Liberal views are very anti-science on race. Some famous professors even lost their positions just for adopting the statistically correct position that the majority of the difference in outcomes between races is accounted for by IQ, which is mostly immutable after childhood, not some societal conspiracy against certain races.

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tptacek 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Which famous professors would those be? This is an active research area, with papers published year-round.

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jayGlow 7 hours ago | parent [-]

James Watson the guy who discovered DNA was stripped of honorary titles based on comments related to race and IQ. there was a lot of discussion about that recently when he died.

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tptacek 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Before I reply, let me ask: is that your best example?

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jayGlow 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Does he not meet the criteria of a famous professor?

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tptacek 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe you could start with an actual practicing scientist. One problem you're going to run into here is that, as I said, this is an active area of study. If these papers are firing offenses, someone ought to be telling HR.

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jujube3 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Person 1: give me an example of someone who was kicked out of academia for uncomfortable truths.

Person 2: [gives examples]

Person 1: oh ho! But those people are not in academia any more! They're not "practicing scientists"!

Person 2: ...

	▲	tptacek 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, me and my Calvinball rule of "actual scientist prevented from publishing on this subject". There's a kind of Schneierism thing that happens in these threads; like: I could ask, ok, name a scientist practicing in this field. They exist, but they don't have names your 3rd grade science teacher knows.

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lopsotronic 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"just for adopting . ."

OK, I'm really sorry, but "just for adopting" is doing some heavy lifting here.

Watson's other greatest hits: worries about Big Black Dicks; melanin injections as boner pill; what I call "The Cunning Chinaman"; and a whole bucket of others.

Taken in sum: it turns out you can be asked to leave a private club if you are being an asshole.

To clear the air, as a card carrying liberal (even a !gasp! Socialist) I don't necessarily reject empirical racial differences based on genetics. Maybe even for "intelligence", for whatever good that does ya, since "intelligence" lacks anything like a quantitative definition.

But I also think that - if they're even present, which is by no means certain - these are not significant differences. Structuring your entire society around quantitative racial differences, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint, is not enough juice for the squeeze.

But, well, the juice isn't the point, is it?

It's the squeezing - the ability to brutalize your citizenry, to purge Unmanly Virtues like "empathy" or "introspection", to be always prepared for violence - the squeezing, being able to squeeze, is what is important. And the fastest way to do that is convince a bunch of people that other people aren't people. Europe tried that, a few years ago. You might remember that it did not go well. A lesson America never really got. Maybe someday we'll need to learn the same damn thing the same way, except instead of B-17s and Red Army Sex Crime we get to enjoy thermonuclear weapons. Come back Ivan. All is forgiven.

	▲	tptacek 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I mean I like to hold my cards closer to my vest than this, but if we're just going right at it: (1) He wasn't a practicing scientist. (2) He wasn't fired for making scientific claims, but rather for saying things like "I'm pessimistic about Africa". (3) He didn't do any research in behavioral genetics, psychometrics, or molecular genetics; his authority in the discussion was "famous science guy". (4) He lost an honorary and, later, an emeritus position, in which his role was not "scientist" but rather "spokesperson for a scientific organization". I wouldn't want him for a spokesperson either, any more than I'd want Ibram X. Kendi or, maybe closer to the mark, Elijah Mohammed as my spokesperson. James Watson was closer to Donald Sterling than to Galileo.

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platevoltage an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For real. We are doing race science on HN?

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akerl_ 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are we just ignoring all the major societal factors that happen to children before and during childhood?

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bencorman 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Race science is just about the apex of pseudoscience. Academics haven't rejected it because it doesn't mesh with their liberal politics, they've rejected it because it's junk.

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etchalon 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Liberal views" are not anti-science on race. "Liberal views" tend to reject the reductionism and selectivity of "race science" that points to arbitrarily defined measurements like IQ as being the sole explanation for things we can easily prove have multiple better, non-arbitrary explanations.

Bluntly, racists have decided IQ measurements mean they're not racist instead of wondering whether IQ, as a measurement, is itself racist.

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esarbe 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Watson's comments are not based in scientific fact. First of - there is no such thing as a "race". Putting people in classes based on the colour of their skin is ludicrously simplistic, ignoring the incredible genetic diversity in the human genome. There's simply no viable scientific concept that is able to capture the features that "race" is supposed to capture.

Secondly there's no strong argument that links larger population groups genetic makeup to intelligence - that's what Watson claimed and what's so infuriating; it's plain racism. There's an inherited component in intelligence - that much is right. But population groups have enough diversity that this does not have a statistically relevant impact on these groups as a whole.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/james-watson-s...