our culture has a science archetype. "The professor" from gilligans isle lets say. Or some steampunk stereotype. That hero archetype knows more than most, can predict the future (using scientific models mostly) always tells the trust, and is a little crazy poor monk-ish and in exchange we cut him some slack and trust him utterly on all technical questions and let him think further than most and let him explore some weird ideas and technologies. Thats what being a prof means in the western civilization. I'm sure its different during the Islamic caliphate or in ancient Greece, whatever.

        So if the professor has some peculiar ideas about wrapping wires around coconuts to make a radio or whatever, as long as he stays in his comfortable mythos, well the profs gotta do what the profs gotta do and we can trust him implicitly. The problem is he loses trust when he goes on a way out of mythos inappropriate rant about political topics like moving the island to the gold standard instead of having a federal reserve or we need hiring quotas to get more women in science on Gilligans Island etc.

        Maybe the lesson of the post-internet world is we all LARP and you can't archetype 24x7x365x"a lifetime". But you still gotta follow the rules reasonably well and just like a knight in shining armor playing with a cell phone is inappropriate, someone LARPing as an archetypal Prof is going to get pushback if he switches gears and slides right into conniving merchant mode or BS artist politician mode while still wearing his Gilligans Isle Professor Costume.

        Its really bad to have conniving businessmen LARP as professors, thats how you get crappy TV commercials about fake doctors saying tobacco smoke is healthy. Or having slimy politicians LARP as professors results in the Challenger explosion where the slimey folks naturally wouldn't listen to the prof's advice about launching in the cold. I mean, they're not having their turf violated very much, so they need to stay out of other archetypes turf or there's gonna be sparks flying.

        • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:00PM

          by Zz9zZ (1348) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:00PM (#469898)

          Very good points except that last bit. Scientists have their turf invaded all the time! Journalists that report a preliminary study as near-fact, Corporations that pay for bullshit science, Politicians that cherry-pick or flat out lie, Politicians that shouldn't be in charge due to criminal lack of education, Layman that think there basic common sense is trustworthy, religious entities claiming basic proven science is just wrong. Pretty much everything since science is the study of the universe!

          The sparks are already flying, Trump is making very unscientific decisions out of greed and partially out of his promises to bring jobs back to the US. The last one is admirable and does not require gutting the EPA or attacking all government institutions as "fake science" who are the "enemy of the people". This rhetoric of his is beyond messed up, its a level of unreality most people cannot comprehend, and no matter what profession you are in you should be standing up too. I was cautiously optimistic that Trump wouldn't do too much damage and might pull through on some of his promises, but that hope is quickly fading into sheer horror.

          No I am not a butthurt Hillary supporter mad just because she lost (screw her), I am a mostly rational human being that sees Trump as the liar and conman he is, and I do not like that he is piling mud back into the swamp. The evidence is there for all to see, and it comes directly from the White House (and some tech company, so weird) so no crying about "fake news". So, is your "strong man" worth sacrificing the country and what few values we have left?

          --
          ~Tilting at windmills~
          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:35PM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:35PM (#469911)

            The meta point about the first paragraph is we're both pretty annoyed at those misbehaviors. Most people are. Thats fantastic. The only thing worse than that misbehavior would be if the culture just shrugged its shoulders and went "eh".

            I'll toss out an archetype... journalist as court jester, some crackpot to laugh at while he does funny monologues. A lot of people go into journalism to "change the world" and a lot of people say journalists exist to inform. But when the rubber meets the road in a post-internet post-broadcast culture, journalists mostly exist as outsourced PR firms and humor.

            As far as Trump I'd just chill. The thing about that old orange dude is he has spent decades acquiring property, figuring out whats wrong with it, and fixing it. I mean sure old people go nuts sometimes or they screw up occasionally but he has a good track record. I'd trust him.

            WRT "gutting the EPA" dude... dude... wake me when the Cuyahoga River is on fire again LOL. What has he actually done in a concrete sense, not a mass media fake news fake urgency sense. I think he selected a boss who doesn't kiss leftist butt and sent some tweets. I'm just not seeing a problem.

            So, is your "strong man" worth sacrificing the country and what few values we have left?

            Sure, to the extent that the Cuyahoga River is currently on fire, to an equal level I'll sacrifice the country.

            • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:12PM

              by Zz9zZ (1348) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:12PM (#469924)

              I prefer my environment to NOT be on fire before I take steps to protect it thankyouverymuch.

              --
              ~Tilting at windmills~
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:34AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:34AM (#469976)

              This will probably be lost in the noise since I'm late to this thread, but here goes:

              > As far as Trump I'd just chill. The thing about that old orange dude is he has spent decades acquiring property, figuring out whats wrong with it, and fixing it. I mean sure old people go nuts sometimes or they screw up occasionally but he has a good track record. I'd trust him.

              You need to look deeper, perhaps read a few chapters of "The Making of Donald Trump". Then you might realize that what Trump has done is very much like other large developers, many of whom have been tried and found guilty. Trump got other people to fix up his property, meanwhile figuring out how to hire cheap labor, work with the mob (through connected lawyers) to control construction unions, and in many cases not pay his suppliers. He's also avoided taxes for many years, lied to casino regulators and on and on. IMO, developers as a class are about as sleazy as it gets, using bully tactics to get their way at all costs.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:19PM

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:19PM (#469907) Journal

          Our culture has a science archetype. "The professor" from gilligans isle lets say. Or some steampunk stereotype. That hero archetype knows more than most, can predict the future (using scientific models mostly) always tells the trust, and is a little crazy poor monk-ish and in exchange we cut him some slack and trust him utterly on all technical questions and let him think further than most and let him explore some weird ideas and technologies.

          Sorry, but is the audience of Gilligan's Island reading this prof's blog on quantum computing? Or is this blog -- as I suspect -- mostly read by specialists who know better and clearly can see the difference between, "Oh, Jim posted on CS again -- interesting..." and "Oh, Jim's off on one of his barroom rants again." (I'm using "Jim" as a stand-in here because you still haven't revealed the blog you're talking about.) If the general public is at risk of encountering your mystical scientist figure pontificating on high, I guess MAYBE I could understand your point.

          thats how you get crappy TV commercials about fake doctors saying tobacco smoke is healthy.

          Yeah, see that's a completely different standard. In another recent post you said:

          Lets try an experiment and put the good doctor in a labcoat (I don't think theoretical physicists wear lab coats, but whatever) and give him a stethoscope and have him make a commercial for tobacco companies explaining how smoking is really healthy for people and he's a doctor so he should know.

          That's a good standard. Does your CS guy literally say stuff like, "You should believe in my views on immigration because I'm a scientist, so I should know"?? I explicitly asked this in a previous post. IF he's doing that, I'll happily join you in condemning him, because he is clearly misusing the word "science" and abusing his status a "scientist." Short of that, I'm not sure why anybody should give his views on immigration any more credence than they should on what wines are good or what movies he likes... and certainly not anybody in the audience of a personal blog that mostly posts on very technical stuff.

          But let's step out of the mythos (and the shrouded figure/blog you apparently don't want to reveal to the rest of us) and talk about a real person, perhaps?

          Neil deGrasse Tyson has made a lot of political commentary in the past year, including some Trump jokes. And then there's his radio show, with celebs, etc. There's a lot of crap said there about all sorts of topics, and Tyson frankly acts like a buffoon on many occasions. I don't endow any of the crap he says with a lot of significance "because he's a scientist," nor do I see him as some great "mouthpiece" for Science itself. He's just a dude, sometimes entertaining to listen to, sometimes (in my opinion) annoying. He happens to have credentials and knowledge about science, so when he speaks on an area of expertise (like astronomy), I might pay attention. On just about any other topic (even science areas outside of his field), I don't really care what he says. Why should we?

          But at least with Tyson, you could at least make an argument that he SHOULD be a little careful what he says, because he's somewhat known as a "public figure" representing science in general. Maybe he's a little like your mythical Campbellian "Scientist" archetype. But unless your mystical CS prof is giving interviews on talk shows on science, I don't think anyone could reasonably conclude that he is representing "science" in any meaningful way to the general public. At best, he's apparently posting a bunch of technical stuff on his blog that only specialists are likely to read. And specialists (unlike the general public) are probably even better equipped to recognize that when a dude speaks out of his field, nobody has to listen to him.

          Maybe the lesson of the post-internet world is we all LARP and you can't archetype 24x7x365x"a lifetime". But you still gotta follow the rules reasonably well and just like a knight in shining armor playing with a cell phone is inappropriate, someone LARPing as an archetypal Prof is going to get pushback if he switches gears and slides right into conniving merchant mode or BS artist politician mode while still wearing his Gilligans Isle Professor Costume.

          I said before and I'll say it again -- if the blog is really like 95% hard science and 5% rants, I think segregating posts might be a good thing just to target different audiences more clearly. But if another mythical scientist has a personal blog with 25% hard science he found this week, 25% politics, 25% wine reviews, and 25% cat videos, it's just the dude's personal blog. Why should I care about his opinions on politics anymore than I care about his opinions on wine or the cutest cats?

          Frankly, I think the Scientist archetype is complete BS and the faster we can get rid of it, the faster we can actually educate the public on what science really is. And I'm actually more concerned here about the suggestion here that people's free speech as private people should be curtailed because someone from the audience of Gilligan's Island might accidentally stumble on a hard science blog where they can't understand most of the posts, but for some bizarre reason will then conclude, "OH -- this guy has views on immigration! Honey, come quick -- look: a SCIENTIST has views on immigration! No, I don't understand a damn word of the rest of this stuff. But this post -- We should pay close attention; go get my notepad, so I can write down what I'm supposed to think from a SCIENTIST!"

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:45PM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:45PM (#469912)

            Well, maybe we're just not destined to agree. But one last point is you're seeming to disagree with me about

            nor do I see him as some great "mouthpiece" for Science itself. He's just a dude, sometimes entertaining to listen to

            When the whole point of this article is some rabble rouser is trying to speak for all of science as one against Trump. Not some random bunch of people who happen to merely coincidentally be STEM grads or merely coincidentally happen to be employees of some university, but "all of science"

            I'm kinda over using that prof's physics blog as an individual concrete example, when we're not agreeing on overall larger scale topics like what the mythos are in our culture.

            I mean fundamentally we're never going to agree because I see "the scientist as archetype" right outta Campbell as being a great thing, a technological enabler, a step forward for division of labor. Isn't it cool to have a soothsayer who's always accurate and true? Yeah I'm sure on a personal level its quite annoying sometimes. That's the thing about myths the "winner" is often pretty screwed and almost like a well balanced RPG like DnD or pathfinder, every archetype has something that sucks.

            And if you do downsize the archetype of the scientist, well, OK, and your plan going forward once its flushed for equal or better societal outcome is .... and you better not say the general public will just have to think harder and have better taste, because that ain't happening. Maybe you have an idea where things will be better without that archetype. I don't think so, but if you win, I sure hope you do!

            • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:40PM

              by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:40PM (#469932) Journal

              Isn't it cool to have a soothsayer who's always accurate and true?

              No. Because it places Scientists as Priests in a new religion. The scientific method is meant as a way to move beyond authoritarian belief systems, not reinforce them. And it is fundamentally antithetical to science to view ANYTHING as "always accurate and true." The danger of false beliefs in inerrancy are already making their marks in many fields -- people returning to voodoo "folk" medicine because medical science is revised over time and therefore "doctors aren't to be trusted," anti-vax folks, etc. Science CHANGES as new research is done -- it's foundational to the nature of the endeavor, and anyone who teaches that a Scientist is "always accurate and true" is not only anti-science, but will likely lead to more public distrust of science when scientists change their views as new research arrives.

              And if you do downsize the archetype of the scientist, well, OK, and your plan going forward once its flushed for equal or better societal outcome is .... and you better not say the general public will just have to think harder and have better taste, because that ain't happening.

              I'm not saying we should "flush" the idea of science as a valuable endeavor which is likely the best method humanity has so far uncovered to make progress. I'm saying creating a mythos around scientific figures and raising them up as the new "prophets" or even gods is a really bad idea. Science is done by flawed, real human beings. And they aren't always right -- for all sorts of reasons. And they are biased sometimes and they do let things influence them.

              I agree with you that the general public is probably never going to quite get the details of science, but we can do better about giving them the sense of a more realistic portrayal of how science works and who scientists are -- so that they can not lose "faith" in science when they see conflicting preliminary studies come out. Or so they understand the difference between two preliminary studies that disagree in their findings vs. when there's 99% scientific consensus on a topic after rigorous evidence has been collected. We CAN do at least somewhat better about educating people on science. Part of my personal research is on the history of science, and I've learned a LOT about the realities of science by looking at historical controversies.

              But we don't generally do that in science classes. We don't talk about how scientists are frequently wrong -- because they have incomplete data, or they aren't quite seeing the whole picture. If we did so, more people might become interested in science and realize they too can discover stuff about the world (even mundane stuff, not completely new discoveries for humanity). They might get a sense of how ideas evolve, how we can collectively work together to understand the world, rather than just being dictated facts from a science teacher/priest.

              If we did so, we could literally show them why, for example, Aristotelean physics made so much sense to so many educated people for about 2000 years, and then why it was so hard when folks like Galileo came along for even educated scientists to be convinced by him. Instead, we create a completely false narrative (which itself is a construction of 19th-century historians) which places Galileo in the status of a demi-god, rising up like Perseus to combat the Pope and his minions and the ignorant Churchfolk, to rescue his new beloved "Science" from those monsters. And even though he loses the battle, he mutters "And yet it moves..." under his breath. The demi-god becomes martyr, offered as a sacrifice for our sins in not believing in the true Science. Utter BS for ALL sorts of reasons, but schoolkids learn it every year. On his Cosmos program, Neil deGrasse Tyson himself propagated a lot of myths from the history of science made up in the 19th century.

              I'm not saying we can turn the general public into scientists. But keeping people ignorant and treating scientists as a substitute priesthood is just a bad idea and will backfire. Arguably, I think it already has. Americans are now probably more likely than they've been in the past few generations to view science as merely some sort of set of "competing views" like politics, rather than as an empiricism-driven enterprise that's always incomplete, always has some flaws, and sometimes takes detours before zeroing in on better and more accurate data. If the public has no clue of this process, but rather views Scientists as Priests dictating eternal truths, all of the conflicting studies they hear about now don't seem like a gradual quest toward a more complete picture, but instead merely a bunch of different opinions. Then, when a better, much more complete meta-study arrives and basically settles the question, the public still says, "Well.. maybe... but they were wrong before, so what makes 'em right this time?!"

              If anything, THAT is a much better reason for more segregation of scientific views from other opinions from public figures or scientists, rather than just to maintain the mythical Scientist archetype. You may take that as an olive branch of agreement, I suppose, if you like. But I still would argue that we should insist on a better understanding for the general public of the separation of scientist speaking on science rather than other personal opinion... because that's pretty much essential to what I've just said in this post. In order to understand why Science is valuable, one needs to be able to understand how, for example, different assumptions about expertise should apply when a scientist speaks on his field vs. when he talks about politics. Political opinion is not subject to the rules of science, and rigorous scientific findings are not simply a "matter of opinion"; that's something we all need to teach people, not "sweep under the rug" by pretending that scientists can't actually have personal ideas or opinions.

              • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday February 22 2017, @04:38AM

                by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @04:38AM (#469997)

                We agree that elevating Science to a perverted Priesthood is bad. The only difference is you refuse to see that is our current reality. You just described Moldbug's Cathedral far too accurately to have never thought about it, even if you have never encountered a word of his writing. Look again and see this time. Then read a few old books (it is the generally accepted initiation ritual) and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete.

                One word of warning, the world you will see with the Red Pill is a lot crappier than the illusion of the Blue one and you won't get to fly around and fight bad guys like Neo either because this ain't a movie.

                • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:06PM

                  by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:06PM (#470200)

                  We agree that elevating Science to a perverted Priesthood is bad.

                  And my rather optimistic point is if we can keep the priesthood of Ohms Law focused on Ohms Law and via the mannerbund or whatever strongly discourage them from anthropological meddling outside their areas of expertise, that's sorta kinda OK.

                  I see jmorris and I have read the same things with microscopically different conclusions and reasonings, turning any disagreement with jmorris into something like if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it... so regardless if the Cathedral is defanged or chemically tranquilized or a well trained puppy that doesn't show its teeth, or is replaced with a housecat, the end result of less dog bites is about the same although we could debate the exact solution method endlessly.