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To what ends would you change his mind on this issue? For Internet points, or for a greater good? The "gap" between the races on matters such as income, educat

To what ends would you change his mind on this issue? For Internet points, or for a greater good? The "gap" between the races on matters such as income, education achievement, or the demographics of Google engineers is a source of constant handwringing. There are two explanations that are publicly admissible: 1) You can slander and libel white people and blame racism 2) You can slander and libel black people and say it's because of "black culture", because black parents don't tell their kids to do well in school If you take a third position, the position that thousands of years of evolving in different environments and civilization complexity levels meant that there is a different statistical distribution in different traits, which means there is a different This third position blames no one, yet the holders of this position are called bigots and are banned from conferences if they even mention this view under a pseudonym in an unrelated context. I confronted tptacek, because he is a person that I have up until now respected, yet he called Saletan an idiot for holding this third position. So I was interested in why tptacek called Saletan an idiot, and I was also interested in the more general problem of how to convince reasonable people to stop slandering black people or slandering white people on the issue of the gap between the races.

tptacek 11y ago
William Saletan does not hold that position. He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly. To argue that he agrees with you today requires you to argue that he wrote dishonestly. Were that the case, I'd have no reason to believe anything he wrote was in good faith. As it stands, the simplest explanation was: he was writing discursively, as an essayist; his ideas seemed good at the time; he was corrected; he changed his mind. I also didn't call Saletan an idiot, obviously.
- devalier 11y ago
  OK, apologies for the misquote. Let me apply a patch to replace "yet he called Saletan an idiot for holding this third position" with "yet he called an article idiotic that provided supporting evidence for this position." The gist of my comment still stands. "He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly" Are you referring to this article? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/features/2007/created_equal/regrets.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... I read this as him downplaying the certainty of the genetic hypothesis, in order to get the heat off his back. It is pretty obvious he is scared at getting purged: "I don't want this role...You'll have to judge the evidence for yourself." It is not obvious that he changed his mind. And he apologizes for not disclosing Rushton's associations, not for citing Ruston. He doesn't make any claims that Rushton's studies were bad science that should not be cited. Again, sounds like non-apology apology to get the heat off his back. But I can't peer into Saletan's soul so I don't know. I don't actually think Saletan's article is a great article. I'm lukewarm on how accurate Rushton's stuff is; I think other evidence for the hypothesis that Saletan leaves out is actually more compelling. But I don't think the article is idiotic either.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    If your argument requires us to stipulate that Saletan wrote something dishonestly, I'm not sure why I have to concede that the apology was the dishonest bit. Let's just conclude then that he's entirely untrustworthy and move on.

tptacek 11y ago

William Saletan does not hold that position. He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly. To argue that he agrees with you today requires you to argue that he wrote dishonestly. Were that the case, I'd have no reason to believe anything he wrote was in good faith. As it stands, the simplest explanation was: he was writing discursively, as an essayist; his ideas seemed good at the time; he was corrected; he changed his mind. I also didn't call Saletan an idiot, obviously.

devalier 11y ago
OK, apologies for the misquote. Let me apply a patch to replace "yet he called Saletan an idiot for holding this third position" with "yet he called an article idiotic that provided supporting evidence for this position." The gist of my comment still stands. "He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly" Are you referring to this article? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/features/2007/created_equal/regrets.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... I read this as him downplaying the certainty of the genetic hypothesis, in order to get the heat off his back. It is pretty obvious he is scared at getting purged: "I don't want this role...You'll have to judge the evidence for yourself." It is not obvious that he changed his mind. And he apologizes for not disclosing Rushton's associations, not for citing Ruston. He doesn't make any claims that Rushton's studies were bad science that should not be cited. Again, sounds like non-apology apology to get the heat off his back. But I can't peer into Saletan's soul so I don't know. I don't actually think Saletan's article is a great article. I'm lukewarm on how accurate Rushton's stuff is; I think other evidence for the hypothesis that Saletan leaves out is actually more compelling. But I don't think the article is idiotic either.
- tptacek 11y ago
  If your argument requires us to stipulate that Saletan wrote something dishonestly, I'm not sure why I have to concede that the apology was the dishonest bit. Let's just conclude then that he's entirely untrustworthy and move on.