When extreme politics overtakes science (1 Viewer)

[TheRealTruth]

I used to consider myself fairly staunchly left but things like this make me feel as if I am on the right side of moderate.

Nature, a lauded and well known science journal printed a paper in an October release: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1666-5

This month, a correspondence was posted in the same journal, being critical of the use of the word supremacy in the original article. Claiming the word supremacy was both violent and had a racist overtone
: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03781-0

Is this really where we are in our political discourse? People in the scientific community complaining about nomenclature so they can appear to be woke?

 

[Dadsdream]

Political correctness run amok. Geez.

JOKE: Next up - Electrical connectors will no longer be referred to as "male" or "female," while Underwriters Labs forms an LGBTQ inclusive committee to select new terminology.

 

[Intensesaint]

Political correctness run amok. Geez.

JOKE: Next up - Electrical connectors will no longer be referred to as "male" or "female," while Underwriters Labs forms an LGBTQ inclusive committee to select new terminology.

The sad thing is.. I can see this happening in time.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

There were 13 signatories. I mean, yes, it seems ridiculous - but I'm not sure this is an actual issue. Do you know if this has wider support than the 13 signatories?

 

[SystemShock]

I used to consider myself fairly staunchly left but things like this make me feel as if I am on the right side of moderate.

Nature, a lauded and well known science journal printed a paper in an October release: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1666-5

This month, a correspondence was posted in the same journal, being critical of the use of the word supremacy in the original article. Claiming the word supremacy was both violent and had a racist overtone
: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03781-0

Is this really where we are in our political discourse? People in the scientific community complaining about nomenclature so they can appear to be woke?

Let's not get carried away. It's only 13 people. They don't come even remotely close to holding a candle to climate change deniers or evolution deniers, and denying science over politics/religion, which has been happening for centuries, is exponentially (if not infinitely) worse that nitpicking which words to use to define something.

 

[MT15]

I mean, you can get more than 13 people to sign off on all sorts of crazy ideas. I’m more intrigued by how this letter to the editor gets magnified to the point that it becomes part of the national conversation. Which gives it far more oxygen than it should have, IMO.

 

[samiam5211]

I think stuff like this is silly, and no one should be giving it much attention on either side of it.

"Political Correctness" goes both ways really. It's not really about conservative/liberal.

If Target workers say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", and a christian gets upset, then they aren't really any different from a non religious person getting upset over being told "Merry Christmas" v/s "Happy Holidays".

You can't say people shouldn't get so upset over which words we choose, then get upset when they choose to use something other than your preferred word.

It goes both ways.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

and more broadly language isn't science
as science gets more precise, language adapts to it
when scientists were able to observe molecules then atoms then quarks (well theorized about quarks), language adapted and accommodated to develop terms for those observations