Vibe check for Sep 22

Responses by PHIL 006 students, clustered using snowflake-arctic-embed2 and gpt-oss:20b

id	quote	question	answer
Gender & Academic Freedom
13	From Zihlman’s perspective, Lovejoy and his followers ignored all the progress that feminist anthropologists had recently made in theorizing the roles of women in human evolution; instead, he returned to a male-dominated picture… Zihlman argued that, despite the ‘glad baritone cries’ of the male science writers who were so fascinated by Lovejoy’s account, it actually fit very poorly with the available evidence…	If a hypothetical situation existed where it was similarly ethically disputed, but the evidence surrounding the situation was less clearly against it, how might we navigate it?	This question is tricky to reason out given this is a hypothetical scenario, but I would assume that the solution would be more philosophical arguments, though it might be more difficult to properly argue and share ideas given that biases on a topic like this would be very strong.
14	Given the background, one can see why Zihlman was dismayed by Lovejoy’s male-provisioning hypothesis. As she saw it, he was taking all the new evidence that gathering activities played a crucial role in human evolution, but instead of giving women the credit he flipped it around and suggested that men were doing the gathering.”	Lovejoy’s has a right to pursue the “male-provisioning hypothesis” due to academic freedom and open inquiry in science, but his hypothesis has a risk in reinforcing gender inequality in the interpretation of human evolution. Between academic freedom and gender equality which values should be prioritized in science?	Both academic freedom and gender equality are crucial values in a society to upkeep fairness. Academic freedom serves the purpose to avoid censorship in science allowing bold ideas to be introduced but this can lead to bias in research. Gender equality should play the guiding factor to reduce the likelihood of bias influencing research.
Regulation vs Expertise
2	Some academics have found it particularly irritating that they have been forced by regulatory agencies to obtain certification in Rosgen’s system even though they have advanced training in technical fields relevant to stream restoration…. his system involves oversimplifications that can result in failed restoration projects, (63)	It is listed in the text that Rosgen did not come from an academic background, and so his approach to the topic was from a different perspective. So then, should a background in education make one’s view/opinion stand higher/lower than the rest? Should approaches to problems be viewed from a scholarly perspective or a practical perspective? Why is a practical perspective, even if worse off in the end, prioritized over a scholarly one?	I feel like it would be the obvious answer to say that, yes, a person who has more experience and knowledge in a subject should have their opinion valued more. But, even if a person has an extensive education, they can still be misled in their beliefs, or sometimes even gloss over simple matters or solutions to problems. In the end, i guess a practical perspective is easier to work and communicate with to the general public. Scholarly still feels like the best one but for sake of briefness and simplicity, practical is usually gone with.
4	As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the practical focus of NCD has contributed to controversies over its legitimacy. Some academics have found it particularly irritating that they have been forced by regulatory agencies to obtain certification in Rosgen’s system even though they have advanced training in technical fields relevant to stream restoration. (Elliot 61-62)	Why do some academics criticize Rosgen’s Natural Channel Design (NCD) system, and what problems can it create for stream restoration projects?	It’s a matter of pride that some academics didn’t want to listen to the NCD because nobody wants to be told that they’re wrong and that’s a similar thinking process that the critics experienced when learning about the NCD and also not wanting to believe that the oversimplification of steam restoration could prove that it’s an actual problem or risk of potential failure.
12	“Some academics have found it particularly irritating that they have been forced by regulatory agencies to obtain certification in Rosgen’s system even though they have advanced training in technical fields relevant to stream restoration.” pg 63	Is it fair for rules or agencies to make experts follow certain methods, even when those experts have better knowledge or training?	Rule are needed to make sure everyone is going through the same process, but it can feel unfair if experts aren’t allowed to use their own knowledge. Ideally there should be a balance between following rules and trusting ones who have seeked for knowledge and are also very intelligible.
Speed vs Accuracy
3	A critic might still question whether it really does make sense to value the rapidity of the expedited approach more than the accuracy of the traditional approach. By modeling the overall financial costs for society of using the traditional versus the expedited approach, Cranor found that it does indeed make more sense for society to place greater value on the rapidity of the expedited approach. (page 65)	Although expedited approaches can save lives and money, is it ethically justifiable to prioritize speed over accuracy when people’s health is at risk? For example, does Cranor’s argument apply to the rapid approval of COVID-19 vaccines, where speed saved lives but long-term effects were less certain?	Cranor’s argument does suggest that in some cases, prioritizing speed over accuracy can be justified if it reduces overall harm to society. The rapid approval of COVID-19 vaccines is a recent example. Although long-term effects were less certain, the quick decision of making it mandatory to take the covid saved millions of lives, prevented healthcare systems from being overwhelmed, and reduced economic damage. In this case, the benefits of speed did outweigh the risks of incomplete information, showing that expedited approaches can be ethically defensible in urgent public health situations.
5	On one hand, when toxic substances go unregulated (because regulatory agencies have not had time to assess their risks), this imposes costs on society in the form of healthcare, illness, and death. On the other hand, when relatively harmless substances are over regulated, this imposes costs on society in the form of lessened economic activity.	When is it okay to not prioritize human life? How much risk of death are we as society willing to accept?	It feels like the answer should be never, but there are so many cases where human lives are at risk that we accept to some degree. Skydiving, mining, and shooting guns are just a few cases where death is just that much closer than usual. For science, I think there should be a much larger priority of life or at least more than in this example.
7	Officials at the CEPA identified a much simpler methodology that they could use for assessing the likely risks of potentially toxic chemicals. It was much quicker and easier to use, but it was slightly less accurate than the traditional, more detailed approach. According to Cranor, the expedited approach significantly over-predicted the toxicity of chemicals about 3% of the time (in comparison with the traditional approach), moderately over-predicted toxicity about 12% of the time, and moderately under-predicted about 5% of the time. But this decreased accuracy does not seem like an unreasonable price to pay, given that the CEPA was able to analyze 200 chemicals in only eight months.(65)	When does fast scientific results out way the risk of lower accurate data?	There are times where the world doesn’t need the most proven solution they just need a means to help a problem such as the Covid 19 vaccine that helped keep patients who became sick with Covid stay out of the hospitals and lessen the impact. However, there a “solutions” that were under researched a caused just as much damage such as vapes or e cigarette devices that cause equal to or even greater damage to its consumers.
10	By modeling the overall financial costs for society of using the traditional versus the expedited approach, Cranor found that it does indeed make more sense for society to place greater value on the rapidity of the expedited approach. On one hand, when toxic substances go unregulated (because regulatory agencies have not had the time to assess their risks), this imposes costs on society in the form of healthcare, illness, and death.	Why would researchers get to consider methods that prioritize the rapidity of identifying the toxicity of chemicals rather than overall health, when it’s our health they’re putting in danger?	This is where values start to collide, as they may have their own values toward creating faster tests to speed up research, but the downfall is that they lose accuracy with these tests. They then try to back up the sufficiency of these tests by stating that they will save society money, which in my opinion, I would rather pay more if it meant my health was the main priority.
11	when society has economic values like saving money, it makes sense to prioritize speed and ease of use over accuracy when evaluating scientific methods and models.	How has this backfired on the US	This has probably backfired on us but having a ton of minor inefficiencies or weak points in a multitude of our technology. I think a prime example of this is when NASA blew up a rocket because they forgot to convert feet to meters in the coding. they prioritized speed and ease of use as we use the Imperial system when the metric system(not as natural to us) is the better and more precise measurement system.
Scientific Values & Aims
1	It is easy to forget that science, like any activity, cannot be labeled ‘bad’ or ‘good’ without considering what we are trying to accomplish with it	What about the aims of science allow us to make judgements about whether science is “good” or “bad”?	Simply the aims of a practice give us a way to evaluate it. If science has some aim or aims then we can use the as evaluative points to judge how effectively those aims are being accomplished. This brings up another question of who sets the aims.
6	To determine which models or theories count as good ones, scientists have to decide what they are aiming to achieve with those models or theories[77]	How would scientists protect themselves from pursuing a good goal with a bad model/theory	The best way would be to make sure everything within the model is as accurate as possible, but prioritizing speed or cost would make it difficult.
8	…he has been able to pursue his research because of 1.2 million dollars from powerful corporations and foundations that aim to sow doubt about Climate change” (68)	Why would a researcher value profit over human health?	Maybe he doesn’t really value that; maybe he feels like he could be onto something or is skeptical of other researchers. Probably the worst is that he plainly doesn’t care & just wants the money before the world succumbs to something we can’t exactly stop.
9	…values are relevant for helping scientists decide which aims to prioritize when choosing methods and models.” (p. 68)	What could happen if scientists do not acknowledge social values when choosing their methods for studies?	While they may come to evidently correct conclusions, their work may not be useful in addressing problems in society. For example, scientists could conduct a study and conclude, but their work might overlook the broader implications for public health, which would ultimately be detrimental to everyone.
15	First, when they work with other stakeholders, such as regulators or policymakers, they may need to adopt practical aims (such as minimizing expenses or generating results quickly) that those collaborators bring to the table”	Isn’t it beneficial to adopt a variety of aims and values into your research if a scientist hopes to direct their work towards a specific audience?	There are positives to allowing values to take part in the research and writing process, and doing so might make it easier for certain groups to work with.