My post is weirdly aggressive? I think you are weirdly aggressive against Scott.
Since few people have read the book (including, I would wager, Cade Metz), the impact of associating Scott with Bell Curve doesn’t depend directly on what’s in the book, it depends on broad public perceptions of the book.
Having said that, according to Shaun (here’s that link again), the Bell Curve relies heavily of the work of Richard Lynn, who was funded by, and later became the head of, the Pioneer Fund, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group. In contrast, as far as I know, the conclusions of the sources cited by Scott do not hinge upon Richard Lynn. And given this, it would surprise me if the conclusions of The Bell Curve actually did match the mainstream consensus.
One of Scott’s sources says 25-50% for “heritability” of the IQ gap. I’m pretty confident the Bell Curve doesn’t say this, and I give P>50% that The Bell Curve suggests/states/implies that the IQ gap is over 50% “heritable” (most likely near 100%). Shaun also indicated that the Bell Curve equated heritability with explanatory power (e.g. that if heritability is X%, Murray’s interpretation would be that genetics explains or causes X% of the IQ gap). Shaun persuasively refuted this. I did not come away with a good understanding of how to think about heritability, but I expect experts would understand the subtlety of this topic better than Charles Murray.
And as Shaun says:
It’s not simply that Herrnstein & Murray are breaking the supposed taboo of discussing IQ differences that sparked the backlash. It’s that they explicitly linked those differences to a set of policy proposals. This is why The Bell Curve is controversial, because of its political ideas.
For example, that welfare programs should be stopped, which I think Scott has never advocated and which he would, in spirit, oppose. It also seems relevant that Charles Murray seems to use bad logic in his policy reasoning, as (1) this might be another reason the book was so controversial and (2) we’re on LessWrong where that sort of thing usually matters.
Having said that, my prior argument that you’ve been unreasonable does not depend on any of this. A personal analogy: I used to write articles about climate science (ex1, ex2, ex3). This doesn’t mean I’m “aligned” with Greta Thunberg and Al Gore or whatever specific person in the climate space you have in mind. I would instantly dislike someone who makes or insists upon claiming my views correspond to those particular people or certain others, as it would be inappropriate as well as untrue. Different people in the climate space do in fact take different positions on various questions other than the single most contested one (and they have different reputations, and I expect that human beings in the field of genetics work the same way). Even if you just say I have a “James Hansen poster on my bedroom wall” I’m going to be suspicious―sure, I respect the guy and I agree with him in some respects, but I’m not familiar with all his positions and what do you know about it anyway? And if you also argue against me by posting a Twitter thread by someone who appears to hate my guts… well… that is at least weirdly aggressive.
I also think that insisting on conflating two different things, after someone has pointed out to you that they are different, is a very anti-rationalist, un-LessWrong thing to do.
Edit: also weirdly aggressive is strong downvoting good faith replies. I don’t have the faintest idea why you’re acting like this, but it’s scary as hell and I hope to Moloch that other people notice too. A downvote is not a counterargument! It’s precisely as meaningful as a punch in the face! It doesn’t make you right or me wrong, it merely illustrates how humanity is doomed.
My post is weirdly aggressive? I think you are weirdly aggressive against Scott.
Since few people have read the book (including, I would wager, Cade Metz), the impact of associating Scott with Bell Curve doesn’t depend directly on what’s in the book, it depends on broad public perceptions of the book.
Having said that, according to Shaun (here’s that link again), the Bell Curve relies heavily of the work of Richard Lynn, who was funded by, and later became the head of, the Pioneer Fund, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group. In contrast, as far as I know, the conclusions of the sources cited by Scott do not hinge upon Richard Lynn. And given this, it would surprise me if the conclusions of The Bell Curve actually did match the mainstream consensus.
One of Scott’s sources says 25-50% for “heritability” of the IQ gap. I’m pretty confident the Bell Curve doesn’t say this, and I give P>50% that The Bell Curve suggests/states/implies that the IQ gap is over 50% “heritable” (most likely near 100%). Shaun also indicated that the Bell Curve equated heritability with explanatory power (e.g. that if heritability is X%, Murray’s interpretation would be that genetics explains or causes X% of the IQ gap). Shaun persuasively refuted this. I did not come away with a good understanding of how to think about heritability, but I expect experts would understand the subtlety of this topic better than Charles Murray.
And as Shaun says:
For example, that welfare programs should be stopped, which I think Scott has never advocated and which he would, in spirit, oppose. It also seems relevant that Charles Murray seems to use bad logic in his policy reasoning, as (1) this might be another reason the book was so controversial and (2) we’re on LessWrong where that sort of thing usually matters.
Having said that, my prior argument that you’ve been unreasonable does not depend on any of this. A personal analogy: I used to write articles about climate science (ex1, ex2, ex3). This doesn’t mean I’m “aligned” with Greta Thunberg and Al Gore or whatever specific person in the climate space you have in mind. I would instantly dislike someone who makes or insists upon claiming my views correspond to those particular people or certain others, as it would be inappropriate as well as untrue. Different people in the climate space do in fact take different positions on various questions other than the single most contested one (and they have different reputations, and I expect that human beings in the field of genetics work the same way). Even if you just say I have a “James Hansen poster on my bedroom wall” I’m going to be suspicious―sure, I respect the guy and I agree with him in some respects, but I’m not familiar with all his positions and what do you know about it anyway? And if you also argue against me by posting a Twitter thread by someone who appears to hate my guts… well… that is at least weirdly aggressive.
I also think that insisting on conflating two different things, after someone has pointed out to you that they are different, is a very anti-rationalist, un-LessWrong thing to do.
Edit: also weirdly aggressive is strong downvoting good faith replies. I don’t have the faintest idea why you’re acting like this, but it’s scary as hell and I hope to Moloch that other people notice too. A downvote is not a counterargument! It’s precisely as meaningful as a punch in the face! It doesn’t make you right or me wrong, it merely illustrates how humanity is doomed.