4 ms·

>> That means not publishing papers, articles or comments to the effect that "women can't do science" or bell curve arguments about some races being less intell

>> That means not publishing papers, articles or comments to the effect that "women can't do science" or bell curve arguments about some races being less intellectually capable than others. Suppose you manage a school district and you find that, after controlling for socio-economic income, your students' SAT scores are drastically predicted by race. Suppose you don't publish it, because you fear it might be used as fuel for some racist. What if it turns out that a geographic area that happened to correlate with race was getting an inferior water supply with lead in it, and because nobody was willing to look any further, the problem went on for an extra decade before being fixed?

joshuamorton 6y ago
You've created a false dichotomy. Publishing a study that concludes that racial background correlates with SAT score isn't controversial. Pretty much everyone agrees that this is the case today. Publishing a study that concludes that, because of this, black people are innately less intelligent than others (and not, for example, that environmental or social factors are to account), would be controversial.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  >> Publishing a study that concludes that racial background correlates with SAT score isn't controversial That's how science should operate. The comment I was responding to seemed to indicate such statements were problematic, even without attributing the cause to innate biology.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    It doesn't though. The GP comment is about (mis)attributing causation. "Women can't do science" and "bell curve arguments about some races being less intellectually capable than others" are both causal arguments. "The SAT exhibits racial bias" is an observational statement. You took the GP's argument about causal misattribution and turned it into one about hiding observational conclusions, but that wasn't present in the original comment.
    - zug_zug 6y ago
      You very well may have a study that shows women produce a fraction of the science men do, maybe even per-capita, and that's not sexist per your own comment. You agreed it's only sexist if it attributes it to innate biology. I'm done responding to you though because you're tone is confrontational and emotional.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        Yes, because "women can't do science" and "women produce less scientific output" are different. There first is casual. The second is observational. (I guess you could make a semantic argument that "can't do science" means like "are unable to due to environmental factors" and is thus also ultimately observational, but that's not particularly convincing in the context of scientific research).

joshuamorton 6y ago

You've created a false dichotomy. Publishing a study that concludes that racial background correlates with SAT score isn't controversial. Pretty much everyone agrees that this is the case today. Publishing a study that concludes that, because of this, black people are innately less intelligent than others (and not, for example, that environmental or social factors are to account), would be controversial.

zug_zug 6y ago
>> Publishing a study that concludes that racial background correlates with SAT score isn't controversial That's how science should operate. The comment I was responding to seemed to indicate such statements were problematic, even without attributing the cause to innate biology.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  It doesn't though. The GP comment is about (mis)attributing causation. "Women can't do science" and "bell curve arguments about some races being less intellectually capable than others" are both causal arguments. "The SAT exhibits racial bias" is an observational statement. You took the GP's argument about causal misattribution and turned it into one about hiding observational conclusions, but that wasn't present in the original comment.
  - zug_zug 6y ago
    You very well may have a study that shows women produce a fraction of the science men do, maybe even per-capita, and that's not sexist per your own comment. You agreed it's only sexist if it attributes it to innate biology. I'm done responding to you though because you're tone is confrontational and emotional.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Yes, because "women can't do science" and "women produce less scientific output" are different. There first is casual. The second is observational. (I guess you could make a semantic argument that "can't do science" means like "are unable to due to environmental factors" and is thus also ultimately observational, but that's not particularly convincing in the context of scientific research).