Note, I’m not arguing for a positive obligation to always inform everyone (see last few lines of dialogue), it’s important for people to use their discernment sometimes.
But, in the case you mentioned, if your study really did find that a vaccine caused autism, by the logic of the dialogue, that casts doubt on the “vaccines don’t cause autism and antivaxxers are wrong and harmful” belief. (Maybe you’re not the only one who has found that vaccines cause autism, and other researchers are hiding it too). So, you should at least update that belief on the new evidence before evaluating consequences. (It could be that, even after considering this, the new study is likely to be a fluke, and discerning researchers will share the new study in an academic community without going to the press)
My main objection is that the post is built around a case where Quinn is very wrong in their initial “bad consequences” claim, and that this leads people to have misleading intuitions. I was trying to propose an alternative situation where the “bad consequences” claim was true or closer to true, but where Quinn would still be wrong to suggest Carter shouldn’t describe what they’d found.
(Also, for what it’s worth, I find the Quinn character’s argumentative approach very frustrating to read. This makes it hard to take anything that character describes seriously.)
Note, I’m not arguing for a positive obligation to always inform everyone (see last few lines of dialogue), it’s important for people to use their discernment sometimes.
But, in the case you mentioned, if your study really did find that a vaccine caused autism, by the logic of the dialogue, that casts doubt on the “vaccines don’t cause autism and antivaxxers are wrong and harmful” belief. (Maybe you’re not the only one who has found that vaccines cause autism, and other researchers are hiding it too). So, you should at least update that belief on the new evidence before evaluating consequences. (It could be that, even after considering this, the new study is likely to be a fluke, and discerning researchers will share the new study in an academic community without going to the press)
My main objection is that the post is built around a case where Quinn is very wrong in their initial “bad consequences” claim, and that this leads people to have misleading intuitions. I was trying to propose an alternative situation where the “bad consequences” claim was true or closer to true, but where Quinn would still be wrong to suggest Carter shouldn’t describe what they’d found.
(Also, for what it’s worth, I find the Quinn character’s argumentative approach very frustrating to read. This makes it hard to take anything that character describes seriously.)