Jan 1, 2023·edited Jan 1, 2023Liked by Bentham's Bulldog
We’ve almost been trained to assume that when someone makes statements like, “black people genetically have lower IQs on average” or “black people have more Neanderthal DNA than white people” that it’s synonymous with “black people are inferior to white people.” And generally speaking, that is the case. People make these innocuous scientific claims to justify all kinds of bigotry.
It can be hard to remember that the conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow from the previous statements.
I mostly agree with what you're saying, but I don't think normally people would say it's theoretically racist to say black people have lower IQs. Rather, it just is the case that most people who say that have a racist agenda - particularly when they claim those differences are based in genetics. Leftists who say there is an IQ gap generally attribute that to cultural, economic, and historical conditions. And they don't equate IQ with intelligence. This is rarely met with accusations of racism.
I think you have to consider the impacts of your statement. Saying you don't like Trans people reinforces the violent and often deadly prejudice Trans people face in our society. In the example above, it is straightforward to say "I like people who oppose Trump more than those who support him." It says something true about the actual person, rather than trafficking in stereotypes. (I wouldn't want to be stereotyped based on traits over which I have no control.)
I think it's funny how, in a post about how unreliable our intuitions are, you try to use an intuition pump in which smart black people are abducted by aliens...
You don't have to go to such far out scenarios. You could just say, "What if scientists had accidentally studied a non-representative sample of black people?"
Abstracting the concept of racism seems to end up in a cul-de-sac. Don't most people intuit that racism also involves fuzzy notions, such as inherent material or moral inferiority/superiority?
Also, the thing that makes me question the utility of the IQ data is that most people do not intuitively grasp the significance of a bell curve. This does seem to make it somewhat 'racist' to keep arguing that there is evidence of mean or average racial IQ differences because so many white people (like me) don't understand that the same analysis shows that there are countless black people who are vastly more intelligent than they are.
Yes, it's annoying that the morality of racism clouds the epistemic landscape.
Why should anyone on the left grant that it's "unobjectionable" to say one likes Republicans more than Democrats? I certainly wouldn't wanna be friends with someone who says that, because you have to be a tremendously shitty person to prefer the average Trump or de Santis supporter over the average Warren or Biden supporter.
I also think you are kind of creating a strawman in the race and IQ debate. While there are certainly some crazy twitter lefties who think it's racist to say that black people, on average, have a lower IQ, this is a very small minority* - the dominant progressive narrative is that A) black people have been systematically oppressed and that B) the fact that A happened has lead to black people having a lower IQ, on average. Admitting B) is not commonly seen as racist by those progressives. What is seen as racist, however, is if you claim C) that B cannot be explained by A, but is probably rooted in genetic factors. There is currently very little scientific evidence that C is in fact true and there is loads of evidence that A is the better explanation. What is racist, according to the progressive narrative, is to say negative things about black people *that is not backed by the science* - I don't think anything you wrote challenged that progressive narrative, because C is simply not backed by the available science at all.
* If you listen to people like Vaush debate racists, you will see that they immediately grant that black people have a lower IQ on average. Just like they grant that black people, for historical reasons, commit more crimes
We’ve almost been trained to assume that when someone makes statements like, “black people genetically have lower IQs on average” or “black people have more Neanderthal DNA than white people” that it’s synonymous with “black people are inferior to white people.” And generally speaking, that is the case. People make these innocuous scientific claims to justify all kinds of bigotry.
It can be hard to remember that the conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow from the previous statements.
I mostly agree with what you're saying, but I don't think normally people would say it's theoretically racist to say black people have lower IQs. Rather, it just is the case that most people who say that have a racist agenda - particularly when they claim those differences are based in genetics. Leftists who say there is an IQ gap generally attribute that to cultural, economic, and historical conditions. And they don't equate IQ with intelligence. This is rarely met with accusations of racism.
Also, this doesn't change your argument, but this is a good post about the relevant science for anyone who is interested: http://ewanbirney.com/2019/10/race-genetics-and-pseudoscience-an-explainer.html
I think you have to consider the impacts of your statement. Saying you don't like Trans people reinforces the violent and often deadly prejudice Trans people face in our society. In the example above, it is straightforward to say "I like people who oppose Trump more than those who support him." It says something true about the actual person, rather than trafficking in stereotypes. (I wouldn't want to be stereotyped based on traits over which I have no control.)
I think it's funny how, in a post about how unreliable our intuitions are, you try to use an intuition pump in which smart black people are abducted by aliens...
You don't have to go to such far out scenarios. You could just say, "What if scientists had accidentally studied a non-representative sample of black people?"
Abstracting the concept of racism seems to end up in a cul-de-sac. Don't most people intuit that racism also involves fuzzy notions, such as inherent material or moral inferiority/superiority?
Also, the thing that makes me question the utility of the IQ data is that most people do not intuitively grasp the significance of a bell curve. This does seem to make it somewhat 'racist' to keep arguing that there is evidence of mean or average racial IQ differences because so many white people (like me) don't understand that the same analysis shows that there are countless black people who are vastly more intelligent than they are.
Yes, it's annoying that the morality of racism clouds the epistemic landscape.
Nice article.
Why should anyone on the left grant that it's "unobjectionable" to say one likes Republicans more than Democrats? I certainly wouldn't wanna be friends with someone who says that, because you have to be a tremendously shitty person to prefer the average Trump or de Santis supporter over the average Warren or Biden supporter.
I also think you are kind of creating a strawman in the race and IQ debate. While there are certainly some crazy twitter lefties who think it's racist to say that black people, on average, have a lower IQ, this is a very small minority* - the dominant progressive narrative is that A) black people have been systematically oppressed and that B) the fact that A happened has lead to black people having a lower IQ, on average. Admitting B) is not commonly seen as racist by those progressives. What is seen as racist, however, is if you claim C) that B cannot be explained by A, but is probably rooted in genetic factors. There is currently very little scientific evidence that C is in fact true and there is loads of evidence that A is the better explanation. What is racist, according to the progressive narrative, is to say negative things about black people *that is not backed by the science* - I don't think anything you wrote challenged that progressive narrative, because C is simply not backed by the available science at all.
* If you listen to people like Vaush debate racists, you will see that they immediately grant that black people have a lower IQ on average. Just like they grant that black people, for historical reasons, commit more crimes