abiola meinte am 11. May, 19:23:
How do you know this?
You keep saying stuff like the following
There are some truths in every generation, in every society, that one does not mention. I guess biological differences in statistical groups is our unmentioned elephant in the room.And yet, despite the fact that I actively follow the research literature on the genetics of quantitative traits, I don't know of any such "truths" that aren't of the banal variety "most men are stronger than women because of testosterone"; on the contrary, it's been my observation that the less people actually know of the complexities of the subject, the more certain they tend to be of the "truths" which "pc" academics are supposedly unwilling to admit.
We don't even know how many genes control eye or skin color - with estimates for the latter ranging from as few as 2 to as many as 120 - let alone whether and/or pleiotropy and epistasis figure into how said genes interact, so anyone who confidently states as you do that there are "truths" about something as complex as high end mental functioning, which are being denied because of "political correctness", simply isn't worth taking seriously; that certain preconceived notions seem "obviously" true to you doesn't mean they are anything of the sort.
While I do think Summers was subjected to a witch-hunt by certain members of the Harvard faculty, I think uninformed defenses like yours just fuel the fires of self-righteousness which those who have sought to bring him down are nurturing.
HedgeFundGuy antwortete am 11. May, 19:45:
Methinks thou doth protest too much
You admit testosterone differs between sexes. Do you believe it has no impact on statistical disparities between men and women in various fields? Our knowledge about all this is imperfect, I admit, but are you then willing to say that it is therefore unreasonable to assert there are any valid generalizations about human subpopulations? Is it uninformed to assert that men are faster than women in the 100 meter dash? That Ibos are faster than Pygmies? You wouldn't get so excited if I said 8X7=54. There are clearly many biological realities (such as testosterone) that vary systematically between groups and have large effects, and your note of the uncertainty about the precision of this knowledge does little to make such evidence invalid.
pauln antwortete am 12. May, 08:28:
If any defenses fuel the fires of self-righteousness, they're the informed ones, not the uninformed. (Intelligent) people ignore the claptrap that's off base and defend themselves violently when the criticisms start to hit a little close to home.
