brazil84 comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: Rain 16 March 2010 12:28:00PM * 7 points [-]

From what I can tell of your blog post, you said, "there's evidence, it's so obvious, people have alternative explanations but they're bogus, there's evidence, I bet whites do better than blacks on tests, there's tons of evidence."

Where's the evidence?

Comment author: brazil84 comment score below threshold [+] (12 children)

Comment author: Rain 17 March 2010 07:49:23PM 3 points [-]

Here's your updated answer from the post, and my reply:

I’m a little confused. Do you deny that whites, generally speaking, outperform blacks on tests of cognitive ability?

You have presented no evidence that they do, therefore there is no evidence for me to deny.

Comment author: CarlShulman 17 March 2010 11:19:56PM * 10 points [-]

It's settled science, the psychometric consensus (although genetic causation of these gaps is not consensus).

Comment author: brazil84 17 March 2010 08:05:53PM 0 points [-]

You have presented no evidence that they do, therefore there is no evidence for me to deny.

When I'm debating with people, I generally don't respond to demands for evidence or cites unless the person disputes -- or is at least seriously skeptical -- about the claim in question.

This prevents people from wasting my time and/or sidetracking the discussion with frivolous demands for evidence.

Comment author: Morendil 17 March 2010 08:13:12PM 5 points [-]

In this discussion you have waited for other people to bring forward the very kind of evidence that underpins your claims, which, seeing as you were the one making a claim in the first place, was your responsibility. From where I sit you're the one who is causing others to waste their time. Your contributions have been vague and overbroad, those of your interlocutors precise and information-rich.

Why should we pay attention to you?

Comment author: brazil84 17 March 2010 08:20:44PM 1 point [-]

seeing as you were the one making a claim in the first place, was your responsibility.

No, it's not my responsibility to anticipate which aspects of my claim or argument people will dispute.

For example, if I claim that men are taller than women, there's no need for me to provide a cite or evidence until somebody actually disputes my claim, or at least expresses serious skepticism about it.

Comment author: wnoise 17 March 2010 09:53:20PM * -2 points [-]

Height is far more visible (and objective!) than intelligence. EDIT: And the segregation between men and women is much smaller than the segregation between blacks and whites.

Comment author: brazil84 17 March 2010 10:05:37PM 2 points [-]

Agreed. But so what?

If nobody is willing to dispute -- or even to state they are seriously skeptical -- about some aspect of a particular claim, what's the point of digging up evidence/cites to support that aspect of that claim?

Comment author: ata 17 March 2010 10:59:28PM * 0 points [-]

And the segregation between men and women is much smaller than the segregation between blacks and whites.

That sounds questionable to me.

Obviously men and women aren't geographically segregated in the same way that whites and blacks often are, but socially, economically, and politically, I think the disparity might be greater. (In the US, the income disparity between men and women is greater than that between whites and blacks, for instance.) I'm not saying I'm necessarily very confident about this, but if it's true that "the segregation between men and women is much smaller than the segregation between blacks and whites", then I would be interested in hearing your definitions and evidence.

Comment author: wnoise 18 March 2010 04:37:16AM 1 point [-]

Depending on exactly what you mean, I might or might not agree with the premise that the segregation is greater. But in any case, I don't think it has the same effect.

Geographic segregation means some whites may encounter very few blacks. Economic and political segregation doesn't mean that men do not encounter women and vice-versa. Social segregation is one of those fuzzy things again. Yes, most people have a biased sex-ratio of friends, but the world isn't Saudi Arabia, and men and women do see each other daily. The fact that blacks are a minority, whereas women and men are near parity also affects things.

Comment author: thomblake 18 March 2010 01:51:51AM 0 points [-]

The graph you link to doesn't specify where it came from, how it was measured, or more specifically whether/how it counts housewives / married couples.

Comment author: ata 18 March 2010 02:01:34AM * 1 point [-]

Where it came from: 2005 US Census. Probably doesn't make any such distinctions between married and unmarried women.

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brazil84 comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

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