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.
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.