[tedivm]

He answers your question in the same paragraph that he states they're irresponsible:

> Lead seems to be the reason, not abortion rates. Levitt and Donohue don't engage seriously with the Lead hypothesis as there are many compelling studies supporting Lead. They only engage with the weakest research.

The accusation is that they are ignoring research that might disprove their point, while at the same time are using weak research that they can easily refute to try to downplay the stronger arguments they refuse to engage with. Now I personally haven't read the paper, so I do not know if this is true, but it does answer the question you asked as to what OP thinks is irresponsible.

[jlawson]

This doesn't answer the question.

OP's accusation is that they Levitt and Donohue are irresponsible because the ideas they're investigating could be "used" by "fascists" and "racists".

Parent is questioning the idea that scientific inquiry should be restricted because it might reveal facts or open ideas that harm a preferred political program.

You are not answering that question. You're just talking about the quality of research, which isn't really the point here. It's whether the research should be done/allowed at all if it could harm a particular political ideology.

[ahazred8ta]

> Like the timid lady who, after a lecture on the Darwinian doctrine of man, said to her daughter, “Let us hope it is not true, my dear; or if it is, let us hush it up.”

[ryandrake]

> It's whether the research should be done/allowed at all if it could harm a particular political ideology.

I mean, I think that's kind of what OP was saying. Just go a little more extreme: Would it be responsible to publish science that you knew for certain would be used by others to justify genocide, even when there were other, better supported ideas to explore? I think we can agree that it would not be responsible. So where does the line get drawn? I don't know--I'm not going to draw it.

And let's not reduce big baddies like racism and fascism down to mere "political ideology". We're not talking about tax policy here.

[jlawson]

"Racism" and "fascism" are just thought-terminating sneer words. Their meaning is totally context-dependent.

E.g. Some people think the lack of affirmative action is racism. Some people think the presence of affirmative action is racism.

Once you actually try to think about issues instead of label them, you'll realize that these are indeed matters of political ideology.

Go past the thought-stop sneer words and investigate what people actually want and mean.

[giraffe_lady]

I've had this exact conversation on HN before and I expect several people to come in saying that the only moral choice is to publish research without consideration of its effects or uses.

This is part of a particular strain of scientism that holds that "science" is or can be apolitical, so finds acknowledgments of the actual social-political world that it inhabits as heretical.

[ryandrake]

It’s infuriating to hear a developer say “hey, I’m fine with building the Torment Nexus because it’s an interesting technical problem and that’s all that matters!” Ethics should be a required undergrad course for software engineers.

[jlawson]

It's infuriating to hear a scientist say, "Science should be shaped to match our politics, not the other way around."

Once we give up on finding the actual truth then we're on the road to hell, as demonstrated so many times by past societies that put ideology ahead of truth.

And if you think the truth leads to you committing genocide, I think you have some of your own moral development to do. If your belief in human dignity is conditional on people being the all the same, your belief in human dignity is very weak.