"There aren't any purported harms of race science that come close to the clear cases of lab leak (7M deaths) or easy access nuclear weapons (0 deaths so far!). The same is true with regards to the purported harms of research on transsexuals, homosexuals, the homeless and so on."
But in the minds of equalitarian leftists, inequality of outcome is a serious harm, hence their opposition to meritocratic admissions for universities instead of de facto race quotas via affirmative actions (AA) and their opposition to bind hiring too. If hereditarian explanations for educational and socioeconomic outcomes can be shown to be correct, the justifications for AA (systemic racism, etc.) will no longer hold, so results that support hereditarian explanations must be suppressed to maintain the status quo.
It's similar with the trans debate. How comfortable (and successful) would be left be in arguing for the rights of MtF transgenders to access female-only spaces if they acknowledged that many MtF transgenders have autogynephilia? The same goes if the left had to argue for "gender affirming care" for minors if more people knew about rapid onset gender dysphoria, which is anorexia for mentally ill teenage lesbians.
The best way for the left to win these arguments is to censor the other side. So that's what they do.
Recent publicly-proclaimed, ostensibly politically-motivated censorship came about more easily because of the existence since the mid-20th century of covert, personally-motivated censorship, particularly by anonymous reviewers desiring to keep their sub-sub-subdiscipline free from intrusion by an outsider with a new idea. Science as free inquiry has been an unattainable ideal since it transitioned from an amateur to a "professional" activity; human beings are simply too flawed to resist suppressing competitors. Researchers like Emil K. and Michael Woodley are the ultimate threat to the blank slate, egalitarian research program that has financially supported hundreds of academics in the social sciences. Censorship of non-consensus research is more economically, than ideologically, motivated. Whereas someone like me might have been censored through a single person's economic motivation, research like yours brings all the hornets out of the social science nest.
To combine the examples, academic race communists are terrified that research on racial differences will spread like a virus through the population and hit their affirmative action programs like a nuclear weapon.
Not linked, but do you have any clues on the recurring low PISA scores of Iceland (inbreeding ? alcoholism ? low fertility of intelligent people - as shown per Kong's paper in 2017 ? Thanks.
"leftists are probably higher in academic talent" is an interesting notion. It's quite broad-brush so I will permit myself to be too.....Leftism correlates well with willful denial of observable reality. In my own - albeit layman's - definition of intelligence, this would be a sign of LACK of it. But perhaps however one COULD argue it this way: “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” (Saul Bellow)
Political ideology has not much overall correlation with scientific knowledge, not in general, and not for these contested issues. Don't forget that conservatives have spent many years denying evolution due to the conflict with biblical creation, and then there were the denial of global warming (i.e. claiming it hasn't gotten warmer). They have largely given up on these, but I don't think conservatives can claim any scientific supremacy in general. On the other hand, in the last decade or so, the socialists are more powerful in their delusions, as they deny even obvious basic facts about sex differences, influences of hormones etc.
Although I did use the term Leftism, I was not really talking about 'political ideology'. Conservative criticism of Leftism (in the sense of its Social Justice religion) tends - in my view - to take it too seriously....as an 'ideology'. It's much more of a PSYCHOLOGY....one in which the need to FEEL GOOD about yourself overrides noticing contrary factual evidence. I would agree though that this is not a uniquely Leftist thing....it can manifest itself on the Right as patently silly conspiracy theories, for example. But I would say that it is much more endemic on the Left...and always has been. There is a good deal of truth in the old saying that "the facts of life are conservative". And as for your 'global warming' example (about which I remain agnostic because I am not sufficiently interested to really put the work in to scour the data and check its provenance} I would just say this: the number of people around the world who now have an opinion on this subject must now run into the hundreds of millions (perhaps billions). How many of them have truly educated themselves on the subject....as opposed to just hearing it on 'the news'? Groupthink is the norm in human affairs (including in academia); independent-mindedness is the exception.
The phrase pointy-headed intellectuals describes midwits that succeed by sharpening their intellects through the exclusion of facts they deem irrelevant or unhelpful. The talent to do this tends to cluster in leftists since communist theory does the same thing, and these individuals do well in the social sciences in academia, which are all about creating simple theories to describe complex situations in the real world.
The more broad-minded tend to go into fields that grapple with reality more directly such as business, military service, law enforcement and, to some extent the practice of law.
will link to this post in my next academic scandal roundup 👍
"There aren't any purported harms of race science that come close to the clear cases of lab leak (7M deaths) or easy access nuclear weapons (0 deaths so far!). The same is true with regards to the purported harms of research on transsexuals, homosexuals, the homeless and so on."
But in the minds of equalitarian leftists, inequality of outcome is a serious harm, hence their opposition to meritocratic admissions for universities instead of de facto race quotas via affirmative actions (AA) and their opposition to bind hiring too. If hereditarian explanations for educational and socioeconomic outcomes can be shown to be correct, the justifications for AA (systemic racism, etc.) will no longer hold, so results that support hereditarian explanations must be suppressed to maintain the status quo.
It's similar with the trans debate. How comfortable (and successful) would be left be in arguing for the rights of MtF transgenders to access female-only spaces if they acknowledged that many MtF transgenders have autogynephilia? The same goes if the left had to argue for "gender affirming care" for minors if more people knew about rapid onset gender dysphoria, which is anorexia for mentally ill teenage lesbians.
The best way for the left to win these arguments is to censor the other side. So that's what they do.
Recent publicly-proclaimed, ostensibly politically-motivated censorship came about more easily because of the existence since the mid-20th century of covert, personally-motivated censorship, particularly by anonymous reviewers desiring to keep their sub-sub-subdiscipline free from intrusion by an outsider with a new idea. Science as free inquiry has been an unattainable ideal since it transitioned from an amateur to a "professional" activity; human beings are simply too flawed to resist suppressing competitors. Researchers like Emil K. and Michael Woodley are the ultimate threat to the blank slate, egalitarian research program that has financially supported hundreds of academics in the social sciences. Censorship of non-consensus research is more economically, than ideologically, motivated. Whereas someone like me might have been censored through a single person's economic motivation, research like yours brings all the hornets out of the social science nest.
To combine the examples, academic race communists are terrified that research on racial differences will spread like a virus through the population and hit their affirmative action programs like a nuclear weapon.
And they're not wrong.
Not linked, but do you have any clues on the recurring low PISA scores of Iceland (inbreeding ? alcoholism ? low fertility of intelligent people - as shown per Kong's paper in 2017 ? Thanks.
I plan to do a PISA post.
What is Pisa please?
They can't hide tge truth anymore, have you read Bronski review on Hanania's book?
Have read it, but I am not convinced of the importance of mutational load.
"leftists are probably higher in academic talent" is an interesting notion. It's quite broad-brush so I will permit myself to be too.....Leftism correlates well with willful denial of observable reality. In my own - albeit layman's - definition of intelligence, this would be a sign of LACK of it. But perhaps however one COULD argue it this way: “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” (Saul Bellow)
Political ideology has not much overall correlation with scientific knowledge, not in general, and not for these contested issues. Don't forget that conservatives have spent many years denying evolution due to the conflict with biblical creation, and then there were the denial of global warming (i.e. claiming it hasn't gotten warmer). They have largely given up on these, but I don't think conservatives can claim any scientific supremacy in general. On the other hand, in the last decade or so, the socialists are more powerful in their delusions, as they deny even obvious basic facts about sex differences, influences of hormones etc.
Although I did use the term Leftism, I was not really talking about 'political ideology'. Conservative criticism of Leftism (in the sense of its Social Justice religion) tends - in my view - to take it too seriously....as an 'ideology'. It's much more of a PSYCHOLOGY....one in which the need to FEEL GOOD about yourself overrides noticing contrary factual evidence. I would agree though that this is not a uniquely Leftist thing....it can manifest itself on the Right as patently silly conspiracy theories, for example. But I would say that it is much more endemic on the Left...and always has been. There is a good deal of truth in the old saying that "the facts of life are conservative". And as for your 'global warming' example (about which I remain agnostic because I am not sufficiently interested to really put the work in to scour the data and check its provenance} I would just say this: the number of people around the world who now have an opinion on this subject must now run into the hundreds of millions (perhaps billions). How many of them have truly educated themselves on the subject....as opposed to just hearing it on 'the news'? Groupthink is the norm in human affairs (including in academia); independent-mindedness is the exception.
The phrase pointy-headed intellectuals describes midwits that succeed by sharpening their intellects through the exclusion of facts they deem irrelevant or unhelpful. The talent to do this tends to cluster in leftists since communist theory does the same thing, and these individuals do well in the social sciences in academia, which are all about creating simple theories to describe complex situations in the real world.
The more broad-minded tend to go into fields that grapple with reality more directly such as business, military service, law enforcement and, to some extent the practice of law.