site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31012 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

On respect

Recently, my wife attended an online lecture organised by her professor and held by an acclaimed researcher, on the topic of augmented and virtual reality. She is part of the (social) psychology department. The lecture was late in the day - 18:00 - so we all listened to it at home while at the dinner table (though we eventually turned on the TV for our daughter so she doesn't get bored).

Fellow academics might already guess were this is leading - we thought the topic was something interesting about how AR/VR can be used, unexpected challenges, etc.. It featured a small part of this, but a large part was about gender norms and how totally inexplicably people continue to behave the same way in VR as they do in RL, down to minute details such as the way they move, despite now finally having the freedom to shed their skin!

Clearly, this is evidence of the insidiousness of their oppression: They have internalised it so much that they can't even process the possibilities. It ended on a hopeful note however, that when we educate people better, all differences may eventually stop existing and people can be free in the VR.

But this is also just background for what I want to talk about: What struck me was the experience. In my field, genomics, genetic disease risk factors, etc., if I make a talk only about possible biological explanations, you can be sure that someone in the audience will ask "did you control for [social/environmental risk factor]?" If I'm advising a PhD student on a study design with a big data set like UKBB, I'll tell them to control for a long list of social/environmental risk factors. If the database has sparse information on this account, I mention it as a limitation. Even internally, I think this is important, this isn't something I only do because I'm challenged.

In other words, I genuinely respect social explanations.

Contrast this talk: The possibility of biological differences between sexes/genders isn't even mentioned. Nobody in the audience challenges that glaring oversight. My wife agreed that this is how it works in the department in general; If her colleagues talk about their social research, and my wife mentions the possibility of biological explanations, people look at her as if she just pissed on the ground. At most a hushed agreement, sure, maybe, it's a possibility, to get it over with. Needless to say, since she worked in the neurology department beforehand, she has to hold her breath quite often. She wanted to make a comment on it during the talk, but there are smarter ways to make enemies. She asked something anodyne instead, to show interest, make a good impression.

There is this idea that social sciences are not well respected among other scientists. I claim it is the other way around: The social scientists actively try to ignore other fields, insulate themselves and include non-social explanations only if pressed (which they are rarely), and grudgingly.

They do not respect any science except their own.

Also, assume I wrote some boring hedging about "not all social scientists" etc. I guess you could claim that this is just "boo outgroup", and I admit part of the reason this was written is me venting, but I think it might be an important observation: What does respect for a field mean? People may talk shit about social scientists, but in general they agree that the field is important to study. They're just unhappy with the way it is done.

This doesn't gel with my experience at all. Social scientists that I am familiar with only resort to social explanations if evidence is overwhelming. If anything they err on the side of assuming any disparity between groups is the consequence of innate differences.

Also in my experience, they are much more rigorous thinkers than people in STEM. While the latter is prone to groupthink in ignoring and even criticizing perspectives which go against the current consensus (see how Cantor or Lemaître were treated), the former are much more open minded. This is shown by seeing the reception the book The Bell Curve received: despite it going against the then grain, APA published a response titled Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, admitting the book was largely, and consensus shifted accordingly.

I don't know if your description of the esteem in which Charles Murray is held in the social science community was true at one time, but I don't think it is true anymore, when he now has legitimate cause to fear being physically assaulted when speaking at universities.

https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/professor-injured-students-sanctioned-at-middlebury-college-in-vermont-after-conservative-speaker-is-protested/

Hilarious!

So low effort, in this case I literally am not even sure what you think is hilarious.

I think it was a genuine response to (what was seen as) a well-done parody.

The very idea of using the response to the bell curve to demonstrate the scientific rigour of social sciences I suspect.

Appreciate the contrary perspective! What are the fields/subfields of those social scientists you're familiar with, and what group differences do they think are innate?

That's quite some time ago. Even mentioning The Bell Curve with anything but disdain is asking for trouble nowadays.

Always was, and you don't even need an astronaut meme for that. The Bell Curve was "controversial" when it first came out.

It seems I fell for something, though I'm not sure what. FWIW, the linked "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" report does read more even-handed than what is acceptable nowadays, and is even mentioned as such in the wikipedia article (while the report is just using the weasely "no support for a genetic explanation of the differences between groups" as usual, the wiki article is almost falling over itself to repeatedly mention that any genetic basis of group differences is thoroughly discredited nowadays).

Is this parody?

I interpreted it that way

I assume it must be. Wasn’t the 90s when the science wars took place?

Is this parody?

I think this is out of date. The Great Awokening has changed a lot about the way Big Academia interacts with people who are inside the system but heterodox in their political views. In the period I was in academia (after the 1990's PC wave had peaked, but before the Great Awokening got going around 2011) the majority view among left-wing social scientists was that tolerating a few tame conservatives was a net-positive for the credibility of the left-wing majority in the discipline.

I've seen your comment btw. I agree that this is a thing, but it's disingenuous to act like such narrow compartmentalized object-level admissions have impact on the broader research program. Social scientists will often nod to «genes affect X» and go back to studying the effect of algorithmic bias on brain development. And of course Murray's book is only endorsed by other psychometrists; social scientists will at most recognize through gritted teeth they don't really have rebuttals.

UK may be more HBD-friendly than the US. You have Biobank. Americans have bona fide prohibition on relevant research.

Yeah, the bit about the Bell Curve gives it away.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats