9 ms·

I don't think this is at all a reasonable analogy. Scott does not just agree with Murray on some unrelated topic like vegetarianism. He appears to agree with Mu

I don't think this is at all a reasonable analogy. Scott does not just agree with Murray on some unrelated topic like vegetarianism. He appears to agree with Murray that some class differences reduce to heredity. Murray himself takes that set of beliefs and follows it in a direction that quite explicitly replaces "heredity" with "race", and associates a great deal of our nation's class differences to it. It's not really clear to me whether Scott's beliefs lead him in that direction too, or maybe if they do so to a lesser extent. I do know that many people on rationalist-adjacent boards like The Motte (used to be part of the SSC subreddit) have drawn some pretty unpleasant and unjustified opinions on this matter, which is one of the reasons that people asked Scott to remove that discussion group from the subreddit. (He did so, but only under duress and while denouncing the people who asked him to.)

civilized 6y ago
It is very common for nasty people to have some kernel of reasonable belief that they take to an extreme. Agreeing with that reasonable piece does not "align" you with the extremist. That's just tribalist rhetoric. Find me an honest person who is knowledgeable about IQ and denies that IQ is somewhat heritable, and there is some meaningful (not completely determinative!) causal relationship between intelligence and class indicators such as income. That's all Scott has ever "aligned" himself with from Murray.
eli_gottlieb 6y ago
>He appears to agree with Murray that some class differences reduce to heredity. Yes, and the way to attack this is not to insist that there are zero heritable differences in people's talents for various economically renumerable activities. There are lots of heritable differences. There are also lots of environmental effects. The way to attack it is to do the thing the NYT cannot do, and attack meritocracy as the basis of our political economy. For instance, plainly the Trump children got where they are due to heredity! Their whole damn family is coasting off Donald's father, who made the money. But as we all saw, their "very good genes" made them, well, terrifically incompetent, feckless morons.
coldtea 6y ago
>He appears to agree with Murray that some class differences reduce to heredity. So? When did that became illegal? Or news?
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  It isn't illegal. But Murray's work is both bad science and has been used to justify all sorts of policy and social systems that harm certain groups (black people in particular). If somebody shows up at a party talking about this great book they read called "The Bell Curve" it is a reasonable bayesian prior to be leery of them.
  - vinger 6y ago
    Sometimes we fear and fight reality. If the Bell Curve has information / facts that upsets your worldview don't be so fearfull. Embrace new ideas and change your worldview. You can run but you can't hide from the truth.
    - tadfisher 6y ago
      It's never the facts people have contentions with, it's the conclusions. Facts can support conclusions, but it is far too easy to manipulate facts (see: lies of omission) to present misleading conclusions. So while I agree with your sentiment, I completely disagree that one should embrace challenging conclusions because they are challenging.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      This sort of thing is so frustrating. Scientists aren't afraid of Murray's work. It is just poor science. The defense that people who resist a piece of writing are simply too frightened of what is inside is a cheat. It assumes that the work is worthwhile in the first place. Murray's ideas aren't "new". Not even a little. And they aren't "truth".
      - vinger 6y ago
        These ideas are not completely new. Can you backup they aren't "truth" or they don't offer a peek into a reality that maybe taboo? Personal opinions are great do you have more to comtribute?
orangecat 6y ago
He appears to agree with Murray that some class differences reduce to heredity. Is this now a forbidden hypothesis? If IQ has a large effect on life outcomes (it does) and is significantly heritable (it is), then it would be surprising if that were not the case.
- vzcx 6y ago
  In some unpleasant circles, yes, this is forbidden. It's strange to me, because people in those circles seem to be defending a sort of metaphysical equality that is obviously false. Presumably, it is possible to believe both that IQ is highly heritable and that it is very important for success in the modern world, while also concluding, "this is why we need full communism now," but you rarely encounter those people at all, at least outside of SSC-adjacent places.

civilized 6y ago

It is very common for nasty people to have some kernel of reasonable belief that they take to an extreme. Agreeing with that reasonable piece does not "align" you with the extremist. That's just tribalist rhetoric. Find me an honest person who is knowledgeable about IQ and denies that IQ is somewhat heritable, and there is some meaningful (not completely determinative!) causal relationship between intelligence and class indicators such as income. That's all Scott has ever "aligned" himself with from Murray.

eli_gottlieb 6y ago

>He appears to agree with Murray that some class differences reduce to heredity. Yes, and the way to attack this is not to insist that there are zero heritable differences in people's talents for various economically renumerable activities. There are lots of heritable differences. There are also lots of environmental effects. The way to attack it is to do the thing the NYT cannot do, and attack meritocracy as the basis of our political economy. For instance, plainly the Trump children got where they are due to heredity! Their whole damn family is coasting off Donald's father, who made the money. But as we all saw, their "very good genes" made them, well, terrifically incompetent, feckless morons.

coldtea 6y ago

>He appears to agree with Murray that some class differences reduce to heredity. So? When did that became illegal? Or news?

UncleMeat 6y ago
It isn't illegal. But Murray's work is both bad science and has been used to justify all sorts of policy and social systems that harm certain groups (black people in particular). If somebody shows up at a party talking about this great book they read called "The Bell Curve" it is a reasonable bayesian prior to be leery of them.
- vinger 6y ago
  Sometimes we fear and fight reality. If the Bell Curve has information / facts that upsets your worldview don't be so fearfull. Embrace new ideas and change your worldview. You can run but you can't hide from the truth.
  - tadfisher 6y ago
    It's never the facts people have contentions with, it's the conclusions. Facts can support conclusions, but it is far too easy to manipulate facts (see: lies of omission) to present misleading conclusions. So while I agree with your sentiment, I completely disagree that one should embrace challenging conclusions because they are challenging.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    This sort of thing is so frustrating. Scientists aren't afraid of Murray's work. It is just poor science. The defense that people who resist a piece of writing are simply too frightened of what is inside is a cheat. It assumes that the work is worthwhile in the first place. Murray's ideas aren't "new". Not even a little. And they aren't "truth".
    - vinger 6y ago
      These ideas are not completely new. Can you backup they aren't "truth" or they don't offer a peek into a reality that maybe taboo? Personal opinions are great do you have more to comtribute?

orangecat 6y ago

He appears to agree with Murray that some class differences reduce to heredity. Is this now a forbidden hypothesis? If IQ has a large effect on life outcomes (it does) and is significantly heritable (it is), then it would be surprising if that were not the case.

vzcx 6y ago
In some unpleasant circles, yes, this is forbidden. It's strange to me, because people in those circles seem to be defending a sort of metaphysical equality that is obviously false. Presumably, it is possible to believe both that IQ is highly heritable and that it is very important for success in the modern world, while also concluding, "this is why we need full communism now," but you rarely encounter those people at all, at least outside of SSC-adjacent places.