Biology of Race

No way I’m putting back candy I didn’t steal. My grandparents moved here from Scotland and Irealnd, and I don’t owe anybody shit.

No reparations from me. In fact, as a people or as an African American thing- holding on to the idea that somebody owes you something is like drinking poison and hoping the other guy dies. It’ll eat you alive, but no one else gives a shit.

As an adult in an adult world, sometimes thats just what you have to do.

All I ask is that you give the article a look-see.

I’d move back to Canada.

I wouldn’t want to live in an African American majority country it would end up like Liberia

Is that going to fly with the white folk over at CanRen?

In a hypothetical where I was shut out of all Anglo nations I still have a legal path to permanent residency in India as a result of my racial heritage

Glad to hear you wouldn’t be stateless. Thank heavens for the persistence of the sociocultural construct of race, huh?

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How do we give African Americans reparations without accepting the biological construct of race?

By accepting the sociocultural construct of race.

Would Rachel Dolezel or Shaun King get reparations?

Sam Harris just did a podcast on IQ.

Haven’t listened to it yet but will
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/forbidden-knowledge

I just saw this was brought back in, which I didn’t expect since this seems to me to be a different topic than race. But I’ll chime in, given that this is up my alley.

With all due respect, I still think you’re confused about what basic research is. The examples you give are for research that had defined, preconceived outcomes. People will certainly fund (or back) research that has tangible commercial potential. Basic research has the sole outcome of creating new knowledge for the sake of creating new knowledge.

As an example:

I have many scientific colleagues that work at biotech or pharmaceutical companies. The research they pursue must have a defined commercial potential. If they are working on a project with a goal of producing compound X (which has shown potential, for instance, as a marketable drug) in as few steps as possible and with readily available starting compounds, they are not going to (or are allowed to) pursue side reactions that give unexplained and unexpected results. They have to let those go and keep focused on the end goal, even if they were scientifically interesting.

In basic research, I am allowed to (and encouraged to) use federal funds I acquired to pursue whatever intellectual off shoot I deem interesting. Of course, I must demonstrate via a track record of publishing in high impact journals that the research I do has intellectual merit and is competently carried out, and therefore I would be competitive for future funding. Meaning, I cannot squander your tax dollars with subpar science. The new knowledge that is obtained may have commercial potential in the future (or may not) but without scientists at top US institutions creating new knowledge there will be no base upon which future discoveries and breakthroughs to stand.

The US has the top scientific institutions in the world. I have had the fortune to publish with and be mentored by Nobel Prize winning scientists. Our research groups had top graduate students and post docs from China, Japan, Italy, India, and Russia. We were all devoted not to do science we could sell and get funded by the public, but by “creating new knowledge”. That is the what drives us that do basic research.

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Okay but just looking it up, many companies in the private sector DO fund basic research and the ones that do outperform those that don’t.

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/end-government-science-funding

I will take a guess here and say higher quality scientists are attracted to companies that engage in basic research. I would also guess that in the absence of public funding, basic research in the private sector would increase.

On another note, I also wonder about the replication crisis in science and I wonder how much of that is as a result of government intervention.

I can’t make a connection to it, but I know whenever the government intervenes in anything, 9 times out of 10 they make the situation way worse than how it was before.

Here. I fixed it for you.
Academia isn’t lucrative for most people. Pharma will pay a scientist much more, but with that comes pressure to produce and like @antiquity mentioned, tunnel vision. There is no freedom to express intellectual curiosity, you lose
much of the control over your work.

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How did basic research take place prior to 1940 when science wasn’t government funded?

Are you attempting to say we produced more breakthroughs prior to 1940?

I don’t know about that, nor do I know if there’s an accurate way to measure that (access to the internet really changes things).

What I do know is there wasn’t exactly a dearth of scientific discovery prior to public funding of scientific research. You can see the examples I mentioned above in my original post

As we have advanced our scientific knowledge, it now costs more to continue to do cutting edge research. Hundreds of years ago, we knew much less and could use more rudimentary tools to expand our knowledge. You can replicate Einstein’s photoelectric effect experiments easily these days in undergraduate physics classes that are routinely equipped. The precision of lasers or super magnets needed to carry out research in a chemistry department is very high, and very costly to buy and maintain.

Also, you’re right in that there is funding for research in the private sector. I have received grants from non-federal foundations (Cottrell Fund, Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and Petroleum Research Fund, and of course there are others). You’re also correct that companies that allow their scientists more leeway in the research they do would be more likely to attract higher end scientists.

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@EyeDentist

Read the reparations link. Slavery is heinous and really sucked, confirmed. Should reparations happen is a debate for the ages and won’t be solved here. You won’t be able to convince most Americans who never owned slaves and never personally oppressed blacks that they owe reparations.

In a world where the next election cycle goes way left (Liz Warren/Bernie/Oprah). Practically what should reparations look like? How will the lives of minorities be enhanced by the spending? Serious thought experiment, not arguing.

There’s exactly a zero percentage chance that I’d ever pay reparations and would even push me to take up arms against any so-called government that pushed it.

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Welfare state and the war on poverty could arguably be a form of reparations.