In the last blog, I reported on a group (wisely anonymous) who advanced an article challenging Cecily Kane’s 2016 Fireside article that used a statistical analysis to show anti-black bias among SFF editors. Although the anonymous authors agreed there was a bias against black authors, they disagreed on the cause. After threats, they withdrew the article. Fireside then posted the article on their site.
So, what was the problem here? Why were these authors threatened? Was it because they challenged Kane’s specific conclusions about editorial bias? Or was it because they challenged possible gains that might have been made because of Kane’s article? Is this a political issue? Are the anonymous authors misguided statisticians? Or are they really racists trying to undermine black progress?
The interesting thing is that this isn’t an isolated case of attacking and bullying people, not just for their social/political views, but also for research that might contradict the opposition’s conclusions. It’s actually a fairly common theme in US society right now. While Charlie Rose was on medical leave recently, stand-in Dan Senor hosted social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni. (See brief article and video of the show here.) They had an extended discussion about Charles Murray’s experience during a speaking engagement the first week of March at Middlebury College. Protests led college officials to change the engagement to a broadcast, but as Murray was leaving, he was physically attacked in a brawl that injured a professor. The panelists observed that we’re used to hearing about this kind of thing in the case of provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, but Murray is just an elderly academic doing research that some people don’t like–and is vilified for it. According to Haidt and Bruni, the individuals who threaten and attack like this are actually a small group who plan to gain advantage by making slurs instead of arguments (i.e. labeling and inciting against people as racists, sexists, homophobes, etc.). This makes the group a socially powerful force within a community, mainly because people are afraid of them. Think trolls.
But what happened to the research here? Can we really ignore scientific research if we don’t like the results? The anonymous authors and Kane both agreed there was an anti-black bias at work in SFF story publication, but how can we work to remedy that situation unless we have a clear understanding of the cause? Kudos to Fireside for putting up the opposing article. It makes them look gracious, for one thing, and also interested in a real discussion about the issue.
greghullender
Mar 23, 2017 @ 10:26:12
In Murray’s case, the reaction is more understandable (although the violence is not justified). This is a man who, in his book “The Bell Curve,” claimed that research showed black people were, on average, less-intelligent than white people. Examination of the data showed that the test for Asians was given to college students, the test for white people was given to randomly chosen Americans, and the test for black Africans was given to people whose native language wasn’t English. I don’t see how the man can show his face in public.
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dann665
Mar 24, 2017 @ 09:00:36
Hi Greg,
Full disclosure. I haven’t read The Bell Curve. But I’ve read a ton of articles about the book since it was published.
This is the first time that I have read anything about that specific criticism of the data. Even the Wikipedia article (currently) does not reference that issue in the list of criticisms. You may well be correct. I haven’t read the book. But this is the first time I’ve heard that criticism.
This use of the heckler’s veto really needs to stop. If there is a problem with a scientific position, then the only acceptable corrective needs to be engagement in legitimate discussion on that issue. “Discussion” meaning an exchange of ideas, not a one sided hectoring.
Regards,
Dann
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greghullender
Mar 24, 2017 @ 10:40:23
I first read it in “The Tainted Sources of ‘The Bell Curve’“, by Charles Lane (The New York Review of Books; December 1, 1994). I found this criticism far more damning than any other. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it before.
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dann665
Mar 24, 2017 @ 16:28:00
Thanks very much, Greg. I now see where the Wikipedia article does reference that critique. It doesn’t specifically call out those flaws in methodology, but it is there.
Regards,
Dann
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Lela E. Buis
Mar 23, 2017 @ 13:49:00
Hm. Should have been random all around. Have you read the book? If that’s right, then his conclusions definitely should be challenged. However, it still doesn’t excuse attacking the man physically. The study he was scheduled to discuss at this engagement was comparing white Americans, I believe. I hope his methodology has improved.
Still, other people (researchers and not) have also noted differences based on the combination of inheritance versus environment. If everyone had the same talents, there would be a lot of Jewish basketball players.
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greghullender
Mar 23, 2017 @ 22:12:40
Yes, I read it and even still have my copy.
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Lela E. Buis
Mar 23, 2017 @ 13:57:14
Had a quick look at Wikipedia. Here’s the background on it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve
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David VanDyke
Mar 23, 2017 @ 14:18:35
Our society has gone ad hominem all around. I seldom have a facebook discussion that doesn’t break down into ad hominem pretty quick. It’s just a short step from verbal ad hominem to physical, once people feel like it is their right to attack anyone who doesn’t follow their peculiar moral code.
What does this sound like? Puritanism, or the old Jewish Pharaseeism. Stick a scarlet letter on them, put them in stocks in the public square, maybe flog them or even stone them publicly–the Christian version of Sharia that has mostly passed into history. But in American society, founded initially by Puritans (so-called Pilgrims), we’ve kept the Puritanism but swapped out the moral code, replacing it with PC values.
“Can we really ignore scientific research if we don’t like the results?” Heck yeah we can. People have been doing it since the ancient Greeks, and then there was that whole Galileo thing (driven by politics, by the way, and not true disbelief by the intellectual class). If knowledge is power and science is knowledge, politics is about the use of power–therefore politics will always try to twist, use or suppress science (knowledge, as power) to the benefit of its wielders.
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Pixel Scroll 3/23/17 I Fifth The Pixel Electric | File 770
Mar 24, 2017 @ 00:54:02