Of course not, that would be too easy. He does, at some point, explicitly acknowledge that environmental effects exist and are “very important”. And then he proceeds to do nothing with those effects. If you admit that a factor is very important, but then arrive at the same conclusions as someone who believes that the factor has 0 effect, that is still a problem.
I imagine the thinking goes like this. He observes that there are relevant factors X, Y, Z. He notices that Z has a lot of uncertainty, or is hard to work with, or ect. Then he decides that he will look at X and Y in isolation. And then he assumes that whatever conclusions X, Y have lead him to, actually have some bearing on the real world. Depending on Z this may or may not be the case. If it happens that Z really is 0, then you arrive at the correct conclusion, but even then, the path you took to get there is still wrong.
Of course, all of this is very hard to talk about when nobody gives their actual probability estimates (and giving probability estimates is also very hard). In particular this is because the value of P(“inferior genes”) doesn’t seem central to Harris. There is a good chance that I’m misreading him and that his estimate of P(“inferior genes”) is not as high as I assume it to be, and that he really is honestly updating on the environmental differences.
Still, the claim that Harris is making an error seems more likely to me. At least now you better understand what error I’m accusing him of? (By the way, I’m also accusing him of the error pointed out by RamblinDash, but didn’t want to duplicate it).
Of course not, that would be too easy. He does, at some point, explicitly acknowledge that environmental effects exist and are “very important”. And then he proceeds to do nothing with those effects. If you admit that a factor is very important, but then arrive at the same conclusions as someone who believes that the factor has 0 effect, that is still a problem.
I imagine the thinking goes like this. He observes that there are relevant factors X, Y, Z. He notices that Z has a lot of uncertainty, or is hard to work with, or ect. Then he decides that he will look at X and Y in isolation. And then he assumes that whatever conclusions X, Y have lead him to, actually have some bearing on the real world. Depending on Z this may or may not be the case. If it happens that Z really is 0, then you arrive at the correct conclusion, but even then, the path you took to get there is still wrong.
Of course, all of this is very hard to talk about when nobody gives their actual probability estimates (and giving probability estimates is also very hard). In particular this is because the value of P(“inferior genes”) doesn’t seem central to Harris. There is a good chance that I’m misreading him and that his estimate of P(“inferior genes”) is not as high as I assume it to be, and that he really is honestly updating on the environmental differences.
Still, the claim that Harris is making an error seems more likely to me. At least now you better understand what error I’m accusing him of? (By the way, I’m also accusing him of the error pointed out by RamblinDash, but didn’t want to duplicate it).