Richard Zeckhauser, the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy at Harvard, is on record as saying that “Jason’s empirical work was careful. Moreover, my view is that none of his advisors would have accepted his thesis had he thought that his empirical work was tilted or in error.”...Is truth the highest value in our society? I think Sullivan assumes it is, but it most certainly is not. The question is: How can we be smart and scientific and truthful about this truth about truth?
One particularly disturbing statement came from 23 separate student groups at Harvard:
We condemn in unequivocal terms these racist claims as unfit for Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard University as a whole. Granting permission for such a dissertation to be published debases all of our degrees and hurts the University’s reputation …
१४ मे, २०१३
"What on earth are these 'liberals' so terrified of, if not the truth?"
Asks Andrew Sullivan, looking at the outcry against Jason Richwine, "effective fir[ed]" from Heritage on accounted of his Harvard dissertation about race and IQ.
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How about we stop letting political groups(including students) decide what is an appropiate area to study and actually practise intellecttual and academic freedom?
Harvard hired Soledad O'Brien.
Didn't his research back up a study by liberals from UCLA, USC or Stanford a few years ago?
They were surprised.
Is this suppose to save Obama?
Truth is only acceptable if it conforms to CorrectThought. That is the new paradigm of University education. Perhaps the student unions there could consult with their North Korean brethren for how to re-educate those that deviate.
In other blogs there was much serious discussion of this report, and more references to LARGE studies (i e. >5,000,000 samples) that confirmed the observations he made. None of the studies concludes why the differences exist, but they confirm that they are there.
OK, we've heard this before - especially with this hierarchy. In fact, I can remember a claim made, given the high number of Jews in professions like law, medicine, etc., that, if there really was a Master Race, they were it.
But how does Richwine say Hispanics? That's a cultural and linguistic group only. They're mixed white and American Indian in varying amounts, many more Indian than white. If he wants to stand on "Hispanics", he's in trouble.
And then there are the blacks. The old segregationists claimed there was only a "Talented Tenth" that could compete on the same level as whites and Orientals. He had to know the furor saying this, especially at Haavahd, particularly at the Kennedy School.
Unless he's a blithering fool.
Ann Althouse said...
Is truth the highest value in our society?
Would that it were, but we've allowed truth to take a back seat to politics for the last 40 years.
Lem said...
Is this suppose to save Obama?
Sounds like it would vindicate those of us who see him as a vain, empty suit.
The best comment I read about these studies was:
"these groups should demand that ALL ethnic drug reaction studies should be shut down immediately too, since they are obviously racist at their core"
Oh - the combined study was:
http://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/ethnic-group-differences-in-cognitive-ability-in-employment.pdf
Truth is only acceptable if it conforms to CorrectThought. That is the new paradigm of University education. Perhaps the student unions there could consult with their North Korean brethren for how to re-educate those that deviate.
In other blogs there was much serious discussion of this report, and more references to LARGE studies (i e. >5,000,000 samples) that confirmed the observations he made. None of the studies concludes why the differences exist, but they confirm that they are there.
We are witnessing the slow-mo destruction of Western Civilization..
I am sure there will turn out to be variance in intelligence between different races - if we ever agree on definitions of what constitutes intelligence and race and find ways of measuring the one and determining the other.
Then - if we are still measuring on a point basis - you have the problem of determining, say, a 2 or 3 point racial variance within a 70 point normal variance between individuals.
1. People still read Sullivan?
2. How does he have the nerve to talk about truth when he was denying Palin's child?
Since these people are talking about "IQ", I assume that the study is based on something similar to the old IQ tests that are now called Scholastic Aptitude Test, or some such, because they basically measure how good you are at filling out little ovals with a #2 pencil to indicate your answers to questions based on what you should have learned in the public schools.
It turns out that Sullivan has been down this road before & has seen the arguments pro & con in detail.
The 10/31/1994 issue of The New Republic, of which Sullivan was editor in chief at the time, was devoted to rejoinders to & analyses of Charles Murray & Richard Herrnstein's book The Bell Curve.
NEED PROOF WE LIVE IN FASCIST TIMES?
HERE:
TRUTH IS THE NEW HATE SPEECH.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS RACISM.
WE NEED TO RESTORE THE USA AS A MERITOCRACY WHERE INDIVIDUALS CAN SUCCEED = OR FAIL - BASED ON THE CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER AND NOT MEMBERSHIP IN ANY GROUP.
THAT IQ VARIES BY GROUP OR RACE IS JUST ANOTHER REASON RACE SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS IMPORTANTLY AS INDIVIDUAL STRENGTHS.
BESIDES:
HIGH IQ IS NOT A GREAT PREDICTOR OF MANY THINGS OUR SOCIETY AND CULTURE NEED:
WE NEED "GENIUSES" OF EVERY TYPE, SKILLED IN SCINCE AND ART AND THE HUMANITIES AND SPORT AND SO ON.
BESIDES:
MANY HIGH IQ PEOPLE ARE AWFUL, ANTI-SOCIAL PEOPLE.
AND MANY HIGH IQ PEOPLE ARE DUPES OF LEFTISM AND POSTMODERNISM.
MANY FOLLOWED MAO OR STALIN OR HITLER.
SO HIGH IQ IS NO GUARANTEE OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP OR PRO-SOCIAL PRODUCTIVITY.
That is funny. By accepting Darwin's Thesis as final truth the same folks promoted the Eugenics that destroy so many of God's creatures. To stop that they are forced into we refusing to accept any data that affirms the Fittest of God's creatures do exist.
To end this Chinese fire drill of pretenses the hyper-fit Harvard scholars need only dethrone the first promoter of the notion that progress comes out of the fit's killing off the weak and helpless, Charles Darwin...or at the least accept the mandate of God to defend the weak and the helpless.
Being gutless wonders they will do neither one.
The groups calling for his firing and ostrasization are the champions of the poor and the oppressed. When studies come out showing female bosses and managers are harder on female subordinates and have higher unfavorability ratings than male managers it was the people who are just looking out for the good of society who decried these results. And these champions have such nice things to say about Asian immigrants.
Truth, results, competence. These are all evils that the free market allows to interfere with FAIRness.
FAIRness is the only real truth. Not that silly truth idea. Or something. And if the truth isn't FAIR then truth be damned!
What, is Sullivan trying to switch sides again? So-to-speak, politically, I mean. I'm sure he's still as terrified of the vagina as always.
I don't expect much from the students of top universities. I don't think courage, intellectual or physical, plays much role in the admission process. Certainly it is less important than a willingness to kneel and touch head to the floor before the gilded liberal calves of diversity and equality. How many students are true believers, I don't know, but I suspect the number is greater than is healthy. This sort of intellectual repression cheapens the value of scholarship and increases cynicism about its aims. In the long run, that is not a good thing.
Are you rednecks shocked that Harvard has some conservatives in their midst?
Hello?
tits.
NEED PROOF WE LIVE IN FASCIST TIMES?
HERE:
ALSO? ALL CAPS LOCK KEYS STUCK!
MAN, I HATE ILLINOIS NAZIS!
Hagar said...
I am sure there will turn out to be variance in intelligence between different races - if we ever agree on definitions of what constitutes intelligence and race and find ways of measuring the one and determining the other.
Good point. The "races" have so interbred what really constitutes Caucasian, Negro, etc., is really up for grabs.
Due to our proximity to Villanova, there were a lot of foreign students from all over the Catholic world. Those from Africa were as different in appearance and manner from the American-born blacks as they were from white people.
"Is truth the highest value in our society?"
It would be an interesting question if there were some accepted scale of value "in our society" generally, but there isn't. "Our society" is especially problematic, since value (at least today) is understood contextually (as is truth). We don't live in a time in which value-absolutes are accepted or acceptable. The context here is a university community, and the specific issue is whether the results of certain research can or should be acceptable to utter. That strikes me as an easy question, involving a context in which there is no truth that dare not speak its name. But it overlaps with other contexts in which power and influence, rather than truth, rule the roost. Trouble is bound to boil over.
The question is: How can we be smart and scientific and truthful about this truth about truth?
Ann, what the heck does this mean?
I THINK WE SHOULD ALL START WRITING LIKE THIS.
VVE CAN CLAIM THAT VVE ARE ANCIENT ROMANS AND THEREFORE HAVE NO MINISCVLES.
If we end up with the Gang of Eight's immigration law we'll start a huge long term uncontrolled experiment to test Dr. Richwine's hypothesis.
A genetic code sets a predisposition. It does not guarantee an outcome. A human life evolves from conception to grave.
The solution to disparity is, of course, to marginalize individuals in the general population, while a select minority presides over their patronization... I mean "oversight". This is how individuals with a predisposition to establishing and enforcing monopolies of political, economic, and social standing acquire leverage in a society where competing interests otherwise deny them fulfillment of directing selective fitness.
They need a "final solution" (e.g. elective abortion) to overcome genetic diversity and limit competing interests. They need to encourage dysfunctional behaviors which increase the likelihood of a barren existence or progeny which "ask" for an abortion.
What are they afraid of, indeed. They are afraid of competing with equals. They are afraid of personal responsibility. They may well be afraid of the very terms and circumstances of reality. They don't like the limited frame where their senses are coherent, which is why they routinely escape that frame into a fantasy world of redistributive change, reproductive rights, "green" technology, etc.
As for why the students protest, it's because they are of a class which exploits differentials and gradients to advance their political, economic, and social standing. They compete through exploitation of manufactured and real disparities in our world.
Now, another question, what relevance does the insight of natural disparities offer? Do we no longer judge individuals by the content of their character and merit of their actions? Has "diversity" become an ambition for its own sake?
Note to students: the greatest challenge you will encounter is learning how you think. Don't let your teachers determine how you should think. They do not know the unique function of your mind. They are only capable of guiding your development, which means that the burden of discovery remains yours.
Titus said...
Are you rednecks shocked that Harvard has some conservatives in their midst?
I believe the word is "stunned".
The big factor is dysfunctional culture, not intelligence.
Your ethnic group can go from smart to stupid in a single generation.
Intelligence follows culture.
What, is Sullivan trying to switch sides again?
Sounds like he is abandoning ship again.
Shocking and Stunned I know but Harvard has some of the foremost conservative thinkers in the world.
Have any of you flyover states seen the names of GWB and potential Romney president advisers? Filled with Cambridge/Harvard peeps.
We aint all Elizabeth Warren whores here in Cambridge/Harvard.
And Palladian do you have any dick pics you could share here? I am curious to your size/gerth?
tits.
Is truth the highest value in our society? I think Sullivan assumes it is, but it most certainly is not.
I think Althouse assumes Sullivan assumes it is, but Sullivan makes no such claim or even hints at it.
Yes, Sullivan puts a high value on truth, as does our society in fact, but that doesn't make it the highest value which trumps all others.
Within that context Sullivan is right that liberals are afraid of truth and he is right to call them on it.
http://reason.com/archives/2013/05/14/the-myth-of-the-scientific-liberal
"The core trait of a scientific mind is that when its commitments clash with evidence, evidence rules. On that count, what grade do liberals deserve?"
The article doesn't mention this particular issue and it doesn't mention my favorite example related to global warming (but not global warming itself) where the "science" people believe we can power the city of New York with what amounts to Unicorn Farts so that they never have to accept nuclear... because nuclear is icky.
Anti-natal is also anti-science as is a lot of the 'green' ideology since by design the creative and problem solving ability of humans is denied.
HITLER WAS A PAINTER. MANY POSTMODERNISTS ARE PAINTERS. MANY POSTMODERNISTS ENJOY PUTTING HIDDEN MASTER RACE MESSAGES INTO LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS.
LOOK IT UP. FIND THE TRUTH.
Is truth the highest value in our society? I think Sullivan assumes it is, but it most certainly is not.
It's my highest value. Without a foundation of truth, all other values have little or no meaning.
Is truth the highest value in our society? I think Sullivan assumes it is, but it most certainly is not. The question is: How can we be smart and scientific and truthful about this truth about truth?
Truth isn't our highest value, so why should we even bother? The real question is: Look, a squirrel!
My allegiance is to a diverse, multicultural environment on campus, where no person, nay, secular human, feels as though there is a hostile learning environment.
Shut up, they said.
This falls generally in the realm of forbidden knowledge. There is a internet phenomenon name La Griffe du Lion who posts about this regularly. Decent folk dare not sign their names.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm
I will ask again WTF do we need a Kennedy School of Government anyway? The existence of a school for government is all the proof I need that our govt has gotten way too ginormous.
Lem said...
What, is Sullivan trying to switch sides again?
Sounds like he is abandoning ship again.
This is why the Soviets never trusted defectors. A man who will turn his coat once (especially on his own country) will do it again.
AJ Lynch said...
I will ask again WTF do we need a Kennedy School of Government anyway?
Not us. The vanity of the Kennedy family needs it.
I am more interested in the size of Palladian's cock?
Is it cut or uncut?
How many inches?
Does it blow a large load or minimal load?
What is the head like?
Is it sensitive?
Does it take a long time to blow or can it blow it seconds?
Palladian's cock.
tits.
Titus: "Are you rednecks shocked that Harvard has some conservatives in their midst?"
Clear implication from this incident: True searchers for objective truths on elite campuses are conservatives.
QED
rcocean said..."ISN'T THIS WHERE SOME LIBERAL MOBY COMES AROUND AND SAYS THAT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS WORSE THAN COMMUNISM?"
STOP YELLING AT ME!!!!!
edutcher:
The Soviets did not trust people of their kind and with good reason. If you are ever willing to betray other people in order to advance your political, economic, and social standing, then you are always capable of that betrayal. Their distrust was not limited to traitors.
Andrew Sullivan is in a box here, because of what TNR said about "The Bell Curve" when he was the editor of the magazine.
n.n said...
The Soviets did not trust people of their kind and with good reason. If you are ever willing to betray other people in order to advance your political, economic, and social standing, then you are always capable of that betrayal. Their distrust was not limited to traitors.
I was thinking specifically of Philby, Burgess, and McLean, but you are, of course, correct.
Hagar said...
Since these people are talking about "IQ", I assume that the study is based on something similar to the old IQ tests that are now called Scholastic Aptitude Test, or some such, because they basically measure how good you are at filling out little ovals with a #2 pencil to indicate your answers to questions based on what you should have learned in the public schools.
================
Putting the cart before the horse. Generally the reason Asian students far, far outperform black students, and the gap grows each year a student is in school, is the Asians are smarter and more motivated.
That makes it easier for them to learn a lot of stuff. Even with disinterested careerist inner city teachers union memebers.
So when they "fill out the circles on SATs" and get high 600s and mid 700s while the blacks are averaging in the mid-400s, it is an excellent predictor of IQ, learning, and ability to succeed in later jobs.
Screw all this. I think it high time the burden be on those who claim, without evidence of any kind other than wish-casting, that there is no difference in mean IQ, by Race.
That there IS no difference, is the extraordinary claim, not the reverse.
By what natural mechanism, given all we know about the process of Natural Selection in the crucible of the local environment, would the fitness attribute of 'cleverness', or IQ, be the same for all Races of Man, in all places on the planet, facing all the differing survival challenges?
Answer: there is none. We should expect measurable differences, and indeed, we find them every time we look.
The so-called elite Harvard students behind the condemnations are ignorant clowns, total slaves to how they WISH the world was, rather than how it actually is.
It's a disgrace.
Liberals against Science. The new progressive slogan.
Being smart would be not overvaluing the importance of intelligence. It's not everything, otherwise we would only choose leaders, lovers, and friends based on I.Q. We wisely don't use it for any of those things.
"HIGH IQ IS NOT A GREAT PREDICTOR OF MANY THINGS OUR SOCIETY AND CULTURE NEED:
WE NEED "GENIUSES" OF EVERY TYPE, SKILLED IN SCINCE AND ART AND THE HUMANITIES AND SPORT AND SO ON.
"
Actually, the SAT and the IQ tests are the best predictor we have of academic achievement. At least they were when I took them before they were dumbed down.
That is why they are under attack and why we have to use college degrees as a substitute for IQ tests. The IQ test was invented in the early 20th century to allow poor but intelligent students (like I was) to compete with the rich and educated for places in the American Dream.
Affirmative Action ended that and required that all evidence of ability be suppressed.
Nobody really likes smart people anyway. We just say we do, so people will think we're smart too. Then they don't like us either. Now how smart is that?
THIS WRITING MEANS THAT I SUBMIT TO YOU A REVELATION!
Conservatives tend to be accused of being anti-intellectual.
But what makes IQ so important other than somehow believing that being smart makes you a better person?
What makes "group" IQ so important other than viewing people as groups instead of individuals?
Yes, true, conservatives often are anti-intellectuals, at least by affirming that it's not *about* being smart. Life is not about how smart you are.
But who doesn't understand that an individual is not defined by their group membership? Who doesn't understand that one blond isn't bright enough to come in out of the rain and the other blond is a rocket scientist? Who doesn't understand that the same is true for two black guys? One's a rocket scientist or a business genius and the other... isn't?
Of course it's important to deny at all costs an objective investigation of how IQ might track between people groups if your whole ideology sorts people by groups.
THE TRUTH CAN BE BOUND BY NOTHING BUT CAPS. THE ORACLE CAN NO LOWERCASE ABIDE.
The differences in IQ among the races has been a dirty little secret in academia for decades. I've never been clear on what we're supposed to do with this information.
Besides which... being smart never made anyone *right* now did it.
Truth, we must be politically correct with the truth, especially concerning blacks because the liberals can't handle the truth.
"Besides which... being smart never made anyone *right* now did it."
Being smart hasn't kept the liberals from destroying our country the last fifty years and look what they've done in Europe.
Sukie, we could sensibly track students according to ability. The way we used to, when a college degree meant something.
"Due to our proximity to Villanova, there were a lot of foreign students from all over the Catholic world. Those from Africa were as different in appearance and manner from the American-born blacks as they were from white people."
My son goes to a Jesuit school with a healthy number of black pupils of recent African and Carribean extraction, either first or second generation immigrants. The real Africans in particular are not fond of American black culture. Their parents tend to be professionals, often from dominant tribes, castes, clans, and ethnic groups in their home countries. The students are almost all serious and capable scholars. They look down on American blacks as the descendants of people too worthless to keep themselves from being sold into slavery.
If they gave out Darwin Awards for research studies, this guy would qualify. "I'd like to conduct a study that will prove blacks and Hispanics are stupid." Good luck finding funding for that one. After he completes his research he can apply to Brandeis for a grant to show that Jewish people are cheap.
if we ever agree on definitions of what constitutes intelligence and race and find ways of measuring the one and determining the other.
Well? On intelligence, it's called g, it's extremely well-documented, and we have lots of experience measuring it.
The only thing holding back agreement is the fact that it tells us things we as a society don't like. Such as that it is highly heritable, essentially impossible to improve through any known educational method, and is a stronger predictor of adult socioeconomic status in the US than any other known factor (parental wealth, how much education you get, anything).
they basically measure how good you are at filling out little ovals with a #2 pencil to indicate your answers to questions based on what you should have learned in the public schools.
Oh, you're one of the g deniers. Well, have fun reading the astrology columns in the newspaper while paying hundreds of dollars for bottles of "homeopathic remedy" tap water and believing the Earth is flat.
John Lynch said...
Andrew Sullivan is in a box here,
I immediately thought of Shroedingers Sullivan.
Is he alive? Is he dead? Do we have to think of him as being both at the same time?
Sorry
Continue.
William said...
If they gave out Darwin Awards for research studies, this guy would qualify. "I'd like to conduct a study that will prove blacks and Hispanics are stupid." Good luck finding funding for that one. After he completes his research he can apply to Brandeis for a grant to show that Jewish people are cheap.
William. Why are you anti science?
edutcher: "I was thinking specifically of Philby, Burgess, and McLean, but you are, of course, correct."
Don't forget about Blunt.
There has been at least one study that purports that human IQ increased during ice ages, though it did not speculate why.
In some environments, planning for the future months away increased survival chances, and in others, superior athletic ability did the same.
On some other planet besides Earth, anyway, because to say the above on Earth makes one a racist troglodyte.
"The question is: How can we be smart and scientific and truthful about this truth about truth?"
Pretty simple: Just don't worry about the screeching from stupid liberals.
Is truth the highest value in our society?
Not on a college campus, no.
"I assume that the study is based on something similar to the old IQ tests that are now called Scholastic Aptitude Test, ..."
You assume wrong.
So what is this new "IQ" measure based on?
And, if it is different, should not that be stated up front, or better yet, given a different name, to avoid confusion?
Don't worry Hagar, IQ doesn't matter. Neither do looks. Penis size doesn't matter either.
It would be surely surprising if there were NOT any differences between ethnic or racial groups.
But the only way this might create a political problems would be if one assumes that these groupings have some sort of group rights. So long as one sticks to individual rights, there is no problem.
Perhaps the real question is, will American law ever rid itself of Disparate Impact precedent, and what would it take to do so?
Is truth the highest value in our society? I think Sullivan assumes it is, but it most certainly is not.
Sullivan's "highest value" seems to be his dick. Whatever satisfies it must be the highest value.
Edutcher:
It was not the old line segregationists who came up with the idea of "The talented tenth".
From Wikipedia:
"The phrase "talented tenth" originated in 1896 among Northern white liberals, specifically the American Baptist Home Mission Society. They had the goal of establishing black colleges to train Negro teachers and elites."
WEB Dubois (a Harvard educated black man) developed the concept further in his essay "The Talented Tenth" (Available here http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-talented-tenth/)
"The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races."
He was quite right, IMHO. In any group of people, regardless of race, gender, age, class or whatever, there will always be a few exceptional people. DuBois put it at 10% and we could argue whether it is 5 or 20. Seems pretty clear that it will be a minority of whatever group.
It is a valuable concept in many contexts. Don't debase it by attributing it to segregationists.
John Henry
"IQ" does matter, because we are throwing the term around here and there and everywhere without any clear idea of what it means.
Its very similar to David Brin's "Dogma of Otherness"
http://www.crackaddict.com/~nalgas/David_Brin-Dogma_of_Otherness_Intro.html
We condemn in unequivocal terms these racist claims as unfit for Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard University as a whole.
It's always the students who are out front of these intellectual cleasing campaigns.
The "talented tenth" thesis is not racist. It's probably true across the human species. RAH, for example, said essentially the same thing, without mentioning race at all:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
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