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CDC gets list of forbidden words

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by Cheshire, Dec 16, 2017.

  1. Marco

    Marco Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    First point - Please - that's demographics and nothing else.

    As for 'male centered research' that's hardly an issue of 'diversity' given that we're talking roughly a 50/50 split. Try being a male with breast cancer and see how well you're catered for.

    Strangely from my probably less than extensive reading on biomedical research, those from an Indian or Chinese background seem to be 'over-represented' particularly compared to the society they're currently working in. Is this a problem? Are they preventing other minorities (or majorities) from participating? Who cares as long as they're good scientists.
     
  2. Allele

    Allele Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    1,047
    Rather than discuss the merits of the individual prohibited words, can we take a moment to notice that we now live in a global culture where an extremist US government clique can BAN WORDS from a public health agency, or I guess eventually anyone else? Where does this lead to, or end?

    How is this constitutional, let alone rational or ethical.

    It is a gigantic distraction and mistake for us to argue whether the words merit being banned or not because banning speech sets a precedent that, taken with all the other decisions being made for us for the last hundred years or so, reveal the trajectory of plummeting headlong into a most dystopian society I don't think anyone wants, no matter which color tie you wear. First Newspeak, then what?

    Oh I know, control the internet. :wtf::alien::nailbiting:
     
    Mark, Maria1, MeSci and 16 others like this.
  3. Valentijn

    Valentijn Guest

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    Netherlands
    How is different symptoms in different genders merely "demographics"? Without research in women, there is insufficient medical treatment for women having a heart attack, due to differences in symptoms.

    Men would benefit from more diverse research practices as well, obviously. Not just with breast cancer, but ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, lupus, etc. Just because men get screwed by a lack of diversity doesn't mean that it's okay when women get screwed by it. It means that we need diverse patient groups to better understand how these diseases affect everyone.

    I'm not sure how your statements relate to the subject matter, or the focus of your earlier question which was explicitly about research and not about hiring practices.
     
    Maria1, Lidia, Yessica and 8 others like this.
  4. Jonathan Edwards

    Jonathan Edwards Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I don't think diversity has any place in this sort of document.

    Diversity is a code word used by the left where the US right use 'poor' - both mean black. If you mean black say black. Diversity is used to manipulate situations just as much as right wing terms. I have never had a reason to use it in my science.

    What is astonishing is that science-based should be banned. Except that by the end of 2017 it is hard to be astonished by anything.

    I think Fetus is the right spelling, both sides of the Atlantic. People often think it should be foetus and that is an accepted variant spelling but the etymology does not have a diphthong as far as I remember. Maybe people are confused with foetid.
     
  5. zzz

    zzz Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    214
    Location:
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    As an American who has lived in the US for my entire 65 years (except for a number of trips abroad, including several to the UK), I can assure you that diversity as used in the US is not a code word for "poor" or "black". Diversity in this context simply means a diverse group of people, and there are many ways in which groups of people can be diverse. For example, here is the Merriam-Webster dictionary's definition of diversity:
    Again, from Merriam-Webster:
    This is a simple case where the proportion of women in a workforce is seen as one measure of diversity.

    A scientific approach to this subject can be found in Scientific American, in the article entitled How Diversity Makes Us Smarter. From the summary:
    So race is one element of diversity in this context, but even race is not limited to black and white. The article itself goes even further, describing diversity in terms of members of different political parties, for example. So diversity itself has a diversity of meanings and applications.
    Fair enough. But diversity doesn't mean black. At least not in the US, where this directive was issued.
    Many words can be used to manipulate situations. That does not mean that they don't have a legitimate use.
    I'm sure that most scientists would agree with you. This does not mean that it has no place in science, as @Valentijn has pointed out in more detail. Also, very importantly, the diversity of a population of scientists has a big effect on the diversity of the populations they study. Is it just a coincidence that a profession that consists largely of white males ends up studying mostly white males? I don't think so. But has been pointed out in this thread, focusing on white males is just bad medicine.

    The directive comes from people who don't know good medicine from bad, as evidenced by their banning terms such as "evidence-based" and "science-based". They have shown no great interest in advancing medicine, or any of the sciences, for that matter. It appears that their use of "diversity" is the standard usage that is described in the Scientific American article. Presumably, this is meant to discourage focusing on diversity in the CDC itself. Doing so can only be detrimental to the CDC's mission for the reasons I have described above. But it should be clear by now, even just by reading the original Washington Post article about the banning of these terms, that the CDC's mission, as well as the rest of medicine and science in general, is not a big concern of this Administration. This is not just my opinion; this is evident from the countless words and actions about all subjects scientific from a huge number of Administration figures themselves.
     
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  6. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Speaking generally here. Hopefully in such situations it is only the specific posts that would need moderating, rather than a whole thread, if that thread included valid non-violating posts that would still remain coherent after any moderation.
     
    zzz likes this.
  7. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Just discovered this ...

    https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu/stat507/node/34

    ... which looks to be a good primer on such bias.
     
    Andy, zzz and Valentijn like this.
  8. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I agree. I shall consciously avoid the politics, and simply say that a world where the very language of science and democracy starts to become censored, to me feels like an incredibly dangerous tipping point. Where next?
     
    Louie41, Inara, MeSci and 12 others like this.
  9. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Is that really true?
     
  10. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Ain't that the truth.
     
    Inara and TigerLilea like this.
  11. Webdog

    Webdog Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Biodiversity? Gut microbiome diversity?
     
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  12. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

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    I think that banning 'science-based' and 'evidence-based' is a clue about the context in which they are also banning words like 'diversity' and 'fetus'.

    It does not bode well for medical science in the USA, and just as we in the ME world are finally getting a toe in the door of quality medical science.
     
  13. Valentijn

    Valentijn Guest

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    It's straight out of the dystopian novel, 1984. The simplified language of Newspeak is deliberately manipulated by the government to limit thoughts which are a threat to the government.

    It's completely absurd that this is happening in the American federal government, and specifically targeting science. Hopefully whoever is involved has pushed far enough beyond all semblance of reason and decency for their head(s) to roll.
     
  14. chrisb

    chrisb Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Playing devil's advocate for a moment, one might think that a ban on certain words might be extreme, but discouragement of their use might be entirely appropriate.

    Some of the terms "banned" are frequently merely clichés, avoiding any thought as to how the terms are being used, what might be meant, and how others might interpret them

    I do not believe this applies to "fetus", however it be spelt.
     
    Inara likes this.
  15. Alvin

    Alvin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    The government of Canada was muzzling scientists so this is not at all unprecedented :emoji_face_palm:
    It didn't end well but much damage was done
    I highly doubt that the point is to fight clichés, coming from leaders that are disdainful of science and reality.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2017
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  16. chrisb

    chrisb Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Is this a misreading of my comment, which referred to clichés, not cliques?
     
  17. Alvin

    Alvin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Spell check got me :laugh:
    Fixed
     
    chrisb likes this.
  18. Inara

    Inara Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    The results of bad science or lack of science can always come back to those who are responsible for it, e.g. when suddenly falling sick - which may happen to everyone - and there's no treatment.

    For example: It is said that the plague was one of the reasons why the church lost their power - people saw that clerics died, too, which made them doubt. The story might well have ended differently if the church - or anyone else - would have presented a cure. But there was practically a ban on science...
     
  19. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    FakeNewspeak ...
     
  20. Marco

    Marco Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Epidemiology is an established principle of modern medicine and works pretty well thanks without the need for spurious notions such as diversity tagged on.
     

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