Tabula rasa, or science denial of the left

[Darussalam]

I have provided plenty of sources throughout the thread. Even then, no it's not.

Just claiming "I'm not trolling" doesn't magically make it true.

Feel free to report it if you think it is trolling.

[Bombadil]

I think there is historical context for the distaste of such studies. Perhaps the studies themselves are genuinely undertaken by behavioural scientists and/or the like. Yet more often than not they're used to justify opinions that precede the data. Even The Bell Curve was filled with caveats, regardless of the issues within, about the conclusions but the debate was very much misused on both sides.

It's a bit like polling data, there's variances but people focus on the hard figure. So Brexit, for example, was 52-48 but with enough statistical variance to make it either way. Same with these studies, there's all sorts of caveats yet people jump on the conclusion that fits their agenda.

I don't know that people demand to shut down these studies so much as argue as to the conclusions formed by people with a prior belief.

You can say that for literally every scientific research ever. Generally, ideologically motivated results will reveal themselves - it is hard to replicate them. And indeed social sciences seem to be plagued by replication problems. Hereditarian results, meanwhile, tend to be fairly robust.

Speakers have been shut down from college campuses for this.

Not really, sociological and behavioural studies are particularly prone to misuse given they inherently categorise by race, sex, age and etc and so are seized upon for discriminatory conclusions.

[Jakker]

So? That doesn't discount their achievement.

SAT-V and SAT-M.

Why would this qualify as trolling?

Because spouting a load of unsourced thinly veiled racism and expecting everyone to prove you wrong is normally considered to be trolling.

If there is concern that trolling is occurring, feel free to report it in moderation.

[Conserative Morality]

Excuse me, OP, but are you trying to "subtly" peddle "race realism" or some shit? Because unless you are gonna specify a bit more, your bloggy as fuck opening post reeks of dog-whistling.

"Subtly"

You are very generous.

[Caracasus]

Excuse me, OP, but are you trying to "subtly" peddle "race realism" or some shit? Because unless you are gonna specify a bit more, your bloggy as fuck opening post reeks of dog-whistling.

"Subtly"

You are very generous.

OP was non ironically arguing that South Africa and Zimbabwe were better off under colonial rule in another thread. I think this entire thing falls under "stuff there's no point arguing" to be honest. It's like a racist flavour of moon landing hoax or loch ness monster.

Going by the other thread, what this poster is doing is creating a nonsense strawman "leftist" position and then inferring their own racist and clearly nonsense opinion. That way, it appears as if people arguing with them are supporting the aforementioned nonsense strawman.

[Vassenor]

"Subtly"

You are very generous.

OP was non ironically arguing that South Africa and Zimbabwe were better off under colonial rule in another thread. I think this entire thing falls under "stuff there's no point arguing" to be honest. It's like a racist flavour of moon landing hoax or loch ness monster.

Going by the other thread, what this poster is doing is creating a nonsense strawman "leftist" position and then inferring their own racist and clearly nonsense opinion. That way, it appears as if people arguing with them are supporting the aforementioned nonsense strawman.

So race realism in a nutshell then.

[USS Monitor]

OP was non ironically arguing that South Africa and Zimbabwe were better off under colonial rule in another thread. I think this entire thing falls under "stuff there's no point arguing" to be honest. It's like a racist flavour of moon landing hoax or loch ness monster.

Going by the other thread, what this poster is doing is creating a nonsense strawman "leftist" position and then inferring their own racist and clearly nonsense opinion. That way, it appears as if people arguing with them are supporting the aforementioned nonsense strawman.

So race realism in a nutshell then.

I think you need some scare quotes there, since it's not actually realism, but otherwise yes.

[Caracasus]

So race realism in a nutshell then.

I think you need some scare quotes there, since it's not actually realism, but otherwise yes.

About the only way you can peddle that kind of bullshit these days is by manipulating the discussion so to the casual observer it looks like you're struggling against an unreasonable opposition (see the strawman position posited in the OP of both this thread and the colonialism one) and then present some very carefully cherry picked info utterly devoid of context.

[Darussalam]

"Subtly"

You are very generous.

OP was non ironically arguing that South Africa and Zimbabwe were better off under colonial rule in another thread. I think this entire thing falls under "stuff there's no point arguing" to be honest. It's like a racist flavour of moon landing hoax or loch ness monster.

Going by the other thread, what this poster is doing is creating a nonsense strawman "leftist" position and then inferring their own racist and clearly nonsense opinion. That way, it appears as if people arguing with them are supporting the aforementioned nonsense strawman.

...what strawman? The reaction in this thread is exactly like what is being described in the OP.

[Conserative Morality]

OP was non ironically arguing that South Africa and Zimbabwe were better off under colonial rule in another thread. I think this entire thing falls under "stuff there's no point arguing" to be honest. It's like a racist flavour of moon landing hoax or loch ness monster.

Going by the other thread, what this poster is doing is creating a nonsense strawman "leftist" position and then inferring their own racist and clearly nonsense opinion. That way, it appears as if people arguing with them are supporting the aforementioned nonsense strawman.

"Going by the other thread?"

You can't address the argument X presented here, so you attack the author because of argument Y elsewhere.

Bad form. Lots of attacking the poster and not his argument here. That's weak.

Burn the heretic lol

Anything to present the poor widdle racists as the oppressed minority. =^^^^(

[Caracasus]

OP was non ironically arguing that South Africa and Zimbabwe were better off under colonial rule in another thread. I think this entire thing falls under "stuff there's no point arguing" to be honest. It's like a racist flavour of moon landing hoax or loch ness monster.

Going by the other thread, what this poster is doing is creating a nonsense strawman "leftist" position and then inferring their own racist and clearly nonsense opinion. That way, it appears as if people arguing with them are supporting the aforementioned nonsense strawman.

"Going by the other thread?"

You can't address the argument X presented here, so you attack the author because of argument Y elsewhere.

Bad form. Lots of attacking the poster and not his argument here. That's weak.

Burn the heretic lol

Not really, more like don't let someone with a track record of arguing dishonestly set the conditions for a debate. Once someone starts seriously suggesting "race realism" it's an indicator that they're talking out of their arse, which is why there's all this bullshit window dressing. I'd no more engage with that as a serious debate than I would engage with someone who insisted the moon landings were faked or that the Loch Ness monster was real. There's no point when someone is clearly deluded or outright lying. It's why I didn't bother posting in the other thread and engaging when it became apparent it was thinly veiled Apartheid apologia. Here I am simply pointing out the dishonest strategy the OP is using and has used previously.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

At first I thought this was going to be a fair criticism of the lefts version of anti science. Being the rejection of GMO's,the anti vaxxers on the left, the people who think crystals can heal, ect.

But no, it's just some random bullshit. Tabula rasa is fine and not anti science.

[Darussalam]

So race realism in a nutshell then.

Maybe. It's not "trolling", at the very least.

Anything to present the poor widdle racists as the oppressed minority. =^^^^(

You might lack sympathy to people who are actively, irrationally prejudiced against other races and worked to undermine them. I'm not blaming you for that, and it is quite reasonable to see why it's ridiculous to designate them as an oppressed minority. But it is no reason to shame and belittle all individuals who happen to arrive at ""racial realist"" conclusion, let alone hereditarian conclusion. Is Steven Pinker a racist to be shamed? Pinker is a Whig prophet so he got off easy, but I don't think it's far-fetched to say that people who merely present empirical evidences with potential hereditarian or racialist implication aren't exactly being tolerated, let alone being engaged with, let alone being paraded around like the blank-slate fraudster that was Stephen Jay Gould.

[Darussalam]

Not really, more like don't let someone with a track record of arguing dishonestly set the conditions for a debate. Once someone starts seriously suggesting "race realism" it's an indicator that they're talking out of their arse, which is why there's all this bullshit window dressing. I'd no more engage with that as a serious debate than I would engage with someone who insisted the moon landings were faked or that the Loch Ness monster was real. There's no point when someone is clearly deluded or outright lying. It's why I didn't bother posting in the other thread and engaging when it became apparent it was thinly veiled Apartheid apologia. Here I am simply pointing out the dishonest strategy the OP is using and has used previously.

Do point out where I am being dishonest in this thread. My impression is that this has nothing to do with dishonesty and more you don't like the direction I'm heading my arguments to. And that's fine - just don't call it "dishonesty".

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Hiding behind a newly created puppet in a debate seems like bad form to me.

[Kilobugya]

Hrm, I'm not sure you're aware, but Marx defined Communism as "from everyone according to his abilities, to everyone according to his needs". The "left" never pretended that people don't have different abilities and needs, quite the opposite. The Declaration of Human Rights says "people are born equal _in dignity and in rights_". The whole purpose of the left is actually making that true - that people have the same (real, actual) rights, to a decent life, to education, to healthcare, to freedom of movement and speech, to ... _despite_ not necessarily being completely equal in term of biology (from disabilities to just minor variations in health, strength, senses, or various part intellect).

The "tabula rasa", the "blank state" only applies to more high-level phenomena, such people people not being born as thieves or rapists or murderers, but their life history, their education, their family environment, the society they grew up in, ... being the main factor behind those. And if anything science is on the side of left here. What do many sicentists consider the decision taken in the 20st century in the US that contributed the most to the reduction of crime ? The ban on lead in paints and fuels. Because lead is a poison that damages the brain and increases aggressiveness. That's the kind of things the "blank state" refers to - external conditions affecting what people become and how they act, and that as a society we should focus on affecting those conditions (granting everyone a clean, sane environment to grow in, free from pollution but also from exploitation, alienation, violence, misery, bullying, discrimination, ...) rather than on things like punishing the "bad persons".

[Conserative Morality]

So race realism in a nutshell then.

Maybe. It's not "trolling", at the very least.

Anything to present the poor widdle racists as the oppressed minority. =^^^^(

You might lack sympathy to people who are actively, irrationally prejudiced against other races and worked to undermine them. I'm not blaming you for that, and it is quite reasonable to see why it's ridiculous to designate them as an oppressed minority. But it is no reason to shame and belittle all individuals who happen to arrive at ""racial realist"" conclusion, let alone hereditarian conclusion.

It absolutely is.

Is Steven Pinker a racist to be shamed?

Considering that Pinker is infamous for his lack of rigor and constant misuse of data? I don't know about racist, but certainly to be shamed.

Pinker is a Whig prophet so he got off easy, but I don't think it's far-fetched to say that people who merely present empirical evidences with potential hereditarian or racialist implication aren't exactly being tolerated, let alone being engaged with, let alone being paraded around like the blank-slate fraudster that was Stephen Jay Gould.

Good.

[Caracasus]

Not really, more like don't let someone with a track record of arguing dishonestly set the conditions for a debate. Once someone starts seriously suggesting "race realism" it's an indicator that they're talking out of their arse, which is why there's all this bullshit window dressing. I'd no more engage with that as a serious debate than I would engage with someone who insisted the moon landings were faked or that the Loch Ness monster was real. There's no point when someone is clearly deluded or outright lying. It's why I didn't bother posting in the other thread and engaging when it became apparent it was thinly veiled Apartheid apologia. Here I am simply pointing out the dishonest strategy the OP is using and has used previously.

You're still attacking the poster and not his argument. Considering the OP indicts the left as having anti-science, quasi-religious bias against facts that do not conform to their beliefs, your reactions to the OP is just more "see I told ya" fuel.

Got you lynching a tarbaby, and when the fight's over, you're still covered in tar.

Horseshit mate. You realise that logical fallacies aren't some sort of trump card you can pull out your arse when you find yourself on the losing side, right? In this instance the OP's form of creating these kinds of posts to veil the utter ludicrousness of their argument is relevant. OP argues dishonestly and dresses up their bullshit in an attempt to frame anyone disagreeing with them as agreeing with a strawman point because that's literally the only way they can seem to win, they've got form in the past for doing so and they're doing so here.

[Darussalam]

Hrm, I'm not sure you're aware, but Marx defined Communism as "from everyone according to his abilities, to everyone according to his needs". The "left" never pretended that people don't have different abilities and needs, quite the opposite. The Declaration of Human Rights says "people are born equal _in dignity and in rights_". The whole purpose of the left is actually making that true - that people have the same (real, actual) rights, to a decent life, to education, to healthcare, to freedom of movement and speech, to ... _despite_ not necessarily being completely equal in term of biology (from disabilities to just minor variations in health, strength, senses, or various part intellect).

I never said that leftism is incompatible with inegalitarian hereditarianism. But the recent leftist trend does not even accept the possibility of inegalitarian hereditarianism. It's not just leaving the progressives' obsession with eugenics in 20th Century, it goes even farther.

The "tabula rasa", the "blank state" only applies to more high-level phenomena, such people people not being born as thieves or rapists or murderers, but their life history, their education, their family environment, the society they grew up in, ... being the main factor behind those. And if anything science is on the side of left here.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10 ... 1501300114
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/ ... story.html
...Maybe.

What do many sicentists consider the decision taken in the 20st century in the US that contributed the most to the reduction of crime ? The ban on lead in paints and fuels. Because lead is a poison that damages the brain and increases aggressiveness. That's the kind of things the "blank state" refers to - external conditions affecting what people become and how they act, and that as a society we should focus on affecting those conditions (granting everyone a clean, sane environment to grow in, free from pollution but also from exploitation, alienation, violence, misery, bullying, discrimination, ...) rather than on things like punishing the "bad persons".

True. On the other hand, Stolen Generations - an attempt to improve certain individuals by improving their environment, failed. There is still a large disparity in cognitive ability between median African-American and a median American even as living standard is converging. Many attempts at social reform that do not account for biology fail.

It absolutely is.

And why is that?

Considering that Pinker is infamous for his lack of rigor and constant misuse of data? I don't know about racist, but certainly to be shamed.

I don't know. If Sokal Squared is any indication, he's certainly more rigorous than most in the social sciences field. Anyway, I'm not talking about his Whiggery - his "the world has gotten better" nonsense, which is the focus of media attention.

Good.

Even if they're actually correct?

[Conserative Morality]

And why is that?

I wouldn't expect a racist to understand.

[Kyrinasaj]

Kind of a stretch to peddle one entire flank as science deniers because of ''race realism'' which by the way the majority of the modern ''right'' doesn't believe in either. It's just a select group of the right that believes in it and want to base policy around it.

And most right-wingers would be opposed to social darwinism, which you seem to be advocating for

[Page]

If you gathered a group of white people, a group of black people, a group of Asians, a group of Arabs, a group of Latinos, etc. and measured the intelligence of each group, put out the mean or median figures, there would be some difference. It's a statistical inevitability that there won't be exactly equal figures from each sample group. That does not prove that one race is more intelligent than the other. And if you repeat the experiment with brand new sample groups each time, do you have reason to expect that you'd consistently get the same results with each race ranking where it did before?

Anyone who claims to think scientifically should know that: 1) The smaller a sample is, the less accurately representative it is, widening the margin of error and 2) Uncontrolled variables can affect the results

With human beings, there is no feasible way to get a sample big enough to be representative, and there are too many variables to count. How will you control for the amount of education one has received? How will you control for environmental factors which may have impacted the development of some of your samples? How will control for the fact that some humans are experienced in taking whatever kind of test you might give them while others wouldn't be? How will you control for language and dialect differences when interviewing or testing these subjects? How will you control for socioeconomic circumstances?

It is not that all ethnic groups are of exactly equal intelligence, it is that claiming one ethnic group is more or less intelligent than another is unfalsifiable, and therefore falls under the category of "not even wrong." A study on the intelligence of different ethnic groups can be done, but the sample is so small relative to the entire human population and the uncontrolled variables beyond count; your results would be statistically meaningless.

As for measuring factors of men and women, much of what I said above applies. We do know that men and women have distinct differences of hormones and there may even be differences of brain structure - but that alone does not back any sort of hypothesis of one sex being superior to the other or that one sex is better suited to a certain role. No one is literally identical and no one is claiming so. We reject hypotheses of racial or sex superiority because these hypotheses have either been proven wrong or are unfalsifiable.

[Caracasus]

Kind of a stretch to peddle one entire flank as science deniers because of ''race realism'' which by the way the majority of the modern ''right'' doesn't believe in either. It's just a select group of the right that believes in it and want to base policy around it.

And most right-wingers would be opposed to social darwinism, which you seem to be advocating for

It's a trick to paint one side in a negative light. Everyone knows race realism is bullshit, so if the OP can create a very silly strawman argument opposing it, then anyone opposing race realism by default will appear to be defending the other side. It's been done before very recently by the OP in another thread.

[LiberNovusAmericae]

deleted.

[Bombadil]

True. On the other hand, Stolen Generations - an attempt to improve certain individuals by improving their environment, failed. There is still a large disparity in cognitive ability between median African-American and a median American even as living standard is converging. Many attempts at social reform that do not account for biology fail.

Jesus fucking christ.. you think ripping a half caste child from its family as something to be improved by placing it in a perceived better white family doesn't invoke a degree of trauma..