experts who are generally labelled as "nurture" supporters like say the respected Richard Lynn
I think you may be confusing Richard Lynn (author of such books as Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis) with James Flynn (of Flynn effect fame).
Yes I actually did. Corrected.
This is an interesting failure since before I checked back on this post I was 100% certain I put James Flynn.
Actually I think that if differences in group (sex, race, ethnicity, class, caste) intelligence (IQ) means and distributions proved to be of genetic origins this would be a net gain in utility since it would increase public acceptance of genetic engineering and spending on gene based therapies.
BTW We already know that the differences are real as in they are measured and we have tried our very best to get rid of say cultural bias, and proving that they aren't culturally biased is impossible so its deceiving to talk "if differences proved to be real" as some posters have done, its more accurate to say "if differences proved to be mostly genetic in origin".
Which reminds me, we also know that some of the differences are caused by environmental factors, the so called hereditarnian (known as nature or genetic) position is actually dominated by a model that ascribes about equal weight to environment and genetics. And even experts who are generally labelled as "nurture" supporters like say the respected James Flynn have said that they aren't ruling out a small genetic component.
I'm fine with discriminating in some ways based on intelligence of the individual, and if it does turn out that Group X is statistically less intelligent, then maybe Group X should be underrepresented in important positions. This has consequences for policy decisions.
Agreed. But I should not make decisions about individual members of Group X based on the statistical trend associated with Group X, and I doubt my (or anyone's) ability to actually not do so in cases where I have integrated the belief that the statistical trend is true.
How are you going to help a disadvantaged group if you're blinding yourself to the details of how they're disadvantaged?
The short answer is that I'm not going to. I'm not doing research on human intelligence, and I doubt I ever will. The best I can hope to do is not further disadvantage individual members of Group X by discriminating against them on the basis of statistical trends that they may not embody.
People who are doing research that relates to human intelligence in some way should probably not follow this exact line of reasoning.
People who are doing research that relates to human intelligence in some way should probably not follow this exact line of reasoning.
Those people depend upon funding that is contingent on public opinion of how valid their research is.
Also by making a research question disreputable, talented people might avoid it and those with ulterior motives might flock to it.
Currently the only people who dare to touch this field in any meaningful way are those who are already tenured, and while that is the whole purpose of tenure, the fact remains that even if these people are due to their age (as the topic wasn't always taboo) not really showing the negative effects of the above paragraph they are still old. And old brains just don't work that well when it comes to coming up with new stuff.
Deciding a piece of knowledge should be considered dangerous knowledge will necessarily lead to the deception of others and self on many different levels and in many different ways. I agree with the estimation made by some others that will produce Dragon in the garage dynamics which will induce many of the same bad results and biases you seem to wish to ameliorate.
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
100% certain and wrong? Ooops, there goes your entire epistemic framework. :)
Lol yes I see why using that phrase on this site is a bit funny.
Still updating on the language used here. Wonderful site.