With bigotry, I think the real problem is confirmation bias. If I believe, for example, that orange-eyed people have an average IQ of only 99, and that’s true, then when I talk to orange-eyed people, that belief will prime me to notice more of their faults. This would cause me to systematically underestimate the intelligence of orange-eyed people I met, probably by much more than 1 IQ point. This is especially likely because I get to observe eye color from a distance, before I have any real evidence to go on.
In fact, for the priming effect, in most people the magnitude of the real statistical correlation doesn’t matter at all. Hence the resistance to acknowledging even tiny, well-proven differences between races and genders: they produce differences in perception that are not necessarily on the same order of magnitude as the differences in reality.
This is exactly the crux of the argument. When people say that everyone should be taught that people are the same regardless of gender or race, what they really mean isn’t that there aren’t differences on average between women and men, etc, but that being taught about those small differences will cause enough people to significantly overshoot via confirmation bias that it will overall lead to more misjudgments of individuals than if people weren’t taught about those small differences at all, hence people shouldn’t be taught about those small differences. I am hesitantly sympathetic to this view; it is borne out in many of the everyday interactions I observe, including those involving highly intelligent aspiring rationalists.
This doesn’t mean we should stop researching gender or race differences, but that we should simultaneously research the effects of people learning about this research: how big are the differences in the perception vs the reality of those differences? Are they big enough that anyone being taught about gender and race differences should also be taught about of the risk of them systematically misjudging many individuals because of their knowledge, and warned to remain vigilant against confirmation bias? When individuals are told to remain vigilant, do they still overshoot to an extent that they become less accurate in judging people than they were before they obtained this knowledge? I would have a much better idea how to proceed both as a society and as an individual seeking to maximize my accuracy in judging people after finding out the answer to these questions.
Those are real and important effects (that should probably have been included in the original post).
A problem with avoiding knowledge that could lead you to discriminate is that it makes it hard to judge some situations—did James Watson, Larry Summers and Stephanie Grace deserve a public shaming?
Stephanie Grace, definitely not, she was sharing thoughts privately.
Summers? Not for sexism, he seemed honest and sincere in a desire to clarify issues and reach truth, but he displayed stupidity and gullibility which should be cause for shame in his position at Harvard, and to some degree as a broad social scientist and policy adviser, though not as an economic theorist narrowly construed.
Watson, probably. He said something overtly and exageratedly negative, said it publicly and needlessly, and has a specific public prestige which makes his words more influential. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t focus on some other issue and public shame of this sort might reduce such unfortunate occurrences in the future.
I wasn’t really looking for answers to that question, I was trying to say that if we avoid “dangerous information” (to avoid confirmation bias, etc.), and encourage others to avoid it too, we’re making it harder to answer questions like that.
With bigotry, I think the real problem is confirmation bias. If I believe, for example, that orange-eyed people have an average IQ of only 99, and that’s true, then when I talk to orange-eyed people, that belief will prime me to notice more of their faults. This would cause me to systematically underestimate the intelligence of orange-eyed people I met, probably by much more than 1 IQ point. This is especially likely because I get to observe eye color from a distance, before I have any real evidence to go on.
In fact, for the priming effect, in most people the magnitude of the real statistical correlation doesn’t matter at all. Hence the resistance to acknowledging even tiny, well-proven differences between races and genders: they produce differences in perception that are not necessarily on the same order of magnitude as the differences in reality.
This is exactly the crux of the argument. When people say that everyone should be taught that people are the same regardless of gender or race, what they really mean isn’t that there aren’t differences on average between women and men, etc, but that being taught about those small differences will cause enough people to significantly overshoot via confirmation bias that it will overall lead to more misjudgments of individuals than if people weren’t taught about those small differences at all, hence people shouldn’t be taught about those small differences. I am hesitantly sympathetic to this view; it is borne out in many of the everyday interactions I observe, including those involving highly intelligent aspiring rationalists.
This doesn’t mean we should stop researching gender or race differences, but that we should simultaneously research the effects of people learning about this research: how big are the differences in the perception vs the reality of those differences? Are they big enough that anyone being taught about gender and race differences should also be taught about of the risk of them systematically misjudging many individuals because of their knowledge, and warned to remain vigilant against confirmation bias? When individuals are told to remain vigilant, do they still overshoot to an extent that they become less accurate in judging people than they were before they obtained this knowledge? I would have a much better idea how to proceed both as a society and as an individual seeking to maximize my accuracy in judging people after finding out the answer to these questions.
Those are real and important effects (that should probably have been included in the original post).
A problem with avoiding knowledge that could lead you to discriminate is that it makes it hard to judge some situations—did James Watson, Larry Summers and Stephanie Grace deserve a public shaming?
Stephanie Grace, definitely not, she was sharing thoughts privately.
Summers? Not for sexism, he seemed honest and sincere in a desire to clarify issues and reach truth, but he displayed stupidity and gullibility which should be cause for shame in his position at Harvard, and to some degree as a broad social scientist and policy adviser, though not as an economic theorist narrowly construed.
Watson, probably. He said something overtly and exageratedly negative, said it publicly and needlessly, and has a specific public prestige which makes his words more influential. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t focus on some other issue and public shame of this sort might reduce such unfortunate occurrences in the future.
I wasn’t really looking for answers to that question, I was trying to say that if we avoid “dangerous information” (to avoid confirmation bias, etc.), and encourage others to avoid it too, we’re making it harder to answer questions like that.