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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   28199 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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Alright Jordan Peterson, let's shift the debate to the definition of the word "nuance".

My core point stands uncontested. HBD the theory hides behind HBD the science in order to try to gain legitimacy as a "grand-theory of why the world is the way it is" despite every "grand-theory of why the world is the way it is" being half-baked and not capable of standing up to any critical analysis.

  • -11

My core point stands uncontested.

"Uncontested". I do not think that word means what you think it means.

HBD the theory hides behind HBD the science in order to try to gain legitimacy as a "grand-theory of why the world is the way it is" despite every "grand-theory of why the world is the way it is" being half-baked and not capable of standing up to any critical analysis.

Error on top of error. It is not enough to merely declare that every "grand-theory of why the world is the way it is" is half-baked. Nor does it matter that something does not stand up to "critical analysis", if you mean that in the postmodern sense. And certainly it is not a mark against HBD that it tries to explain aspects of the world.

the theory hides behind ... the science in order to try to gain legitimacy as a "grand-theory of why the world is the way it is"

Many such cases: this is a generic problem, IMO, with several branches of science, maybe even every branch with immediate political impact (also economics, epidemiology, climate science, [group] studies). I don't think you're wrong that this even happens to HBD folks who are probably diametrically opposed to plenty of those other examples.

I don't know of a generic strategy to counteract this human failing: my first recommendation would be to reject claims that "the science is settled": the scientific process is never truly settled. But if you go too far in the un-trusting direction, you'll start questioning the concept of childhood vaccinations or jet fuel melting steel beams.

you'll start questioning the concept of childhood vaccinations or jet fuel melting steel beams.

TBF, the conspiracists are right that jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel (not without a proper burner, anyway). Their mistake is in assuming that you need to melt structural supports in order to make them fail; in actual fact, steel loses most of its strength well before it actually melts.

Reminds me of a bad habit among amateur analysts trying to calculate explosive yields: not knowing the difference between pulverisation (shattering something into dust) and vaporisation. Lots of people see "the building isn't there anymore" and then blithely plug in the specific heat and heat of vaporisation for the entire mass of the building, which is a drastic overestimate because it takes a lot less energy to pulverise than to vaporise something.

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