Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#151

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

frebord wrote: post #6

Honest question, the general physical differences between the sexes or even races are undeniable, so why is it so taboo to talk about the differences that almost certainly exist in our minds?

Because minds are plastic and can be trained and acculturated. And because all minds are worthwhile beings. To start ranking and rating them is no more productive than it is at company-review time. Its unproductive, caustic and demeaning. And generally tiny differences are blown up into rationalizations for vast discrimination schemes by people with an agenda.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#152

Post by tptacek » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #148

tptacek wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think it's a good idea to publish an off-topic paper in a serious scientific journal to make a point about mob rule? Aren't you then the one arguing to muck with the scientific record on behalf of a political agenda?

"At least the same stature" as the Intelligencer (which had agreed to publish it originally and retracted due to reasons that were not scientific concerns). A paper that is, as you noted, "not serious". I guess that doesn't apply to the NYJM, but I didn't ask for them to be the journal doing the publishing (just noted that their approach of dealing with the fallout of Rivin's machinations was unfortunate). If push ca…

I think I agree with you about the Intelligencer, at least to the extent that I don't think it matters what the Intelligencer does.

But I disagree with you that a real journal has a duty to maintain a bad-faith off-topic out-of-process submission. That's a disservice to the cite record.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#153

Post by quotemstr » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

doombolt wrote: post #57

Yoric wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three answers to this. 1. Look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17949340 for a more detailed account of what happened. This specific story is not a case of taboo, it's a case of attempting to publish something that's not science in a science journal, being of course rejected, and reframing the rejection as a taboo. 2. It can be discussed, but this kind of discussion invariably attracts people who are not there…

> so maybe our society just isn't mature enough yet to have that conversation. Basically you're telling us that "maybe" you should have the power to censor us. For some values of (you, us). Maybe not. Definitely not. (I also think that you're factually wrong in 1)

That's truly astounding to me about this affair is that so many people --- here, on the Quillette thread, and in other forums --- have plainly stated that there are some truths that need to be kept from the public for their own good, sequestered in "scientific guilds" until the public is "ready".

I really just have no words for how terrible this idea is and how angry it makes me. We could have had an industrial revolution thousands of years ago, massively increasing human welfare, but for a paranoid and secretive thinking that made it impossible to build a real scientific community, test ideas, and find the ones that worked.

These "scientific guild" ideas are the ones that condemned humanity to thousands of years of pointless alchemy while people died of cholera in filthy streets.

To want to return to this medieval mindset is inexcusable. It's ignorant. It's anti-humanism.

Look: any time you have to ask yourself "should we deliberately lie to the public about reality?", take a step back and consider whether you're actually the villain from the history books.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#154

Post by araneae » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #82

pjc50 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quilette is a highly partisan libertarian-right publication and you'd be well advised to treat it as trolling.

I'm no great devotee of Quillette (I haven't come across an interesting article there for a while), but that's not really a fair characterisation. It's not "libertarian" in the way Reason magazine is, or "right-wing" in the way that Fox News is. I think its editors broadly identify as "classical liberals", and they have a stated mission of challenging the "blank-slate" view of human nature. You can disagree with thes…

I'm a little confused by your assertation that therefore we can't dismiss it because it's "classically liberal" rather than "libertarian." I think the point still stands - that they have a very particular perspective, however you choose to define that.

I happen to be sympathetic with a lot of their viewpoints, but it is in fact very axe-grindy. Reason magazine comes off as a lot more reasonable to me than Quillette, despite not being a libertarian, because it's less reactionary.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#155

Post by bhouston » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

elchief wrote: post #11

> the idea that some huge percentage of males are simply not desirable enough (as we shall see, the paper requires this percentage to be over 50) to have a chance of reproducing bears no relation to the world as we know it In early humans only the top 16% of males mated Most people mate now, due to religious/society-enforced monogamy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2833377/

There was also genocides and wars. On Reddit today it cites Ghenis Khan's army as killing 40M. Thus if true it was "unfit" to be an enemy of Ghenis Khan in an evolutionary sense.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#156

Post by doombolt » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #153

doombolt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so maybe our society just isn't mature enough yet to have that conversation. Basically you're telling us that "maybe" you should have the power to censor us. For some values of (you, us). Maybe not. Definitely not. (I also think that you're factually wrong in 1)

That's truly astounding to me about this affair is that so many people --- here, on the Quillette thread, and in other forums --- have plainly stated that there are some truths that need to be kept from the public for their own good, sequestered in "scientific guilds" until the public is "ready". I really just have no words for how terrible this idea is and how angry it makes me. We could have had an industrial revol…

So many people have zero understanding of mathematical modelling but insist that they're in position to judge research in this area from moral standpoint.

It's The Holy Inquisition, crowdsource edition.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#157

Post by jmcgough » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

googlryas wrote: post #37

scott113341 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think jmcgough made such a claim, just offered an explanation for "why is it so taboo to talk about the differences..."

Can you study something if you can't talk about it openly? Or, if one and only one conclusion is acceptable to be reached? I'll admit that OP didn't directly make this claim, but it seems like a reasonable conclusion from their post that they believe this is a dangerous topic to study because of the possibility of bad people using science badly.

I'm not saying that it shouldn't be discussed or studied, but that knee-jerk reactions to the topic are understandable. It's similar to the german ban on depictions of the nazi party - there are some discussions that can be healthy and useful, but rarely are because of the strong emotions they stoke.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#158

Post by Arnt » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #87

Arnt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the differences are small. Insignificant. If you take some group of 1000 people which has been selected in some way that skews towards intelligence, you might find that the men have IQ 105.14 on average and the women 105.13. Like, wow. You can find groups with bigger differences if you're willing to pick an obscure group, but then you have a bigger but more obscure difference. If you talk about that you risk…

Do you think height differences between men and women are insignificant? They seem pretty obvious despite many exceptions.

If significant, then it should have effects noticeable in daily life, right? Otherwise you'd have a significant difference that signifies little or nothing.

After almost 20 years of living with a woman 30cm smaller than myself, I can't make a long list of such effects. I easily reach some high shelves that my wife can't, I can see over most parked cars before crossing the street so I have a better view of the traffic, and she can snuggle under the bed cover but I cannot. That's about it. We're an easily noticeable couple and that thing about crossing the street was a big surprise, but if you ask about significant differences I have to say, no, not really.

I'm sure the answer is different in some special contexts, perhaps garment production. But you asked me.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#159

Post by hackinthebochs » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #114

tptacek wrote: post #8

There is more going on than this. It's important to know a bit about the venues in question. Mathematical Intelligencer isn't really a journal at all; it's literally a magazine, carried on the shelves it bookstores. It runs some original research but also poetry and jokes and general cultural coverage. NYJM is, on the other hand, a serious (if online-only, lower-tier) theoretical mathematics journal. Ted Hill's paper…

Thanks for going trough the issue for us. Something about the hypothesis itself: The variability hypothesis seems plausible, but there seems to be little evidence linking it to biological differences. Variability differences undoubtedly exist, but not universally and not with same degree across cultures. As the measured variance is very culture dependent and even disappears, existing data does not support the hypothe…

I would be very cautious citing that paper. They draw some very strong conclusions based on unsupported assumptions and evidence of dubious significance from populations with unusual cultural features.

> Therefore, we conclude that both variance and [variance ratio] in mathematics performance vary greatly among countries. Confirming our earlier finding ([21]), we also conclude that [variance ratio] is reproducibly essentially unity for some [predominantly muslim or low gender equality] countries. These findings are inconsistent with the greater male variability hypothesis.

Re: Has an uncomfortable truth been suppressed?

#160

Post by tomhoward » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

araneae wrote: post #154

tomhoward wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no great devotee of Quillette (I haven't come across an interesting article there for a while), but that's not really a fair characterisation. It's not "libertarian" in the way Reason magazine is, or "right-wing" in the way that Fox News is. I think its editors broadly identify as "classical liberals", and they have a stated mission of challenging the "blank-slate" view of human nature. You can disagree with thes…

I'm a little confused by your assertation that therefore we can't dismiss it because it's "classically liberal" rather than "libertarian." I think the point still stands - that they have a very particular perspective, however you choose to define that. I happen to be sympathetic with a lot of their viewpoints, but it is in fact very axe-grindy. Reason magazine comes off as a lot more reasonable to me than Quillette,…

My point is that it's not fair or accurate to call describe it as "highly partisan libertarian-right".

I'm with you on the axe-grindiness of Quillette, and since you mention it, that's probably why I don't read it much anymore.

"Libertarian" can mean all kinds of things these days, but in the comment to which I was replying, the description connotes associations with things like: extreme positions against state welfare and gun control, extreme laissez-faire economic policy, social Darwinism, Ayn Rand, the Tea Party, etc.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, these themes seem to appear quite frequently in Reason Magazine, and they certainly do on Fox News.

They aren't a focus for Quillette, however, which in my experience, generally embraces more moderate/centrist (i.e., classical liberal) positions on economic and social issues.

The axe-grindiness to which you refer would stem from the fact that a big part of its raison d'être is to confront what it sees as the ideological corruption of academia.

I agree it can be quite histrionic in its coverage of this issue, and it doesn't hold much interest for me.

But it still matters to demarcate between "highly partisan libertarian-right" and more moderate, sober ideological positions.