How is Metz’s behavior here worse than Scott’s own behavior defending himself? After all, Metz doesn’t explicitly say that Scott believes in racial iq differences, he just mentions Scott’s endorsement of Murray in one post and his account of Murray’s beliefs in another, in a way that suggests a connection. Similarly, Scott doesn’t explicitly deny believing in racial iq differences in his response post, he just lays out the context of the posts in a way that suggests that the accusation is baseless(perhaps you think Scott’s behavior is locally better? But he’s following a strategy of covertly communicating his true beliefs while making any individual instance look plausibly deniable, so he’s kinda optimizing against “locally good behavior” tracking truth here, so it seems perverse to give him credit for this)
I don’t (and shouldn’t) care what Scott Alexander believes in order to figure out whether what Cade Metz said was logically valid. You do not need to figure out how many bones a cat has to say that “The moon is round, so a cat has 212 bones” is not valid.
The issue at hand is not whether the “logic” was valid (incidentally, you are disputing the logical validity of an informal insinuation whose implication appears to be factually true, despite the hinted connection — that Scott’s views on HBD were influenced by Murray’s works — being merely probable)
The issues at hand are:
1. whether it is a justified “weapon” to use in a conflict of this sort
2. whether the deed is itself immoral beyond what is implied by “minor sin”
The evidence wasn’t fake! It was just unconvincing. “Giving unconvincing evidence because the convincing evidence is confidential” is in fact a minor sin.
The evidence offered “Scott agrees with the The Bell Curve guy” is of the same type and strength as those needed to link him to Hitler, Jesus Christ, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Cate Metz, and so on. There was absolutely nothing special about the evidence that tied it to the people offered and could have been recast without loss of accuracy to fit any leaning.
As we are familiar with, if you have an observation that proves anything, you do not have evidence.
I don’t think “Giving fake evidence for things you believe are true” is in any way a minor sin of evidence presentation
How is Metz’s behavior here worse than Scott’s own behavior defending himself? After all, Metz doesn’t explicitly say that Scott believes in racial iq differences, he just mentions Scott’s endorsement of Murray in one post and his account of Murray’s beliefs in another, in a way that suggests a connection. Similarly, Scott doesn’t explicitly deny believing in racial iq differences in his response post, he just lays out the context of the posts in a way that suggests that the accusation is baseless(perhaps you think Scott’s behavior is locally better? But he’s following a strategy of covertly communicating his true beliefs while making any individual instance look plausibly deniable, so he’s kinda optimizing against “locally good behavior” tracking truth here, so it seems perverse to give him credit for this)
I don’t (and shouldn’t) care what Scott Alexander believes in order to figure out whether what Cade Metz said was logically valid. You do not need to figure out how many bones a cat has to say that “The moon is round, so a cat has 212 bones” is not valid.
The issue at hand is not whether the “logic” was valid (incidentally, you are disputing the logical validity of an informal insinuation whose implication appears to be factually true, despite the hinted connection — that Scott’s views on HBD were influenced by Murray’s works — being merely probable)
The issues at hand are:
1. whether it is a justified “weapon” to use in a conflict of this sort
2. whether the deed is itself immoral beyond what is implied by “minor sin”
The evidence wasn’t fake! It was just unconvincing. “Giving unconvincing evidence because the convincing evidence is confidential” is in fact a minor sin.
The evidence offered “Scott agrees with the The Bell Curve guy” is of the same type and strength as those needed to link him to Hitler, Jesus Christ, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Cate Metz, and so on. There was absolutely nothing special about the evidence that tied it to the people offered and could have been recast without loss of accuracy to fit any leaning.
As we are familiar with, if you have an observation that proves anything, you do not have evidence.