Rufo described Jonatan Pallesen as “a Danish data scientist who has raised new questions about Claudine Gay’s use – and potential misuse – of data in her PhD thesis” in an interview published in his newsletter and on the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal website last Friday.
He did not tell readers that a paper featuring Pallesen’s own statistical work in collaboration with the eugenicist researchers has been subject to scathing expert criticism for its faulty methods, and characterized as white nationalism by another academic critic.
The revelations once again raise questions about the willingness of Rufo – a major ally of Ron DeSantis and powerful culture warrior in Republican politics – to cultivate extremists in the course of his political crusades.
The Guardian emailed Rufo to ask about his repeated platforming of extremists, and asked both Rufo and the Manhattan Institute’s communications office whether they had vetted Pallesen before publishing the interview. Neither responded.
It’s controversial to say that different groups have different average IQ’s now?
…and this is equivalent to blood libel? What an absurd position to take. Noting that Ashkenazim are smarter and have higher educational attainment on average doesn’t imply that they secretly control the world.
There’s lots of ways to criticize categorizing groups by IQ scores: point out that this is the average and incredibly intelligent individuals can emerge from many groups, cite the cultural bias of most IQ tests and how IQ tests may not be accurately measuring G, note that groups are adapted to different environments and on average each have different abilities because of these adaptations and none are objectively superior to another, point out that IQ is only ~57-80% heritable meaning that intelligence can arise, (or diminish,) from any group, etc.,
Honestly it seems like they are proving this asshole’s point, that academia, (or at very least The Guardian,) is biased against information that doesn’t fit with a political narrative. That said, many of his other views and conclusions drawn are abhorrent and I disagree with them vehemently; one can recognize group differences without suggesting racial hierarchy.
Edit: Originally I posted that heritability of IQ was 85%, and that was inaccurate.
If it has anything to do with race or ethnicity. Uh yes.
Groups don’t stop having different average IQs simply because they are defined as racial or ethnic, intelligence is 57-80% heritable after all. What should be controversial is discrimination based on average test scores of other people, not acknowledgement of reality regarding differences between groups.
I suppose you actually assume the method of measuring is perfectly accurate and not biased in any way.
I acknowledged this in my first post:
I’m not sure what made you assume I thought IQ testing was perfectly accurate and unbiased. Lots of people here are arguing against positions they imagine I hold rather than what I actually wrote.
But race and ethnicity themselves are not determinative.
Citation needed. Most citations I could find said genetics may account or anywhere from 30 to 50% of a person’s intelligence. But they have no idea what genes would possibly be contributing to that and how. So basically it’s a hypothesis with zero proof. Either you are operating on junk science or straight up eugenicist.
While it is true that random groups of people may have different average IQs. It has more to do with what they eat, how often they eat and their exposure to different ideas than it does their genetics, etc. Even then, IQ is not actually a useful measure of intelligence.
I stand corrected! According to wikipedia:
Thanks, I’ll edit my comments to reflect this. Intelligence remains heritable, just not as heritable as I thought.
One cannot discount the role of nature in the nature vs. nurture debate. Some twin studies are quite remarkable in illustrating the significant role it plays.
Eugenicist pushing junk science duly noted. The twin studies are highly controversial for a number of reasons. But the results from them are not able to be generalized to the population at large in any way. And just to finish. Correlation is not causation. These studies pointed to interesting possibilities. Though That didn’t justify them still. But they ultimately prove nothing.
Acknowledging heritability of IQ makes me neither of these things. There’s a lot of studies confirming this all cited at the wikipedia link above. Guess they’re all “junk science” because they don’t fit with your philosophy.
One likely cannot determine causation in this domain without some very unethical studies. How many correlates does one need before they imply causation?
So. Where to start.
Wikipedia is not a source. Wikipedia themselves go to great lengths on many pages. Saying many different ways that they are not a source or inherently reliable, etc etc etc.
IQ was literally popularized and used to justify eugenics. By eugenecists.
IQ testing has heavy cultural and linguistic biases that keeps it from being an accurate measurement of anything.
IQ itself is pseudoscientific bullshit. Not taken seriously by any scientific field. It has as much importance and factual bearing as surveys in Cosmo magazine or Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, etc etc etc.
It literally makes you one of those things bubbala.
All correlation can ever do is imply. Causation is not an implication. No amount of implications can prove causation. They are different things entirely.
You are correlating heavily with eugenicists. You are using the language of eugenics. The measures of eugenics. And the reasoning of eugenics. Now while it’s true, I cannot say what’s in your heart. All your pro eugenics talk maybe performative and pure bluster. Which honestly isn’t any better. However, if this is sincerely not what you’re doing. And you don’t think you are or don’t want to be seen as someone pro eugenics. I suggest you change up where you’re getting your information from. I’m not going to tell you where to go. Just suggest that maybe what you’re doing now isn’t working for you.
That’s probably because the article we’re discussing is about a eugenicist’s paper.
And again, IQ means little in the big scheme of things. It is not first among many differing attributes which are important to human beings’ survival, adaptation and growth.
Please stop trying to argue it is.
I agree and I never argued otherwise, in fact I shared a very similar argument in my first post:
Please don’t project positions onto me that I do not hold. That’s called the straw man fallacy.
the tests themselves are biased, and should not be used as a metric at all.
Yes, it is highly controversial, and rightly so. First, an IQ is a number that is based on an intelligence test and intended to measure an individual’s cognitive ability in comparison with a reference population, typically with other people of similar ages and in the same country (i.e., the population that they belong to). Intelligence tests are meaningless for group comparisons such as comparisons between countries or ethnic/religious groups, and doing so represents a misuse and misinterpretation of IQ scores. Researchers are not “biased” against this based on their political opinions. They simply object to the objectionable use of these tests.
Second, group comparisons about intelligence are also problematic for a variety of other reasons, and studies that claim to find group differences tend to conflate them with other between-group differences (e.g., different socioeconomic, nutritional, educational influences, among others). These studies are essentially pseudo-science.
Finally, although genetics do seem to play a significant role for cognitive ability, it’s important to realize that statements like “IQ is x% heritable” are statistical estimates. These estimates are obtained by comparing sources of variance that can be attributed to shared vs. non-shared genetic and environmental influences. As such, any heritability estimate is specific to its social context (e.g., countries). In fact, heritability estimates tend to be higher in more equitable societies, because they reduce the impact of environmental influences (e.g., wealth, parental education), thus increasing the relative proportion of variance that can be attributed to genetics (but obviously genetics in, say, Sweden still work the same as they do in the US).