The Bethesda Declaration
science.org

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102 points

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perihelions

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15 days ago

37 comments

jekwoooooe ・ 14 days ago

I will echo sentiments that this is ironic. Where was a Bethesda declaration when the zeitgeist banned any research into things that would upset the narrative around trans medicine in the previous administrations? Where was any outrage over the AMA ignoring in whole the UK finding that giving hormones to children did not help and in fact was harming them?

  • whatshisface ・ 14 days ago

    We are talking about human beings here. Everyone's willing to ignore an injustice that they don't expect to happen to them. Now that everyone is affected everyone cares.

  • ForLoveOfCats ・ 14 days ago

    I'll take the bait and assume that you're engaging in good faith. I hope you assume the same of me in return.

    Trans healthcare is far from a settled science, and there is a lot we don't know yet. Part of the reason for this is how new this is as an area of active research, a history of science on this topic being intentionally quashed[1], and frankly the relative low numbers of trans people in general. This is all despite trans people, like all queer people, exiting in some form or another since the beginning of recorded history[2].

    I assume from what you said that you're referencing the Cass Review[3], a review of current literature in the area of trans healthcare, specifically where it pertains to minors. Further review of this publication[4] has shown it to have thrown away a much data, applied inconsistent logical standards to different arguments, and based a number of conclusions on disproven fallacies such as the concept of "social contagion". Yet even then it doesn't actually make the conclusions which you've implied.

    To show my biases, I myself am trans and really don't like the Cass Review. It's based on bad science and relies on many misunderstandings, but even then it is *much* more even-handed than those who use it as justification for limiting gender-affirming healthcare like to claim.

    Science is awesome, it's how we understand the world around us. Frankly I'd love to understand more about the origins of what makes someone trans, how to achieve better results when medically transitioning, ect. However it's important to recognize that not all published science is of the same quality, and that study replication as well as others reviewing published work is a crucial part of what makes science trustworthy in the long run. After all, that's what the Cass Review was trying to do in the first place.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen...

    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history

    [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Review

    [4] https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/yale-researchers-internat...

    • jekwoooooe ・ 14 days ago

      Yes exactly what I’m trying to say. It’s not settled at all. We should not ban anything outright without evidence HOWEVER we should not prescribe things without evidence. The left was suppressing research that went against their politics just as much as the right is now for the same reason. They both suck, and both sides are saying the same thing to each other. It’s a circus watching this as a centrist.

      • ofcourseyoudo ・ 14 days ago

        No, that's not "exactly what you're trying to say". You asserted incorrectly that the UK findings were that gender care does not help at all. By any genuine reading of the study it absolutely doesn't say that. This is intellectually disingenous.

      • anonymous_user9 ・ 14 days ago

        “Just as much”? Certainly not. Even if there was total censorship of studies critical of trans healthcare, that would be a tiny fraction of what the trump administration has already cut.

        What in the world makes you think that suppressing science is a “both sides” issue?

      • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF ・ 14 days ago

        > they both suck

        Can't speak for you but in my country the right is trying to kick poor people off of welfare.

        It's under the guise of "balancing the budget" but it's done with fast cuts, no rolloff, no phase-out period. If they cared about the budget it would be done gradually. In my country the right wing is cruel. Bullies elected by a coalition of bullies and gullible folks and people who want revenge for imagined slights.

        > It’s a circus watching this as a centrist.

        If you think the left and the right are the same you need to watch closer bud

  • skybrian ・ 14 days ago

    Where are the people who will explain what happened, rather than telling you what to think?

    I mean, this stuff isn’t generally known, so at least link to something convincing if you want people to believe it.

  • absurdo ・ 14 days ago

    [flagged]

    • jekwoooooe ・ 14 days ago

      Masks do work though and it takes no effort to wear one. I believe in masks and covid and all that.

StatsAreFun ・ 14 days ago

I don't know what the answer is necessarily but this declaration also appears very political in nature. If all of those Nobel laureates and high-profile researchers really do support the content of the declaration, why not attempt to meet with NIH leadership and work together on a solution? You know, reach out and talk this out? A public declaration and the resulting media attention from "opposite-side" news outlets just comes off as political gamesmanship to me, at least. Several other commenters have correctly pointed out the problems existing at the NIH and NIH-funded institutions so the "why now" question is especially relevant here. Anyone remember the massive research scandal involving Dr. Eliezer Masliah late last year?

  • jaybrendansmith ・ 13 days ago

    They already tried the soft approach. It didn't work. The administration just fired the entire Vaccine Advisory Board. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/vaccine-advice-van... What bothers me is this: You are literally saying the opposite of what's actually happening. The entire NIH has been politicized. Kennedy does not believe in germ theory, or vaccines. It is well documented. This is a reaction to that.

  • ceejayoz ・ 14 days ago

    > why not attempt to meet with NIH leadership

    That'll be RFK Jr., as HHS Secretary.

    Good luck!

andrewlgood ・ 14 days ago

Every decision as to how to spend taxpayer money is political. There are always trade offs. The money could be spent on the military, enhancing social security, getting homeless people off the streets. These are all political decisions.

TrnsltLife ・ 14 days ago

"in protest of the politicization of science and science funding at the NIH"

As if there wasn't politicization of science and science funding during the entire last administration. There was just more of an alignment of worldview between scientists and that administration. Scientists who didn't share the worldview or walk in lockstep still got oppressed and silenced.

  • jekwoooooe ・ 14 days ago

    Both things are true. Trump is destroying our science presence AND Biden and co heavily politicized science regarding gender, trans, all that stuff to the point where you aren’t even allowed to do research at all!

    Science should ALWAYS be free to ask questions and explore them no matter how uncomfortable they sound. And this is a huge overreaction to how the left politicized science their way and continued to say that’s it not political. And now they complain about it… can’t have it both ways.

    • amy_petrik ・ 13 days ago

      >Science should ALWAYS be free to ask questions and explore them no matter how uncomfortable they sound. And this is a huge overreaction to how the left politicized science their way and continued to say that’s it not political.

      Like when a google employee was free to ask questions as to whether it was that women don't like programming as much as men, and got immediately fired? Because of course the cause is sexism.

      Like when James Watson had suggested intelligence was genetic, and if races differ genetically, so too may their intelligence... also fired from Stony Brook leadership. Because of course alleles that confer intelligence genetically are magically perfectly balanced in frequency across all races.

      Not to pick on leftists for ruining careers, the right has done this to leftists as well - see David Bohm, a Pennsylvania native and at the time brilliant contemporary of Richard Feynman, who lived out his life in Brazil because McCarthyism got him.

      Thing is, the left did politicize science, just read Nature: https://www.nature.com/collections/daficfhiff

      Or you can read what you need to get a professorship: https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/eecs/commkit/faculty-application-...

      DEI is essentially a commissar type system where one must pledge to the political officer allegiance to the cause, one where proletariat origins are favored over bourgeois. Trump's response is heavy handed but what is happening here is poisonous and insidious, insofar as outright hiring one demographic group over another is universally seen as evil, but hiding it behind a process of bureaucracy and good intentions somehow transforms it into virtuosity. DEI is basically a parasite that has infected many systems and hurt many people, it would be more elegant to simply remove the parasite, but Trump's tactic of taking a metaphorical flamethrower to the parasite and its host both will garner popular support given a lot of people have a bad taste from DEI.

    • sparkie ・ 14 days ago

      Scientists should be free to research what they want of course, provided that research does not cause harm to anyone.

      But, scientists should not have access taxpayer funding to conduct whatever little experiments they want. There's not an infinite pot of money, and it is elected officials who decide how the pot gets spent. And in turn, the people decide who the elected officials are through the ballot.

      The administration was elected. These entitled signatories were not. It is not for them to decide how taxpayer money is spent.

      If you want to conduct science without politics, don't depend on taxpayer money to do your research. Find a private source of funding.

      • jekwoooooe ・ 14 days ago

        Universities aren’t just a source of funding they are a means of doing the research. Universities have plenty of private money too but they refused to allow any research that went against a progressive narrative.

freen ・ 14 days ago

[flagged]

  • djoldman ・ 14 days ago

    Generally things get flagged on HN because the posts are off topic and have a low chance of interesting and insightful commentary (or worse: likely to become flamewars). This is regardless of political leaning (right/left/other).

    In short: the internet certainly does not lack for politics-centered content. HN isn't it.

    • ameliaquining ・ 14 days ago

      Do you mean this aspirationally or are you saying that politics-centered content doesn't in practice appear and get traction on HN? Because the latter does not seem true. (Not making any claims about the ideological orientation of said content.)

      • djoldman ・ 14 days ago

        I mean that the HN guidelines use these definitions as to what the site is meant to embody:

        > What to Submit

        > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

        > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

        So "Most stories about politics..." The guidelines are carefully written. If a story is political but has important tech ramifications, then it's likely on-topic.

        Some posts are flagged that shouldn't be and vice versa. It's not a perfect system.

        Is there a systemic bias one way or another? I'm not sure. I think people are just sometimes fed up with seeing stuff on HN that they're explicitly trying to avoid when they come here.

  • eej71 ・ 14 days ago

    Do you say that because you think the majority of HN readers are sympathetic to the Trump administration? Or do you say that because you think those with the power to flag this kind of submission are secret MAGA hat wearing loyalists? Or is there something else you see that makes you see it this way?

    I ask these questions because in my experience here in HN and in most other related tech forums, the participants and those with the unlucky job of being a mod are usually not in tune with Team Trump.

    • esseph ・ 14 days ago

      There is a huge number of posts specifically over the past month that are both tech related and extremely political. The critical ones of the admin get flagged, seemingly without fail.

      "We can't talk about that"

      • ameliaquining ・ 14 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        I'd be curious if you have numbers to support this.

        • esseph ・ 14 days ago

          I have my anecdotal evidence and the number of comments in my post history that are discussing this, a long with the same comments from others.

          It's fucking annoying, and arguably unethical and dishonest.

  • jonathanlydall ・ 14 days ago

    In my experience it’s anything political (regardless of “side”) which gets downvoted on HN, which is most likely because the HN guidelines specifically discourage it, which is a very common policy on forums due to them more often than not devolving into unproductive arguments.

  • esseph ・ 14 days ago

    I'm convinced