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Will_Newsome comments on How to Fix Science - Less Wrong
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Evolution is also a political issue. Shall we now refrain from talking about evolution, or mentioning what widespread refusal to accept evolution, up to the point of there being a strong movement to undermine the teaching of evolution in US schools, says about human rationality?
I get that it can be especially hard to think rationally about politics. And I agree with what Eliezer has written about government policy being complex and almost always involving some trade-offs, so that we should be careful about thinking there's an obvious "rationalist view" on policy questions.
However, a ban on discussing issues that happen to be politicized is idiotic, because it puts us at the mercy of contingent facts about what forms of irrationality happen to be prevalent in political discussion at this time. Evolution is a prime example of this. Also, if the singularity became a political issue, would we ban discussion of that from LessWrong?
(I don't necessarily disagree with your points, I was simply making a relevant factual claim; yet you seem to have unhesitatingly interpreted my factual claim as automatically implying all sorts of things about what policies I would or would not endorse. Hm...)
I didn't interpret it as anything about what gov. policies you'd endorse. I did infer you agreed with Steven's comment. But anyway, my first comment may not have been clear enough, and I think the second comment should be a useful explication of the first one.
(Actually, I meant to type "Maybe... isn't the right analysis..." or "Maybe... is the wrong analysis..." That was intended as acknowledgement of the reasons to be cautious about talking policy. But I botched that part. Oops.)
By "policies" I meant "norms of discourse on Less Wrong". I don't have any strong opinions about them; I don't unhesitatingly agree with Steven's opinion. Anyway I'm glad this thread didn't end up in needless animosity; I'm worried that discussing discussing global warming, or more generally discussing what should be discussed, might be more heated than discussing global warming itself.
Yeah. I thought of making another thread for this issue.