Opinions that are stupid are going to be clearly stupid.
So the thing is, racism is bad. Really bad. It caused Hitler. It caused slavery. It caused imperialism. Or at least it was closely connected.
The holocaust and the civil rights movement convinced us all that it is really, really bad.
Now the other thing is that because racism is bad, our society collectively decided to taboo and call horrible arguments that racists make and use.
The next point I want to make is this: As far as I know the science about race and intelligence is entirely about figuring out causation from purely observational studies when you have only medium sized effects.
We know from human history and animal models that both genetic variation and the cultural forces are powerful enough to create the observed differences.
So we try to figure out which one it is using these observational studies on a medium sized effect (ie way smaller than smoking and lung cancer, or stomach sleeping and SIDS). Both causal forcesnl are capable of producing in principle the observed outcomes.
You can’t do it. Our powers of causal inference are insufficient. It doesn’t work.
What you are left with is your prior about evolution, about culture, and about all sorts of other things. But there is no proof in either direction.
So this is the epistemic situation.
But because racism as bad, society, and to a lesser extent the scientific community, has decided to say that attributing any major causal power to biology in this particular is disproven pseudoscience.
Some people are good at noticing when the authorities around them and their social community and the people on their side are making bad arguments. These people are valuable. They notice important things. They point out when the emperor has no clothes. And they literally built the EA movement.
However, this ability to notice when someone is making a bad argument doesn’t turn off just because the argument is being made for a good reason.
This is why people who are good at thinking precisely will notice that society is saying that there is no genetic basis for racial differences in behavior with way, way more confidence than is justified by the evidence presented. And because racism is a super important topic in our society, most people who think a lot will think hard about it at some point in their life.
In other words, it is very hard to have a large community of people who are willing to seriously consider that they personally are wrong about something important, and that they can improve, without having a bunch of people who also at some point in their lives at least considered very hard whether particular racist beliefs are actually true.
This is also not an issue with lizard people or flat earthers, since the evidence for the socially endorsed view is really that good in the latter case, and (so far as I have heard, I have in no way personally looked into the question of lizard people running the world, and I don’t think anyone I strongly trust has either, so I should be cautious about being confident in its stupidity) the evidence for the conspiracy theory is really that bad.
This is why you’ll find lots of people in your social circles who can be accused of having racist thoughts, and not very many who can be accused of having flat earth thoughts.
Also, if a flat earther wants to hang out at an ea meeting, I think they should be welcomed.
″ Some people are good at noticing when the authorities around them and their social community and the people on their side are making bad arguments. These people are valuable. They notice important things. They point out when the emperor has no clothes. And they literally built the EA movement.”
Just so I understand, 1. Part of your suspicion of the “racism is both bad and a pseudoscience” is that there is a consensus around this that includes “authorities”; 2. Yes there were bad actors but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water; 3. Those arguing for using race to measure people are comparable to early EAers developing the INT criteria for measuring the impact of health and wellbeing interventions?
Also, could you further develop, “Opinions that are stupid are going to be clearly stupid.” and criteria for this?
I might be way off here, but if so then please help me understand.
I dont think timunderwood was suspicious about the claim that racism is bad. It seems they explicitly said they believe racism is bad.
If it was true that there is some genetic component to the iq gap, what would happen? Would the universe be racist?
I dont know what the cause of the iq gap is. I think that there is >1% chance that genetics play some role. I dont think that is racists. I dont want any black people to suffer because of that. I hope that we can improve the lives of all sentient beings, including people of all skin colours.
Is the issue simply that we dont agree what racism means?
Opinions that are stupid are going to be clearly stupid.
So the thing is, racism is bad. Really bad. It caused Hitler. It caused slavery. It caused imperialism. Or at least it was closely connected.
The holocaust and the civil rights movement convinced us all that it is really, really bad.
Now the other thing is that because racism is bad, our society collectively decided to taboo and call horrible arguments that racists make and use.
The next point I want to make is this: As far as I know the science about race and intelligence is entirely about figuring out causation from purely observational studies when you have only medium sized effects.
We know from human history and animal models that both genetic variation and the cultural forces are powerful enough to create the observed differences.
So we try to figure out which one it is using these observational studies on a medium sized effect (ie way smaller than smoking and lung cancer, or stomach sleeping and SIDS). Both causal forcesnl are capable of producing in principle the observed outcomes.
You can’t do it. Our powers of causal inference are insufficient. It doesn’t work.
What you are left with is your prior about evolution, about culture, and about all sorts of other things. But there is no proof in either direction.
So this is the epistemic situation.
But because racism as bad, society, and to a lesser extent the scientific community, has decided to say that attributing any major causal power to biology in this particular is disproven pseudoscience.
Some people are good at noticing when the authorities around them and their social community and the people on their side are making bad arguments. These people are valuable. They notice important things. They point out when the emperor has no clothes. And they literally built the EA movement.
However, this ability to notice when someone is making a bad argument doesn’t turn off just because the argument is being made for a good reason.
This is why people who are good at thinking precisely will notice that society is saying that there is no genetic basis for racial differences in behavior with way, way more confidence than is justified by the evidence presented. And because racism is a super important topic in our society, most people who think a lot will think hard about it at some point in their life.
In other words, it is very hard to have a large community of people who are willing to seriously consider that they personally are wrong about something important, and that they can improve, without having a bunch of people who also at some point in their lives at least considered very hard whether particular racist beliefs are actually true.
This is also not an issue with lizard people or flat earthers, since the evidence for the socially endorsed view is really that good in the latter case, and (so far as I have heard, I have in no way personally looked into the question of lizard people running the world, and I don’t think anyone I strongly trust has either, so I should be cautious about being confident in its stupidity) the evidence for the conspiracy theory is really that bad.
This is why you’ll find lots of people in your social circles who can be accused of having racist thoughts, and not very many who can be accused of having flat earth thoughts.
Also, if a flat earther wants to hang out at an ea meeting, I think they should be welcomed.
″ Some people are good at noticing when the authorities around them and their social community and the people on their side are making bad arguments. These people are valuable. They notice important things. They point out when the emperor has no clothes. And they literally built the EA movement.”
Just so I understand,
1. Part of your suspicion of the “racism is both bad and a pseudoscience” is that there is a consensus around this that includes “authorities”;
2. Yes there were bad actors but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water;
3. Those arguing for using race to measure people are comparable to early EAers developing the INT criteria for measuring the impact of health and wellbeing interventions?
Also, could you further develop, “Opinions that are stupid are going to be clearly stupid.” and criteria for this?
I might be way off here, but if so then please help me understand.
I dont think timunderwood was suspicious about the claim that racism is bad. It seems they explicitly said they believe racism is bad.
If it was true that there is some genetic component to the iq gap, what would happen? Would the universe be racist?
I dont know what the cause of the iq gap is. I think that there is >1% chance that genetics play some role. I dont think that is racists. I dont want any black people to suffer because of that. I hope that we can improve the lives of all sentient beings, including people of all skin colours.
Is the issue simply that we dont agree what racism means?