If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "
Online debates are driven by filter bubbles. It's a mistake to assume that the conflict in your own filter bubble reflects the core underlying social conflict of the US.
Especially if it isn't newsworthy enough for a New York Times journalist to explain to his readers what the conflict is even about, so that his readers understand what the phrase is supposed to mean.
Scott didn't ban any of the collection of ideas but the term itself: "I am banning the terms “human biodiversity” and “hbd” – this doesn’t necessarily mean banning all discussion of those topics, but it should force people to concentrate on particular claims rather than make sweeping culture-war-ish declarations about the philosophy as a whole. "
You can discuss specific claims in that field on this blog.
There's a conflict but the conflict isn't about "human biodiversity" and some of the protestors might not even know what the phrase means.
Peter Singer got his speech squelched for ableism even when we agree that disabled people are per definition biologically different. People on the left don't deny human biodiversity on that point.
Which specific debates within the scientific community are held under the label of human biodiversity? If I type "human biodiversity" into Google Scholar most of the papers aren't recent. The first recent paper I find is "Human Biodiversity Conservation: A Consensual Ethical Principle". It's about the case for conserving human disability. That's not the kind of writing that was found at Scott's comment section.
There has been a lot of important events that New York Times journalists didn't see fit to explain to their readers. The failure of Soviet collective agriculture is probably the most infamous historical example.
... (read more)