In which ESR proudly defends racism by use of statistical analysis.

  4. Did you finish the article believing that John Derbyshire
  (the author) is a racist?

Well of course I did. John Derbyshire is an admitted and self-proclaimed racist[1]:

  I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a
  racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and
  those things are going to be illegal pretty soon, the
  way we are going.

I'm not sure if I agree with Derbyshire on the "mildness" of his racism, but I certainly agree with him on its existence. And there was nothing in his latest writings to make me change my mind, so of course I finished the article believe that Derbyshire is a racist.

To be fair to Derbyshire, he claims that by "racist" he merely means that "race is real, and important", but that he takes individual people as they come, and does not support public discrimination. (I suspect some people will be sceptical of that claim.) But he also says straight up that Chinese tend to be smarter than whites, and whites smarter than blacks, and he clearly intends this as a reference to genetic baselines. That is racist by almost any definition, and his latest work is firmly racist, and I imagine even people unfamiliar with Derbyshire would read his latest article and conclude that he was, in fact, a racist.

So, frankly, I think ESR is quite wrong (but not as wrong as the submitter who edited the title to be misleading, incorrect, and inflamatory).

(Also, I hesitate to mention this, but: There probably is a need for a meaningful discussion about race in America, and no, the shocked outrage at Derbyshire's latest racist screed is not it. There are some incredibly scary statistical differences in outcomes between ethnic groups. For example, it's quite clear that African-Americans are murdered at an incredibly high rate compared to other ethnic groups. Is it racist to note this and suggest that something needs to be done? Gah.)

[1]: http://collectedmiscellany.com/2003/11/an-interview-with-joh...

> 5. Do you believe I am a racist for having asked the previous four questions?

Can you change the title to the original? If HN is going to have any sane discussion on this (unlikely, but incredibly unlikely given the current title's priming effects), it needs to be changed. Though I guess I wouldn't mind seeing it flagged to oblivion.

Sad. ESR should stick to his core competencies: writing about open source software.

Statistical analysis does not rule out logical fallacies.