…is held back by political correctness:
Mr. Cofnas begins the paper with the story of Socrates, who was executed for “corrupting the youth” of Greece. Forebodingly, he adds, “[T]he philosophy of his prosecutors — that morality-threatening scientific investigation should be prohibited — flourishes even today.”
To support his case, Mr. Cofnas focuses on the taboo subject of group differences in intelligence, which he says is suppressed by those who believe that even discussing the topic is “morally wrong or morally dangerous.”
Those who embrace such a viewpoint obviously do so with the honorable intention of preventing discrimination. However, the proverbial road to hell is paved with good intentions. Such misguided efforts to maintain perfect equality can hamper the advancement of knowledge. Mr. Cofnas states:
“[W]hen hypotheses are regarded as supporting certain moral values or desirable political goals, scientists often refuse to abandon them in the light of empirical evidence.”
Is he right? Absolutely, yes.
Not only do intellectuals refuse to abandon politically correct beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence, but simply questioning them can ruin a person’s career. Lawrence Summers’ tenure as president of Harvard was cut short because he suggested that there are intellectual differences between men and women. As a result of such punitive pushback, some researchers are afraid to investigate differences between male and female brains, which certainly exist. Without a doubt, this reticence is holding back the field of neuroscience.
A similar chilling effect can be seen in climatology. The only politically correct belief regarding the climate is that humans are 100% responsible for everything bad that happens and that the Four Horsemen are already marching toward Earth. Questioning that apocalyptic and unscientific belief has resulted in multiple researchers being labeled “climate deniers.” Climatology would greatly benefit from the more skeptical approach of so-called “lukewarmers,” but far too many are ostracized and demonized.
This is why I always laugh when I hear about “the Republican war on science.”
I’d add that, as I’ve long said, the results of studying statistical differences among groups should have zero effect on public policy. If you think it should, you are a collectivist, not an individualist. Or to put it another way, you are a leftist.
This is related: The analysis of Integrated Assessment Models create a trillion-dollar error. I’m glad that Nic Lewis does analyses like this (not sure how he’s funded), even if it has to be published at Judith Curry’s blog, instead of the journals.
Related: Winter is coming.
Again, this is a scientifically legitimate, but completely politically incorrect view.
Socrates, who was executed for “corrupting the youth” of Greece
He was the teacher of the Thirty Tyrants. Not your average youths here. It’s hard to think of a government more abhorrent. Not only Tyrants but Quislings working for Sparta who practiced wholesale slaughter of fellow Athenians. His apologist Plato himself conceived the ideal government in “The Republic” as a relabeled tyranny (as his student proved in Syracuse). It seems there is a pattern here.
I think it is a loss for humanity that we don’t use the random lots scheme of Athenian democracy more often. Probably one of the few examples left in the US system is jury duty. Heck a Magic 8 Ball would give better decisions than our duly elected representatives on a wide range of issues.
I am against racial profiling for purposes of segregation as matter of principle. So yes I am against funding such medical research. It is one thing to research aspects required to heal sickness it is quite another to carry out research that is quite likely to be abused for implementing euthanasia and the ilk.
It’s a fine idea to say it shouldn’t be used to set policy as a principle but it seems like the beginning of a slippery slope to me. What was that mantra? Think no evil, say no evil, do no evil.
I had a barrel of fun last week as I heard in the news we had the hottest month with “X” more degrees than in the 1950-1980s. It seemed like… an interesting way of defining “hottest” considering we are in 2016. The time interval from 1980 to today is almost as long. Lying with statistics at its best.
Yeah, and we should ignore sickle cell anemia.
The first link doesn’t appear to work, and to be clear, I went to acsh.org, and clicked their link (which is exactly like Rand’s) and it didn’t work. Perhaps political correctness spiked the article?
Whatever the case, here is a link to a google cache of another website that fully quoted the article (as the google and bing cache of the acsh.org link exists yet doesn’t have the article).
There is a strong resemblance between the IQ and AGW controversies.
On the one hand, there are theoretical and empirical reasons to believe group differences in measured IQ are both genetic and important and there are also theoretical and empirical reasons to believe global warming is both anthropogenic and significantly deleterious. On the other hand, there were theoretical and empirical reasons to believe similar ideas in the past (for both sides) that turned out not be the case. In addition, some of the most fervent advocates for both claims are would-be totalitarians, which makes adopting the ideas much riskier than skepticism.
“On the one hand, there are theoretical and empirical reasons to believe group differences in measured IQ are both genetic and important and there are also theoretical and empirical reasons to believe global warming is both anthropogenic and significantly deleterious.”
The problem, generally, is extrapolation beyond the range of validity based on preconceived biases.
AGW is based on extrapolation of simplistic lab experiments in a controlled and narrowly focused setting. But, the results do not necessarily hold in the uncontrolled setting of a massively complex system with a plethora of confounding forcings and feedbacks.
And, the information that one or another ethnic group may have a different mean level of intelligence at the present time is extrapolated to say that all members of that group are so endowed, always and forevermore. I’ve known some very smart, and very dumb, members of just about every ethnic group. You have to judge based on the individual.
People are all individuals and people are all different. What are the chances that any two groups of people are exactly the same? Somewhere between zero and none.
Truth must trump any other consideration. That people spin truth for their own immoral purposes is just another truth.
FWIW, Socrates was a moral, not a natural philosopher. Although Plato does have him say that he studied Natural Philosophy when he was young, he abandoned that for other fields. It was his moral and political teachings, not anything he ever did in the natural sphere, that got him in trouble.
“I’d add that, as I’ve long said, the results of studying statistical differences among groups should have zero effect on public policy.”
Oh, they should. If there is even a suggestion that something like IQ score differs between groups, then any kind of Affirmative Action based on equality of outcomes becomes ridiculous.
Of course, you may feel that it’s ridiculous anyhow…
Let the truth be known, though the Heavens fall.