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13th April 2018, 11:41 AM | #201 |
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That's what I'm asking
I said to which you replied I'm asking what you were subjecting to criticism. Are you criticising the right of scientists and academics to publish any and all data genuinely obtained, or are you simply criticising the interpretation of the data in this case? |
13th April 2018, 12:00 PM | #202 |
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Sam should have familiarized himself with more of the research out there as well as Murray's agenda - not just Murray's chapter in one book - as well as the consensus of the actual experts, before going to bat for Murray. Sam can't claim "I'm not an IQ expert and don't even care!" and "I'm talking about the data, and I'm just defending science!" at the same time. |
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14th April 2018, 07:12 AM | #203 |
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Yes, well done! Harris says exactly that, and has said exactly that throughout the podcast.
Richard Haier "Haier is currently a Professor Emeritus in the Pediatric Neurology Division of the School of Medicine at University of California, Irvine. He has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Intelligence since 2016"
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Well, maybe you didn't. But here is an example of a meta-analysis that did a review of the research into, in this case, male and female stereotype threat:
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Maybe you can give an argument for how the "consensus" is that TBC is "quackery". I've already posted an example of an expert who says it is not. You can no doubt find some scientist against The Bell Curve, but you need to show that they are not only against it but that they argue it is "quackery" and all their peers agree. Do you think you can do that? Look, you are now practically pathologizing Sam Harris by arguing that he is saying what he does because of his wrong brain. What makes you so free of bias? Maybe you are in denial of your bias? Do you see how unfruitful it becomes to go down this route? Ah! That's your bias talking. Have you ever though that maybe you are just wrong because of your bias? Let's see, how the Hell do you know that Murray wouldn't have agreed to go on a talk in which his ideas are to be attacked? |
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14th April 2018, 07:44 AM | #204 |
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Exactly! If we are going to argue about the substantive scientific claims made by Herrnstein & Murray, we have to at least be familiar with what their conclusions were and how they were derived.
For starters . . . Those are just the ones I have on the shelf, my more recent reading has been on Kindle. |
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14th April 2018, 08:16 AM | #205 |
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14th April 2018, 08:49 AM | #206 |
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Paraphrasing Sam Harris:
Murray goes somewhat beyond this, claiming 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" and that there is a "biological basis for personal qualities statistically associated with social problems—low IQ, impulsiveness, short time-horizons, sociopathy, indolence" and so forth. To the extent that Murray associates these "significantly different" genetic configurations with race, he is promoting a view of homo sapiens which tightly coheres with the common, nontechnical definition of racism which I posted above. |
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14th April 2018, 08:56 AM | #207 |
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14th April 2018, 09:18 AM | #208 |
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Who besides him?
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14th April 2018, 09:47 AM | #209 |
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Nope. If he considers some group of nonwhites inferior strictly in terms of "personal qualities statistically associated with social problems—low IQ, impulsiveness, short time-horizons, sociopathy, indolence," etc. then he holds essentially the same view traditionally held by mainstream white supremacists, regarding that group.
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14th April 2018, 04:06 PM | #210 |
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14th April 2018, 06:47 PM | #211 |
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...which she didn't, but your 1 still isn't enough compared to her 0.
The opposition to "The Bell Curve" and research consistent with it is interesting. I've found none that actually opposes its claims about the science on scientific grounds. They oppose it in one or more of four other ways instead:
Interestingly, approaches #1-3 seem to be found almost exclusively among amateurs/lay-people at websites like ours here or personal blogs or such, not in journals or books from non-vanity publishers. Those normally stick to #4. That even leads to something I could have included as a fifth item: pointing to a respected source/publication that did #4 but claiming that it had actually reported contradictory scientific evidence instead. ...which leads to the question of whether to handle such conclusions, and the people who draw them, differently based on whether they were arrived at by a fair analysis of the facts or by a racist attitude. |
14th April 2018, 06:53 PM | #212 |
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14th April 2018, 07:57 PM | #213 |
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Angrysoba was already aware of 5 actual experts on intelligence who think TBC is pseudoscience - James Flynn, Eric Turkheimer, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Richard E. Nisbett.
The latter three say "We believe there is a fairly wide consensus among behavioral scientists in favor of our views, but there is undeniably a range of opinions in the scientific community." They call Murray's cherry picked data points "junk science". Then there were the two authors who wrote the paper I linked to earlier, Ryan P. Brown and Eric Anthony Day, who say "The results of the present study offer strong support for the hypothesis that race differences in cognitive ability test scores could be accounted for with a simple, contextual variable that is independent of biological factors and even test content." Flynn's statement “I think it is more probably than not that the IQ difference between black and white Americans is environmental. As a social scientist, I cannot be sure if they have a genetic advantage or disadvantage.” is almost certainly representative of mainstream thought on the issue within the scientific community studying intelligence. |
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14th April 2018, 08:41 PM | #214 |
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14th April 2018, 11:41 PM | #215 | ||||||
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That is not what they're saying: "that something is indeed causing measurable differences in intelligence between races." What they're saying is that something(s) is causing measurable IQ differences between races, which, of course, to you is the same thing because you believe that IQ actually measures intelligence, which they don't. (And neither do I.) What you talk about the title of the book "Not in Our Genes", it would have helped if you had mentioned the whole title: R. Lewontin, S. Rose, L.J. Kamin: Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology & Human Nature. It would also have helped if you hadn't lied about them agreeing with you about "this phenomenon". The phenomenon is IQ and not the alleged g, general intelligence. I.e., what they are saying is that IQ doesn't actually measure anything, hence the title of Stephen Jay Gould's book. Other books and articles: Stephen Jay Gould: The Mismeasure of Man - Revised & Expanded (Amazon) The revised and expanded edition includes criticism of TBC. Richard Lewontin: The Inferiority Complex (New York Review of Books, online) Richard Lewontin: It Ain’t Necessarily So (Amazon) R. Lewontin and his critics: Is Intelligence for Real? An Exchange (New York Review of Books, online)
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15th April 2018, 02:04 AM | #216 | |||
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Correction.
This line
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should have read: "When you talk about ..." And I hope that this will fix the second Youtube link:
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15th April 2018, 05:42 AM | #217 |
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I said, "Actually, he names a couple of scientists, including one who specifically argued his corner." Haier is the one who specifically argued his corner. But he also argues that David Reich and, yes, even James Flynn are consistent with the idea that there may be genetic causes for differences in IQ across groups. In fact, you even quote him saying that. Hmmm...that's rather specific. Anyway, the Radiolab episode I was talking about is here: http://www.radiolab.org/story/stereothreat/ I put quotes around it because "consensus" is the word you used, but not one that you have demonstrated. Can you show that there is a consensus that it is "quackery". And by that, I mean not just something that may not be true, but some form of pseudoscientific fraud? But it doesn't get us anywhere. Let's say someone believed Manchester City would win their Champions League match against Liverpool because it seemed likely on form, and a Liverpool fan believed that Liverpool would win because of some blinkered, one-eyed fanaticism which also included rampaging racism, homophobic bigotry, anti-semitism and raging misogynistic reasons, and moreover because of an utterly irrational hatred of the colour sky blue that Manchester City happen to have as their football strips. One person is extremely biased and the other is not. It doesn't mean that Liverpool didn't win the match. I mean, I know from my own biases that I would much prefer that the science was clear that race was a completely socially-dependent concept (in fact, my own position more or less), and that there could be no genetic reasons for saying that one group could be different in terms of intelligence than another. But that doesn't mean that those who self-identify one "race" or another cannot possibly have a different distribution of genetic predispositions in terms of intelligence, or that such differences may have different life outcomes. Why? People who like to debate ideas often go up against people who disagree with them. |
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15th April 2018, 05:45 AM | #218 |
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The term "white supremacism" seems to be the word du jour at the moment.
Can you countenance the idea that his reporting of the data was in good faith rather than out of his desire to run about in a white hood? And I notice that you missed my other question: "Do you believe Murray's conclusions cannot possibly be true?" |
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15th April 2018, 05:54 AM | #219 |
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Does James Flynn actually call it "pseudoscience"? (scare quotes because I would like to see if he uses the term).
Yes, although as Sam Harris pointed out, Turkheimer then retreated from the term "junk science". Do we know why? And that's four by my count, but plausibly all of them may not hold as fast to the claim as you suggest. A fairly wide consensus in favour of their view, not that it is "quackery". Again, this is a very different claim. These latter people you are quoting are not saying TBC is quackery. |
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15th April 2018, 06:58 AM | #220 |
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If Murray were debating Nisbett or Flynn, he'd actually have to debate the science instead of just being sympathetically interviewed.
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How much research over the last 15 years is in Murray's corner? A couple of papers by Rushton and Jensen?
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Where Murray steps outside of mainstream thought is in seeing the specific effects in the data. |
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15th April 2018, 07:08 AM | #221 |
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Sorry, I misspoke in two different ways. Flynn just disagrees, and the total at that point was 4, not 5.
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I guess you could argue that the consensus is that he's wrong, and just some/many within the scientific community consider it outright pseudoscience. |
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15th April 2018, 07:32 AM | #222 | |||
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They seemed to have a fairly congenial debate here in 2006. They obviously disagree, but Flynn isn't calling Murray a quack, or a crank:
Furthermore, according to Sam Harris, when Murray was due to have a discussion at Middlebury College, the professor who was assaulted was herself there to question Murray's claims. They don't argue that the scientific consensus calls it "pseudoscience" or "junk science". You quoted a section from their paper without the wider context:
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I don't know, but now we are going off the point. The point is not to thrash out who is correct here, only that there seems to be some legitimate ground for debate and that having someone like Murray on a podcast is not grounds for shrieking vilification, nor is it grounds for assault on campus. As mentioned, Harris is not motivated by questions of IQ and race, only open discussion, and that the discussion about IQ and race was there purely to show that Murray's views, whether right or wrong, were not some kind of rabble-rousing Fascist rallying cry. Harris's annoyance with some people such as Ezra Klein is that when pushed into saying whether or not they think Murray is a racist, will say no, and yet at other times in their writing or other words they will deliberately try to put Murray and Harris in some racist, "white supremacist" garb. I still don't know what use this is. I mean, you are talking about Sam Harris and his lack of awareness of his own biases. You present no evidence for what his biases are nor his failures to "attenuate" them. Maybe you should talk to him on Twitter about this because I have no clue what to do with these claims. Okay, fine. |
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15th April 2018, 07:53 AM | #223 |
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Thanks. I'll check out the debate, and you might be right about Murray's willingness to stand by his claims facing someone who disagrees.
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I certainly agree about assault, and I don't like seeing Harris vilified, either. I was sort of 'ing Harris when he first interviewed Murray, but I didn't (and still haven't) lost respect for him. I just think he's wrong here, like I think he's wrong about defending torture and some particular aspects of his perception of Islam vs Christianity and Judaism.
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That is nuts! If I claimed I'd have to be the head of the KKK to be as biased as you, you'd think I have no self-awareness of my own bias at all, and you'd be right! His entire thought process in those few paragraphs involves him temporarily forgetting that he actually isn't an expert on this and lacks a comprehensive understanding of the research. |
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15th April 2018, 11:26 AM | #224 |
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I have little doubt that Murray is advancing his claims in good faith. He seems to sincerely believe that socially important personal characteristics such as "low IQ, impulsiveness, short time-horizons, sociopathy, indolence," etc. are more common in poor people in general—and people of color in particular—because of their ancestry.
What has this to do with angry white men in pointy white hoods? Try to envision their reaction *if* Murray were actually shown to be correct. Would it tend to marginalize them further, or recenter them in the political mainstream? |
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15th April 2018, 01:00 PM | #225 |
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If someone wanted to demonstrate that among the poorest there are more people with low IQs than among the other demographics, I'm positive it would be found. And with low IQ would come a couple of things, like impulsiveness and short time-horizons. Sociopathy is a stretch (the only reproductive limiting on that trait is when one gets caught, it seems, creating a survival advantage for the smart sociopaths) as well as indolence (think "the idle rich".)
Intelligence "due to heritability" and "due to ancestry" are two very different claims. I'm not worried about Murray turning out correct there (the whole concept fundamentally lacks plausibility in a few different ways), and the klansmen are going to believe whatever they wish to believe no matter what. These are often the same people still asking whycome chimps still exist if we evolved from chimps, afterall. |
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15th April 2018, 01:16 PM | #226 |
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15th April 2018, 01:34 PM | #227 |
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Whether he turns out to be correct or not (for the record, I'm not saying we need to fund or perform any more research into these particular sorts of group differences) Harris really needs to ask himself, as a consequentialist, where exactly Murray is driving us on the moral landscape.
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15th April 2018, 01:45 PM | #228 |
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15th April 2018, 01:47 PM | #229 |
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I just want to go on record as saying *I* think what he's promoting is actual pseudoscience.
He's aware of the Flynn effect and doesn't question the data, which means, quoting Flynn himself, "In 1900, the average IQ scored against current norms was somewhere between 50 and 70. If IQ gains are in any sense real, we are driven to the absurd conclusion that a majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded." But he thinks "the United States has experienced dysgenic pressures throughout either most of the century ..." and "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." |
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15th April 2018, 01:50 PM | #230 |
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15th April 2018, 01:53 PM | #231 |
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15th April 2018, 01:55 PM | #232 |
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15th April 2018, 02:33 PM | #233 |
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15th April 2018, 02:48 PM | #234 |
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15th April 2018, 09:53 PM | #235 |
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15th April 2018, 09:55 PM | #236 |
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20th April 2018, 08:45 AM | #237 |
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20th April 2018, 10:16 AM | #238 |
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Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz were on Joe Rogan's podcast yesterday. They talk a little about the Charles Murray thing, the recent podcast with Ezra Klein, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGdPcC0zBIQ It's a pretty decent podcast and I found much of it interesting. |
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24th April 2018, 09:23 PM | #239 |
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Looks like Sam kind of is serving as a gateway into the alt right, right now. Look at the chart about a quarter of the way down. Sam's right under Richard Spencer.
https://www.splcenter.org/20180419/m...ways-alt-right
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25th April 2018, 07:25 AM | #240 |
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