By the criteria of those HBD kooks, anyway. He’s published a take-down of Nicholas Wade’s book in American Scientist, pointing out the familiar scientific consensus that inflames them so.
As soon as it appeared, Wade’s book touched off a firestorm of controversy—as he surely knew it would. It’s the latest in a series of dispatches concerning human variation, whose authors in recent decades have starkly divided into two camps, one centered in anthropology and the other in psychology, political science, and economics. Wade is in the latter camp. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, a widely read text by psychologist Richard Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray in 1994, proclaimed intractable human differences in ability between races; the authors based their views on disputed work published by Canadian psychologist J. Philippe Rushton in the 1980s and early 1990s. Meanwhile, anthropologists had developed a divergent concept of human variation, reaching the collective conclusion that the human species is not compartmentalized in races or subspecies (interchangeable terms in zoology). In 1998 the American Anthropological Association adopted its Statement on Race asserting that the best available research shows race to be a social construct that is biologically invalid.
The HBDists were threatening to vote for me as creationist of the year — I thought I’d be a shoo-in, especially if I recognized it as a pointless poll and asked all of you to vote for me. But maybe now there’ll be enough competition that I shouldn’t get cocky. I think the HBD poll would have to include most of the anthropologists on the planet.
I once dated a girl who, through no fault of her own, had a brother who decided to be a Neo-Nazi. We didn’t like to spend time with him, but any time we did, the conversation inevitably turned to one of two things: how awesome the band Emperor was (valid), and how black people had more fast-twitch muscle fiber but white people had bigger brains and BTHATHOEOATHT.
The point I’m getting at is that every time I hear about HBD cooks, I just think of skinhead Liam with his shitty tattoos, his shitty opinions, and the fact that he thought it was absolutely amazing that he discovered a Belgian beer that had been brewed in the same brewery since the 15th century.
Most white supremacists seem to be self refuting.
The ones in the news, Stormfront killers and the like, invariably have no educational accomplishments, no intellectual accomplishments, chaotic employment records, spent periods of time in prison for pointless crimes, and long periods of unemployment. In other words, they are losers!!!
1. Stormfront users have killed ca. 100 people. At the time they went killer, all were unemployed.
2. At the time the Las Vegas couple went on their killing spree, they both had criminal records and were…unemployed.
The couple on the west coast who went out to kill Jews, killed 4 people, none of whom were Jewish. They had just gotten out of prison and were…unemployed.
“Creationist!” is the abusive word of choice for pseudoskeptics these days, especially for Libermatarians who think heat melting ice is ‘just a theory’ created to make life hard for Wall Street’s “wealth creators”.
Well, since you don’t qualify for a frightbat*…
*I think I need to make one, urgently
HBD must be right!!!!11!!
For example, people who can wiggle their ears are generally more intelligent than those who can’t. (I will provide data later as soon as I can find some that indicates this.) You ask whether I can wiggle my ears? Well, it just so happens that I can, but I assure you that did not sway my very scientific research into this one little bit.
But don’t you see? it’s the fault of the Cultural Marxiiiiist who forced them to drop out of middle school when they wrote that WWII was the war of jewish aggression
(I wish I was kidding, but one “identarian” once ran as a candidate in an election in my hometown and that’s exactly how he justified the fact that he was a midschool dropout).
@Giliell #4:
We definitely need more frightbats in the world. There are so many fruitcakes around for them to combat.
moarscienceplz:
Data? Well, I can wiggle my ears, and I was top of most of my classes through high school! (Waddaya mean the plural of anecdote…?) /s
It’s a wonderful review–with the just the right amount of subtle digs and not-so-subtle digs (the Pinker line is devastating in its understatement, the line about the Gulf War is beautiful). I’d really only quibble with one minor point: In the very beginning Laden states that The Bell Curve is “a widely read text.” I’m not sure what Laden means by that and I’m not sure that as a general point The Bell Curve was widely read, but rather widely discussed and widely cited in an appeal to authority. Neither I nor Laden have actually done the actual research on this issue, but I am curious about just how widely read The Bell Curve was. I’m sure many people bought The Bell Curve and then prominently placed it on a table in their living room (I knew such a person), but the spine and pages showed no sign of use. It was more an emblem, than something to be read. Was The Bell Curve widely read in academic circles? Which academic circles? Was The Bell Curve widely read outside of academic circles? I simply don’t know.
Remyporter,
I, for one, find it absolutely disgusting that you would share the musical tastes of this troglodyte. You are self-refuting!
See, what I’m doing here is being ironic. It would be unreasonable for me to use a guilt-by-association ad hom if I have substantive disagreements with your opinions, wouldn’t it? “X believes Y, and X is a jerk, therefore people who believe Y are jerks” does not appear to be a valid form of argument. Wouldn’t you say that it weakens rather than strengthens someone’s case when they use that type of argument?