Jason Arday dead

[ThisWiseRobin]

Just putting this out there, but just heared.A sad end to a whole sorry mess.

Please stop now. I clarified exactly what I meant in an immediate reply to you and anyone who is fascinated by this riveting exchange can read that I did. This is getting a bit tedious.

If you really want to understand why I used the word leftists rather than saying “the left” or “people on the left”, I was trying not to imply it was ALL of of people on the left resorting to this extreme behaviour. But just some. Wish I hadn’t bothered now!

in some way, i can see why you would be correct in a different context, because hypothesis testing strives to challenge / demonstrate the hypothesis is false - whether the data are inconsistent with a null hypothesis, while guarding against bias, confounding and overinterpretation. So if the methodology is through and yields findings without bias or prejudice, and these findings are utilised to their full potential... then it could be said the researcher was fully objective and not motivated by any specific outcomes.

However, noone sane in research would be asking this question and be disigenuous enough to say they are asking it in good faith, let alone for the massive number of non adjustable confounders impacting the outcome measure, and the harm to research subjects that no ethics board would authorise.

Fair enough. It's not deep enough for me to analyse any further. I don't like the idea of research being stifled though, because that goes against the necessary evolution of ideas. It does help to explain why we are here today though, on this thread. Some subjects remain sensitive but they are more sensitive to white liberals. This is just my opinion. Not personal to you or anybody else in the thread.

Ah see, I don't need to be an expert in his field, I just need to follow his argument.

He, in his famous substack post put forward an argument that concluded that in a true meritocracy black people would "disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment".

Except his argument is full of holes and his conclusion doesn't logically follow from it.

Like I said before, I'm maths, so trained in logical argument. There's no way I would put forward the argument he did in any serious way. He's a philosopher, they are also trained in logical argument. So there are two possible conclusions that can be drawn from his shitty argument:

1. he's a shit philosopher and doesn't know his argument is crap. He was hired by Cambridge which previously would have been evidence that he's not thick(!), however he does seem to have some academic status outside of that.

2. He knows his argument is crap and the conclusion doesn't logically follow, but decided to write it publicly anyway. The only possible reason that someone could have for wanting to that write black people wouldn't occupy any high profile role in a meritocracy is that they are racist. That their conclusion came first and they are trying to prop it up with a crap argument and a bit of hand waving and hoping no one would notice.

So which do you think? Thick or racist?

However, noone sane in research would be asking this question and be disigenuous enough to say they are asking it in good faith

This does get studied quite a lot, and does show fairly repeatable differences in tested IQ across races (eg within the US). The extremely contentious question is why that is, but there’s not many experts who would say the differences aren’t found.

I’m also puzzled why you think this wouldn’t ever be studied in good faith?

Let’s say you wanted to understand and address educational outcome gaps between different groups. Wouldn’t it be an important thing to know? Or one might just want to know for the sake of just knowing: same instinct that drives research in all sorts of things in every field.

The massive mistake, in my view, is to tacitly accept the premise that this says anything at all about moral worth. We don’t do it for individuals. Why would we do it for groups?

Yes, and people will automatically try to pigeonhole you because then they can dismiss you without engaging with what you are saying.

Some people seem to think that because they get their opinions delivered to them wrapped in a big tribal bow, that everyone else does too.

His work has been published though. I've just seen an Al Jazeera report on him being racist. That doesn't help convince me - far from it.

fair point

Any old shite can get published.

Well that's true.

There is a longstanding ethical and methodological consensus against using science to establish racial hierarchies or claims of racial superiority - unesco (?) statements were that tthere is no scientific grounds for ranking races as superior or inferior, and that intelligence tests could not safely separate innate ability from environmental effects.

I love it when anyone tries to take IQ seriously. My IQ (recorded, I have a certificate) is stupidly high so please go on and argue that I'm therefore more intelligent than Einstein or whatever.

"wrapped in a big tribal bow" and rarely if ever bothering to research anything or use critical thinking, it quite tiring at times

My writing skills or spelling always come under scrutiny the moment someone realises I may be thinking outside the box they normally argue in and they cannot think of a valid argument against what I am saying. Possibly they are under the impression this will rattle me or maybe they are trying to suggest I have a low IQ......

I deliberately swear to flush those sorts of people out.

If they prissily comment on the swearing, I put them in the loser box.

At an individual level I don’t think anyone would believe that more or less intelligence equates to value. To claim an entire group of people are genetically incapable of the same IQ scores as another group, is different. Intelligence is valuable, so claiming an entire continent (and beyond) have less of it and can never change that is condemnation.

And Cofnas does this without the evidence to back it up. So he does indeed value black people’s intelligence less, because he doesn’t even think it’s worth testing the evidence before concluding.

So was Jason Arday’s.

The post you’re responding to wasn’t even to you.

This is what they do, home in on something you’ve clarified whilst ignore the issue at hand.

No doubt you do, if it allows you to mention both how smart you are and how virtuous you are by claiming it means nothing : )

If one is smart it’s quite easy to believe intelligence means nothing. Usually one’s friends are similar, and it’s rare to meet a problem where intelligence is the binding constraint.

But if you aren’t smart it really matters. It determines what jobs and services you can access, and at lower levels everyday life is on hard mode.

TLDR: the idea that IQ means nothing is a luxury belief.

But why would finding intelligence differences, or whatever cause, mean endorsing a racial hierarchy?

The Nazis certainly thought it did, but I’m certain everyone on this board utterly rejects their ideas. If we reject their ideas, why act as if we secretly do accept their premise?

Let’s just treat this as an empirical matter like we do everything else, and de-fang the whole stupid idea that it’s a moral issue or an insult.

I'm a secondary teacher so the idea that I'm unaware of people with a range of academic abilities is rather funny.

What's also funny is the idea that IQ is a calibrated and accurate measure of how smart someone is. Or that having a high IQ means your life is on an easier mode than at 'lower levels'.

I don’t know enough about Cofnas to want to ally myself to any position of his. But the idea that there are differences in tested IQ across races is absolutely mainstream in the literature. It’s the reasons that are very hotly debated.

I do accept that at a root level many people really do attach moral worth to IQ. I wonder what AI is going to do that. Old literature is full of references to strong babies, healthy babies, a sickly child, etc becuase that really mattered. I wonder if our focus on IQ will seem as dated to future generations.

Fascinating discussing the concept of intelligence isn't it.

One of my favourite discussion subjects about Intelligence, one everyone has a view on, and one that is relevant to this particular Arday discussion - is this:

Is it possible for person be intelligent and racist? Why do you think that?

For example many people over time, and today, were/are labelled as highly intelligent. They were / are also evidently, racist.

On the other hand 'Low intelligence' people are often viewed to be more racist or vice versa. See many Left (yes Left for those at the back) views of Reform supporters, repeated ad nauseum on this platform without much critical thinking.

There's a recent view that many intelligent people are quite racist, but hide it better. so are they intelligent all.

Of course there are often specific motivations for calling people 'stupid' or 'clever'.

What's your view? Rhetorical really, sorry to divert even more.

It absolutely is mainstream, and it’s also contested for the reasons you’ve discussed with others re IQ as a measure. Also when you look at the data there are swathes of countries where there is no independent testing and scores are assumed by proximity. It’s a shaky dataset, and not one that can ethically be used to draw conclusions. It doesn’t - and shouldn’t - preclude Cofnas and others from collecting further data or talking about what does exist. My problem is he is politicising what’s there, rather than really investigating it.

I hope that IQ will seem dated to future generations! But intelligence - maybe better characterised as problem solving, consequential thinking, strategising etc - probably won’t be, because (as you said) intelligence (or even perceived intelligence) = access to a more comfortable life. And that’s why it’s a problem to condemn certain groups of people to a genetic destiny that doesn’t even exist.

i think it is because modern western society treats intelligence as a very valuable trait, that leads to greater capacity, success, value creation, etc and thereby superiority.