I am inclined to agree, except that rather than “confused or racist” I would say “confused or strongly influenced by prior prejudices”, and note that one can have prior prejudices against racial IQ differences as well as for them. That is, if someone declares confidently that of course there are no differences between races in mental qualities, that’s evidence of bad thinking for all the same reasons as if they declare confidently that there are such differences.
A prior prejudice against racial brainpower differences is much nicer than a prior prejudice in favour of such differences, and probably people with the former kind of prejudice are mostly better people than ones with the latter kind, but letting either induce confident strong opinions about race-and-intelligence is the same kind of mistake.
I am inclined to agree, except that rather than “confused or racist” I would say “confused or strongly influenced by prior prejudices”, and note that one can have prior prejudices against racial IQ differences as well as for them. That is, if someone declares confidently that of course there are no differences between races in mental qualities, that’s evidence of bad thinking for all the same reasons as if they declare confidently that there are such differences.
A prior prejudice against racial brainpower differences is much nicer than a prior prejudice in favour of such differences, and probably people with the former kind of prejudice are mostly better people than ones with the latter kind, but letting either induce confident strong opinions about race-and-intelligence is the same kind of mistake.
Why so? Certainly one is much more socially acceptable than the other, but that’s not the usual definition of “nice”.
Is a “prior prejudice” against, say, sex differences in upper body strength “much nicer” than a prior prejudice in favour?