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Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? I'm really skeptical about IQ in general, but anyone popular with the far right

Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? I'm really skeptical about IQ in general, but anyone popular with the far right really makes me suspicious. I'll take a look at the link you provided...But man, there are an awful lot of 1488 types that support this guy. It really makes me question where he is coming from.

superquest 9y ago
For anyone who cares, here's a 90 min video interview with Peterson and a prominent intelligence researcher: https://youtu.be/PY4sShDt9to https://youtu.be/PY4sShDt9to
1000units 9y ago
He's a psychology professor, formerly at Harvard now at UoT. He knows about IQ, and he's not far right. You should convert some of that politically biased 'skepticism' into dispassionate inquiry.
- youdontknowtho 9y ago
  Yeah, it's ok to just "ask questions" about black people being subhumans. Right? The appeal to authority is cute, though.
  - azangru 9y ago
    Are you of the opinion that some questions should not be asked (even if they can be formulated in a testable, formalized way) no matter what? Also, would you consider that it's all right to ask questions about correlations between race/ethnicity and the incidence of heart disease / hypertension / sickle-cell anemia etc., but not about correlations between race/ethnicity and IQ? (I don't have a dog in this fight, and I understand that IQ measurement is a very unreliable and culturally predicated way of measuring intelligence; I am just curious about the way that people who are indignant about such inquiries think.)
    - youdontknowtho 9y ago
      I think it matters who is asking the questions. IQ is BS and is just a stand in for implying inferiority.
      - azangru 9y ago
        > I think it matters who is asking the questions. That's unfortunate. Results of scientific inquiry should not depend on who is asking the questions.
    - sheepmullet 9y ago
      > and I understand that IQ measurement is a very unreliable What gives you the idea that it is unreliable? It is one of the most consistent and reliable measurements in psychology. > culturally predicated way of measuring intelligence In what sense? In the sense that it is only a good indicator for success because of the way our society is currently setup? Quite possibly. But I don't see that as a criticism of IQ. It is really a criticism of the disturbed individuals using "intelligence" as the key driver of human worth. By the way that kind of thinking is more prevalent with the intellectual elite who visit hacker news than it is of the average alt-right supporter.
      - azangru 9y ago
        I probably phrased it poorly. On second thought, I should have said that I am aware of the opinion that IQ tests are culturally biased (due to different linguistic and cultural background of test subjects) and thus may unfairly favor some groups over others. This is a pretty common (and therefore easily googlable) opinion, whose correctness I am unqualified to judge, but can accept it as an argument worth considering.
  - DeusExMachina 9y ago
    Peterson never even asked a question like that, let alone give an answer. This is just a straw man. Do you have any evidence?
  - wwweston 9y ago
    > Yeah, it's ok to just "ask questions" about black people being subhumans. Right? So... where did you get the idea that this is a credible takeaway from his work? (Also, he'd probably be the first person to agree with the assessment that university employment or credentials doesn't necessarily mean that your claims or research are any good...)
- bqe 9y ago
  Here's some dispassionate inquiry: he leans on IQ far too heavily to explain how the brain works. While there is correlation between jobs and IQ and some research that shows a mild inverse relationship between IQ and crime, it's not the end-all-be-all of psychology, as he claims, "If you don’t buy IQ research, then you might as well throw away all of psychology." What of all of the other areas of psychology? If IQ was found to be completely spurious, we'd still have other psychological research. IQ is not foundational like he claims. It's like Peterson has never read the criticisms[1] of the Bell Curve and believes it in its entirely. His lectures and interviews on the subject are really just a rehashing of the same, mostly discredited arguments. Even Charles Murray has stepped back from a single number determinant of a single kind of intelligence[2]. [1]: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.html http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.htm... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20050205010706/http://www.skeptic.com/archives24.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050205010706/http://www.skepti...
  - 1000units 9y ago
    He does not use IQ to explain how the brain works, in any way whatsoever. Can you link to (or synthesize) a criticism of something the man has said himself?
  - DeusExMachina 9y ago
    He does not claim at what you say at all. I'll try to summarize his position on IQ without doing him a disservice. * IQ is highly correlated to intelligence (what is called technically g). Highly enough that you can use it as a measure of general intelligence. * IQ is the only test we have that accurately measures intelligence and that is not a self-report test. * IQ has been shown to be the highest predictor for success in life. Highest does not mean only. In fact, its correlation is .35. Conscientiousness is the second best predictor, but amounts to half of IQ. * There is no way to raise IQ, which is genetically determined. But there are many ways to lower it. It also very important to consider that a) he made a lot of highly cited research on the topic, b) he is very knowledgeable on the literature and c) he says many times that the results of these studies are disheartening and nobody likes them (him included). He never implied, for example, that there is an inverse relationship between IQ and crime, quite the opposite. IQ is related to the Opennes personality trait. Crime is caused by low Agreableness, which is another personality trait. He also cites often the work of Martin Daly, which studied how crime is correlated to a too steep inequality, where the social ladder is too hard to climb, which makes people turn to crime as the only alternative. So I don't know where you got that idea.
dominotw 9y ago
> 1488 types whats that?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sattoshi 9y ago
  It's a code nazis use: 14 = the 14 words "we must ensure the existence of our people and a future for white children" 88 = H is the 8th letter, HH = Heil Hitler
- lwhalen 9y ago
  Chalk this up to 'things I wish I didn't know', but it's a neo-nazi slogan/concept of 'fourteen words' (something about 'saving the future for white children', yada yada) and 'heil hitler' - 'H' being the 8th letter of the alphabet. '1488-types' are a reference to the type of folks who buy into that horsepuckey.
  - youdontknowtho 9y ago
    Right there with you on the wishing I had never heard of it. I actually started referring to them this way because of an email from Curtis Yarvin to Milo Y. He was giving Milo advice about dealing with 1488 types in a way that doesn't alienate them as an audience.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Is that exchange public? I would love to read that email as a political scholar.
skrebbel 9y ago
I usually employ the same rule of thumb (although I don't know who "1488 types" are - my rule of thumb is that if a gamergater is passionately defending an opinion I default to the opposite until I learn more). But I've made an exception for Peterson. He's not as super left wing as much university staff, sure, but to call him extreme right is very far fetched. My impression, if this means anything to you, is that his political opinion fits well with that of centrist Christian Democrat parties in Europe (eg Merkel's CDU). That makes him more conservative than me, but because he's also totally brilliant, I don't mind. I don't know why the alt right likes him, but my guess is that he's a great speaker who presents something like a very moderate version of alt right opinion. I guess the most extreme thing he did, that he's somewhat infamous for, is refusing to use different singular personal pronouns than "he" and "she". While I think that he was an ass about that, to call someone far right for not wanting to say "ze" in a classroom is a few bridges to far for me. EDIT: I got 4 downvotes already but really tried to make a balanced argument. Maybe I missed some of his "oeuvre" that would change my mind, maybe I'm outright wrong somewhere? Would appreciate someone pointing it out.
- superquest 9y ago
  I think he deliberately tries to appeal to the kind of disillusioned young white men who mostly make up the "alt right", but he tries to steer them away from the identity politics of "white nationalism" and towards personal responsibility and self-improvement. Check out this video for the best example: https://youtu.be/XbOeO_frzvg https://youtu.be/XbOeO_frzvg
- Reedx 9y ago
  Well, the 1488 types and the alt right are mistaken in their support. They see a professor making headlines because he's vocal about the problems with the alt left. That's all they know and they're assuming that means he's on their side (the alt left also makes this mistake). But that's absolutely not the case and is clear to anyone that actually watches his lectures.
  - youdontknowtho 9y ago
    "alt left" isn't a thing.
wwweston 9y ago
[First off: JBP supporters who are downvoting the parent, come on, you know better. That's not how you do things.] > Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? If he is, it's remarkable that I've been able to miss that over listening to his course lectures since 2015 on top of the more recent bible/other lectures. My personal location on the political spectrum right now is pretty partisan Democrat, largely out of the opinion that the Republican Party and most of the conservatism in the US is a dumpster fire, and in particular that the GOP is almost completely incapable of doing policy in the public interest. I say this to make it entirely clear that I'm hardly "far right." :) And I still think taking in Peterson's stuff has been probably the single best thing that's happened to me for sharpening my thinking over the last few years. I also think there are some reasonable arguments that he's wrong about a number of things, and I think you should be suspicious about how some of his ideas are functioning in certain political conversations. I see lower-resolution versions of his thinking being pressed into service of conventional conservative partisan narratives. But I strongly suspect that the solution, if there is one, is going to be engaging with the political ideas and trying to criticize them as effectively (and intellectually) as he advocates for them. Ad hominem attacks aimed at his status are only going to feed the beast. And to the extent that you think progressivism or liberalism or centrist technocratism or whatever are based in reason and argument (and I do), it would be a gift if Peterson's thinking became more prominent, even where it might be wrong. You can engage reason and argument with reason and argument. It's pretty hard for me to tell how to engage Trumpism. And finally -- Peterson is super popular in large part because he's primarily working in the realm of applied personal philosophy. He's done a lot of compelling work to distill the interpretation of religious narratives, philosophical thinking, and psychology into some concrete guidance that's digestible for those of us culturally centered in western modernity. I think it'd be a rare person who can't find some of what he has to say interesting and useful.
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  > It's pretty hard for me to tell how to engage Trumpism. How about start with a list of Trump supporters concerns? Then try and understand why they are concerned. To force yourself to be honest try and argue in support of some of their key positions.
bufferoverflow 9y ago
IQ does negatively correlate with race, that's a fact. The point he (and others) make is that we shouldn't treat low-IQ people as subhumans, just because they lost in the genetic lottery. There are many other things that correlate with race, both phenotypically and genetically, there advantages and disadvantages to different ethnicities and races. Why is it so radical to say that IQ is different between races? Is it really different from saying that the fastest runners are black?
- bqe 9y ago
  To those wondering why alt-right/neo-nazi/1488-type people are flocking to Jordan Peterson: this comment accurately describes both Peterson's views and the alt-right view on race. Many alt-right people claim they acknowledge "factual differences" of race, which is the basis for their ethno-nationalist views. Here's a discussion on the alt-right following of Peterson on his subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/7gb5af/is_jordan_peterson_dogwhistling_the_alt_right/dqi1dlh/ https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/7gb5af/is_j...
  - 1000units 9y ago
    You're grievously slandering a man whom it appears you have made no effort to understand. You should be ashamed of yourself. Prof. Peterson is possibly the furthest thing from a "neo-nazi".
    - larrykwg 9y ago
      But just calling someone a nazi is so much more efficient than having to come up with actual arguments on why he is supposed to be so evil.
    - bqe 9y ago
      It's called libel when it's written down. Would the furthest thing from a neo-nazi tweet this, which is full of alt-right dog whistles? > KEK boys. Seek your 4chan. Don't stay in the underworld. Author your future. Code PEPE. Free 4 U 4 1 wk. https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/851464151708950528 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/85146415170895052...

superquest 9y ago

For anyone who cares, here's a 90 min video interview with Peterson and a prominent intelligence researcher: https://youtu.be/PY4sShDt9to https://youtu.be/PY4sShDt9to

1000units 9y ago

He's a psychology professor, formerly at Harvard now at UoT. He knows about IQ, and he's not far right. You should convert some of that politically biased 'skepticism' into dispassionate inquiry.

youdontknowtho 9y ago
Yeah, it's ok to just "ask questions" about black people being subhumans. Right? The appeal to authority is cute, though.
- azangru 9y ago
  Are you of the opinion that some questions should not be asked (even if they can be formulated in a testable, formalized way) no matter what? Also, would you consider that it's all right to ask questions about correlations between race/ethnicity and the incidence of heart disease / hypertension / sickle-cell anemia etc., but not about correlations between race/ethnicity and IQ? (I don't have a dog in this fight, and I understand that IQ measurement is a very unreliable and culturally predicated way of measuring intelligence; I am just curious about the way that people who are indignant about such inquiries think.)
  - youdontknowtho 9y ago
    I think it matters who is asking the questions. IQ is BS and is just a stand in for implying inferiority.
    - azangru 9y ago
      > I think it matters who is asking the questions. That's unfortunate. Results of scientific inquiry should not depend on who is asking the questions.
  - sheepmullet 9y ago
    > and I understand that IQ measurement is a very unreliable What gives you the idea that it is unreliable? It is one of the most consistent and reliable measurements in psychology. > culturally predicated way of measuring intelligence In what sense? In the sense that it is only a good indicator for success because of the way our society is currently setup? Quite possibly. But I don't see that as a criticism of IQ. It is really a criticism of the disturbed individuals using "intelligence" as the key driver of human worth. By the way that kind of thinking is more prevalent with the intellectual elite who visit hacker news than it is of the average alt-right supporter.
    - azangru 9y ago
      I probably phrased it poorly. On second thought, I should have said that I am aware of the opinion that IQ tests are culturally biased (due to different linguistic and cultural background of test subjects) and thus may unfairly favor some groups over others. This is a pretty common (and therefore easily googlable) opinion, whose correctness I am unqualified to judge, but can accept it as an argument worth considering.
- DeusExMachina 9y ago
  Peterson never even asked a question like that, let alone give an answer. This is just a straw man. Do you have any evidence?
- wwweston 9y ago
  > Yeah, it's ok to just "ask questions" about black people being subhumans. Right? So... where did you get the idea that this is a credible takeaway from his work? (Also, he'd probably be the first person to agree with the assessment that university employment or credentials doesn't necessarily mean that your claims or research are any good...)
bqe 9y ago
Here's some dispassionate inquiry: he leans on IQ far too heavily to explain how the brain works. While there is correlation between jobs and IQ and some research that shows a mild inverse relationship between IQ and crime, it's not the end-all-be-all of psychology, as he claims, "If you don’t buy IQ research, then you might as well throw away all of psychology." What of all of the other areas of psychology? If IQ was found to be completely spurious, we'd still have other psychological research. IQ is not foundational like he claims. It's like Peterson has never read the criticisms[1] of the Bell Curve and believes it in its entirely. His lectures and interviews on the subject are really just a rehashing of the same, mostly discredited arguments. Even Charles Murray has stepped back from a single number determinant of a single kind of intelligence[2]. [1]: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.html http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.htm... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20050205010706/http://www.skeptic.com/archives24.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050205010706/http://www.skepti...
- 1000units 9y ago
  He does not use IQ to explain how the brain works, in any way whatsoever. Can you link to (or synthesize) a criticism of something the man has said himself?
- DeusExMachina 9y ago
  He does not claim at what you say at all. I'll try to summarize his position on IQ without doing him a disservice. * IQ is highly correlated to intelligence (what is called technically g). Highly enough that you can use it as a measure of general intelligence. * IQ is the only test we have that accurately measures intelligence and that is not a self-report test. * IQ has been shown to be the highest predictor for success in life. Highest does not mean only. In fact, its correlation is .35. Conscientiousness is the second best predictor, but amounts to half of IQ. * There is no way to raise IQ, which is genetically determined. But there are many ways to lower it. It also very important to consider that a) he made a lot of highly cited research on the topic, b) he is very knowledgeable on the literature and c) he says many times that the results of these studies are disheartening and nobody likes them (him included). He never implied, for example, that there is an inverse relationship between IQ and crime, quite the opposite. IQ is related to the Opennes personality trait. Crime is caused by low Agreableness, which is another personality trait. He also cites often the work of Martin Daly, which studied how crime is correlated to a too steep inequality, where the social ladder is too hard to climb, which makes people turn to crime as the only alternative. So I don't know where you got that idea.

dominotw 9y ago

> 1488 types whats that?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sattoshi 9y ago
It's a code nazis use: 14 = the 14 words "we must ensure the existence of our people and a future for white children" 88 = H is the 8th letter, HH = Heil Hitler
lwhalen 9y ago
Chalk this up to 'things I wish I didn't know', but it's a neo-nazi slogan/concept of 'fourteen words' (something about 'saving the future for white children', yada yada) and 'heil hitler' - 'H' being the 8th letter of the alphabet. '1488-types' are a reference to the type of folks who buy into that horsepuckey.
- youdontknowtho 9y ago
  Right there with you on the wishing I had never heard of it. I actually started referring to them this way because of an email from Curtis Yarvin to Milo Y. He was giving Milo advice about dealing with 1488 types in a way that doesn't alienate them as an audience.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Is that exchange public? I would love to read that email as a political scholar.

skrebbel 9y ago

I usually employ the same rule of thumb (although I don't know who "1488 types" are - my rule of thumb is that if a gamergater is passionately defending an opinion I default to the opposite until I learn more). But I've made an exception for Peterson. He's not as super left wing as much university staff, sure, but to call him extreme right is very far fetched. My impression, if this means anything to you, is that his political opinion fits well with that of centrist Christian Democrat parties in Europe (eg Merkel's CDU). That makes him more conservative than me, but because he's also totally brilliant, I don't mind. I don't know why the alt right likes him, but my guess is that he's a great speaker who presents something like a very moderate version of alt right opinion. I guess the most extreme thing he did, that he's somewhat infamous for, is refusing to use different singular personal pronouns than "he" and "she". While I think that he was an ass about that, to call someone far right for not wanting to say "ze" in a classroom is a few bridges to far for me. EDIT: I got 4 downvotes already but really tried to make a balanced argument. Maybe I missed some of his "oeuvre" that would change my mind, maybe I'm outright wrong somewhere? Would appreciate someone pointing it out.

superquest 9y ago
I think he deliberately tries to appeal to the kind of disillusioned young white men who mostly make up the "alt right", but he tries to steer them away from the identity politics of "white nationalism" and towards personal responsibility and self-improvement. Check out this video for the best example: https://youtu.be/XbOeO_frzvg https://youtu.be/XbOeO_frzvg
Reedx 9y ago
Well, the 1488 types and the alt right are mistaken in their support. They see a professor making headlines because he's vocal about the problems with the alt left. That's all they know and they're assuming that means he's on their side (the alt left also makes this mistake). But that's absolutely not the case and is clear to anyone that actually watches his lectures.
- youdontknowtho 9y ago
  "alt left" isn't a thing.

wwweston 9y ago

[First off: JBP supporters who are downvoting the parent, come on, you know better. That's not how you do things.] > Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? If he is, it's remarkable that I've been able to miss that over listening to his course lectures since 2015 on top of the more recent bible/other lectures. My personal location on the political spectrum right now is pretty partisan Democrat, largely out of the opinion that the Republican Party and most of the conservatism in the US is a dumpster fire, and in particular that the GOP is almost completely incapable of doing policy in the public interest. I say this to make it entirely clear that I'm hardly "far right." :) And I still think taking in Peterson's stuff has been probably the single best thing that's happened to me for sharpening my thinking over the last few years. I also think there are some reasonable arguments that he's wrong about a number of things, and I think you should be suspicious about how some of his ideas are functioning in certain political conversations. I see lower-resolution versions of his thinking being pressed into service of conventional conservative partisan narratives. But I strongly suspect that the solution, if there is one, is going to be engaging with the political ideas and trying to criticize them as effectively (and intellectually) as he advocates for them. Ad hominem attacks aimed at his status are only going to feed the beast. And to the extent that you think progressivism or liberalism or centrist technocratism or whatever are based in reason and argument (and I do), it would be a gift if Peterson's thinking became more prominent, even where it might be wrong. You can engage reason and argument with reason and argument. It's pretty hard for me to tell how to engage Trumpism. And finally -- Peterson is super popular in large part because he's primarily working in the realm of applied personal philosophy. He's done a lot of compelling work to distill the interpretation of religious narratives, philosophical thinking, and psychology into some concrete guidance that's digestible for those of us culturally centered in western modernity. I think it'd be a rare person who can't find some of what he has to say interesting and useful.

sheepmullet 9y ago
> It's pretty hard for me to tell how to engage Trumpism. How about start with a list of Trump supporters concerns? Then try and understand why they are concerned. To force yourself to be honest try and argue in support of some of their key positions.

bufferoverflow 9y ago

IQ does negatively correlate with race, that's a fact. The point he (and others) make is that we shouldn't treat low-IQ people as subhumans, just because they lost in the genetic lottery. There are many other things that correlate with race, both phenotypically and genetically, there advantages and disadvantages to different ethnicities and races. Why is it so radical to say that IQ is different between races? Is it really different from saying that the fastest runners are black?

bqe 9y ago
To those wondering why alt-right/neo-nazi/1488-type people are flocking to Jordan Peterson: this comment accurately describes both Peterson's views and the alt-right view on race. Many alt-right people claim they acknowledge "factual differences" of race, which is the basis for their ethno-nationalist views. Here's a discussion on the alt-right following of Peterson on his subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/7gb5af/is_jordan_peterson_dogwhistling_the_alt_right/dqi1dlh/ https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/7gb5af/is_j...
- 1000units 9y ago
  You're grievously slandering a man whom it appears you have made no effort to understand. You should be ashamed of yourself. Prof. Peterson is possibly the furthest thing from a "neo-nazi".
  - larrykwg 9y ago
    But just calling someone a nazi is so much more efficient than having to come up with actual arguments on why he is supposed to be so evil.
  - bqe 9y ago
    It's called libel when it's written down. Would the furthest thing from a neo-nazi tweet this, which is full of alt-right dog whistles? > KEK boys. Seek your 4chan. Don't stay in the underworld. Author your future. Code PEPE. Free 4 U 4 1 wk. https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/851464151708950528 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/85146415170895052...