~Bob Mankoff New Yorker cartoon caption
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Roman concrete has white chunks in the concrete, referred to as lime clasts, giving the concrete the ability to heal cracks that formed over time. The white chunks previously had been overlooked as evidence of sloppy mixing or poor-quality raw material.
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About 41% of New York City students were chronically absent, missing at least 18 days of last school year, according to city data released Friday.
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Chinese state-media said COVID-19 testing requirements imposed by several places around the world in response to a surging wave of infections were "discriminatory"
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"A policy of deliberate ignorance"
Major scientific organizations are forbidding the publication of research that offends some political sensibilities. Even investigations are being impaired. This is from James Lee, a behavioral geneticist at the University of Minnesota, talking about the NIH’s restrictions on behavioral science:
"A policy of deliberate ignorance has corrupted top scientific institutions in the West. It’s been an open secret for years that prestigious journals will often reject submissions that offend prevailing political orthodoxies—especially if they involve controversial aspects of human biology and behavior—no matter how scientifically sound the work might be. The leading journal Nature Human Behaviour recently made this practice official in an editorial effectively announcing that it will not publish studies that show the wrong kind of differences between human groups.
American geneticists now face an even more drastic form of censorship: exclusion from access to the data necessary to conduct analyses, let alone publish results. Case in point: the National Institutes of Health now withholds access to an important database if it thinks a scientist’s research may wander into forbidden territory. The source at issue, the Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP), is an exceptional tool, combining genome scans of several million individuals with extensive data about health, education, occupation, and income. It is indispensable for research on how genes and environments combine to affect human traits. No other widely accessible American database comes close in terms of scientific utility.
My colleagues at other universities and I have run into problems involving applications to study the relationships among intelligence, education, and health outcomes. Sometimes, NIH denies access to some of the attributes that I have just mentioned, on the grounds that studying their genetic basis is “stigmatizing.” Sometimes, it demands updates about ongoing research, with the implied threat that it could withdraw usage if it doesn’t receive satisfactory answers. In some cases, NIH has retroactively withdrawn access for research it had previously approved.
…The federal government was under no obligation to assemble the magnificent database that is the dbGaP. Now that it has done so at taxpayer expense, however, it does have an obligation to provide access to that database evenhandedly—not to allow it for some and deny it to others, based on the content of their research."
2 comments:
I wonder how Gavin will respond to having supper with his minions at the FRENCH LAUNDRY when the chef & the staff prepare their fare on "ELECTRIC FLATOPS "! Illogical, Overgrown, Immature
leaders whom never seem to think things through.
The question that should be asked, even befoRe 'what are the possible consequences?', is, 'Is this our responsibility? Do we have the authority to do this?"
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