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touleieron Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

Yes, you are therefore a member of a well-defined breeding population (deme) and that membership gives us useful information immediately. Not only do you have a greater chance of getting certain diseases, your group also has higher intelligence, with a mean almost a standard deviation higher than gentiles. If race was arbitrary it would not give us predictive validity of that kind.

touleieron Diamonds Suck (2006)

Oh dear. We are constantly subjected to this sort of scolding in the name of some political ideology (in this case, 'wimmin'). Diamonds are exactly about signaling, as is an Ivy League education. Attributing useful properties to either only confuses the signal, which is purest when there is absolutely no utility. Since Ivy League schools pre-select, it is not hard to show that they add no value in and of themselves, apart from fleecing the recipients in exchange for safe spaces.

touleieron Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

If you don't know the details, that is easily remedied by reading the CBS Report, which I linked to. It is free. I followed this controversy at the time, and it is very revealing precisely in those details, which I read in full as soon as it came out. Rather was guilty of assisting fraud in the service of a cause, no other conclusion is reasonable. That certainly disqualifies him as a serious commentator going forward. Trust matters. Yet now he is being resurrected to lecture us about science.

touleieron Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

"suggests ignorance" == ad hominem. Rather is a discredited hack. Get a clue.

touleieron Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

Science is a "social construct". As is anything else we talk about. Try telling someone with sickle-cell anemia that race is just a social construct.

touleieron Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

By the same token, there are hordes of Americans who affect a belief that there are no races, and think any attempt to apply Darwinism to human nature is the quintessence of evil. Liberal Creationists.

touleieron Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

Taking Dan Rather's advice on a responsible attitude to science is like going to Bill Cosby for dating advice, or asking Rolf Harris to run your kindergarten. Booted from CBS in disgrace for confusing journalism with character assassination. Read the original CBS report. "This man is a truth teller". Indeed. Here is the full report.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/complete_report/CBS_Report...