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The evidence is so overwhelming that a scientific study is not even necessary. It's like observing that men are genetically predisposed to being taller than women.
This strikes me as an isolated demand for rigor. Would you apply the same standards to the claim that smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer?
No, because the consequences of getting it wrong are very different.
If a society believes that smoking causes cancer, and they are wrong, some people don't get to enjoy setting fire to foul-smelling leaves and covering their walls and furniture with discusting gunk.
If a society believes that Black people are less intelligent and more criminal, and they are wrong, millions of innocent people go through their lives with a boot stamping on their faces.
Only if you subscribe to modern liberalism. Its perfectly fine to accept race differences without being compelled to subjugate people under classical liberalism. Lincoln, an abolitionist, fiercely believed in black inferiority. He had some creative solutions, such as deportation of many back to Africa, which probably would have worked decently for mainland America.
But there need not be drastic measures. American blacks could merely be treated equally, with the same expectations as everyone else, and it would dramatically improve things here. Of course, the backlash would be immense, as blacks treat equal treatment as oppression.
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So I have made an argument similar to this (but notably, not the same) and gotten heat for it, so allow me to say that I agree with those who are pointing out that truth should not depend on the social consequences. If something is true, even if that truth is hard, uncomfortable, and leads to unfortunate implications, that doesn't make it not true and you cannot demand people pretend that it is.
What you can demand is that we be very sure of it, and that we exercise extreme caution when deciding what to do about it. Which would be the steelman of what what you seem to be saying. What I was accused of was defending the "Noble Lie" (i.e., "We all collectively understand this is true but we must pretend we don't know it"). Which is not something I defend.
Where I differ from you is that you seem pretty set on "It would be so bad if this was true, that we must demand absolute 100% certainty, on the level of knowing that gravity exists, before we acknowledge it."
I don't agree that recognizing that there are racial differences in IQ and behavior would inevitably lead to racial oppression. I do agree that would be a risk. What I think it would lead to is some really hard choices and a lot of people unable to accept public policy that stops trying to "correct" a situation that is essentially not correctable. I don't know that we as a society could come to some sort of stable equilibrium where everyone is treated with dignity (and as an individual, not a demographic median!).
Nonetheless, I think we do still kind of need to know and face the truth.
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The problem is that if society believes the opposite of that, and they are wrong, then also millions of innocent people go through their lives with a boot stamping on their faces. There's no safe "false positives are clearly better/worse than false negatives" situation here that makes it easy to just err on one side. This is one of those legitimate Hard Problems that we need to actually do real scientific research to get right.
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Are you able to be a little more specific about how public policy would necessarily look if society believed that "[b]lack people are less intelligent and more criminal"?
To put it another way, what exactly do you mean by "millions of innocent people go through their lives with a boot stamping on their faces"? What exactly would happen to these people which is equivalent to having a boot [stomping] on their faces"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
yes_chad.jpg
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Ok, so in your view, societal recognition that blacks are less intelligent and more criminal would necessarily lead to the reinstatement of racial segregation in the South.
Do I understand you correctly?
No. It would not necessarily lead to such; however, defenders of Jim Crow often cited the alleged mental deficits and supposed inherent criminal tendencies of the Black population; thus, it is not as far from possibility as I would prefer.
Ok, I think I understand your position now. I disagree for a couple of reasons.
First, in my view, societal recognition of truth should not depend on the likelihood of harm resulting from that recognition. Either something is true or it isn't and the standard for truth seeking is logically irrelevant to the consequences of such truth.
Moreover, if there is a principle in place that the possibility of harm is ground to reject something which would otherwise be accepted as true, it opens the door to the worst kind of abuses.
Second, even if there were such a principle in place, truths should not be rejected on the mere possibility of harm. Rather, for much the same reason, a compelling case needs to be made of a strong likelihood of harm.
Here, there are plenty of laws and Supreme Court decisions in place guaranteeing equality. Thus, it is pretty unlikely that recognition of the truth about blacks would change this.
Indeed, it is worth drawing a distinction between (1) lower black intelligence and higher criminality; and (2) the genetic cause of the same. There is no serious dispute that on average, blacks have lower IQs than non blacks and are more likely to commit crime. And yet this hasn't resulted in reenactment of Jim Crow laws. Given that, it's difficult to see how recognition of a genetic component in this discrepancy would bring about a return of Jim Crow laws.
It is also worth distinguishing between (1) the level of proof necessary for societal acceptance of some truth; and (2) the level of proof necessary for laws to be enacted on the basis of the same.
We already have laws and policies in place which were enacted on the assumption that black underperformance is the result of past discrimination. I'm perfectly fine with a principle which says that until there is super-duper proof that this assumption is correct, then such laws and policies are unacceptable.
In other words, if -- for purposes of policymaking -- we are going to have a super high standard before concluding that black underperformance is a result of genetics, in whole or in part -- it follows logically we should have a super high standard before concluding that black underperformance is a result of past discrimination.
If the resulting logic is "we just don't know why blacks score lower on intelligence tests and commit more crime, and until that is known definitively, we won't have Jim Crow laws; we wont' have affirmative action; all races will be treated equally; etc." that's fine with me. To put it another way, if the conclusion that black underperformance is in part the result of genetics is possibly harmful to blacks, then we should also consider that the reverse conclusion is harmful to non-blacks.
I will acknowledge that, due to the norms against racial discrimination established during and after the Civil Rights Movement, the danger is less now than it would have been in earlier decades; however, these norms are eroding at an alarming rate.
Explicit discrimination existed, and left Black people poorer than they otherwise would have been.
Jim Crow was far more harmful to Black people than any of the attempts to remedy it have been to others.
I can see the argument for a higher standard of evidence for blaming particular people or institutions for discrimination.
I have considered many potential explanations for the continuing poor outcomes among Black people, both orthodox and heretical; all of them seem to, ultimately, trace back to discrimination against them, although that discrimination is not always done by human beings.
I'm extremely skeptical of this claim. What's your evidence?
Acknowledging the truth about racial differences is unlikely to result in a return of Jim Crow laws. The only evidence you have offered (so far) is a claim that racial differences were used to justify Jim Crow laws.
Meanwhile, harm to non-blacks from affirmative action and such is real and unquestionably happening.
I'm not sure what your point is here. Certainly if one were to apply your standard to the position that black underperformance is primarily the result of past discrimination by non-blacks, there's nowhere near sufficient proof.
In any event, I take it that in your view, it's reasonable for society to refuse to acknowledge truths solely because doing so might possibly result in harm. Is that correct? And this applies universally, not just in connection with policymaking. Correct?
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Do you really expect that conclusive proof of the inferiority of blacks RE: IQ and crime would lead to the reinstation of such or similar laws, as if society hadn't changed at all since then?
Society has changed, but it hasn't changed enough, and seems to be backsliding in some ways.
If there were a universally-(modulo-lizardman-constant)-acknowledged taboo against judging an individual by the actions of his/her/their demographic group, I would be a lot less worried. (cf. my discussion with @FtttG regarding discrimination on the basis of natal genitals and the sequelae thereof)
I'm really sick of you trying to make me (and other gender-critical people) sound ridiculous and/or perverted by characterising my opinion as "discrimination on the basis of genitals" or similar. "Sex" is not reducible to genitals. Male bodies are not just female bodies which incidentally happen to have penises bolted on. Even trans-identified males who have undergone bottom surgery retain male patterns of violent crime.
"FtttG thinks sex-segregation is reasonable in certain contexts" is a perfectly acceptable gloss of my opinion on this matter which I wouldn't object to. "FtttG thinks he's entitled to know about the genitals of complete strangers, but refuses to tell us why!!" is both a flat lie (I have been more than willing to articulate my reasoning) and a transparent effort to imply that anyone who isn't maximally trans-affirming is a sexual deviant. It's cheap, obnoxious and contemptible behaviour. Knock it off.
And how do you think a trans-woman might feel, when people characterise her identity in such a manner?
The pro-trans side was not the first to use that particular tactic.
No, they also have testicles rather than ovaries; all other biological differences are downstream of the hormones produced by these organs, hence 'sequelae'. (definition)
I have re-read the linked posts and have not found anywhere where I have claimed that you refuse to tell us why you think you're entitled to know about the genitals of complete strangers; I am rejecting your claim that your reasons justify the intrusion on people's privacy.
If you walk into your manager's office and you're like "I want to see all my cow-orkers' complete medical charts, which will help me make Bayesian inferences on which ones are most likely to go postal, so I can shun them.", how amenable do you think your manager will be to your request?
While I am somewhat more sympathetic to trans people than @FtttG, I agree with him that I see trans people use this "Why do you want to know what's in our pants? Ewwwww!" framing all the time, and it is really annoying and disingenuous.
No one on the gender critical side "wants to know what's in your pants." Most gender critical people don't think trans women belong in women's spaces whether or not the trans woman has a penis. While some (particularly in the radical feminist fringe) might have a particular horror of penises, it's not just the penis that makes the man, so to speak.
You can disagree with gender criticals and their desire to exclude trans women from women's spaces, but I think @FtttG is justified in being annoyed when you try to reduce it to a cheap accusation of being some kind of pervert obsessed with genitals.
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If someone is loudly parading their perversion around for all and sundry to see, it's not wrong for me to accurately characterise it as such. Rather, you demanding that I refuse to recognise that the Emperor has no clothes (something which is obvious to everyone, including you) amounts to gaslighting.
Woman: Getting changed in front of a male person makes me uncomfortable and I don't think I should be expected to do it.
Trans woman: When I put on women's underwear, I
become physically arousedexperience gender euphoria.Celestial-body-NOS: Oh my God, I can't tell the difference – they're exactly as sexually deviant as each other!
Likewise, plenty of trans women just do look ridiculous. Maybe you think it's not polite to point it out, but I know you think it. Don't tell me you look at this person and think to yourself "wow, what a hot sexy lady! I would love to take a gander at those bizarre prosthetics she's wearing under her top!"
To reiterate what I said above: many trans women barely even pretend to hide that their "identification" is just acting out a sexual fetish. You can do this "tu quoque" shit all you like: doesn't mean it's equally true of both sides. Women who want to protect their intimate spaces are not exactly as perverted as gross fetishists who are openly, proudly addicted to sissy hypno porn and hold conferences on how to "overcome the cotton ceiling". In fact, the former group isn't perverted at all.
A transparent lie. You said:
No gender-critical person I've ever met or interacted with (and there have been plenty) has ever been the least bit shy about telling me why they disagree with gender ideology, and why they don't want to share intimate spaces with male people.
If you really, honest to goodness, think that I need to see someone's full medical history in order to accurately tell whether they are male or female, I really don't know how we're expected to proceed with this conversation. Are you blind? Are you composing these comments using text-to-speech?
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Also, literally, an entirely different chromosome in every single cell of their (our) bodies, with a big chunk of DNA that they share with no biological woman.
But nobody does this, because everybody knows perfectly well which damn sex people are. What they want, and what you are adamantly against, is to be permitted to notice it and take action on it in public. As with race, your unique deontology seems to require fingers in the ears and eyes firmly shut, lest you see or hear things that lead you to sin.
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So that's what society is doing to the downies!
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Or would you apply the same rigor to the other question? That is, neither position is proven but which has more evidence. Why are privileging the blank slate hypothesis when it has for less evidence.
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