So of course Robin Hanson offered polls on these so-called taboo topics. The ‘controversial’ positions got overwhelming support. The tenth question, whether demographic diversity (race, gender) in the workplace often leads to worse performance got affirmed 54%-17%, and the rest were a lot less close than that. Three were roughly 90%-1%. I realize Hanson has unusual followers, but the ‘taboo questions’ academics want to discuss? People largely agree on the answers, and the academics have decided saying that answer out loud is not permitted.
I understand criticizing the censorship of controversial research, but to suggest that these questions aren’t actually controversial or taboo outside of academia is absurd to me. People largely agree that “Genetic differences explain non-trivial (10% or more) variance in race differences in intelligence test scores”? Even a politician in a deeply conservative district wouldn’t dare say that and risk scaring off his constituents.
It seems like this is a place where “controversial” and “taboo” diverge in meaning. The politician would notice that the sentence was about a taboo topic and bounce off, but that’s probably totally unconnected to whether or not it would be controversial among people who know anything about genetics or intelligence and are actually expressing a belief. For example, they would bounce off regardless of whether the number in the sentence was 1%, 50%, or 90%.
I understand criticizing the censorship of controversial research, but to suggest that these questions aren’t actually controversial or taboo outside of academia is absurd to me. People largely agree that “Genetic differences explain non-trivial (10% or more) variance in race differences in intelligence test scores”? Even a politician in a deeply conservative district wouldn’t dare say that and risk scaring off his constituents.
It seems like this is a place where “controversial” and “taboo” diverge in meaning. The politician would notice that the sentence was about a taboo topic and bounce off, but that’s probably totally unconnected to whether or not it would be controversial among people who know anything about genetics or intelligence and are actually expressing a belief. For example, they would bounce off regardless of whether the number in the sentence was 1%, 50%, or 90%.