Similarly, there are a lot of people like Steve Sailer and Emil Kierkegaard arguing that there are racial gaps in intelligence, based on genetics. But when I read them on other stuff, they’re just not great thinkers. In contrast, while Jay M’s blog isn’t as popular or as fun to read for most people, he has a good piece arguing pretty convincingly against the genetic explanation of the gap.
The linked article says:
I do not believe that this is the important disagreement. Now, some (maybe even many) environmentalists argue that genetic differences play no role in the cognitive ability gap (e.g., Nisbett 2005), but I believe these environmentalists are mistaken to argue for such a strong position.
So the linked article says that Steve Sailer and Emil Kierkegaard are right when they say that there are racial gaps in intelligence based on genetics. Basically, he says there’s a gap but wants to debate about its size.
He explicitly says that the people who argue that there’s no gap are mistaken to argue that. He argues for the gap being small, not nonexistent. He does not use the term “near zero” himself.
I feel like if there’s one side arguing the genetic gap is x, and one side arguing the genetic gap is 0, the natural dichotomization is whether the genetic gap is larger or smaller than x/2.
Instead of thinking about how you can divide a discussion into two sides you can also focus on “what’s actually true”. In that case, it would make sense to end with an estimation of the size of the real gap.
Jay M defines the environmental model as <33% genetic and the genetic model as >66% genetic. What Rushton called the hereditarian position is right in the middle between Jay’s environmental and genetic model.
Definitely relevant to figure out what’s true when one is only talking about the object level, but the OP was about how trustworthy contrarians are compared to the mainstream rather than simply being about the object level.
Generally, hedgehogs are less trustworthy than foxes. If you see a debate as being about either believing in a mainstream hedgehog position or a contrarian hedgehog position you are often not having the most accurate view.
Instead of thinking that either Matthew Walker or Guzey is right, maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle and Guzey is pointing to real issues but exaggerating the effect.
I think most of the cases that the OP lists are of that nature that there’s an effect and that the hedgehog contrarian position exaggerates that effect.
The linked article says:
So the linked article says that Steve Sailer and Emil Kierkegaard are right when they say that there are racial gaps in intelligence based on genetics. Basically, he says there’s a gap but wants to debate about its size.
He thinks it’s very near zero if there is a gap.
He explicitly says that the people who argue that there’s no gap are mistaken to argue that. He argues for the gap being small, not nonexistent. He does not use the term “near zero” himself.
I feel like if there’s one side arguing the genetic gap is x, and one side arguing the genetic gap is 0, the natural dichotomization is whether the genetic gap is larger or smaller than x/2.
Instead of thinking about how you can divide a discussion into two sides you can also focus on “what’s actually true”. In that case, it would make sense to end with an estimation of the size of the real gap.
If we, however, look at “what people argue”, https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf assumes the two categories culture-only (0% genetic–100% environmental) and the hereditarian (50% genetic–50% environmental).
Jay M defines the environmental model as <33% genetic and the genetic model as >66% genetic. What Rushton called the hereditarian position is right in the middle between Jay’s environmental and genetic model.
Definitely relevant to figure out what’s true when one is only talking about the object level, but the OP was about how trustworthy contrarians are compared to the mainstream rather than simply being about the object level.
Generally, hedgehogs are less trustworthy than foxes. If you see a debate as being about either believing in a mainstream hedgehog position or a contrarian hedgehog position you are often not having the most accurate view.
Instead of thinking that either Matthew Walker or Guzey is right, maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle and Guzey is pointing to real issues but exaggerating the effect.
I think most of the cases that the OP lists are of that nature that there’s an effect and that the hedgehog contrarian position exaggerates that effect.