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From the Daily Mail news section:
Are there “gaps” in IQ between whites and blacks?
Nathan Cofnas denied that all ‘human groups’ have the same ‘potential’ in 2019
Researchers branded his paper as ‘racist’ and his ideas as ‘wrong-headed’
Students have slammed the decision to hire him as ‘disappointing’ and ‘crazy’
By ELIZABETH HAIGH FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 15:57 EDT, 28 October 2022 | UPDATED: 19:58 EDT, 28 October 2022
The University of Cambridge has hired a controversial ‘race researcher’ to its Faculty of Philosophy who previously came under fire for publishing a ‘racist’ paper – despite knowing about its contents before hiring him.
You too can know about the content of Cofnas’s article in Philosophical Psychology, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” by clicking on this link.
Nathan Cofnas, an American who was appointed on a three year programme as an ‘early career fellow’ on September 1 of this year, has previously been the subject of fierce debate over his argument that there are intrinsic differences between races when it comes to intelligence.
Speaking to MailOnline, he confirms he still stands by what he wrote and said the University of Cambridge knew about the paper before he took up his position there.
Cofnas told MailOnline he would advise critics to ‘read it’. He added: ‘The paper represents my views then and now.’
In a 2019 paper published in Philosophical Psychology he criticised the idea that all ‘human groups have, on average, the same potential’, and argued that the ‘hypothesis’ of differences in IQ between men and women and different racial groups is ‘ignored’.
Cofnas also referenced adopting black children into white families and argued that some ‘race groups’ are ‘falsely blamed’ for structural racism.
His paper was widely debunked by various scientists, and in June 2020 the editor of the journal resigned over the controversy.
It was DEBUNKED BY VARIOUS SCIENTISTS, folks.
There has been backlash amongst students who have called the decision ‘crazy’ and ‘disappointing’, according to Cambridge’s student newspaper Varsity.
Nathan Cofnas describes himself as ‘interested in scientific and ethical controversies connected with evolution-informed social science’
He argued against the idea of racism and structural racism for difference between peoples’ achievements, saying some groups of people are ‘unfairly blamed’ …
A response paper published by a leading group of researchers
Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen, Helen De Cruz, Jonathan Kaplan, Agustín Fuentes, Jonathan Marks, Massimo Pigliucci, Mark Alfano, David Livingstone Smith & Lauren Schroeder are not exactly leading researchers.
called Cofnas’ work ‘unintelligible and wrong-headed’: ‘Most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion… an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.’
In contrast, Steven Pinker of Harvard, who has a much more prestigious job than people like Fuentes and Marks, tweeted in 2015: “Irony: Replicability crisis in psych DOESN’T apply to IQ: huge n’s, replicable results. But people hate the message.”
They added that Cofnas’ work had ‘racist ideological undertones’ and ‘pandered’ to racist ideas.
In the 2019 paper he refers to the theory of hereditarianism throughout, which relies on the fact that genetics are more important that environmental factors in determining people’s actions and decisions….
Cofnas refers to old studies that claim white populations have a higher intelligence than black populations.
Old studies like this week’s announcement of the 2022 federal National Assessment of Educational Progress results:
In the article, Cofnas repeatedly references what he sees as ‘race differences in intelligence’, and claims that ‘the adult black-white IQ gab has remained stubbornly constant… since around 1970.’
How dare he?!?
He referred to studies into ‘early intervention’ techniques to battle his so-called ‘race difference’, including adoption.
He wrote: ‘Adoption by white families [of black children] – one of the most extreme interventions possible – has virtually no effect on the IQ of black adoptees.’
Cofnas appears to question the extent that racism exists within society and argue that white populations are unfairly ‘blamed’ for ‘differences’ between races.
He wrote: ‘As long as people believe that race differences have a purely environmental cause, differences will, in practice, most likely be attributed to racism or institutional racism.
‘Denying the possible genetic cause of race differences will not stop people from being focused on race.’
He added that ‘if people believe that members of certain races are victimized or benefited by racism’ this could cause harm to society.
When, of course, absolutely no harm has been caused to society by the anti-white male bigotry of the Great Awokening Era. Look how happy we all are!
He called for research to give a ‘biological account’ of how ‘genes lead to race differences’, adding: ‘As of now, there is nothing that would indicate that it is particularly unlikely that race differences will turn out to have a substantial genetic component.
‘If this possibility cannot be ruled out scientifically, we must face the ethical question of whether we ought to pursue the truth, whatever it may be.’
He claimed research such as his is censored and that ‘if not all groups have identical distributions of potential, then it is unjust to assume that some people must be blamed for average differences in performance among groups.’ …
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Fairs fair: Massimo pigliucci is absolutely a major scholar with interests on issues at stake here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Pigliucci
You can ask Pinker if you’d like. It’d be hard to get a better person to attack a philosopher on this topic imo.
Not defending his take here but addressing your ad hom. Because he is someone a serious person would ask to take this on.
But upfront, believers in evolution who deny HBD simply are not serious scholars/scientists/people. The one goes with the other.
The idea that post-out-of-Africa we've had selection on physical structure and appearance, disease resistance, metabolism for new foods (like lactose tolerance) and alcohol ... but have amazingly not had selection--or miraculously identical selection everywhere!--on our mental processing--human beings most important skill!!--despite creating whole new modes of existence!!! ... is simply preposterous.
Now the nature, size and cause of mental differences is an empirical question. But that people/peoples differ because of differential selection is not.
But furthermore, it isn't even that these people take an obviously wrongheaded position. (Hey be a tool--that's fine.) It is that they assert that the scientifically default--differential selection in different environments--and clearly rightheaded position can not be correct, is laughably wrong, does not merit investigation, should not be investigated and scholars interested in it should be defenstrated.
This is not "scholarship" or "science". Much less the behavior of anyone serious about ideas--serious about anything other than power.Replies: @Nico, @The Germ Theory of Disease, @Anonymous
The conversion of Magic Dirt to Tragic Dirt is an understudied area: obviously caused by structural racism and so on and so forth.
A heretic! Burn him at the stake, or whatever the modern equivalent is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Pigliucci
You can ask Pinker if you'd like. It'd be hard to get a better person to attack a philosopher on this topic imo.
Not defending his take here but addressing your ad hom. Because he is someone a serious person would ask to take this on.Replies: @PhysicistDave, @AnotherDad
Whereismyhandle wrote:
Pigliucci seems to have no expertise whatsoever on the subject of intelligence.
On the face of it, his opinion is worth no more on this area than that of anyone here.
(Yes, yes, I know he is a philosopher, sort of. So what? If I have a plumbing problem I want a guy with expertise in plumbing, not philosophy!)
Gonna have to side with Whereismyhandle on this one.Replies: @PhysicistDave
I try to keep my madness hid
Smiling to the crowd, I lie
But in my lonely room I cry
The Tears of a Clown
When there's no one around
--Snarky Robinson and the ManaclesReplies: @reactionry
I took your advice and got a couple of Sabine Hossenfelder's books from the library. In Lost in Math, she says, "That scientists are sloppy philosophers isn't news to me-- after all, I'm one myself."
It goes the other way, too. A professor at Macalester College-- professor of what, I forgot-- wrote an op-ed in one of the Twin Cities newspapers about a decade ago that the common belief that scientists were uninterested in the humanities was actually backwards. His science students were quite curious. It was the humanities students that had little interest in science.
OT So what happened at the Pelosi household? At first I thought it was a fake October surprise, but now it just sounds like Democrat rule has so degraded San Francisco that there is no order whatsoever, not even for the corruptly ultra-wealthy on Goat Hill.
Velocity is a social construct.
His BS, MS, and two of his three PhDs are all in genetics/bio, and if you look at his publications list, his early papers are focused on genetics and evolutionary bio: https://massimopigliucci.org/papers/
Gonna have to side with Whereismyhandle on this one.
I have been following Pigliucci for some time: specifically, I checked out a volume from the library last summer that he co-edited and that included contributions from Pigliucci, Science Unlimited? : The Challenges of Scientism: I'll be polite and just say that I was unimpressed.
There are in fact several "red flags" here:
A) A decade or so ago, he switched from science to philosophy: he seems to have been under fifty at the time. Now, it is a free country and all that, and sometimes when scientists get old and senile and can't do science any longer, they try to start dealing with "big-picture" issues. But Pigliucci was not that old (he seems to have been under fifty), and scientists of that age who are any good generally do not abandon STEM (they may change to a slightly different subfield of STEM).
This smells bad.
B) Pigliucci has Ph.D.s from U. of Tennessee and U. of Connecticut and he teaches at CCNY. Again, a free country and all that... but not impressive.
C) His scientific work was ho-hum plant biology: no connection to human genetics or intelligence.
D) He has no proven expertise on issues of intelligence. At all.
E) But the real problem is the response he signed to Cofnas. Have you read it?
Do.
Their only significant point is that they do not like the term "races."
Fine.
Replace the term "races" by "inbred populations inhabiting separate environments for many generations and therefore subject to different selective pressures."
If you do that, Cofnas' argument survives.
I helped my wife when she took population biology: it is one of the areas of biology most congenial to us physicists (the other being neuroscience). And I therefore know enough to know that Cofnas' argument is pretty much iron-clad:
Take some trait that shows genetic variation within each of two separate populations that are subject to different selective pressures.
Almost certainly, you will get a difference in gene frequencies between the two populations.
It would be stunning if you don't.
Pigliucci is either too stupid to know this (which perhaps explains why he left science!) or he does know this and is a liar (which also may help explain why he left science).
Again, you are naive. Especially at fifth-rate schools such as U of Tenn and U of Conn, lousy students sometimes (often?) are awarded Ph.D.s. (I hereby grant you a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and biological genetics from UPD -- the University of PhysicistDave. Do you think that means anything?)
The red flags in this case are just flaming red.
And the "refutation" of Cofnas speaks for itself.
Pigliucci is a bullshitter. There are limits as to how much you can bullshit in science, but in philosophy, alas, the sky's the limit. And if you look at his recent publication list, he is indeed piling it higher and deeper.
He should be ashamed of himself, but he is probably too stupid to see it.
… because they want to stay in their careers and they don’t have the integrity that Professor Cofnas has. That didn’t take me a lot of research to figure out, as I’ve seen lots of empirical evidence for this conclusion, thanks to iSteve.
BTW, I would have featured Beavis rather than Butthead, but that’s just me … one of those Ginger v Mary Ann things, I guess…
Also, I also think the idea that that there are such things as Minotaurs is wrong-headed.
It’s weird that genetics came along to confirm what most people had already figured out a long time ago but the liberal orthodoxy of the 60’s and 70’s was intent on erasing.
Where do we go from here?
a leading group of researchers
Not the same as a group of leading researchers. They’re a leading group because they complained first.
The genetic-deniers should be abused for implying black people aren’t trying hard enough in school and on IQ tests, not being slaves to their children’s education (Austen’s phrase), eating too much lead paint, drinking and drugging when pregnant, letting themselves be diminished by the white man’s world, etc. What happened to the beautiful excuse of Born This Way?
Wait, it’s an hour later, and it occurred to me “what’s the deal with the Jamaican national track coach, again?”
Did this title got on top of the wrong post?
https://s.abcnews.com/images/Business/RT_jamaica_bobsled_team_RTRT027_jt_140120_16x9_992.jpg
Hey, it's Saturday morning. Time for cartoons, right?
Did this title got on top of the wrong post?Replies: @Recently Based, @stillCARealist, @Reg Cæsar, @Gandydancer
I figured it was meant to reference that Nathan Confas (based on this name) is Jewish and argues that Jews are smart.
the circular logic of “I didn’t look for a genetic link to IQ/I found no genetic link to IQ/There is no genetic link to IQ” rinse and repeat.
What if he is wrong? What if they don’t run faster, but merely have a higher standard deviation? So the top 1% run faster and the bottom 1% run slower?
To say that there may be inherent substantive differences between races is simply affirming that diversity may be true.
Yet somehow groups who are inherently different (diversity) are supposed to achieve proportionate success, as if they weren’t inherently different (equity).
Don’t we need to exclude diversity as the cause of inequality?
“You can ask Pinker if you’d like. It’d be hard to get a better person to attack a philosopher on this topic imo.”
Richard Nixon thought all race science should be suppressed, if it were true, just to salve society. Which makes me wonder how honest-minded intellectuals would respond to Twilight Zone thought experiments about “if Richard Nixon thought this should be intellectually-suppressed, what world do you think you’re living in, right now?”
But bottom line, career-wise and general social outcome-wise, few really smart people can see positive social outcomes to the world getting ‘woke’ to group differences. And Pinker’s all about the world getting better. Truth fetish is for the weird.
But when one side is able to make discussion of race differences forbidden while using this fact to push for equality of outcome (when it is beneficial to them), then refusing to point out racial differences is unilateral disarmament in the face of a hostile adversary.Replies: @Sean, @Charlotte
Cofnas has tried, if I am correct, to “debunk” Kevin MacDonald on Jewish “evolutionary strategy”. I’ve read both of them, and they both seem to be sometimes right & mostly wrong.
In other words, neither has MacDonald “exposed” Jews, nor did Cofnas “debunk” MacDonald’s theses.
Steve – why 0 on NI border poll?
Issue plays to your strengths – ethnicity, religion, demographic change, stats.
Did this title got on top of the wrong post?Replies: @Recently Based, @stillCARealist, @Reg Cæsar, @Gandydancer
Yeah, I thought this Cofnas dude would turn out to be a Jamaican coach, but…
Here is some plumbing philosophy. If a wild bear craps in the woods, and there is no one within earshot to hear him flush, is the plumber racist?
Bear: "'Sup bro. Hey, tell me - does shit stick to your fur?"
Rabbit: "Nope."
So the bear wipes his arse with the rabbit.
They always say the idea of a hereditarian influence in IQ is debunked but never actually explain how. If it’s all environment, does that imply the the indigenous populations of Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, most of the Americas and various parts of Asia developed cultures that inhibited human development? Most of these locations certainly had abundant resources and were not invaded or colonized by others until relatively recently in human history.
'Debunked', 'fact-check' and such like are 4chan memes now.
>> HBD: DEBOONKED!
>> TALMUD: DENOUNCED!!
Seems like a perfect opportunity to “stress test” Twitter’s new free speech/controversial speech policy.
I have pretty good idea what the South African who just purchased the platform probably thinks.
Game on.
Cofnas is permitted to publish a thread on the topic.
You ask a good question, but I don’t think answering it would give environmentalists inordinate difficulties. If history has taught us anything, it’s that, if enough people are prepared to believe it, you can make any lie stick.
“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.” -Rene Descartes
Nathan Cofnas = Cannon shaft.
He’s largely known as a stoicism popularizer. So if he were to practice what he preaches, he could stoically accept the scientific findings instead of freaking out to the point of publishing a hogwash “rebuttal,” but I figure he knows better than I do what kind of message his audience wants to hear (particularly the portion of it willing to fork out cash to receive his sage counsel).
Well that clinches it. This is almost as significant as all these alleged eruptions of outrage on Twitter. I mean, if you can’t trust a few dozen sassy black ladies and 19 year olds with blue hair on Twitter…
Just like Pigliucci did
I try to keep my madness hid
Smiling to the crowd, I lie
But in my lonely room I cry
The Tears of a Clown
When there’s no one around
–Snarky Robinson and the Manacles
- also covered Otis Day and the Knights' "Ligner [Yiddish corruption of the German word for "liar"] Ligma Lingam Shivalinga Shama Lama Ding Dong."
Nathan "Ninja" Cofnas is well-known as a hard core Fortnite gamer and briefly worked as a software engineer for Twitter.
He recently wrote, "Given that I had only a few courses in a B-school, it took real balls for me to publish 'Six Sigma Ligma.' "
Cofnas also produced a musical paean to cannibalism in the South Pacific: "Eating Rahul in Rabaul."
It should not escape notice that Humbert Humbert's pal (not to be confused with a character in VN's short story, "Sounds" - Pal Paypal Palych), the transgender Annabel Leigh (deadname: Edgar Allan Lee) "died of ligma in Cofnas on Corfu."
As Reg is no doubt aware, songs by Snarky Robinson and the Mind-Forg'd Manacles have long been prom favorites at the Blake School in Minneapolis.
Cofnas and P.J. O'Rourke co-authored "Republican Party Reptiles with a Conscience."
https://www.amazon.com/Reptiles-Conscience-Coevolution-Religious-Doctrine/dp/0956881157
- sorry
Did this title got on top of the wrong post?Replies: @Recently Based, @stillCARealist, @Reg Cæsar, @Gandydancer
“Jamaican national bobsled coach” would have been more appropriate.
Hey, it’s Saturday morning. Time for cartoons, right?
Nathan Cofnas = Cannon shaft.
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/concept-betrayal-business-partner-afraid-man-preparing-to-fly-shot-weapon-cannon-gun-crime-accident-career-competition-152919263.jpgReplies: @G. Poulin, @fish
There should be a word for when a scientist gets “debunked” by a totally politicized scientific community. It happens often enough to warrant its own word.
evaluated on its merit, it must first get past the political/advocate fire wall.
▪️ unironically concern-troll about things being racist and antisemitic;
▪️ love cringe catchphrases (e.g., 'covidiot');
▪️ think Da Rangz o' Powah was awesome;
▪️ are C-students at best;
▪️ FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE!!.
The lack of elite white sprinters make me ashamed of the game.
nowhere does steve mention why cofnas was given a pass. because he’s a jew. and a jew who tried to rebut kmac. hmmm.
if i were steve i would gas myself.
Maybe you could do all of us a favor and convince yourself that you are steve.Replies: @anon, @anon
Nathan Cofnas = Cannon shaft.
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/concept-betrayal-business-partner-afraid-man-preparing-to-fly-shot-weapon-cannon-gun-crime-accident-career-competition-152919263.jpgReplies: @G. Poulin, @fish
You never disappoint…..
Far be it from me to be the grammar police, but…
While this clause implies the prominence of the researchers, there is actually a significant difference between saying…
A response paper published by a leading group of researchers
and
A response paper published by a group of leading researchers
The use of ‘leading’ in former is actually a bit nonsensical (‘leading’ modifies ‘group’), while in the latter it modifies and limits the ‘researchers’.
What is written, and what is implied are different.
This sort of half baked apology mumble is absurd and disgusting.
What “ethical question” exists about pursing the truth?
Now, if you’re in a doomed airplane plunging to the earth you might lie to your young children about how it “will all turn out okay.” Maybe that’s the right call. There are always unusual contexts in ethics.
For any supposed researcher or scientist to even pose that as an “ethical question” is crawfishing and dissembling.
If the “truth” hurts feelings or overturns historically held beliefs, then so be it. Any hesitation to pursue truth is just promoting lying and all of those ill consequences.
Progress and civilization is largely about discovering new truths and uncovering false or incorrect beliefs. Using well known standards for that.
Never apologize for bringing forth truth in the forest of falsehoods and errors.
Recently some researchers in Boston created a variety of COVID that kills 80% of "humanized" mice. Presumably they didn't know when embarking on the research that they would discover a roadmap to possibly create a mass murdering biowar agent, so I don't share Steve's reservations about the government paying them to undertake the research.
But, yeah, maybe a black op to kill them before they published might have been called for.
Now, establishing a genetic link between race and IQ isn't in my opinion so damaging as to require such extreme measures. Or any measures. But a simplistic claim like yours that truth is the only possible concern is unconvincing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Pigliucci
You can ask Pinker if you'd like. It'd be hard to get a better person to attack a philosopher on this topic imo.
Not defending his take here but addressing your ad hom. Because he is someone a serious person would ask to take this on.Replies: @PhysicistDave, @AnotherDad
Thanks WIMH. I read his bio.
But upfront, believers in evolution who deny HBD simply are not serious scholars/scientists/people. The one goes with the other.
The idea that post-out-of-Africa we’ve had selection on physical structure and appearance, disease resistance, metabolism for new foods (like lactose tolerance) and alcohol … but have amazingly not had selection–or miraculously identical selection everywhere!–on our mental processing–human beings most important skill!!–despite creating whole new modes of existence!!! … is simply preposterous.
Now the nature, size and cause of mental differences is an empirical question. But that people/peoples differ because of differential selection is not.
But furthermore, it isn’t even that these people take an obviously wrongheaded position. (Hey be a tool–that’s fine.) It is that they assert that the scientifically default–differential selection in different environments–and clearly rightheaded position can not be correct, is laughably wrong, does not merit investigation, should not be investigated and scholars interested in it should be defenstrated.
This is not “scholarship” or “science”. Much less the behavior of anyone serious about ideas–serious about anything other than power.
I would be interested to hear their answers.Replies: @lavoisier
Pinker is getting pretty close to the Watson Point, where a senior and well-respected scientist decides to say some of the unsayable truths that nevertheless need saying. I’ll bet sometime in the next 5-8 years he’ll go full Watson with a side of Murray. Eventually the whole pseudoscience platform of the progressives will be so hollowed out by things like GWAS that it will collapse, and I suspect Pinker is looking for the right time to be well outside the zone of destruction.
I actually notice he seems to step right up to the line of cancellation but not cross it. And, that’s OK with me. Pinker takes people to the border of heresy…Sailer helps them cross it. Both are necessary.
Internet tradition dictates that all ethical questions can be simplified to trolley problems.
In this case, the trolley car of truth and science has two tracks it can take.
If it is diverted to track 1, the feelings of minorities could be hurt and racists might say mean things on the internet.
If it is diverted to track 2 (our current course), we risk the destruction of western civilization within a few hundred years.
I wish I was being hyperbolic. But the ethical question isn’t even difficult in this case.
Inane.
The article was published in a philosophy journal. Pigliucci is a leading philosopher of science and an evolutionary biologist.
I didn’t tell anyone to agree with him. I criticized Steve’s error on the narrow grounds I specified and Steven Pinker is not a more eminent evolutionary scholar because he sells more pop books to people like Steve.
The key point is that Pigliucci is just not an expert on intelligence. At all.
The mere fact that an academic philosophy journal published Massimo's nonsense is irrelevant: Social Text published the Sokal Hoax. As Sokal proved, the standards in much of the humanities have collapsed.
Besides that, as I pointed out to Jon, there are flaming red flags about little Massimo.
Anyway, Massimo is just not an expert on intelligence or, indeed, on human genetics at all.
He is just a professional bullshitter, as his recent publications illustrate.
Easier, an awful lot easier, than doing science.Replies: @Whereismyhandle
So the Standard Deviation on the NAEP math test is ~25 pts? Cool.
Funny how the top-of-the-line blacks (75th percentile) match the bottom-of-the-barrel Asians (25th percentile) at a score of 238. And, in America, lower-tier Asian is a group padded out by subcontinentals and Hmong, while top-tier blacks likely include recent Nigerian immigrants from some of the better-perfoming tribes.
If these were groups of whales, would scientists suddenly be discovering a whole new species of mammals, in the form of a group of related individuals heretofore relegated to the status of a subpopulation, in a desperate bid for endangered species grant money?
Cf. https://www.unz.com/isteve/scientists-just-discovered-a-new-whale-now-they-fear-it-may-go-extinct/
The Guardian asks various black people what new ritual humiliations white Britons should undergo.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/29/black-equality-in-britain-school-curriculum-politics-lenny-henry-diane-abbott
“What one change would you make to achieve black equality in Britain? ”
I was intrigued by the response of one Dr Annabel Sowemimo, who wants “An end to pernicious race science”
I’m sure that the good doctor would consider everyone here to be (insert insult of choice), but she could at least get more of an idea of what us evil people believe – or is understanding the last thing she’s interested in?
“black people suffer from defective biology” – not in 100m sprinting, not in long distance running, not in a number of other areas. And to be fair to us, most would say “different”, not defective.
“the myth that our skin colour makes us intellectually inferior” – I don’t think anyone thinks that. Do albino Africans have higher IQ? Is it their skin tone that gives Chinese and Japanese an extra 5 points? The myth is that anyone thinks that.
“Correlation is not causation”
“and that those who do succeed academically are a rare breed” – isn’t that just what lots of black people are telling us? “where are all the black physics PhDs?”
“the notion that black people are better suited to physical jobs” – while I imagine an argument could possibly be made for that view, I’ve never heard anyone make it. I worked for three years in a very physical job alongside black people and whites who weren’t at all PC – no one ever said or suggested such a thing. It just – for some unknown reason – seems to be where they end up.
“proven evidence that environmental factors influence our social outcomes”
Up to a point. There’s no doubt that being hit on the head a lot in childhood, or terrorised as a toddler can affect your future relations with people. And children growing up without a father have worse life outcomes – remind me again which “community” specialises in that?
My favourite thought experiment is Bulgarian twins, one of whom is out exploring in the woods when the Ottoman Kadi’s men come through the village collecting likely 10 year old lads for the Sultan’s Janissaries. Those two kids would have very different life outcomes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devshirme
But all environmental things being equal, genes will out.
Shall we set up a pool on how long Cofnas lasts at Cambridge following this?
I’m betting a week, but that’s probably too long.
But upfront, believers in evolution who deny HBD simply are not serious scholars/scientists/people. The one goes with the other.
The idea that post-out-of-Africa we've had selection on physical structure and appearance, disease resistance, metabolism for new foods (like lactose tolerance) and alcohol ... but have amazingly not had selection--or miraculously identical selection everywhere!--on our mental processing--human beings most important skill!!--despite creating whole new modes of existence!!! ... is simply preposterous.
Now the nature, size and cause of mental differences is an empirical question. But that people/peoples differ because of differential selection is not.
But furthermore, it isn't even that these people take an obviously wrongheaded position. (Hey be a tool--that's fine.) It is that they assert that the scientifically default--differential selection in different environments--and clearly rightheaded position can not be correct, is laughably wrong, does not merit investigation, should not be investigated and scholars interested in it should be defenstrated.
This is not "scholarship" or "science". Much less the behavior of anyone serious about ideas--serious about anything other than power.Replies: @Nico, @The Germ Theory of Disease, @Anonymous
It’s even worse than that. Every neurobiologist worth a damn knows that upwards of 80 percent of human genes affect the brain, and that is not a controversial proposition in the least. I don’t have time to do a mathematical analysis of the correlative probabilities related to racial-phenotypic-specific genes but I don’t think it is necessary to do so to demonstrate the point.
Of course, a tenured professor at an accredited college from any field who made an argument for six-day creationism would be ridiculed off the stage, but denial of racial differences in cognitive potential is at least as preposterous… and consequential. The main difference of course is that universities are biased in favor of anything perceived to take down Christianity and/or white European civilization, so the cognitive dissonance is just another classic self-serving bias.
I think he may just be getting older. I’ve noticed myself as the remaining span of your life decreases you tend to get less concerned about it. At some point he may be willing to take the reputational hit to help kill the blank slate, or at least try to.
I actually notice he seems to step right up to the line of cancellation but not cross it. And, that’s OK with me. Pinker takes people to the border of heresy…Sailer helps them cross it. Both are necessary.
I try to keep my madness hid
Smiling to the crowd, I lie
But in my lonely room I cry
The Tears of a Clown
When there's no one around
--Snarky Robinson and the ManaclesReplies: @reactionry
“-Snarky Robinson…”
– also covered Otis Day and the Knights’ “Ligner [Yiddish corruption of the German word for “liar”] Ligma Lingam Shivalinga Shama Lama Ding Dong.”
Nathan “Ninja” Cofnas is well-known as a hard core Fortnite gamer and briefly worked as a software engineer for Twitter.
He recently wrote, “Given that I had only a few courses in a B-school, it took real balls for me to publish ‘Six Sigma Ligma.’ ”
Cofnas also produced a musical paean to cannibalism in the South Pacific: “Eating Rahul in Rabaul.”
It should not escape notice that Humbert Humbert’s pal (not to be confused with a character in VN’s short story, “Sounds” – Pal Paypal Palych), the transgender Annabel Leigh (deadname: Edgar Allan Lee) “died of ligma in Cofnas on Corfu.”
As Reg is no doubt aware, songs by Snarky Robinson and the Mind-Forg’d Manacles have long been prom favorites at the Blake School in Minneapolis.
Cofnas and P.J. O’Rourke co-authored “Republican Party Reptiles with a Conscience.”
– sorry
“Defenestrated”?
But upfront, believers in evolution who deny HBD simply are not serious scholars/scientists/people. The one goes with the other.
The idea that post-out-of-Africa we've had selection on physical structure and appearance, disease resistance, metabolism for new foods (like lactose tolerance) and alcohol ... but have amazingly not had selection--or miraculously identical selection everywhere!--on our mental processing--human beings most important skill!!--despite creating whole new modes of existence!!! ... is simply preposterous.
Now the nature, size and cause of mental differences is an empirical question. But that people/peoples differ because of differential selection is not.
But furthermore, it isn't even that these people take an obviously wrongheaded position. (Hey be a tool--that's fine.) It is that they assert that the scientifically default--differential selection in different environments--and clearly rightheaded position can not be correct, is laughably wrong, does not merit investigation, should not be investigated and scholars interested in it should be defenstrated.
This is not "scholarship" or "science". Much less the behavior of anyone serious about ideas--serious about anything other than power.Replies: @Nico, @The Germ Theory of Disease, @Anonymous
Nobody has the least bit of problem with saying “Jews are smarter than goyim, it’s just common knowledge”, despite the fact that goyim built everything worth having, and Jews just sort of showed up and infested the place. But saying “whites are smarter than blacks, it’s just common knowledge” gets you the (((guillotine))). Huh.
And over on Gab Zman announces
The Germans have a word for it I believe “Gefucked”.
I once attempted to tutor a black…ooops, of course, I meant “Black” with a capital “B!” male third or fourth grader in basic math. His teacher’s evaluation was that he was significantly below grade level. His Black! parents, who jointly earned enough to live in a good suburb and afford the tutoring – didn’t believe that he could be low-IQ. I had about four hour-long sessions with him, during which it was apparent that he lacked the ability to estimate a distance of, say, “four yards” when shown a yard stick. I used that exercise when he couldn’t grasp a math tool that’s been used for decades: the number line. I even drew out a numbered 10×10 grid to demonstrate the concept of integer multiplication. It was hopeless; asked to count ahead by six four times he couldn’t get on the square 24. This was just one kid, but based on that experience, I’m not shocked that inner-city schools fail to have a single student at grade level.
IQ differences aren't obvious in social contexts. Combine that with how much assortative organization our society does, and it's not shocking that people believe that everyone is roughly of the same intelligence.
“But upfront, believers in evolution who deny HBD simply are not serious scholars/scientists/people. The one goes with the other.”
Actually (amusingly) Pinker could probably state the best arguments against HBD based on his research for “Better Angels of Our Nature”, etc.. All the Flynn Effect-paralleling stuff about medieval era white people being moral imbeciles, in profound ways, almost like a different species–with a 50x higher murder rate, to show it, not just 10x. And Flynn Effect itself. And all that grafts pretty well onto “How the Irish became White” type arguments already familiar to academics who’ve repeatedly coped to certain similar conclusions.
Libs hated his book, tho, because of their insane view of human history as “mostly peaceful,” and can’t read. It’s kinda funny. Nobody’s even coming up with new arguments, just taboos.
That people haven't changed seems a stretch. Modern society has removed the connection between competence and reproduction and what we are witnessing now is that evolution necessarily produces many dead ends, or Wokels as we call them.
While this clause implies the prominence of the researchers, there is actually a significant difference between saying...
A response paper published by a leading group of researchers
and
A response paper published by a group of leading researchers
The use of 'leading' in former is actually a bit nonsensical ('leading' modifies 'group'), while in the latter it modifies and limits the 'researchers'.
What is written, and what is implied are different.Replies: @VivaLaMigra
Correct; the former construction leaves room for the possibility that at least a portion of the “group” aren’t in fact “leading researchers” but that more able members make up for their shortcomings. A world-champion baseball team can carry a sub-par outfielder if the rest of the roster is strong enough.
We know. Genetics matters. The major races have patterns of different natural traits that impact human behavior as well as sports like running.
The “Cathedral” or the left-wing “Megaphone” have played dirty tricks to legally ban that idea, but most people intuitively think that way anyway.
My response to Sailer and fans is: we know. Do something productive about the situation or move on. At least make funny jokes. Just complaining about this over and over is neither productive nor funny.
Like Steven Pinker and David Reich, Cofnas is a Jewish hero.
As well as for Katie Hobbs’s basement hideout in Phoenix. The mercury has already dropped below 100°, hasn’t it? They can move back upstairs now.
As is veracity.
Cofnas is not only jewish, he’s a highly ethnocentric and aggressive jew.
> I used that exercise when he couldn’t grasp a math tool that’s been used for decades:
IQ differences aren’t obvious in social contexts. Combine that with how much assortative organization our society does, and it’s not shocking that people believe that everyone is roughly of the same intelligence.
It is a real challenge these days publishing objective science. Before your work can be
evaluated on its merit, it must first get past the political/advocate fire wall.
It is indeed challenging to publish ones science these days. Before your work can be evaluated on its merit, it must first breakthrough the political/Adovcate barrier…..not an easy task.
Every single group and percentile had a lower score in 2022.
Says a lot about the effects of the Lockdowns.
Pigliucci has a high profile, but is not a leading researcher. Did you see what he co-wrote? He quotes an anthropological association to denounce race realism:
In other words, there is no such thing as race. No serious scholar can believe what Pigliucci says. He is just trying to support Leftism.
I didn't refer to any argument he wrote on this topic; i addressed Steve's (false) empirical assertion that Pinker can big dick Pigliucci. This is objectively false. But don't take my word for it--ask Pinker.Replies: @Roger
Strictly speaking, that construction doesn’t insist that the group, overall, is of a high quality. What does the “leading group” have the lead in then? Presumably, the lead in responding to this kind of research. That of course suggests that the group, as a whole, should be competent at the tasking of responding, else one may wonder why they have managed to take the lead, but it doesn’t promise quality.
Our own boy, JackD, too. He has his shortcomings, as the above do, but overall, they qualify as Righteous among the Hebrews.
Richard Nixon thought all race science should be suppressed, if it were true, just to salve society. Which makes me wonder how honest-minded intellectuals would respond to Twilight Zone thought experiments about "if Richard Nixon thought this should be intellectually-suppressed, what world do you think you're living in, right now?"
But bottom line, career-wise and general social outcome-wise, few really smart people can see positive social outcomes to the world getting 'woke' to group differences. And Pinker's all about the world getting better. Truth fetish is for the weird.Replies: @Recently Based, @Achmed E. Newman
In the abstract that might be true, if you could posit a world where there was an armed truce in which (i) one side agreed not to point out racial differences, and (ii) the other side agreed not to push for equality of outcomes.
But when one side is able to make discussion of race differences forbidden while using this fact to push for equality of outcome (when it is beneficial to them), then refusing to point out racial differences is unilateral disarmament in the face of a hostile adversary.
Habyarimana et al. conducted field experiments on interethnic cooperation in suburban Kampala, Uganda. One task was for two people to jointly solve a jigsaw puzzle. From pretesting they were surprised to discover that subjects could not cope with jigsaw puzzles larger than four pieces. Even with simple four-piece puzzles, subjects only completed the puzzle 40% of the time.
Yes, and another thing is this whole “Yes, well Africa (or wherever) was held back by European colonialism” argument, is that it implies that those societies were too weak to win in a fight, which is an essential component of a successful society. You aren’t “successful” if another group can kick your ass and take your land.
To plumb different depths.
I took your advice and got a couple of Sabine Hossenfelder’s books from the library. In Lost in Math, she says, “That scientists are sloppy philosophers isn’t news to me– after all, I’m one myself.”
It goes the other way, too. A professor at Macalester College– professor of what, I forgot– wrote an op-ed in one of the Twin Cities newspapers about a decade ago that the common belief that scientists were uninterested in the humanities was actually backwards. His science students were quite curious. It was the humanities students that had little interest in science.
…who can say something like this:
Appears that Cofnas is truly in favor of free speech rather than censorship, no matter what his perspective as a Jew may be, taking Kevin MacDonald seriously, rather than dismissing him as just a ‘Nazi’ anti-Semite
Perhaps rather than view aggressive Jewish Ethnocentrism in a critical way, we should view it as an example for how the broader European ethnic group should behave, if we wish to survive?
Great link, thank you.
Appears that Cofnas is truly in favor of free speech rather than censorship, no matter what his perspective as a Jew may be, taking Kevin MacDonald seriously, rather than dismissing him as just a ‘Nazi’ anti-Semite
Perhaps rather than view aggressive Jewish Ethnocentrism in a critical way, we should view it as an example for how the broader European ethnic group should behave, if we wish to survive?
Women convincing themselves that they are men and vice versa are all the rage.
Maybe you could do all of us a favor and convince yourself that you are steve.
sad.Replies: @Gandydancer
Gonna have to side with Whereismyhandle on this one.Replies: @PhysicistDave
Jon wrote to me:
You are naive.
I have been following Pigliucci for some time: specifically, I checked out a volume from the library last summer that he co-edited and that included contributions from Pigliucci, Science Unlimited? : The Challenges of Scientism: I’ll be polite and just say that I was unimpressed.
There are in fact several “red flags” here:
A) A decade or so ago, he switched from science to philosophy: he seems to have been under fifty at the time. Now, it is a free country and all that, and sometimes when scientists get old and senile and can’t do science any longer, they try to start dealing with “big-picture” issues. But Pigliucci was not that old (he seems to have been under fifty), and scientists of that age who are any good generally do not abandon STEM (they may change to a slightly different subfield of STEM).
This smells bad.
B) Pigliucci has Ph.D.s from U. of Tennessee and U. of Connecticut and he teaches at CCNY. Again, a free country and all that… but not impressive.
C) His scientific work was ho-hum plant biology: no connection to human genetics or intelligence.
D) He has no proven expertise on issues of intelligence. At all.
E) But the real problem is the response he signed to Cofnas. Have you read it?
Do.
Their only significant point is that they do not like the term “races.”
Fine.
Replace the term “races” by “inbred populations inhabiting separate environments for many generations and therefore subject to different selective pressures.”
If you do that, Cofnas’ argument survives.
I helped my wife when she took population biology: it is one of the areas of biology most congenial to us physicists (the other being neuroscience). And I therefore know enough to know that Cofnas’ argument is pretty much iron-clad:
Take some trait that shows genetic variation within each of two separate populations that are subject to different selective pressures.
Almost certainly, you will get a difference in gene frequencies between the two populations.
It would be stunning if you don’t.
Pigliucci is either too stupid to know this (which perhaps explains why he left science!) or he does know this and is a liar (which also may help explain why he left science).
Again, you are naive. Especially at fifth-rate schools such as U of Tenn and U of Conn, lousy students sometimes (often?) are awarded Ph.D.s. (I hereby grant you a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and biological genetics from UPD — the University of PhysicistDave. Do you think that means anything?)
The red flags in this case are just flaming red.
And the “refutation” of Cofnas speaks for itself.
Pigliucci is a bullshitter. There are limits as to how much you can bullshit in science, but in philosophy, alas, the sky’s the limit. And if you look at his recent publication list, he is indeed piling it higher and deeper.
He should be ashamed of himself, but he is probably too stupid to see it.
What "ethical question" exists about pursing the truth?
Now, if you're in a doomed airplane plunging to the earth you might lie to your young children about how it "will all turn out okay." Maybe that's the right call. There are always unusual contexts in ethics.
For any supposed researcher or scientist to even pose that as an "ethical question" is crawfishing and dissembling.
If the "truth" hurts feelings or overturns historically held beliefs, then so be it. Any hesitation to pursue truth is just promoting lying and all of those ill consequences.
Progress and civilization is largely about discovering new truths and uncovering false or incorrect beliefs. Using well known standards for that.
Never apologize for bringing forth truth in the forest of falsehoods and errors.Replies: @Gandydancer
It’s not remotely an apology. So it’s your post that starts right off at “absurd”.
Recently some researchers in Boston created a variety of COVID that kills 80% of “humanized” mice. Presumably they didn’t know when embarking on the research that they would discover a roadmap to possibly create a mass murdering biowar agent, so I don’t share Steve’s reservations about the government paying them to undertake the research.
But, yeah, maybe a black op to kill them before they published might have been called for.
Now, establishing a genetic link between race and IQ isn’t in my opinion so damaging as to require such extreme measures. Or any measures. But a simplistic claim like yours that truth is the only possible concern is unconvincing.
Whereismyhandle wrote to me:
See my reply above to Jon.
The key point is that Pigliucci is just not an expert on intelligence. At all.
The mere fact that an academic philosophy journal published Massimo’s nonsense is irrelevant: Social Text published the Sokal Hoax. As Sokal proved, the standards in much of the humanities have collapsed.
Besides that, as I pointed out to Jon, there are flaming red flags about little Massimo.
Anyway, Massimo is just not an expert on intelligence or, indeed, on human genetics at all.
He is just a professional bullshitter, as his recent publications illustrate.
Easier, an awful lot easier, than doing science.
Go ahead. We know Steve talks to Pinker.
Go ahead. But you cant do it. Because it's either ignorance or intentional slander.
Pinker wouldn't sink to your level of the aforementioned crimes.
Neither you nor Steve knew who Pigliucci is. That's the bottom line. Pinker does.
You've humiliated yourself by basking in your own ignorance.Replies: @PhysicistDave
But upfront, believers in evolution who deny HBD simply are not serious scholars/scientists/people. The one goes with the other.
The idea that post-out-of-Africa we've had selection on physical structure and appearance, disease resistance, metabolism for new foods (like lactose tolerance) and alcohol ... but have amazingly not had selection--or miraculously identical selection everywhere!--on our mental processing--human beings most important skill!!--despite creating whole new modes of existence!!! ... is simply preposterous.
Now the nature, size and cause of mental differences is an empirical question. But that people/peoples differ because of differential selection is not.
But furthermore, it isn't even that these people take an obviously wrongheaded position. (Hey be a tool--that's fine.) It is that they assert that the scientifically default--differential selection in different environments--and clearly rightheaded position can not be correct, is laughably wrong, does not merit investigation, should not be investigated and scholars interested in it should be defenstrated.
This is not "scholarship" or "science". Much less the behavior of anyone serious about ideas--serious about anything other than power.Replies: @Nico, @The Germ Theory of Disease, @Anonymous
Very true, the question that I never hear asked of the evolution deniers is ‘what prevented the differential changes in brain development when the changes in bodily development are plain to see?’.
I would be interested to hear their answers.
Richard Nixon thought all race science should be suppressed, if it were true, just to salve society. Which makes me wonder how honest-minded intellectuals would respond to Twilight Zone thought experiments about "if Richard Nixon thought this should be intellectually-suppressed, what world do you think you're living in, right now?"
But bottom line, career-wise and general social outcome-wise, few really smart people can see positive social outcomes to the world getting 'woke' to group differences. And Pinker's all about the world getting better. Truth fetish is for the weird.Replies: @Recently Based, @Achmed E. Newman
That sounds like something out of the mouth of a Chairman Mao or Premier Stalin. It’s not weird to seek the truth and have integrity. Hell, maybe it is considered weird nowadays, but it shouldn’t be.
I’m sympathetic to replier Recently Based though. If there were an understanding, such as in the Jim Crow era South, sure… The truth should not be suppressed, but maybe it could not be made such a big deal of, were there a basic understanding of where we all fit in, in this world.
Or perhaps you had a specific truth in mind which you believe ought to receive a certain amount public significance - that much and no more. If so, I agree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTBdJei9gB8
https://open.spotify.com/album/1H9g6j4Wwj6wh6p8YHVtkf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlandos_d%27AmourReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
But when one side is able to make discussion of race differences forbidden while using this fact to push for equality of outcome (when it is beneficial to them), then refusing to point out racial differences is unilateral disarmament in the face of a hostile adversary.Replies: @Sean, @Charlotte
That is why it works so well as a trap.
Well of course, because “the truth” isn’t any one thing, it’s a billion different things. We choose what to emphasize, what to downplay and what to outright ignore – not necessarily “deny,” just ignore, simply because we lack the capacity to be fully of conscious of every possible truth.
Or perhaps you had a specific truth in mind which you believe ought to receive a certain amount public significance – that much and no more. If so, I agree.
The assumption that never really gets challenged is that evolution is a slow process(with the exception of “The 10000 year Revolution”) The idea that as evolution is driven by environment, ever faster environmental changes might speed evolution. I recall a conversation with my grandmother, born when Victoria was on the throne, about the changes she had seen in her lifetime. There has been more change in the human environment over the past couple of centuries than the previous 5 millennia.
That people haven’t changed seems a stretch. Modern society has removed the connection between competence and reproduction and what we are witnessing now is that evolution necessarily produces many dead ends, or Wokels as we call them.
Right, no one ever discusses the fact that the inhabitants of most of the colonized areas were developmentally hundreds and more often thousands of years behind the civilizations of their conquerors. The barbarians of Germania and Gaul that the Romans encountered 2000 years ago were further along than most of the North American tribes and all of sub-Saharan Africa and Australia in the 1400s-1800s.
I’m sorry, but we’re not really disagreeing. You’re just factually wrong: Pigliucci is better credentialed than someone like pinker in the following fields: philosophy, philosophy of science, genetics, biology.
I didn’t refer to any argument he wrote on this topic; i addressed Steve’s (false) empirical assertion that Pinker can big dick Pigliucci. This is objectively false. But don’t take my word for it–ask Pinker.
I am impressed with his breadth of knowledge. I really am. But his opinions are nearly worthless. Just read the nonsense he says in the above article.
The key point is that Pigliucci is just not an expert on intelligence. At all.
The mere fact that an academic philosophy journal published Massimo's nonsense is irrelevant: Social Text published the Sokal Hoax. As Sokal proved, the standards in much of the humanities have collapsed.
Besides that, as I pointed out to Jon, there are flaming red flags about little Massimo.
Anyway, Massimo is just not an expert on intelligence or, indeed, on human genetics at all.
He is just a professional bullshitter, as his recent publications illustrate.
Easier, an awful lot easier, than doing science.Replies: @Whereismyhandle
I dare you or Sailer to ask Pinker if he thinks he’s above Pigliucci in philosophy of genetics.
Go ahead. We know Steve talks to Pinker.
Go ahead. But you cant do it. Because it’s either ignorance or intentional slander.
Pinker wouldn’t sink to your level of the aforementioned crimes.
Neither you nor Steve knew who Pigliucci is. That’s the bottom line. Pinker does.
You’ve humiliated yourself by basking in your own ignorance.
Pogrom?
Maybe you could do all of us a favor and convince yourself that you are steve.Replies: @anon, @anon
if i were gandydancer i would gas myself because severely intellectually disabled T4 or because jew.
sad.
Do Pinker, Reich and Cofnas hate Russia, too?
Maybe you could do all of us a favor and convince yourself that you are steve.Replies: @anon, @anon
steve is clearly 100% CORRUPTED by jewish donors and by his own jewiness. how can he live with himself? answer: he can’t unless he’s a psychopath. either way: if i were steve i would gas myself. but hell awaits him either way. steve is no more roman catholic than alan dershowitz.
a second holocaust is inevitable because jews’ motivations aren’t transparent to jews themselves. (i hope.) this is true of humans in general. man is not the rational animal but the rationalizing animal. he is an imposter. a clever wolf who denies he is a wolf. a method actor in a fugue.
but unlike steve, who is a nazi, i know that this holocaust needn’t be effected by murder. all that’s required is the erasure of jewish identity. when jews don’t know they’re jews their propensity to jew is greatly reduced. then they can be bred out or simply TFRed to nothing as jews tend to be ugly midgets.
There’s that old joke about a bear and a rabbit shitting in the woods.
Bear: “‘Sup bro. Hey, tell me – does shit stick to your fur?”
Rabbit: “Nope.”
So the bear wipes his arse with the rabbit.
A useful rule of thumb: anyone who unironically uses the word ‘debunked’ is a fuckwit who has no idea what they’re talking about.
‘Debunked’, ‘fact-check’ and such like are 4chan memes now.
>> HBD: DEBOONKED!
>> TALMUD: DENOUNCED!!
The word is ‘DEBOONKED‘ (usually all-caps).
It’s been in common use on the chans for half a decade.
The normies most likely to claim that a thing has been DEBOONKED are soyjaks[1] who FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE!!.
Even Emil Kirkegaard is aware of it – he’s used it on Twitter. His twitter has been DEBOONKED – eventually it’ll be reinstated once Twitter gets fully Musked.
[1] soyjaks are like wojaks but with noodlier arms and lower sperm counts. They also
▪️ unironically concern-troll about things being racist and antisemitic;
▪️ love cringe catchphrases (e.g., ‘covidiot’);
▪️ think Da Rangz o’ Powah was awesome;
▪️ are C-students at best;
▪️ FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE!!.
But when one side is able to make discussion of race differences forbidden while using this fact to push for equality of outcome (when it is beneficial to them), then refusing to point out racial differences is unilateral disarmament in the face of a hostile adversary.Replies: @Sean, @Charlotte
Isn’t that more or less the late 20th century state of affairs? Whites mostly refrained from drawing HBD conclusions about the source of differences in racial outcomes, while trusting to meritocracy to keep the unqualified or incompetent from climbing dangerously high. It sorta worked, until “equity” and “systemic racism” became a thing, and decades of conditioning against frank discussion left opponents of these concepts scrambling for socially acceptable, convincing arguments.
Now that not only the large black contingent is getting into high and/or important positions without merit, but also massive groups of foreigners, the numbers won't let it work anymore.
Just last week and now this week, Peak Stupidity is continuing a series on "Harvesting the fruits of a half-century of Affirmative Action" - - see Part 1 - - Part 2 - - Part 3.Replies: @Recently Based
Go ahead. We know Steve talks to Pinker.
Go ahead. But you cant do it. Because it's either ignorance or intentional slander.
Pinker wouldn't sink to your level of the aforementioned crimes.
Neither you nor Steve knew who Pigliucci is. That's the bottom line. Pinker does.
You've humiliated yourself by basking in your own ignorance.Replies: @PhysicistDave
Whereismyhandle wrote to me:
Actually, it is you who have soiled yourself in public, little one.
In my reply to you and Jon, I presented five separate facts that prove that crazy little Massimo is just a bullshitter and not an expert on intelligence at all.
You have not even attempted to refute any of those facts. You have only “proved” your case by urging Salier and me to contact Pinker:
I am a scientist: I do not bow down before Steve Pinker. I only bow down before facts.
Pinker is a prolific pop-science author who writes extremely bloated books… he also has a great head of hair! But I do not care what Pinker says about our little bullshitter Massimo: the facts are what they are.
But since you choose to bring Pinker in to this, Cofnas is not the only guy that our little bullshitter Massimo has slimed. Our little bullshitter also has slimed Pinker!
The tl;dr from the bullshitter’s essay on Pinker:
So, what would Pinker say about a guy who accused Pinker of engaging in “one long whining session”?
Well, Pinker has gotten to the top of the academic totem pole by being a good deal more diplomatic than our little bullshitter Massimo. So, if asked about the bullshitter, Steve Pinker would probably say something gracious but meaningless along the lines of, “Massimo has made some interesting contributions to the academic discourse in the fields in which he has taken an interest.”
Not surprisingly, in another context the little bullshitter has said of Pinker, ” I’m no fan of Pinker…”
Again, Pinker is generally a gracious fellow (except when it comes to the Donald — the Donald seems to cause Steve to lose his cool!), and he probably would be gracious about this little nobody Massimo from CCNY.
But it does not matter.
Massimo is not, and does not even claim to be, an expert on intelligence, on human genetics, or even on metazoan genetics.
If an actual expert on human intelligence — say, Linda Gottfredson or Russell Warne — had attacked Cofnas, I would take it seriously.
But Massimo is not a Warne or a Gottfredson.
Massimo is a plant biologist, who did very humdrum work in plant biology and then left the field to play at being a (not very bright) philosopher.
Most crucially, as I explained in my reply to you and Jon:
The only significant point in Massimo’s crackpot critique of Cofnas is that he and his pals do not like the term “races.”
Fine.
Replace the term “races” by “inbred populations inhabiting separate environments for many generations and therefore subject to different selective pressures.”
If you do that, Cofnas’ argument survives.
Massimo is either too stupid or too dishonest (or both) to acknowledge this.
Massimo should resign his academic position, even if it is only at a tenth-rate school, CCNY.
You are just soiling yourself by ignoring the facts that I laid out in my respnse to you and Jon. The truth is that the letter Pugiucci signed attacking Cofnas was crackpottery along the lines of Young Earth Creationism.
Which fits exactly who Massimo Pigliucci is.
And all your huffing and puffing does not refute the facts I carefully laid out.
Thanks, Charlotte. There is more to it now due to the numbers. It’s one thing for competent White men to put up with AA hires at the lower level but still get the real work done. As you wrote, “It sorta worked.”
Now that not only the large black contingent is getting into high and/or important positions without merit, but also massive groups of foreigners, the numbers won’t let it work anymore.
Just last week and now this week, Peak Stupidity is continuing a series on “Harvesting the fruits of a half-century of Affirmative Action” – – see Part 1 – – Part 2 – – Part 3.
It won't work anymore to maintain a broadly functional society. But that doesn't mean it's going to away -- it may very well be here for a long, long time as the society degrades.
I didn't refer to any argument he wrote on this topic; i addressed Steve's (false) empirical assertion that Pinker can big dick Pigliucci. This is objectively false. But don't take my word for it--ask Pinker.Replies: @Roger
Yes, Pigliucci is well-credentialed in several fields. But he is not a leading researcher in the relevant field, and serious scholars do not value his opinion.
I am impressed with his breadth of knowledge. I really am. But his opinions are nearly worthless. Just read the nonsense he says in the above article.
sad.Replies: @Gandydancer
So imagine yourself gandydancer rather than steve. I don’t care why the smell here improves.
Since I’m 6’1″ and steve is taller, we must really be outliers among jews, never mind the naziness that we unaccountably share with you.
Is our midgetness also a projection, like our (in your imagination) tiny dicks and IQs?
Just imagine yourself one of us, stick your head in the oven, and your embarrassing inability to control your self-discrediting flow of stupidity will cease.
Did this title got on top of the wrong post?Replies: @Recently Based, @stillCARealist, @Reg Cæsar, @Gandydancer
Um…. it ought to be a bit of an embarrassment to you that I need to say this, but the title is clearly an ironic mash-up of Casablanca, Usain Bolt etc., and STEVE’s oft-repeated observation about Olympic 100 meter dash finalists. No, no actual quote from a Jamaican coach is being referenced.
No, um, I’m not embarrassed at all. I’ve read plenty of iSteve’s roots-HBD stuff on runners, etc, I get the “SHOCKED, SHOCKED!” bit from Casablanca too, but the post didn’t connect this to the story with even one sentence. I figured he might have had another post in mind, as one often leads to another.
Plus, it’s 2 days later, so why even bother writing this comment?
That’s pretty much what “debunked” means in The Current Year.
Truth Hits Everybody · The Police
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlandos_d%27Amour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTBdJei9gB8
https://open.spotify.com/album/1H9g6j4Wwj6wh6p8YHVtkf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlandos_d%27AmourReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
Thanks, MEH. I bet I haven’t heard that song in 40 years. That band had 4 or 5 really good albums. This was one.
I would be interested to hear their answers.Replies: @lavoisier
V
Witch! Witch!
Now that not only the large black contingent is getting into high and/or important positions without merit, but also massive groups of foreigners, the numbers won't let it work anymore.
Just last week and now this week, Peak Stupidity is continuing a series on "Harvesting the fruits of a half-century of Affirmative Action" - - see Part 1 - - Part 2 - - Part 3.Replies: @Recently Based
I agree with all of this, other than maybe “won’t let it work anymore,” depending on what you meant by that.
It won’t work anymore to maintain a broadly functional society. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to away — it may very well be here for a long, long time as the society degrades.
https://thecritic.co.uk/my-debunked-views/
https://archive.ph/sWTim