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steven0461 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?
The topic of evolution, unlike the topic of climate change, is entangled with human psychology, AI, and many other important topics; not discussing it would be highly costly. Moreover, if anyone on LessWrong disagrees with evolution, it's probably along Newsomian eccentric lines, not along tribal political lines. Also, lukeprog's comments on the subject made implicit claims about the policy implications of the science, not just about the science itself, which in turn is less clear-cut than the scientific case against a hypothesis requiring a supernatural agent, though for God's sake please nobody start arguing about exactly how clear-cut.
As a matter of basic netiquette, please use words like "mistaken" or "harmful" instead of "idiotic" to describe views you disagree with.