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9th April 2018, 03:04 PM | #161 |
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Data points which can be used for anti-black, racist purposes are noted all the time. There isn't any widespread denialism over race and what's called "black on black crime", for example. The only real uproar is over how "white on white crime" is ignored altogether or assumed to not exist at all, and the widespread ignorance of the fact that most of the time when a white person is murdered, it's by another white person. |
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9th April 2018, 06:01 PM | #162 |
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10th April 2018, 07:23 AM | #163 |
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Okay, I listened to part of the show again this a.m. (Ezra's version this time, instead of Sam's) for reasons too boring to explain. It was even more frustrating the second time around. I'm going to greatly condense and paraphrase here, so feel free to correct me if you've listened to the show yourself.
Sam's main point: Research scientists should be allowed (perhaps even encouraged) to openly speculate about the posibility that most people of color are innately and immutably intellectually inferior to people of European and/or East Asian ancestry, and poltical scientists should consider the policy consequences which ought to follow therefrom. In essence, Murray's approach is neither intellectually nor morally backrupt. Ezra's main point: Americans have been doing this for hundreds of years (most often with the explicit backing of the scientific establishment) and it has only ever made things worse for those who experience stereotyping, stereotype threat, and various other forms of systematic deprivation relative to their fellow citizens. Sam is failing to seriously consider the possibility that he helping to steer the bus towards a local minimum on our shared sociopolitical moral landscape. Both men talk past each other quite a bit; I never got the sense that Sam was even slightly picking up what Ezra was putting down. |
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10th April 2018, 07:38 AM | #164 |
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yes and no.
There have been many instance in which animals considered to be distinct species have produced fertile offspring. This basic definition of a species isn't really useful anymore. In the case of humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and others should be considered sufficiently distinct from Homo Sapiens even though they could interbreed. Bottom line is that the "purest" Homo sapiens today are found in region of the cradle of Humanity in Africa. |
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10th April 2018, 07:52 AM | #165 |
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This is so utterly incorrect as a summary of what he said.
First of all, he does not "encourage" anything of the sort. He doesn't talk about "openly speculating"; he says merely that people honestly reporting the data they find should not be castigated. He definitely does NOT say "most people of colour" are innately and immutably inferior" - that is an absolute strawman. He spends much time explaining that a lower intelligence in Person A (and he uses himself as an example to illustrate) than Person B (he uses Von Neuman as an example) DOES NOT mean that Person A is an inferior person to Person B. This is spelled out so painstakingly that you cannot have missed it if you were listening properly. And where you get the whole "policy consequences that ought to follow therefrom" is beyond me when he repeatedly points out that he proposes nothing himself, and that policy is a completely separate issue. He believes that Murray's account of the science is broadly in line with the mainstream science. He mentions that there are scientists he knows of who believe Murray is more in line with the science that Murray's detractors and gives a couple of examples of those. The others he says don't want to speak publicly because of a kind of chilling effect that Harris thinks is caused by people who willfully misrepresent the honest reporting of data. Ezra, it seems to me, was pointing out that Sam Harris is failing to take seriously the ways in which the science has been misused, and suggests that scientific arguments about the inferiority of black people has been the main reason for discrimination (Harris disputes this and thinks that it is more the case that humans discriminate on all kinds of arbitrary differences, and that skin colour is a salient difference, and that such prejudice against different people has been bolstered more by Biblical teachings etc...). Ezra also thinks that Sam Harris's railing against identity politics reflects an intellectual and empathic blindspot for Harris, in that he doesn't recognize the true suffering of black people, and ends up empathizing only for Murray who he recognizes as some kindred spirit, and therefore in some way identifies with. Ezra thinks that Sam Harris is not really aware of the full body of work that Murray has written which goes beyond The Bell Curve and Coming Apart and is obsessively focused on IQ and race and how human achievements are primarily those of Europeans, that Murray actually is very influential and not silenced at all despite the one incident of no-platforming. He also argues that the type of policy recommendations Murray advocates do not seem to logically follow from an apparent concern for the well-being of the cognitively disadvantaged despite Harris's protestations otherwise, and Ezra's - I think - strongest point, is that Harris really should know that Murray cannot really believe that the policies he recommends are going to help those with lower IQs if, as Murray believes, those with lower IQs will struggle to get good work and be able to get ahead in life. I actually think that Ezra came across well, and Sam Harris often did not. But let's at least summarize their views accurately. |
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10th April 2018, 08:02 AM | #166 |
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Sam definitely made the point that having a lower iq does not imply inferiority (using himself as an example in comparison to Von Neuman). He seemed to be oblivious to the fact that it has been used to imply that black people are inferior, along with other scientific "facts" in the past.
I think that was the main disagreement between them. Sam believes in objective scientific facts that "properly collected" would be immune to biases (I suppose he has "faith" in the scientific method) while Ezra looks at the history of how science has been used and thinks that is extremely naive. |
10th April 2018, 08:09 AM | #167 |
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10th April 2018, 08:19 AM | #168 |
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10th April 2018, 08:23 AM | #169 |
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Even if the data were gathered and analyzed in an effort to show that people of color are innately and immutably intellectually inferior to people of European and/or East Asian ancestry? Firstly, policy isn't a separate (or even severable) issue, as Ezra repeatedly pointed out. Murray has a political agenda, which includes rolling back any efforts at affirmatively acting to level the playing field between racially distinct groups. His persuasive efforts are ultimately in service thereto, which is why you usually find a chapter or two of policy recommendations at the end of his books. Secondly, Sam himself argues along Murrayian lines about policy in that bizarre analogy about Jews being underrepresented in short-distance footraces. Go back and listen to where he is going with that one. You are equivocating here by dropping the word "intellectually" from the phrase "intellectually inferior." I'm going to assume this was accidental rather than an example of arguing in bad faith. Of course Harris is intellectually inferior to Von Neuman, on this there is not much room for doubt. Agreed, Sam definitely seems to believe this. It remains an open question as to which of Murray's specific proclamations he would care to endorse. |
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10th April 2018, 08:39 AM | #170 |
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If the data were true data it wouldn't alter the truth of it. Remember I am talking about the mere reporting of data, not spinning it in a particular way. We can certainly criticize that, but he points out that even the Nazis doing abominable experiments in which they used live human subjects found things which turned out to be true. Such results, if correct are correct regardless of how these things were arrived at.
In other words, even under the worse possible circumstances, a True Thing is a True Thing regardless of how you want the counterfactual to be. I think policy recommendations can be separate. But as I said, Ezra's strongest point is that Murray himself is not separating these things and that such a connection needs to be taken into account if one wants to know why someone has a problem with Murray. In other words, it is not so much the science but what he wants to do with it. I can get on board that part, and I think Harris may have been blindsided in a way that he doesn't appreciate. I think you will have to explain where you are going with that one. I don't see what it is. Fair enough. I did miss that. Nevertheless, the point is "intellectually inferior" does NOT equal "inferior" in terms of value as a human being. And if you disagree, then Sam Harris's point about being inferior in track, or height, or any other thing also comes into it. Again, what Harris believes about Murray's take on the science is different from what Murray believes regarding policy issues. |
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10th April 2018, 08:43 AM | #171 |
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Stephen Hawking was athletically inferior to my 99-year old grandmother.
Apparently this means I believe SH was inferior to her as a person. And yet, my grandmother was intellectually inferior to SH. Apparently this means I believe my grandmother was inferior to SH. You can see how it fails, right? And please don't start with "ah, but intelligence is regarded as more important that athleticism" or some other special pleading. |
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10th April 2018, 09:55 AM | #172 |
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I'm not seeing any books or articles by Murray which engage in mere reporting of the data, without drawing policy conclusions therefrom. Where are you finding aggregate IQ data in such a blissfully policy-free environment? I'd be interested to read more about it.
This is self-evidently true. What you and Sam seem to be overlooking here is that white supremacists often care about publishing truth claims as well, and they would be utterly over the moon to see the population level intelligence data come out a certain way, after effectively controlling for environmental confounders. They *could* be separate but they somehow never are while reading Murray, the specific scholar whom Harris has been supporting throughout this particular kerfuffle. Okay, we're going to have to back up a bit. What did you take away from Sam's analogy about how Jews aren't winning sprint events at world-class track and field events these days? It is of course possible for someone to believe that Murray is correct when he asserts that "it will turn out that the population below the poverty line in the United States has a configuration of the relevant genetic makeup that is significantly different from the configuration of the population above the poverty line" in an article about "how the new eugenicism will play out" in the 21st century. It would be impossible to read that article without noticing that it is primarily about public policy, just as one might expect from a political scientist at a think tank. |
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10th April 2018, 10:13 AM | #173 |
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10th April 2018, 05:39 PM | #174 |
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And yet the two things are separate issues. I am not claiming Murray has not made policy issues as well.
So what if they are over the Moon about it? This would not change whether something is true or not. Harris worries that we are now being told not to say X whether it is true or not, because if you say X then "white supremacists would be over the Moon about it." Maybe, and maybe Harris needs to take greater care not to go soft on Murray, which I think is Klein's best point. My take was that Harris is saying that a slight change in the mean average of certain genetic traits may show up in obvious ways even if you are not looking for the data. Therefore, the idea of simply trying to ignore things is not feasible. If Sam Harris wanted to play "identity politics" then he could argue that some people such as Ashkenazi Jews may feel offended at the fact that his "ethnicity" is badly represented in track running, but that such a thing would be ridiculous. If the real issue is Murray's policies, then make that the issue. But pretty much all the pushback has been arguing that the science is "racialist junk science" or "pseudoscience". |
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10th April 2018, 05:40 PM | #175 |
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10th April 2018, 05:49 PM | #176 |
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It would likely change their recruiting success and their electoral clout, resulting in more victories for nationalists who demonize non-white immigrants. This is a consequence which Sam has gone on the record saying he wants us to avoid.
If it were true, and shown to be true, then it would be an even more potent propaganda tool than it is at present. Harris need only worry about whether publishing such truths would actually move us up or down on the moral landscape. |
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10th April 2018, 06:39 PM | #177 |
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12th April 2018, 11:45 PM | #178 |
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I read the Vox transcript. It looks like Sam's in a loop, where he says he's not an IQ expert, doesn't care about any of it, he just wants to argue the data and not policy, but then when Ezra, who's comparatively an expert on it all wants to argue about data and Murray's agenda, Sam goes back to "I'm not an IQ expert", don't care, rinse and repeat.
If Sam wants to argue that Murray has been unfairly maligned, Sam needs to have some expertise on the issue, outside of "I read Murray's book and it seems legit to me!" Sam's also almost implying there's some secret scientific consensus that agrees with Murray, because some scientists emailed Sam and expressed a private agreement with them. This is...what are we supposed to do with that claim? Has Sam come across stuff like this? https://www.researchgate.net/profile...e-Matrices.pdf
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Sam tells Ezra at one point in the discussion:
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Sam's been put on the SPLC's hate list next to neonazis over this. His ego is naturally hugely threatened. His bias at this point is extraordinary. He's not thinking clearly. When Ezra says:
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Sam keeps trying to say he's arguing the "empirical science", but he's not. Ezra's doing more of than than Sam is. Finally, a side note I'm going to throw in since I just ran across it: Men and women are about equal in natural mathematical aptitude:
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13th April 2018, 05:45 AM | #179 |
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13th April 2018, 07:38 AM | #180 |
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13th April 2018, 07:41 AM | #181 |
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"Sorry, what?" means what is your point?
Are you talking about some general principle that people can use real data for nefarious purposes? That point seems so obvious it hardly seems worth stating. The question is whether you think Sam Harris is doing that. Otherwise your point sounds like something 9/11 Truthers say, "Do you really believe the government never tells lies?" etc... |
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13th April 2018, 07:47 AM | #182 |
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Asking Harris (an avowed consequentialist) to seriously consider whether spending his reputational capital to bolster Herrnstein's racial research and Murray's policy proposals will end up driving us higher or lower on the moral landscape isn't exactly the same thing as shutting down anyone's speech. I'm surprised and disappointed that you don't seem to see the difference here. I'm also beginning to wonder whether you've read any of the relevant books.
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13th April 2018, 07:51 AM | #183 |
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13th April 2018, 08:01 AM | #184 |
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His aim is not so much to argue the case about IQ and race. As he points out several times, his main problem is what he sees as a chilling effect on speech that no-platforming of Murray and others creates. Nevertheless, the question of whether it is defensible science is still one that he argues.
Actually, he names a couple of scientists, including one who specifically argued his corner. Some of the others he says are not willing to go on record because there is a reputational cost to saying certain things even if they are true. I don't know. I have come across stereotype threat a couple of times. The first time was a Radiolab podcast in which the research for stereotype threat has come in for some rough treatment. Apparently it hasn't been replicated in a way that inspires much confidence. What is your point about it? He's probably unwilling to consider it because it is not the consensus that it is "quackery". No wonder those scientists he talked about don't want to put their heads above the parapet. I definitely think he's on tilt, but he also knows that he's got himself into some bother. That somewhat proves his initial point though, doesn't it? |
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13th April 2018, 08:47 AM | #185 |
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13th April 2018, 08:54 AM | #186 |
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13th April 2018, 09:02 AM | #187 |
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I say we should have a self-appointed body to vet all scientific data for its likelihood to cause offence before it's released to the public. I still can't get over that upstart Copernicus causing such offence to the Church by challenging geocentrism. He should have kept his mouth shut and everybody would be much happier.
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13th April 2018, 09:07 AM | #188 |
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"Bourgeois pseudoscience was a term of condemnation in the Soviet Union for certain scientific disciplines that were deemed unacceptable from an ideological point of view.
At various times pronounced "bourgeois pseudosciences" were: genetics, cybernetics, sociology, semiotics, and comparative linguistics" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeois_pseudoscience |
13th April 2018, 09:09 AM | #189 |
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He can't do the latter without being able to do the former.
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I did a google scholar search and didn't see it tested without the same results anywhere.
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His main error here is that he didn't develop any expertise at all on the topic in between reading TBC and and interviewing Murray. Of course, I doubt Murray would have allowed himself to be interviewed if Sam hadn't expressed general agreement with the picture the book's chapter on race and IQ paints. |
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13th April 2018, 09:12 AM | #190 |
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13th April 2018, 09:14 AM | #191 |
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13th April 2018, 09:16 AM | #192 |
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Subjection to criticism is not an infringement on one's freedom of speech.
Good lord. |
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13th April 2018, 09:31 AM | #193 |
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13th April 2018, 09:32 AM | #194 |
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13th April 2018, 09:36 AM | #195 |
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13th April 2018, 11:07 AM | #196 |
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13th April 2018, 11:16 AM | #197 |
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13th April 2018, 11:25 AM | #198 |
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Here:
“The professional consensus is that the United States has experienced dysgenic pressures throughout either most of the century (the optimists) or all of the century (the pessimists). Women of all races and ethnic groups follow this pattern in similar fashion. There is some evidence that blacks and Latinos are experiencing even more severe dysgenic pressures than whites, which could lead to further divergence between whites and other groups in future generations.” And... “You want to have a job training program for welfare mothers? You think that’s going to cure the welfare problem? Well, when you construct that job training program and try to decide what jobs they might qualify for, you had better keep in mind that the mean IQ of welfare mothers is somewhere in the 80s, which means that you have certain limitations in what you're going to accomplish.” His whole worldview is centered on white supremacy. If he showed any sign of incorporating new information into his worldview and disavowing his previous views, I'd be less harsh, but he's fundamentally not a scientist - he's curator of factoids that can be cherry picked and put together in service of political agendas. |
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13th April 2018, 11:27 AM | #199 |
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13th April 2018, 11:33 AM | #200 |
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