Trump Administration Prohibits CDC Policy Analysts From Using the Words 'Science-Based' (washingtonpost.com) 458
Long-time Slashdot reader hey! writes: On Friday the Washington Post reported that the Trump Administration has forbidden the Centers for Disease Control from using seven terms in certain documents: "science-based", "evidence-based", "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," and "fetus".
It's important to note that the precise scope and intent of the ban is unknown at present. Scientific and medical personnel as of now have not been affected, only policy analysts preparing budgetary proposals and supporting data that is being sent to Congress. So it is unclear the degree to which the language mandates represent a change in agency priorities vs. a change in how it presents itself to Congress. However banning the scientifically precise term "fetus" will certainly complicate budgeting for things like Zika research and monitoring.
According to the Post's article, "Instead of 'science-based' or 'evidence-based,' the suggested phrase is 'CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes."
The New York Times confirmed the story with several officials, although "a few suggested that the proposal was not so much a ban on words but recommendations to avoid some language to ease the path toward budget approval by Republicans."
It's important to note that the precise scope and intent of the ban is unknown at present. Scientific and medical personnel as of now have not been affected, only policy analysts preparing budgetary proposals and supporting data that is being sent to Congress. So it is unclear the degree to which the language mandates represent a change in agency priorities vs. a change in how it presents itself to Congress. However banning the scientifically precise term "fetus" will certainly complicate budgeting for things like Zika research and monitoring.
According to the Post's article, "Instead of 'science-based' or 'evidence-based,' the suggested phrase is 'CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes."
The New York Times confirmed the story with several officials, although "a few suggested that the proposal was not so much a ban on words but recommendations to avoid some language to ease the path toward budget approval by Republicans."
They must go nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who had to work with crassly incompetent bosses, too, I can feel for them. This must really be really painful. The best thing they can do is leaking every bullshit those Trumpist idiots are demanding and destroying to the press.
Mentally unstable people run the government. (Score:5, Informative)
In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Mentally unstable people run the government. (Score:5, Insightful)
...has forbidden the Centers for Disease Control from using seven terms in certain documents...
Quick, give me a single context in which it makes sense for CDC to avoid the words "science-based" or "evidence-based".
Time's up. I know that wasn't long, but I thought I'd save you the wasted effort of spending more than 2 seconds looking for something that doesn't exist. If the CD-freaking-C writes "For science-based work" in the memo field of your paycheck, it's appropriate because that's the whole reason they exist.
Any restrictions on this are nothing but political posturing. That Slashdot, WaPo, NYT, or any other group would be calling it out doesn't mean they're wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
science-based research predicts more Americans will vote Democratic in 2020.
Re: Mentally unstable people run the government. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Mentally unstable people run the government. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just changing the words, it's changing the meaning. They are saying that decisions can't be 'science-based' or 'evidence-based,' but instead must be 'based on science in consideration with community standards and wishes." It's a way to force the CDC to do things (like perhaps denying global climate change, pretending lots of people aren't dying from gunshots, etc.) because saying those things would upset some "wishes".
More than anything, this reminds me of the batshit crazy way the USSR politicized science, forcing people to do do insane things because they were ideologically correct, enforced by not just defunding research, but eventually imprisoning and executing thousands of scientists. This led to crop failures and famine, among other horrors, and of course derailed Russia science (and to a lesser degree, Chinese science) for decades. Details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .
Re: They must go nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the vast amount of non-scienced based evidence like anti-gmo, antivaxxers, chemtrails-believers, naturepaths, homeopaths etc that exists this is hardly buzz word bingo but precise and meaningful definitions.
Re: They must go nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Alot of people, like myself, are anti-GMO because of the business practices and behaviors of this industry. I happen to think the science is quite sound. That's called ethics and is encouraged within science.
Re: They must go nuts (Score:3, Insightful)
That's like being anti-electronics because Microsoft sucks. It's stupid. If your problem is with a corporation, or with corporations in general, then you should be anti-corporation, not anti-gmo.
Re: They must go nuts (Score:2)
Yes, that would be equally stupid. Again, you're opposed to a technology because you don't like corporations. If you don't see how foolish that is ... I really don't know how to dumb it down for you any further.
Re: (Score:2)
No, he's opposed to the technology because the major corporation pushing it are assholes who want to corner the market for a necessity.
Re: They must go nuts (Score:2)
Yeah, that's what I said.
Re: They must go nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
I love this little thread! It seems to embody the discourse for many of this years issues.
* Someone takes a side on something
* Other people adamantly disagree
* Others join first side, still no reasons presented
* Second side states some nearly-fact, and references it as why they are correct
* First side barely rephrases the same fact, and uses it to claim they are correct
* A back and forth ensues, each saying, "no, it's because $same_fact"
* Side note: one of the parties doesn't actually believe the fact, so they can't even fall back to agreeing on that
Regarding that last point, it means the two sides here probably won't agree that Monsanto is awful and needs broken in a variety of ways, even though "big evil gmo company" is the shared fact.... though someone from both sides WILL agree to that, and it just leaves everyone frustrated, wondering how nearly everyone involved can be saying essentially the same thing and arriving an completely opposing opinions.
FWIW, I blame language, or the poor or inaccurate use of it.
Re: They must go nuts (Score:4)
And it make it funnier, now we have the rest of what would have been the original story if they had checked it before reporting, and there was no word ban, it was actually a meeting about how to write budget proposals using Republican talking points for the nefarious purpose of funding the CDC priorities while the Republicans control government. And slashdot is fighting over "something something fetus corporation something something sciencosity."
Re: They must go nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
That last bit gives CDC the ability to say things like 'everyone in this situation should have a blood transfusion, unless their religion instructs otherwise' or 'everyone should get inoculated unless they have strongly-held opinion not to'...
Well, that right there is the problem. It's a bit like the police saying "everyone should avoid drinking and driving, unless they really want to", or an air traffic controller saying "drop to FL 20 and reduce speed to 200 knots, unless your religion instructs otherwise".
Re: They must go nuts (Score:4, Funny)
All of it, apart form the fava beans and the chianti.
Re: (Score:2)
So says the blind Zealot.
http://responsibletechnology.o... [responsibl...nology.org]
Re:They must go nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
How would the word "fetus" be part of "buzz word bingo"? It has a clear medical definition, and compelling legal definitions.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's scientific sounding. Conservatives call it a baby.
Re:They must go nuts (Score:4, Informative)
And those who put "choice" above the life of the unborn baby
Fetus, not baby. Historically, the idea of confusing the two is a very, very recent development.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
a fetus of less than 6 weeks is not yet a thinking, feeling person, because there is not yet a brian.
Re:They must go nuts (Score:4, Funny)
This gives 'The Life of Brian' a complete new meaning!
Don't want your religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Your religious beliefs, made law, impinge upon my freedom. Why can't you live your own life, mind your own business, and leave the rest of us alone? You've already proved that you don't really believe what you espouse(voting for Roy, etc) so please don't force your so-called beliefs on the rest of us.
Re:They must go nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for you. And yes, conservatives don't give a fuck about anything other than fetuses. You fucking self-centered pieces of shit can't even renew a childrens health insurance to save childrens lives. You're not pro-life... you're pro-reducing women to second class citizens, just like your patriarchal bastard parents were.
Until a woman gives birth, that fetus is nothing more than a parasite. Because you don't have a fucking clue about reality doesn't make it any different.
But let be real here.... conservative policy INCREASES abortions. Access to contraceptives, and actual sex education is what drives down unwanted pregnancy, and stupid fucking conservative douche bags like you do everything possible to make those things harder for people to get.
Fetus is a scientific term... but as we see from this dipshit news, conservatives are too fucking stupid to understand anything past their anti-intellectual fantasy land.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: They must go nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
> Jim Crow was a Democrat
You're semantically-correct, but effectively wrong. Today's "Republican" and "Democratic" parties BOTH differ in important, fundamental ways from the parties bearing their names 50+ years ago. We've had at LEAST 2 or 3 MAJOR partisan re-alignments over the past 150 years where the names remained the same, but the members (and their personalities) got shuffled and switched around.
Abraham Lincoln was most assuredly NOT a "limited-government states-rights evangelical conservative", any more than Thomas Jefferson was a welfare-state environmentalist who advocated the poor, powerless, black, or otherwise-disenfranchised.
Both parties are volatile, fragile coalitions. In countries with proportional-representation parliamentary democracy, the coalitions are formed by elected officials after each election. In countries with first past the post elections (regardless of whether you call the resulting body a "congress" or "parliament"), you inevitably end up with 2 strong parties that shuffle back & forth, with a third group that occasionally coalesces into a stable third party, and the coalitions are effectively formed BEFORE the election.
This is why Republicans in Congress keep ending up hamstrung by their most extreme right-wing members, instead of kicking them to the curb and forming working coalitions with the least-liberal Democrats. The leaders of BOTH parties know that the result would eventually be another reshuffling that would probably result in a hardcore right-wing evangelical party big enough to keep Rs and Ds from getting clear majorities, while the Rs and Ds themselves were BOTH dragged towards a more ambiguous center neither party WANTS to be at, with neither Rs nor Ds likely to achieve solid, stable majorities for a long time afterwards. So conservative-leaning Democrats are pressured into NOT forming coalitions with Republicans, and Republicans aren't allowed to even THINK about forming a temporary coalition with any Democrats, even if such a coalition could steamroll over the extremists in both parties... both parties will automatically sacrifice short-term victories for the sake of long-term stability.
Re: They must go nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact: most of the judges on the supreme court who voted for roe vs wade were conservative.
Fact: the supreme court is supposed to be non-political positions. Additionally, as you can see by the stance of the members currently, ALL of the conservatives are against the Roe v Wade decision.
Fact: More Republicans voted in favor of the 19th amendment than democrats did.
You're conflating "republican" with "conservative" here. In the 1920's, democrats were the more conservative party.
Fact: Jim Crow was a Democrat.
Again, trying to suggest that democrats of the time were progressives; democrats of this time were radically conservative. Even brain dead idiots know that.
And to those [citation needed] tools, highlight the facts, right click on it, and select "search in google".
Fact: the only tool i see here is you. It takes an idiot to think that the republican party of the early 1900's even remotely resembles the modern day republican party. Modern republicans are the anti-thesis to Lincoln and his progressive republican party.
Bet you didn't know those inconvenient facts did you?
Yeh... i've seen your form of stupidity before. You're like the morons who think the NAZI's were socialists just because that word was part of their name. .. or One Million Moms who's membership is, what... less than 200k (and that's being generous). You mooks believe everything your masters tell you.... it must hurt to go through life as stupid as you are.
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Abortions rose rapidly in the US in the late 1960's, along with a massive ease of access to contraceptives and sex education.
You mean... about the time it became legal, and started to be reported.... yeh, that kinda makes sense, doesn't it?
So the idea that access to contraceptives and sex education prevent abortions is foolish
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
https://rewire.news/article/20... [rewire.news]
https://mic.com/articles/98886... [mic.com]
Abstinence education: There's almost no getting around it. States with abstinence-only education have the highest rates of teen pregnancies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.
And let me fix this for you....
The real problem is that since the 1960's, the US has been massively subsidizing irresponsible sexual behavior and childbearing: families that can't afford to have children, single mothers, etc. And that's the fault of people WHO TRY TO FORCE WOMEN TO HAVE CHILDREN WHEN THEY GET PREGNANT.... you know, the stupid fucking pro-forced-birth conservatives.
And the amount of harm people like you have been causing to women and children is staggering.
You don't give a fuck about women or children, only fetus's. The first fucking thing out of your mouth is a lie, followed by complai
Re:They must go nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupidity and liars should be roundly called out, criticized, belittled, and mocked until they quit being stupid, or till they quit lying. Why was this modded up? Who knows... maybe it's because people are fed up with the holier than though ignorant lying fucks that show up on these threads posting complete bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
"You can't tell me not to murder because you won't take financial responsibility for my decision to get raped."
Because that's always a choice someone makes, right?
I haven't seen blinders that work that well in a while; what brand are they and where can I buy a pair?
Re:They must go nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics.
In Republican/Conservative land, the result of conception it a baby. It's a baby from day zero, and calling it anything else is just an attempt to deny reality and dehumanise the baby so you can kill it. Only Nazis say fetus.
Mike Pence, is that you?
I guess you flunked out of high school biology class. Zygote, embryo, and fetus are legitimate scientific terms. That you want to humanize a few cells (zygote) or an embryo that could not possibly survive independently outside a womb, speaks volumes about your own particular agenda. And once the "baby" becomes a fetus, it's pretty damn rare that it's "killed" or aborted. Only in cases where the mother's life is in jeopardy will a doctor consider aborting a fetus.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess you flunked out of high school biology class. Zygote, embryo, and fetus are legitimate scientific terms.
I wonder if whoosh is also a scientific term.
Re:All Fetus are Babies (Score:5, Insightful)
Murder is legal definition, and until recently had never been applied to fetus... and the only reason it is now, in a few places, is because conservative con artists prey on the lack of intelligence of religious extremists and idiots like you to get into office, so they blur the line between your bullshit fantasy and reality... EXACTLY as this article points out they're doing now.
If you want to see the cause of many more abortions, look at the worthless cocksuckers refusing to teach sex ed to teens so they can make better choices, and making contraceptives even harder to get so unwanted pregnancies can be avoided. Those are the worthless fucking baby killers... cunts like you.
So, what we've shown is you know nothing about science, and nothing about the law... you're completely fucking worthless in this conversation.
Re:All Fetus are Babies (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to tell the people who don't want abortions happening, they try to prevent them through education, making birth control available and empowering women to say no.
Then we have the average right winger who really wants to dominate women, keep them ignorant, impregnate them as early as possible, throw a big guilt trip on them to make them go through with the pregnancy and then put them down for being a single mother.
You're right, the repression of women will be compared to slavery, just not for the bullshit reasons that you give.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet a fetus is a baby, just still in the womb. If you remove the baby from the womb, it is still a baby, thus all fetus are babies, but according to the pro baby killers, fetus are not babies and that distinction in language has made the murder of millions of babies easier to get away with by calling them fetus, parasites and blobs of tissue instead of what they are, babies.
100 years from now abortion will be viewed as we today view slavery, with horror and disbelief that a civilized society could condone and legalize the murder of their own children for the sake of convenience.
You are aware that quite consistently the abortion rates are lowest in non-conservative countries like the Netherlands where the legal and social barriers against abortion are lower that in countries like the U.S.?
Treating women as breeding cattle not permitted to control their own body results in less rather than more responsible behavior. Puritans have much higher abortion rates than atheists. Your ways don't work. And upping the punishment for being a woman doesn't work.
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And yet a fetus is a baby, just still in the womb.
Where for nine months a woman can legally poison that "baby" through smoking, excessive drinking and drug use, not to mention cause it to have deformities by the woman being obese.
Where are the laws fining women for poisoning their "baby" while in the womb? Why isn't the religious right up in arms women can poison their "baby" without repercussions? Where are the laws forcing women to undergo twice monthly exams to verify they aren't poisoning their "baby"?
Re: (Score:2)
There are some such laws. Tennesse, for example, has laws specifically targeting pregnant women for illegal drug use while pregnant. The purpose seems to be to provide grounds for getting the mother off the streets and into treatment or a controlled environment where the illegal drugs are not available. The damage to a fetus can be very real, and the state is claiming a strong interest in preventing a child being ill and requiring extensive social and medical support from birth.
Re: (Score:2)
> And yet a fetus is a baby, just still in the womb.
This is not reflected by the legal or medical definitions. Merriam's Dictionary publishes this:
* Definition of fetus
* an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specifically
* a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth — compare embryo 1b
Note, in particular, that "fetus" may not mean a human baby. This has medical and legal distinctions.
Re:They must go nuts (Score:5, Informative)
Re: They must go nuts (Score:2, Informative)
âoeEvidenced-based practiceâ is a phrase used in virtually every single nursing research article since world war 2.
Re: (Score:2)
If the CDC can't say that a disease like HIV leaves the body VULNERABLE to other infections ... what should they call it?
Why are they not allowed to talk about transgenders if it turns out having your gender changed leaves you, yes, vulnerable to a specific set of vir...ii?uses?
Re:They must go nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
You think "fetus", "science based" and "evidence based" are buzzwords?
You are part of the problem.
Not surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you hate science because it conflicts with your religious beliefs, you probably donâ(TM)t want people using it to justify stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
If you hate science because it conflicts with your religious beliefs, you probably donâ(TM)t want people using it to justify stuff.
That's why "faith based" is still permitted.
Re: (Score:3)
That's why "faith based" is still permitted.
Maybe that's the workaround: describe everything like "bases its recommendations on science, not that faith-based bullshit, in consideration with scientific community standards".
Not religious (Score:3)
If you hate science because it conflicts with your religious beliefs...
I don't think this has anything to do with religious belief. I think it is due to a dangerous mix of ignorance (partly willful and partly due to lack of intellectual capacity) and short-sighted financial self-interest. If Trump and co were capable of understanding science and were open-minded enough to realize that there is a lot of money to be made developing green technology they would be cheering science on, not desperately trying to hide and/or ignore the truth of it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I work in a scientific field and I consider myself to be a religious person. I don't think this is inherently a conflict. I think what most people have a problem with is the behavior of some loud followers of the Abrahamic religions (specifically Christianity and Islam). I don't see Taoists, for example, or Hellenic Reconstructionists causing all these problems.
Re: (Score:2)
What difference would the lack of technology make?
Or do you seriously think that all religious people are incapable of both understanding or even developing their own technology?
And building boats is not exactly rocket science. At best, your suggestion may achieve your desired ends for a few months.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm fairly certain that, absent the god-botherers, we could a shitload done in just a few months. I'll take it.
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She's a witch! (Score:5, Insightful)
So if the community standards and wishes means they prefer to rely on religion, superstition and other make-beliefs mumbo-jumbo, science has to stand aside?
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)
"gender studies" is not a religion.
Leftist ideology is not a religion.
FYI.
AC
Re:She's a witch! (Score:4, Insightful)
"gender studies" is not a religion. Leftist ideology is not a religion.
They merely don't identify as a religion.
Let me tell you my biggest childhood formative moment. It was triggered by banner shapes.
Communism in Poland fell when I was in early elementary school, yet I still got to be forced to attend a Labor Day parade. By then, even the threat was degraded (instead of "anyone missing without a valid excuse will be expelled from school" it was down to "will have semester's grade lowered") but we still had to go. Then, a few years later, there were Corpus Christi parades. By the letter of law not mandatory, but a kid who didn't attend still received strong verbal chew-out. Both parades looked the same: a guy blabbing something through loudspeakers, the public chanting slogans, dozens of people carrying banners of a specific shape. The very same shape, only the images and texts changed.
Scripture? Check (works of Marx, Engels and Lenin). Clergy? Check. Rituals? Check. Portraits of prophets and saints everywhere? Check. Proselitysm? Check. Hatred for unbelievers? Big fat check.
You do know that Soviet style communism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:She's a witch! (Score:5, Insightful)
No religion also have common definition(s) and this is obviously not a proper use of the term. Stop making up things and use the right words, you are on a technology orientated website and _should_ know the value in proper use of terms when communicating.
So you don't like gender studies. Okay. What makes that a religion rather than a science-based thing (coupled with philosophy in many cases)?
You can go about it and say the studies that have been made are weak, done in the wrong manner, have biases etc. and that would be proper. But there are studies done. Some may be wrong (I don't care and have not read any so have no idea) but that doesn't make it religion.
You may not agree with some of the philosophy and again criticism would be proper - however not making the field into a religion.
But the "standard" of expression of genders etc. isn't fixed either in local history or as seen globally. That means the field is a proper one to study and reason about.
Personally I don't give a crap - people can feel think and act as they want as long as they behave respectfully towards others.
Re:She's a witch! (Score:5, Informative)
I am vary curious about this place where you grew up, where parades are dependent on both the economics of Poland and a town in Texas. Or was that some kind of "labor day is communist" thing? (it's not communist)
In Poland, International Worker's Day (May 1st) [wikipedia.org] is known as "Labour Day." And the Polish People's Republic made full use of the propaganda opportunity.
Corpus Christi is a Catholic Feast Day-- the Thursday of the 9th week after Easter. And it's a state holiday in Poland.
Re: (Score:2)
I get it now. I guess. Maybe they do parades differently in Poland, but around here parades are all virtually the same, with minor differences in theme.
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During Christianity's existence, we have gone from the vast majority of the human population living at a subsistence level and using beasts of burden like they did for the previous 10,000 years, to creating economic systems that results in growing far more than enough food to feed everyone, raising the standard of living by orders of magnitude for virtually everyone, putting men on the mo
Re: (Score:3)
Leftist ideologies are much younger, but already have overtaken Christianity's death count (180M to 100M) -- but then, if you take together the sum of Abrahamic faiths, the race is about neck-to-neck.
Shouldn't the death count be measured as a percentage of population? Otherwise, reducing the death rate is penalized.
Christianity largely responsible for science (Score:2)
My wild guess is for Christianity to have slowed scientific progress by ~1500 years.
Really? Back in the day science was a product of Christianity. The belief that nature was all ruled and ordered by god lead various clergy to look for that order which in turn lead to the development of science. Many early scientists held religious positions since, unless they were from a wealthy family, this was the only way to get the education and the time and support required to be able to perform their studies.
For example, Oxford and Cambridge dons were all originally clergy and when they retired
Re:She's a witch! (Score:5, Interesting)
Only Christianity and Judaism maintain that God created a material reality that was (1) separate from Him, and (2) knowable.
LMAO. Trends come and go in all religions. The Islamic Golden Age [wikipedia.org] was a time of amazing scientific and philosophical progress, but they gave it up. Catholics rejected science, then eventually came to embrace it. Protestants loved science, then modern evangelical sects came to despise it.
I was raised Southern Baptist, but wholly abandoned it because of their insane insistence that reality was wrong. When a man tells you the sky is green and Jesus rode a dinosaur, it's awfully hard not to laugh at his opinions on anything else. Whatever else I might think about their organization, the Catholic church seems to be pretty good about science these days. I don't hear anything bad about the scientific beliefs of mainstream protestant groups (that is, ones that aren't American extremists). That said, Hindu and Taoist countries are doing lots of amazing science, and the OECD says that lots of barely religious countries are beating the US [businessinsider.com] in science education.
Re: (Score:3)
I would not call those countries 'barely religious', particular not Spain, Portugal and Greece. AFAIK scandinavia is quite religious still, no idea about Finland and Estonia in particular, though.
Germany is mainly atheist, but many atheists join church rituals out of habit, e.g. marriages, baptizings etc.
Re: She's a witch! (Score:2)
Then why has the majority of the technological advances that benefitted humanity come from nations with their roots in Christianity?
Because they had to come from somewhere. You may as well ask why the majority of technological advances came from countries where people have white skin, or from countries which descended from the Roman Empire. You're confusing correlation and causation.
Re: She's a witch! (Score:3)
Theres been a 500 year trend of advancement coming from Christian western societies. 500 years of correlation is not a random coincidence.
There's been a 500 year trend of non-advancement coming from nations where most people have black skin. I guess that's not random coincidence either, eh?
I love that you started off by saying that you're not confusing correlation with causation, and then went on to demonstrate that you're doing exactly that.
In others words, a Christian Taliban (Score:5, Insightful)
Authorized clerics have the final say on what is true and proper in our society.
Work-around (Score:2, Funny)
Since "fetus" is banned, they will now use "small Trump-like being" in its place. Hand size is about right, also.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is "superstition-based"... (Score:2, Flamebait)
wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What the fuck does "community standards and wishes" have to do with scientific evidence.
It doesn't; they're in opposition to each other. For instance, if religious morons insist that the world is ~6,000 years old, science (aka "facts") isn't allowed to contradict that. Or global warming. Or anything else inconvenient to the non-thinking small-minded.
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
It's codespeak for 'popular oppinion.'
If scientific evidence says that telling teenagers not to have sex doesn't actually work while condoms generally do, but popular opinion says that telling teenagers how to use a condom promotes sin and will send them all to burn in Hell, then both views are now given equal validity in the decision-making process.
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Weighing politics as well as evidence in policy is nothing new. As Otto von Bismarck remarked, “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best”. Evidence leads you to what the best policy would be; community standards limit what you can actually achieve.
What's unusual about the present is that we live in an age which uniquely devalues expertise. Fifty years ago expertise was arguably fetishized; but today people view it as just another opinion. And never
Convenient omission (Score:2, Interesting)
"in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget"
KISS (Score:2)
CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.
I'm sure that's the same community that would wish for Pi to be 3.0 to make life easier...
Use God too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That is why I like to mock people by asking: which god?
And if they say 'my god' to often or even 'Oh My God!' I reintroduce myself: 'Just Angelo, for you just Angelo'.
Dolts (Score:5, Insightful)
Science does not care about your "community standards", your religious viewpoints, or any other fantasies you believe in this week.
Re: (Score:2)
But "community standards", your religious viewpoints, or any other fantasies you believe in this week can indeed affect reality, since a good portion of our human-scale reality is political.
For instance, any social issue where a solid statistical analysis shows that you can reduce a problem with something that goes against people's gut feelings. Abortion and birth control access would be the first two I'd suspect the right would go after. Crime and punishment would be a close second. In both cases we ha
Banned words on Slashdot (Score:2)
I've gotten the list of words that will be banned on Slashdot in 2018:
- cryptocurrency
- malware
- systemd
- unicode
- diversity
- indochimp
- Russia
- artificial intelligence
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- virtual reality - net neutrality - drone - hackers - ecosystem
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Yesss.
Missed two (Score:2)
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Yes, but only as the punchline to a joke.
Obligatory Feynman (Score:2)
In other words, "PC ... (Score:2)
" Instead of 'science-based' or 'evidence-based ,' the suggested phrase is 'CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes."
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The problem with that replacement phrase is that it is a literal implementation of a policy of 'feelz over realz'.
"In consideration with community standards and wishes" translates to, "if we don't like the results of the scientific process, we'll override them".
The list is bad but "science-based" sucks (Score:2)
I think the list is a stupid idea, especially not using the word "fetus" in an environment where you may be talking about Zika for example...
But here's the thing - why complain specifically about "science-based" when the replacement is "science"? "Science-based" is a terrible word, the most waffly term ever. You could argue an e-meter is "science-based" because it relies on conductivity of wiring. I hate the term so much if they had just banned that word, I think I might actually support the list...
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"Science-based" means something different than science when used as an adjective. Consider:
(1) Science policy -- principles which govern your support of science;
vs.
(2) Science-based policy -- positions on *anything* which are chosen because of scientific evidence.
An example of science policy would be favoring fundamental over applied research -- as did the Reagan administration. They did this for ideological reasons (which doesn't make the reasons *bad*): they thought the government shouldn't do anything t
Fetus? (Score:2)
Fetus! Fetus! Fetus!
Ban me now, Don!
He forgot (Score:2, Informative)
"Donald Trump's is an idiot"!
It reminds me of a comedy bit (Score:2)
by George Carlin.
The Seven words you can never say on television.
Which fits, sadly, since our government has become one long never ending stream of stand up comedy :|
Self-inflicted by CDC? (Score:4, Informative)
So I read the summary with a critical eye and this jumped out at me:
although "a few suggested that the proposal was not so much a ban on words but recommendations to avoid some language to ease the path toward budget approval by Republicans."
That tells me the heads of CDC most likely came up with this set of "recommendations" because they think it will help them get a larger budget.
This doesn't read as the Trump Administration banning words, it sounds like career staff has an insulting view of the politicians that determine their funding level.
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We're not screwed then.
Edit: Just before hitting the submit button I realised I committed a logical fallacy, namely assuming (P implies Q) implies (not P implies not Q). In fact, we might be screwed but it is not because Slashdot represents the best and brightest, which is clearly a false premise.
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Informative)
Theodore Dalrymple [goodreads.com]
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So if I decide to say I'm a doctor and dress as one, I get to perform surgeries? Or if that mental hospital inmate tells you he's Napoleon Bonaparte, should he get to rule France?
Call a spade a spade. Appeasing delusions of someone with working long-term memory is never the right thing to do.
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[quoteblock]The summary itself states the reason for the guideline is to make passage of legislation easier to get past Republicans in congress. ...
The idiots on the left and the right will believe just about anything if it makes the other side look evil.[/quoteblock]
So you're saying that if this isn't an attempt at suppressing phrases by Republicans, but instead a suggestion (presumably from non-Republicans) to avoid using those words because they're going to trigger a predictable response from enough Repu