I donāt like it when people insist that their favourite interpretation of a vague sentence is the correct one and accuse others of misrepresenting when people complain about other interpretations.
There is a huge difference between these two sentences:
1: āx people are stupidā
2: āThe people that we socially ascribe to the race X had lower scores in IQ tests on average the last 70 yearsā
A lot of people in this forum equivocate the first sentence with the much weaker second one. This is classic motte and bailey.
The sentence 1 is vague and it can be interpreted in a way similar to ācopper is conductiveā. That interpretation(race pseudoscience) would imply the following:
a. There is a scientifically valid category of the race x.
b. There is a causal relationship(or a law of nature) between the race x and intelligence.
c. Boo x people! (because stupid is a loaded word)
There is also another controversial inference from IQ test scores to intelligence but Iām setting this aside for now.
You canāt blame people for interpreting Bostromās original statement in that way. Powerful people advocated for pseudoscientific theories making exactly these claims in the past, and many are still making these claims. Bostrom doesnāt explicitly disavow these claims in his apology either.
Some people here seem to be very concerned about deception by omission. Some say that if Bostrom excluded the paragraph starting by āAre there any genetic contributors to differences between groups in cognitive abilities?ā that would be deception. I donāt think thatās true. But more importantly, if we are going to be concerned about omissions, a more misleading omission is him not disavowing race pseudoscience in his apology. I think his apology is currently misleading people into thinking that ārace pseudoscienceā interpretation of his original statements is the correct interpretation, and he is merely apologising for the slur and using a loaded word like āstupidā. Because of this, his apology provides unwarranted and harmful credibility to a pseudoscientific theory.
āI donāt like it when people insist that their favourite interpretation of a vague sentence is the correct one and accuse others of misrepresenting when people complain about other interpretationsā
I definitely acknowledge that āX people are stupidā can have lots of interpretations, and mine was more favourable. But to write a whole blog post assuming a very specific, negative and distinctive explanation seems a lot worse than my response in this respect.
I think rejecting ārace pseudoscienceā is difficult because itās surely meaningless to just say: I reject pseudoscience.
He would have to go into all of the messy details about what he considers pseudoscience and doesnāt, which, to be honest, would probably make people even more angry, wherever he chose to draw the line.
I think his apology is currently misleading people into thinking that ārace pseudoscienceā interpretation of his original statements is the correct interpretation
I find it extremely hard to believe this isnāt the case.
I donāt like it when people insist that their favourite interpretation of a vague sentence is the correct one and accuse others of misrepresenting when people complain about other interpretations.
There is a huge difference between these two sentences:
1: āx people are stupidā
2: āThe people that we socially ascribe to the race X had lower scores in IQ tests on average the last 70 yearsā
A lot of people in this forum equivocate the first sentence with the much weaker second one. This is classic motte and bailey.
The sentence 1 is vague and it can be interpreted in a way similar to ācopper is conductiveā. That interpretation(race pseudoscience) would imply the following:
a. There is a scientifically valid category of the race x.
b. There is a causal relationship(or a law of nature) between the race x and intelligence.
c. Boo x people! (because stupid is a loaded word)
There is also another controversial inference from IQ test scores to intelligence but Iām setting this aside for now.
You canāt blame people for interpreting Bostromās original statement in that way. Powerful people advocated for pseudoscientific theories making exactly these claims in the past, and many are still making these claims. Bostrom doesnāt explicitly disavow these claims in his apology either.
Some people here seem to be very concerned about deception by omission. Some say that if Bostrom excluded the paragraph starting by āAre there any genetic contributors to differences between groups in cognitive abilities?ā that would be deception. I donāt think thatās true. But more importantly, if we are going to be concerned about omissions, a more misleading omission is him not disavowing race pseudoscience in his apology. I think his apology is currently misleading people into thinking that ārace pseudoscienceā interpretation of his original statements is the correct interpretation, and he is merely apologising for the slur and using a loaded word like āstupidā. Because of this, his apology provides unwarranted and harmful credibility to a pseudoscientific theory.
āI donāt like it when people insist that their favourite interpretation of a vague sentence is the correct one and accuse others of misrepresenting when people complain about other interpretationsā
I definitely acknowledge that āX people are stupidā can have lots of interpretations, and mine was more favourable. But to write a whole blog post assuming a very specific, negative and distinctive explanation seems a lot worse than my response in this respect.
I think rejecting ārace pseudoscienceā is difficult because itās surely meaningless to just say: I reject pseudoscience.
He would have to go into all of the messy details about what he considers pseudoscience and doesnāt, which, to be honest, would probably make people even more angry, wherever he chose to draw the line.
I find it extremely hard to believe this isnāt the case.