It seems like you think what Metz wrote was acceptable because it all adds up to presenting the truth in the end, even if the way it was presented was ‘unconvincing’ and the evidence ‘embarassing[ly]’ weak. I don’t buy the principle that ‘bad epistemology is fine if the outcome is true knowledge’, and I also don’t buy that this happened in this particular case, nor that this is what Metz intended.
If Metz’s goal was to inform his readers about Scott’s position, he failed. He didn’t give any facts other than that Scott ‘aligned himself with’ and quoted somebody who holds a politically unacceptable view. The majority of readers will glean from this nothing but a vague association between Scott and racism, as the author intended. More sophisticated readers will notice what Metz is doing, and assume that if there was substantial evidence that Scott held an unpalatable view Metz would have gladly published that instead of resorting to an oblique smear by association. Nobody ends up better informed about what Scott actually believes.
I think trevor is right to invoke the quokka analogy. Rationalists are tying ourselves in knots in a long comment thread debating if actually, technically, strictly, Metz was misleading. Meanwhile, Metz never cared about this in the first place, and is continuing to enjoy a successful career employing tabloid rhetorical tricks.
The epistemology was not bad behind the scenes, it was just not presented to the readers. That is unfortunate but it is hard to write a NYT article (there are limits on how many receipts you can put in an article and some of the sources may have been off the record).
Cade correctly informed the readers that Scott is aligned with Murray on race and IQ. This is true and informative, and at the time some people here doubted it before the one email leaked. Basically, Cade’s presented evidence sucked but someone going with the heuristic “it’s in the NYT so it must be true” would have been correctly informed.
I don’t know if Cade had a history of “tabloid rhetorical tricks” but I think it is extremely unbecoming to criticize a reporter for giving true information that happens to paint the community in a bad light. Also, the post you linked by Trevor uses some tabloid rhetorical tricks: it says Cade sneered at AI risk but links to an article that literally doesn’t mention AI risk at all.
Clearly. But if you can’t do it without resorting to deliberately misleading rhetorical sleights to imply something you believe to be true, the correct response is not to.
Or, more realistically, if you can’t substantiate a particular claim with any supporting facts, due to the limitations of the form, you shouldn’t include it nor insinuate it indirectly, especially if it’s hugely inflammatory. If you simply cannot fit in the “receipts” needed to substantiate a claim (which seems implausible anyway), as a journalist you should omit that claim. If there isn’t space for the evidence, there isn’t space for the accusation.
The epistemology was not bad behind the scenes, it was just not presented to the readers. That is unfortunate but it is hard to write a NYT article (there are limits on how many receipts you can put in an article and some of the sources may have been off the record).
I’d have more trust in the writing of a journalist who presents what they believe to be the actual facts in support of a claim, than one who publishes vague insinuations because writing articles is hard.
Cade correctly informed the readers that Scott is aligned with Murray on race and IQ.
He really didn’t. Firstly, in the literal sense that Metz carefully avoided making this claim (he stated that Scott aligned himself with Murray, and that Murray holds views on race and IQ, but not that Scott aligns himself with Murray on these views). Secondly, and more importantly, even if I accept the implied claim I still don’t know what Scott supposedly believes about race and IQ. I don’t know what ‘is aligned with Murray on race and IQ’ actually means beyond connotatively ‘is racist’. If this paragraph of Metz’s article was intended to be informative (it was not), I am not informed.
It seems like you think what Metz wrote was acceptable because it all adds up to presenting the truth in the end, even if the way it was presented was ‘unconvincing’ and the evidence ‘embarassing[ly]’ weak. I don’t buy the principle that ‘bad epistemology is fine if the outcome is true knowledge’, and I also don’t buy that this happened in this particular case, nor that this is what Metz intended.
If Metz’s goal was to inform his readers about Scott’s position, he failed. He didn’t give any facts other than that Scott ‘aligned himself with’ and quoted somebody who holds a politically unacceptable view. The majority of readers will glean from this nothing but a vague association between Scott and racism, as the author intended. More sophisticated readers will notice what Metz is doing, and assume that if there was substantial evidence that Scott held an unpalatable view Metz would have gladly published that instead of resorting to an oblique smear by association. Nobody ends up better informed about what Scott actually believes.
I think trevor is right to invoke the quokka analogy. Rationalists are tying ourselves in knots in a long comment thread debating if actually, technically, strictly, Metz was misleading. Meanwhile, Metz never cared about this in the first place, and is continuing to enjoy a successful career employing tabloid rhetorical tricks.
The epistemology was not bad behind the scenes, it was just not presented to the readers. That is unfortunate but it is hard to write a NYT article (there are limits on how many receipts you can put in an article and some of the sources may have been off the record).
Cade correctly informed the readers that Scott is aligned with Murray on race and IQ. This is true and informative, and at the time some people here doubted it before the one email leaked. Basically, Cade’s presented evidence sucked but someone going with the heuristic “it’s in the NYT so it must be true” would have been correctly informed.
I don’t know if Cade had a history of “tabloid rhetorical tricks” but I think it is extremely unbecoming to criticize a reporter for giving true information that happens to paint the community in a bad light. Also, the post you linked by Trevor uses some tabloid rhetorical tricks: it says Cade sneered at AI risk but links to an article that literally doesn’t mention AI risk at all.
Clearly. But if you can’t do it without resorting to deliberately misleading rhetorical sleights to imply something you believe to be true, the correct response is not to.
Or, more realistically, if you can’t substantiate a particular claim with any supporting facts, due to the limitations of the form, you shouldn’t include it nor insinuate it indirectly, especially if it’s hugely inflammatory. If you simply cannot fit in the “receipts” needed to substantiate a claim (which seems implausible anyway), as a journalist you should omit that claim. If there isn’t space for the evidence, there isn’t space for the accusation.
I’d have more trust in the writing of a journalist who presents what they believe to be the actual facts in support of a claim, than one who publishes vague insinuations because writing articles is hard.
He really didn’t. Firstly, in the literal sense that Metz carefully avoided making this claim (he stated that Scott aligned himself with Murray, and that Murray holds views on race and IQ, but not that Scott aligns himself with Murray on these views). Secondly, and more importantly, even if I accept the implied claim I still don’t know what Scott supposedly believes about race and IQ. I don’t know what ‘is aligned with Murray on race and IQ’ actually means beyond connotatively ‘is racist’. If this paragraph of Metz’s article was intended to be informative (it was not), I am not informed.