Academics’ Mobbing of a Young Scholar Must Be Denounced | Hacker News Reader

Academics’ Mobbing of a Young Scholar Must Be Denounced

quillette.com

18 pointsandrenth13 comments

Wow, I shouldn't be surprised when I keep seeing this debate pop back up. This is what I imagine goes through these peoples heads when they make these claims.

> Why do people get upset when I claim people from minority/marginalized communities are less intelligent on a genetic basis. I'm just bringing it up because it does damage to our society when we don't realize that our current hierarchies are not based in empirical evidence. So maybe we should cut social programs. Just to be clear, I am not a racist and am not claiming that any individual of any race is less intelligent than another... But I feel really strongly about race science and I'm so brave for standing up to these SJW's and having a necessary conversation.

Also having read https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-018-0152-x#..., this individual is trash. No mention of strong opposing arguments (Nisbitt, Turkheimer, etc..) He did mention Flynn. However, he did so in the weirdest way possible.

> "Note that there is nothing in science which rules this possibility out (Flynn, 2017)."

Seriously Noah...

Also the section where he talks about "The Pernicious Implications of the Blank Slate" there is a really strange straw man about Mao. He picks a quote from Mao about how kids are impressionable. He seems to have this idea that if we don't pursue un-contextualized race science that it will lead to genocide.

At the end of the day, all you need to do is ask why academics like Carl are interested in intelligence science as it pertains to race. It's not like there isn't other topics within the study of intelligence. They approach this stuff with a limited view of history and a smell of racial animus. The problem is not the topic, people study IQ between races regularly. The problem is the grandstanding that this science is important and ignored at our own peril. There is a lot more work to do on the study of intelligence. They still don't know why it has been rising; it has risen more than any gap between races in the past 50 years. The idea that the racial IQ gap, which has been closing for decades, should be used as a justification for cutting social programs is fucked up. Seriously, when you ask these people why the IQ gap matters that's the only actionable thing I have ever heard come out of this conversation. Every time this comes up my blood boils as some white academic complains about PC culture, while at the same time they can get paid boatloads of money by conservative think tank for having their super "edgy" ideas.

Glanced at that link, and not spotting any reason to regard this person as "trash" (if indeed there ever is one).

What are they saying here that is objectionable, and what is your rebuttal?

So you think that if we don't promote science that studies the heritability of intelligence as it pertains to race, it will lead to genocide?

I can't prove it empirically but evidence suggests Noah Carl is trash; cultural items, ideas, or objects of poor quality. Note, there is nothing in the science that rules this out. But it is clear Noah Carl has a keen interest in race IQ science. But take a look at his cv (https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/204775...) that's not all he is interested in.

> A global analysis of Islamist violence > Net opposition to immigrants of different nationalities correlates strongly with their arrest rates in the UK

Hmmm, I wonder why it's so important to Noah to establish a heritable basis for IQ. It's hard to look at Carl's work in good faith and not see that he might not be the best voice on the historically troubled subject of the heritability of IQ and race.

I feel it irresponsible to investigate the topic without a sense of caution. It's hard to understate how horrifying the effects of scientific racism have been in the past century alone. Based on his viewpoint and lack of attention to environment factors, it seems likely Carl is trying to weaponize the topic against other groups of people. IQ science is barely ready to be used in the policy arena. Heritable differences between races can be an interesting topic. But the people, like Carl, who are constantly drawn to the heritability of IQ between races have to be viewed with a high degree of suspicion.

I would consider anyone trying to defend "The Bell Curve" as academically suspect. The book is demonstrably untenable nonsense.

Plus I'd take anything on Quillette with a huge pinch of salt - any publication that employs Toby Young and pimps Jordan Peterson has an obvious agenda.

Perhaps if you have a specific concern, you could share that instead of attempting a guilty by association attack.

> attempting a guilty by association attack

Just highlighting the bias of a publication which may colour its articles about things like "academic freedom" in ways that are less than based in reality and more in ideology. Any feelings of guilt by association is purely down to readers themselves.

there is nothing wrong with jordan peterson afaik

He's an alt-lite grifting provocateur (if not outright alt-right given the company he keeps like Tucker Carlson et al) just like Milo tied to a shocking flimsy grasp of biology (his lobster theory is biological bullshit).

What is Jordan Peterson's lobster theory?

> Peterson argues that, like humans, lobsters exist in hierarchies and have a nervous system attuned to status which “runs on serotonin” (a brain chemical often associated with feelings of happiness). According to Peterson, hierarchies in humans work in a similar way – we are wired to live in them.

It's easy to find many competent biologists who will point out the quite glaring differences between lobsters and humans, especially when it comes to brain chemistry.

Peterson is well aware of the differences in brain chemistry between lobsters and humans, but this difference is not incompatible with the claim that hierarchies have existed well before human societies, and that serotonin levels correspond to the position in that hierarchy for both lobsters and humans. If you can find a biologist to refute this, then your argument would have merit.

Where exactly did this guy defend The Bell Curve? Google doesn’t provide any sources.

The article gives the most immediate one - it says "Dr Carl’s crime is that he has defended intelligence researchers who’ve written about the taboo topics of race, genes and IQ" which is linked to https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-018-0152-x which defends Murray.

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