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Doesn't Chomsky make a pretty big assumption there? I feel that he chills intellectual inquiry in this area by calling anyone interested in these questions raci

by janlin1999 11y ago

Doesn't Chomsky make a pretty big assumption there? I feel that he chills intellectual inquiry in this area by calling anyone interested in these questions racists and so forth. It seems that there are legitimate questions that could be informed by this line of inquiry. For example, research might affect one's opinion about race-based affirmative action programs mandating that the admitted student body mirror the overall population (assuming that IQ is a relevant factor in college admissions). In the scientific realm, if IQ were indeed heritable and if there were substantive differences across large groups of people, wouldn't people be curious why, and by figuring out the pathway, perhaps be able to design supplements or lifestyle changes to raise people's IQs? I'm not saying that this area of research should be given priority, but it does seem legitimate. As Horgan concedes, this overall sentiment does seem to go against the grain of freedom of scientific inquiry.

nmrm2 11y ago
> For example, research might affect one's opinion about race-based affirmative action programs mandating that the admitted student body mirror the overall population No, because affirmative action programs operate from an absolute commitment to diversity and/or a recognition of systemic violence against certain communities in recent history. Those commitments hold (or not) regardless of genetic variation. > In the scientific realm, if IQ were indeed heritable and if there were substantive differences across large groups of people, wouldn't people be curious why, and by figuring out the pathway, perhaps be able to design supplements or lifestyle changes to raise people's IQs There's a whole field of research called "Education" that studies essentially this question, but not unnecessarily confined to IQ as a sole metric. And yes, many education researchers investigate the effectiveness of interventions in the context of communities (include racially-defined ones). The race/IQ correlation question is totally irrelevant to the discovery and evaluation of assessments among subcommunities. How could knowledge of racial differences in IQ possibly do to push forward education research? Everything we know about differences between subcommunities points to behavioral interventions being effective, and nurture aspects playing a dominate causal role. And even if you want to go full on eugenics / genetic engineering, we have some comparatively stronger hypotheses about some genetic causes for IQ variation that are absolute (i.e., genes that effect IQ but are not correlated with race). So even in a crazy futuristic (I would say dystopian) world of genetic engineering for things like intelligence, investigating racial theories is still a waste of time.
nmrm2 11y ago
> I feel that he chills intellectual inquiry in this area by calling anyone interested in these questions racists and so forth. Well, duh? Chomsky's explicitly trying to chill discussion/research into hypothesis. First because it has no intellectual value -- it's like asking whether red is a better color than purple. Even if there were an answer to such an odd question, it would be useless. Hence, the answer is more likely to be used as a rhetorical sword in political debates than for e.g. effective interventions (which are pretty difficult to imagine short of eugenics in any case). Second because he doubts it's a sincere inquiry. He questions, I think, whether the outcomes of this research will be scientifically grounded and used for good, or more likely to be taken on face value (no matter how confounded/weak) and become an excuse to validate overtly racist eugenics/immigration policies. In other words, Chomsky is calling bullshit on this line of "research" being either "intellectual" or a sincere "inquiry".

nmrm2 11y ago

> For example, research might affect one's opinion about race-based affirmative action programs mandating that the admitted student body mirror the overall population No, because affirmative action programs operate from an absolute commitment to diversity and/or a recognition of systemic violence against certain communities in recent history. Those commitments hold (or not) regardless of genetic variation. > In the scientific realm, if IQ were indeed heritable and if there were substantive differences across large groups of people, wouldn't people be curious why, and by figuring out the pathway, perhaps be able to design supplements or lifestyle changes to raise people's IQs There's a whole field of research called "Education" that studies essentially this question, but not unnecessarily confined to IQ as a sole metric. And yes, many education researchers investigate the effectiveness of interventions in the context of communities (include racially-defined ones). The race/IQ correlation question is totally irrelevant to the discovery and evaluation of assessments among subcommunities. How could knowledge of racial differences in IQ possibly do to push forward education research? Everything we know about differences between subcommunities points to behavioral interventions being effective, and nurture aspects playing a dominate causal role. And even if you want to go full on eugenics / genetic engineering, we have some comparatively stronger hypotheses about some genetic causes for IQ variation that are absolute (i.e., genes that effect IQ but are not correlated with race). So even in a crazy futuristic (I would say dystopian) world of genetic engineering for things like intelligence, investigating racial theories is still a waste of time.

nmrm2 11y ago

> I feel that he chills intellectual inquiry in this area by calling anyone interested in these questions racists and so forth. Well, duh? Chomsky's explicitly trying to chill discussion/research into hypothesis. First because it has no intellectual value -- it's like asking whether red is a better color than purple. Even if there were an answer to such an odd question, it would be useless. Hence, the answer is more likely to be used as a rhetorical sword in political debates than for e.g. effective interventions (which are pretty difficult to imagine short of eugenics in any case). Second because he doubts it's a sincere inquiry. He questions, I think, whether the outcomes of this research will be scientifically grounded and used for good, or more likely to be taken on face value (no matter how confounded/weak) and become an excuse to validate overtly racist eugenics/immigration policies. In other words, Chomsky is calling bullshit on this line of "research" being either "intellectual" or a sincere "inquiry".