6 ms·

“Afraid to express themselves honestly” usually means they don’t feel safe making public statements about, say, their belief that women are inherently less inte

“Afraid to express themselves honestly” usually means they don’t feel safe making public statements about, say, their belief that women are inherently less intelligent than men, that black people are inherently less intelligent and more violent than white people, or that Obama wasn’t really born in USA. They consider being called on their nonsense to be a personal attack, and the persistent corrections they receive from people they talk to are a sign of a conspiracy against them.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
> their belief that women are inherently less intelligent than men Let's assume that the normal distribution of certain psychological traits differs slightly but in a statistically significant way between the members of the population who share certain biological traits. Should the study of these correlations be allowed or not? It seems an unspoken consensus exists that it is negative, i.e. if you pursue the study of these you might face difficulties when receiving grants and so on. Is it really good for the society, including the groups that something might be hurt by these studies? One could argue the opposite: only by rigorous studies we can arrive to definitive conclusion as to which correlations exist, and this could be a starting point for understanding better how to deal with them.
- ajmadesc 6y ago
  The type of people that want to make the blanket statement women are less intelligent don't know what a normal distribution is.
- manicdee 6y ago
  There’s no reason not to study it, but the moment you use the well known bimodal distribution to make claims about men in general being smarter than women you have lost all credibility because the spread of the populations is far larger than the modal distance. Plus the distribution is based on tests that don’t necessarily measure anything particularly useful. Plus there is centuries of institutionalised gender roles, training differences and cultural differences to complicate matters. So as long as your study is actually rigorous and you aren’t just claiming it is, then you are fine. If you are like Jordan Peterson and use any difference however minor to form your argument, you are misusing the science and have entered the world of politics and oppression.
jariel 6y ago
"don’t feel safe making public statements about, say, their belief that women are inherently less intelligent than women" James Damore was destroyed for saying essentially men are different than women. People are destroyed for implying that 'women menstruate' (!) - because of course the position that 'trans men menstruate' excludes them and is therefore 'transphobic'. Jordan Peterson is banned from campus for questioning the way in which we present and interpret 'equal pay' data etc.. Etc. These are reasonable discussions to be had. In reality - some groups are using terms like 'hate, racism, harm and violence' to suppress those they disagree with. I don't think these have popular support, as generally pro-oppression articles meet with pretty strong resistance in the comments sections of the most reliable progressive online magazines, however, these people have outsized power in the media.
- dash2 6y ago
  These all reasonable points, but my comment was that this isn’t a good article. Indeed it didn’t mention any of these examples. (Plus it made the very, very silly Stalin analogy.)
- manicdee 6y ago
  James Damore was destroyed for ranting against diversity policies, and claimed a lot more than just “men are smarter than women”. He claimed there was significant difference between any man’s and any woman’s intelligence, and that workers should be employed on merit as if they weren’t already selected on merit to start with. Read his whole manifesto before you go simplifying his argument to one point.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

> their belief that women are inherently less intelligent than men Let's assume that the normal distribution of certain psychological traits differs slightly but in a statistically significant way between the members of the population who share certain biological traits. Should the study of these correlations be allowed or not? It seems an unspoken consensus exists that it is negative, i.e. if you pursue the study of these you might face difficulties when receiving grants and so on. Is it really good for the society, including the groups that something might be hurt by these studies? One could argue the opposite: only by rigorous studies we can arrive to definitive conclusion as to which correlations exist, and this could be a starting point for understanding better how to deal with them.

ajmadesc 6y ago
The type of people that want to make the blanket statement women are less intelligent don't know what a normal distribution is.
manicdee 6y ago
There’s no reason not to study it, but the moment you use the well known bimodal distribution to make claims about men in general being smarter than women you have lost all credibility because the spread of the populations is far larger than the modal distance. Plus the distribution is based on tests that don’t necessarily measure anything particularly useful. Plus there is centuries of institutionalised gender roles, training differences and cultural differences to complicate matters. So as long as your study is actually rigorous and you aren’t just claiming it is, then you are fine. If you are like Jordan Peterson and use any difference however minor to form your argument, you are misusing the science and have entered the world of politics and oppression.

jariel 6y ago

"don’t feel safe making public statements about, say, their belief that women are inherently less intelligent than women" James Damore was destroyed for saying essentially men are different than women. People are destroyed for implying that 'women menstruate' (!) - because of course the position that 'trans men menstruate' excludes them and is therefore 'transphobic'. Jordan Peterson is banned from campus for questioning the way in which we present and interpret 'equal pay' data etc.. Etc. These are reasonable discussions to be had. In reality - some groups are using terms like 'hate, racism, harm and violence' to suppress those they disagree with. I don't think these have popular support, as generally pro-oppression articles meet with pretty strong resistance in the comments sections of the most reliable progressive online magazines, however, these people have outsized power in the media.

dash2 6y ago
These all reasonable points, but my comment was that this isn’t a good article. Indeed it didn’t mention any of these examples. (Plus it made the very, very silly Stalin analogy.)
manicdee 6y ago
James Damore was destroyed for ranting against diversity policies, and claimed a lot more than just “men are smarter than women”. He claimed there was significant difference between any man’s and any woman’s intelligence, and that workers should be employed on merit as if they weren’t already selected on merit to start with. Read his whole manifesto before you go simplifying his argument to one point.