I've noticed a disturbing trend over the past several years, an effort in the media and in activist circles to silence researchers who study or argue politically sensitive topics. Any studies related to race, sex, or sexuality that might produce unkind results are immediately criticized, usually by people who lack any formal training in the field. A couple for-instances;
-In 2005, Larry Summers, President of Harvard University, delivers a speech at a conference in which he suggests that perhaps there are biological reasons to explain why few women still opt to join the mathematics or science departments at major universities. He suggested that there might be an innate difference between men and women. He said that more research ought to be done. The controversy that followed forced Mr. Summers to resign as President.
-In October 2007, Dr. James Watson came under heavy criticism after asserting that Africans were less intelligent than Westerners. "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so." His comments immediately were criticized as racist and misinformed.
I am not, in citing these examples, suggesting that either men were correct. I am not qualified to make that judgment. I point them out because in both cases the conclusions they came to were assumed to be simply false. They are not even worth considering, and the act of suggesting that the accepted wisdom may be wrong is enough to be labeled racist or sexist.
A few questions;
1) Should research projects that have the potential to come to an unsavory conclusion be allowed to proceed?
2) Should it be considered "insensitive" to make a scientific argument? Should scientists be more socially aware of the impact their studies may have?
As long as sound science is being used, I cannot in my right mind tell someone not to state a conclusion no matter how unfortunate the conclusion may be.
Will it make us uncomfortable from time to time? sure. But it's an individual choice to decide ignorance for bliss, you cannot make that choice for me.
1) Should research projects that have the potential to come to an unsavory conclusion be allowed to proceed?
Yes, as long as they are subject to the same scrutiny and anyone who has legitimate criticisms doesn't get shouted down as a politically correct toady. Such as with Watson. He wasn't derided for making the sort of claim you're talking about- he was actually using poor reasoning seasoned with a generous dash of racism. I mean, he's getting on in years, and god knows my grandparents can be shockingly racist at times, but that doesn't mean that he gets a free pass. And yet a bunch of people actually tried to defend him from the "PC Police."
I mean, he's getting on in years, and god knows my grandparents can be shockingly racist at times, but that doesn't mean that he gets a free pass. And yet a bunch of people actually tried to defend him from the "PC Police."
That's another unfortunate trend recently. The new derogatory status of "PC" allows idiots from all over to make a wildly misinformed claim and then silence criticism by laughing it off as "feel-good PC nonsense."
I think you're seeing a trend where none exist. In all the examples you cited, they weren't criticized for being "un-PC," they were criticized for using junk science to push an ideology. If they were using better science, there would have been no controversey.
Many of those on welfare in america just need the extra push to be someone, while helping starving Biafrin not starve just perpetuates another random life that can't do what somebody with a good US high-school education can. I'd rather help Joe Bloe get into college and do something with his life than help a starving Kenyan keep ****ing his wife and popping out starving babies that need more of our money.
In all the examples you cited, they weren't criticized for being "un-PC," they were criticized for using junk science to push an ideology. If they were using better science, there would have been no controversey.
Let's be accurate here. In the first example, Mr. Summers was not using science at all: he was making a suggestion for further research. For that he was criticized, not for using "junk science."
I cannot claim to know whether Dr. Watson's science was strong or not--I am not a scientist--but much of the criticism came, not from scientists, but from activists. I doubt (though I may be wrong) that activist spokespeople understand science well enough to make those judgments.
I cannot claim to know whether Dr. Watson's science was strong or not--I am not a scientist--but much of the criticism came, not from scientists, but from activists. I doubt (though I may be wrong) that activist spokespeople understand science well enough to make those judgments.
Because he was implying some sort of genetic reason for it, when it seems much more probable that there are other reasons for it. The difference of intelligence between races has been well-documented, but postulating that it's genetic is merely a hypotheses- and in my opinion, far from the best one. I can't begin to summarize the millions of pages of research in this post, so everyone should at least just read a broad overview before making a case.
Many of those on welfare in america just need the extra push to be someone, while helping starving Biafrin not starve just perpetuates another random life that can't do what somebody with a good US high-school education can. I'd rather help Joe Bloe get into college and do something with his life than help a starving Kenyan keep ****ing his wife and popping out starving babies that need more of our money.
I don't care what he was implying. If someone suggests further research on a matter, they should never be shouted down. If he's really so wrong, further research will prove it. What's the issue?
Well, in the second case of Dr. Watson, he was also quoted as saying in the same context some disparaging comments about blacks in the service industry and how dissatisfied he was with said industry. He also commented about African genocide, geopolitics, and corruption and implied this as an example of evidence for his theory. I don't think he is truly innocently stating a hypothesis that happens to be controversial; I think he probably does have some baggage to go with it and this, not the hypothesis itself, is why he was discredited.
Again there was no science involved in his commentary, it was his hypothesis and some inappropriate parallels drawn with modern society that made it risible.
It does raise the bar for publishing or referring to any sort of finding or study that seeks to tease out inherent racial or gender differences. There will always be those who view that women's rights or civil rights should be sacrosanct despite evedience to the contrary.
You have to understand that this has overtones of the long, long history of the misuse of science by racial institutions. Probably more than just overtones.
I'm not sure on this to be honest. The aim of science is to benefit man. Even if black people were proven to be dumber, not less educated, but dumber than white people; even if women were proven to be less capable, not less interested culturally but less capable, than men; how would any of this benefit humanity if it were known by a mass public? It wouldn't.
I'm not sure on this to be honest. The aim of science is to benefit man. Even if black people were proven to be dumber, not less educated, but dumber than white people; even if women were proven to be less capable, not less interested culturally but less capable, than men; how would any of this benefit humanity if it were known by a mass public? It wouldn't.
This is a very dangerous thing to say about science. We have no place to decide what is a benefit and what is not. It becomes too easy to extend the same "judgement" to other convenient issues.
I don't care what he was implying. If someone suggests further research on a matter, they should never be shouted down. If he's really so wrong, further research will prove it. What's the issue?
There are certainly ways to suggest research that are offensive. For example, if I said had a hypotheses that conservatives are more likely to kick puppies and are terrible in bed, and that this matter required research, it would rightly be deemed ridiculous and offensive.
Many of those on welfare in america just need the extra push to be someone, while helping starving Biafrin not starve just perpetuates another random life that can't do what somebody with a good US high-school education can. I'd rather help Joe Bloe get into college and do something with his life than help a starving Kenyan keep ****ing his wife and popping out starving babies that need more of our money.
Humanity has no place to decide what is a benefit to humanity?
Well, it's unfortunate that you've decided to declare war on intelligence and free will. Thankfully not all of us share the same sentiment.
But... since when has humanity as a whole been deemed intelligent? And since when does war against free will mean denying personal opinion. I think most of the examples are junk science, and the stem cell research ban is a better example as to why PC science exists. The average IQ is around 115...
Because he was implying some sort of genetic reason for it, when it seems much more probable that there are other reasons for it. The difference of intelligence between races has been well-documented, but postulating that it's genetic is merely a hypotheses- and in my opinion, far from the best one. I can't begin to summarize the millions of pages of research in this post, so everyone should at least just read a broad overview before making a case.
This is actually a subject that he has tried to study before, and has actual science backing up. It says more against your arguement when he's done this exact same thing for years and only now gets press. About one a year he presents more information on this looking for funding. It's not like the guy doesn't work on other things currently, after all he's only the authority on DNA and genetics.....
I don't think something like this is worth time investigating, I'm just saying dismissing it a junk science is not right either. Just let it work out like it always has. He presents, stuffy old men clap and promtly tell him that he will not be getting funding to research the topic. And as far as the genetics side of it, he's bringing up as a fact much like African Americans face more heart problems.
That's an interesting claim. Certainly, much of science does benefit humanity, but ought we to determine the relative merits of a research project by how well it fits this criterion?
Also, the actual benefits may not be immediately obvious. I don't think that the pioneering evolutionary biologists understood just how much of an effect the field would have on medicine, for instance. The study of animals may not seem all that beneficial at first, but that has also greatly benefited us. (Pig's insulin was originally used to treat diabetes, for instance.) I don't know what immediate advantages there are to understanding the link between genetics, race, and intelligence, but our shortsightedness ought not to be a contributing factor in determining whether science should proceed.
Humanity has no place to decide what is a benefit to humanity?
Well, it's unfortunate that you've decided to declare war on intelligence and free will. Thankfully not all of us share the same sentiment.
You just said that even if something was true, you had doubts that it's for the good of humanity for us to know it, and I'M declaring war on intelligence and free will?
Yeah, humanity is actually really bad at deciding what benefits humanity, I support all study of anything anyone wants to spend time studying. Noone should ever quash inquiry for any reason.
You have to understand that this has overtones of the long, long history of the misuse of science by racial institutions. Probably more than just overtones.
I'm not sure on this to be honest. The aim of science is to benefit man. Even if black people were proven to be dumber, not less educated, but dumber than white people; even if women were proven to be less capable, not less interested culturally but less capable, than men; how would any of this benefit humanity if it were known by a mass public? It wouldn't.
This is true. But it is part of man's insatiable curiosity to wonder about things, and it might be worth knowing from a public policy standpoint, where public funds go towards projects like Affirmative Action and EEOC.
I do agree though, that the usual course of events for such scientific discoveries is for a corporation or government to exploit them in the least productive, and worst possible way.
Murphy's Law reigns supreme in public policy.
For instance, look at how some insurance companies are treating genetic testing data that might predict future disease in families with hereditary disorders. Rather than the health care community using that to help physicians provide treatment earlier for those at higher risk, third-party payers are using that data to weed out or crank up premiums for applicants who might incur costs of earlier and more aggressive treatment.
I could see the results of a racial differences study being used to weed applicants out of certain programs. I could see this used to weed women out of contention for engineering and architecture programs. Not because that makes any sense, but because thats the way organizations often think.
Yeah, humanity is actually really bad at deciding what benefits humanity, I support all study of anything anyone wants to spend time studying. Noone should ever quash inquiry for any reason.
If it were decided that women and/or black people were inferior, the only use this information would have would be to harm those respective demographics. It would be irresponsible to reveal that information. Use your sense.
The aim of science is to learn the truth of the universe. It is learning the laws in which the universe if bound to. For example, we (meaning me and my other research group) are researching Gamma-Ray Bursts. What we gain scientifically from that is not going to benefit humanity in the least. We are too far away from any potential GRB sources, which means one won't fry us to bits, but we still need to learn about them because we don't know why they happen, etc.
As for the topic, the first can be thrown out becasue more and more women are going into science and math nowadays. 15, 10, and even 5 years ago, there weren't many women because most profs in the field didn't think women were smart enough, so they were way to hard on them. Now, at least at my school, all of the women physicists tend to be the smartest people in class, hands down. I think that claim is really ridiculous.
As for the second, "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically." based on the fact he claimed that africans evolved differently, he kinda doesn't know what he is talking about. If in fact, africans and westerners evolved differently, then both wouldn't be hte same species anymore... He seriously used some wrong terminology. You can't have part of a species evolve because once something evolves, its a completely different species. And clearly, africans, europeans, asians, etc, etc, etc are all Homo Sapiens.
The word he should have used was adapt. Humans adapt to their environment.
While the misuse of the word doesn't seem like much, but for a scientist it means a lot. Its like if a physicist says gravity is a force (And we all know thanks to Einstein and his General Relativity, gravity isn't a force ).
"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?"
~Carl Sagan:teach:
"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."
"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."
~Carl Sagan
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If it were decided that women and/or black people were inferior, the only use this information would have would be to harm those respective demographics. It would be irresponsible to reveal that information. Use your sense.
Except the statements "black people are inferior" and "women are inferior" are not statements of scientific fact, they are interpretations of the facts. If a study is made that proves that black people are actually less intelligent than people of other races, then it does contribute something to society because we can then investigate why that is, and in the process potentially discover something useful, like new information about the workings of the brain or new methods of teaching black people that adjusts for whatever it is that impairs them, etc., etc.
The problem is that people are apt to jump to conclusions like "lower average intelligence = inferior" or "less likely to voluntarily enter a certain field of study = less capable of doing so" and so on. The problem is not with the conclusions being made by scientific experiments. (Though it would be highly irresponsible and ultimately harmful to make socially controversial claims without ensuring the experiments are bias-free and rock-solid in methodology.)
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Research that showed women/blacks/whites were inferior in some way has utility as well: it could reveal to us some information about what causes and influences intelligence or some other factor that made them inferior.
Racism and discrimination are widespread throughout the world and human history without any scientific basis. Throughout the 18th and 19th century, people abused science to subjugate human beings they believed were inferior. What do you honestly think will happen when modern science backs this up?
Except the statements "black people are inferior" and "women are inferior" are not statements of scientific fact, they are interpretations of the facts.
The scenario was if these studies were scientifically true and not blatant examples of prejudice. The answer is that they still should be denied because they are detrimental to man. It would be extremely irresponsible of those who would find conclusive scientific proof of these situations to report their findings.
The scenario was if these studies were scientifically true and not blatant examples of prejudice. The answer is that they still should be denied because they are detrimental to man. It would be extremely irresponsible of those who would find conclusive scientific proof of these situations to report their findings.
You're missing the point. There would be no study that proves 'group a' in inferior to 'group b' because "inferior" is not a quantifiable, scientific term it is term that strictly deals with opinion.
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You're missing the point. There would be no study that proves 'group a' in inferior to 'group b' because "inferior" is not a quantifiable, scientific term it is term that strictly deals with opinion.
So being called less intelligent than another person does not mean that one's intelligence is inferior?
Right... Dictionaries are good for remedying this sort of thing.
I think a big part of the problem is that people get hung up on the notion that intelligence varies only quantitatively, and not qualitatively. In fact it is possible, not to be just more or less intelligent, but differently intelligent.
I recall reading a book by Thom Hartmann, a man who's done a lot of work with ADD kids. He was working on an Indian Reservation (Apache, I believe), and one of the teachers at the school there was complaining about how hard it was to teach because so many of the boys had ADD. And as Mr. Hartmann worked with and studied the boys, he came to realize something big: historically speaking, the boys' disorder was an advantage.
Not until (relatively) recently had the Apaches been stuck on reservations. Their ancestors had lived as nomadic hunters and warriors; and for such people, a certain restlessness of the mind would've been an asset. It would impel them to keep looking about, thereby helping them to notice animal tracks and dens, useful plants, etc. Only when forced into a sedentary lifestyle would they exhibit attention deficit disorder; but in earlier times, their shorter attention spans would be properly ordered to their way of life.
So as regards this topic: even if women, blacks, whites, etc. are less inclined to go into certain fields of study -- even if they are less able -- it may very well indicate a difference of intelligence and not a defect.
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-In 2005, Larry Summers, President of Harvard University, delivers a speech at a conference in which he suggests that perhaps there are biological reasons to explain why few women still opt to join the mathematics or science departments at major universities. He suggested that there might be an innate difference between men and women. He said that more research ought to be done. The controversy that followed forced Mr. Summers to resign as President.
-In October 2007, Dr. James Watson came under heavy criticism after asserting that Africans were less intelligent than Westerners. "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so." His comments immediately were criticized as racist and misinformed.
I am not, in citing these examples, suggesting that either men were correct. I am not qualified to make that judgment. I point them out because in both cases the conclusions they came to were assumed to be simply false. They are not even worth considering, and the act of suggesting that the accepted wisdom may be wrong is enough to be labeled racist or sexist.
A few questions;
1) Should research projects that have the potential to come to an unsavory conclusion be allowed to proceed?
2) Should it be considered "insensitive" to make a scientific argument? Should scientists be more socially aware of the impact their studies may have?
Will it make us uncomfortable from time to time? sure. But it's an individual choice to decide ignorance for bliss, you cannot make that choice for me.
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Yes, as long as they are subject to the same scrutiny and anyone who has legitimate criticisms doesn't get shouted down as a politically correct toady. Such as with Watson. He wasn't derided for making the sort of claim you're talking about- he was actually using poor reasoning seasoned with a generous dash of racism. I mean, he's getting on in years, and god knows my grandparents can be shockingly racist at times, but that doesn't mean that he gets a free pass. And yet a bunch of people actually tried to defend him from the "PC Police."
That's another unfortunate trend recently. The new derogatory status of "PC" allows idiots from all over to make a wildly misinformed claim and then silence criticism by laughing it off as "feel-good PC nonsense."
Probably.
Let's be accurate here. In the first example, Mr. Summers was not using science at all: he was making a suggestion for further research. For that he was criticized, not for using "junk science."
I cannot claim to know whether Dr. Watson's science was strong or not--I am not a scientist--but much of the criticism came, not from scientists, but from activists. I doubt (though I may be wrong) that activist spokespeople understand science well enough to make those judgments.
Because he was implying some sort of genetic reason for it, when it seems much more probable that there are other reasons for it. The difference of intelligence between races has been well-documented, but postulating that it's genetic is merely a hypotheses- and in my opinion, far from the best one. I can't begin to summarize the millions of pages of research in this post, so everyone should at least just read a broad overview before making a case.
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Again there was no science involved in his commentary, it was his hypothesis and some inappropriate parallels drawn with modern society that made it risible.
It does raise the bar for publishing or referring to any sort of finding or study that seeks to tease out inherent racial or gender differences. There will always be those who view that women's rights or civil rights should be sacrosanct despite evedience to the contrary.
I'm not sure on this to be honest. The aim of science is to benefit man. Even if black people were proven to be dumber, not less educated, but dumber than white people; even if women were proven to be less capable, not less interested culturally but less capable, than men; how would any of this benefit humanity if it were known by a mass public? It wouldn't.
This is a very dangerous thing to say about science. We have no place to decide what is a benefit and what is not. It becomes too easy to extend the same "judgement" to other convenient issues.
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Humanity has no place to decide what is a benefit to humanity?
Well, it's unfortunate that you've decided to declare war on intelligence and free will. Thankfully not all of us share the same sentiment.
There are certainly ways to suggest research that are offensive. For example, if I said had a hypotheses that conservatives are more likely to kick puppies and are terrible in bed, and that this matter required research, it would rightly be deemed ridiculous and offensive.
Edit: might as well post this comic again.
But... since when has humanity as a whole been deemed intelligent? And since when does war against free will mean denying personal opinion. I think most of the examples are junk science, and the stem cell research ban is a better example as to why PC science exists. The average IQ is around 115...
This is actually a subject that he has tried to study before, and has actual science backing up. It says more against your arguement when he's done this exact same thing for years and only now gets press. About one a year he presents more information on this looking for funding. It's not like the guy doesn't work on other things currently, after all he's only the authority on DNA and genetics.....
I don't think something like this is worth time investigating, I'm just saying dismissing it a junk science is not right either. Just let it work out like it always has. He presents, stuffy old men clap and promtly tell him that he will not be getting funding to research the topic. And as far as the genetics side of it, he's bringing up as a fact much like African Americans face more heart problems.
That's an interesting claim. Certainly, much of science does benefit humanity, but ought we to determine the relative merits of a research project by how well it fits this criterion?
Also, the actual benefits may not be immediately obvious. I don't think that the pioneering evolutionary biologists understood just how much of an effect the field would have on medicine, for instance. The study of animals may not seem all that beneficial at first, but that has also greatly benefited us. (Pig's insulin was originally used to treat diabetes, for instance.) I don't know what immediate advantages there are to understanding the link between genetics, race, and intelligence, but our shortsightedness ought not to be a contributing factor in determining whether science should proceed.
You just said that even if something was true, you had doubts that it's for the good of humanity for us to know it, and I'M declaring war on intelligence and free will?
Yeah, humanity is actually really bad at deciding what benefits humanity, I support all study of anything anyone wants to spend time studying. Noone should ever quash inquiry for any reason.
mtg - satire - photoshoppery - strategy - arcade - PMO - chat
This is true. But it is part of man's insatiable curiosity to wonder about things, and it might be worth knowing from a public policy standpoint, where public funds go towards projects like Affirmative Action and EEOC.
I do agree though, that the usual course of events for such scientific discoveries is for a corporation or government to exploit them in the least productive, and worst possible way.
Murphy's Law reigns supreme in public policy.
For instance, look at how some insurance companies are treating genetic testing data that might predict future disease in families with hereditary disorders. Rather than the health care community using that to help physicians provide treatment earlier for those at higher risk, third-party payers are using that data to weed out or crank up premiums for applicants who might incur costs of earlier and more aggressive treatment.
I could see the results of a racial differences study being used to weed applicants out of certain programs. I could see this used to weed women out of contention for engineering and architecture programs. Not because that makes any sense, but because thats the way organizations often think.
If it were decided that women and/or black people were inferior, the only use this information would have would be to harm those respective demographics. It would be irresponsible to reveal that information. Use your sense.
No, you are very wrong here Highroller.
The aim of science is to learn the truth of the universe. It is learning the laws in which the universe if bound to. For example, we (meaning me and my other research group) are researching Gamma-Ray Bursts. What we gain scientifically from that is not going to benefit humanity in the least. We are too far away from any potential GRB sources, which means one won't fry us to bits, but we still need to learn about them because we don't know why they happen, etc.
As for the topic, the first can be thrown out becasue more and more women are going into science and math nowadays. 15, 10, and even 5 years ago, there weren't many women because most profs in the field didn't think women were smart enough, so they were way to hard on them. Now, at least at my school, all of the women physicists tend to be the smartest people in class, hands down. I think that claim is really ridiculous.
As for the second, "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically." based on the fact he claimed that africans evolved differently, he kinda doesn't know what he is talking about. If in fact, africans and westerners evolved differently, then both wouldn't be hte same species anymore... He seriously used some wrong terminology. You can't have part of a species evolve because once something evolves, its a completely different species. And clearly, africans, europeans, asians, etc, etc, etc are all Homo Sapiens.
The word he should have used was adapt. Humans adapt to their environment.
While the misuse of the word doesn't seem like much, but for a scientist it means a lot. Its like if a physicist says gravity is a force (And we all know thanks to Einstein and his General Relativity, gravity isn't a force ).
"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?"
~Carl Sagan:teach:
"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."
~Carl Sagan
T2:Rafiq ControlWUG
EDH:Ramirez
Extended:NinjaffinityUXB
Peasent: Rites of InitiationUR
Themed:Oðinn's ArmyGR
Multiplayer[T1.5]:Elves of RivendellG
I live in a blue state now (NV)
Except the statements "black people are inferior" and "women are inferior" are not statements of scientific fact, they are interpretations of the facts. If a study is made that proves that black people are actually less intelligent than people of other races, then it does contribute something to society because we can then investigate why that is, and in the process potentially discover something useful, like new information about the workings of the brain or new methods of teaching black people that adjusts for whatever it is that impairs them, etc., etc.
The problem is that people are apt to jump to conclusions like "lower average intelligence = inferior" or "less likely to voluntarily enter a certain field of study = less capable of doing so" and so on. The problem is not with the conclusions being made by scientific experiments. (Though it would be highly irresponsible and ultimately harmful to make socially controversial claims without ensuring the experiments are bias-free and rock-solid in methodology.)
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She knows why.
To benefit man. Learning the truth of the universe is a fruitless human endeavor if it does not advance the human race.
No, because the Darwinian theory of evolution advances the human race. This does not.
Racism and discrimination are widespread throughout the world and human history without any scientific basis. Throughout the 18th and 19th century, people abused science to subjugate human beings they believed were inferior. What do you honestly think will happen when modern science backs this up?
The scenario was if these studies were scientifically true and not blatant examples of prejudice. The answer is that they still should be denied because they are detrimental to man. It would be extremely irresponsible of those who would find conclusive scientific proof of these situations to report their findings.
You're missing the point. There would be no study that proves 'group a' in inferior to 'group b' because "inferior" is not a quantifiable, scientific term it is term that strictly deals with opinion.
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She knows why.
So being called less intelligent than another person does not mean that one's intelligence is inferior?
Right... Dictionaries are good for remedying this sort of thing.
I recall reading a book by Thom Hartmann, a man who's done a lot of work with ADD kids. He was working on an Indian Reservation (Apache, I believe), and one of the teachers at the school there was complaining about how hard it was to teach because so many of the boys had ADD. And as Mr. Hartmann worked with and studied the boys, he came to realize something big: historically speaking, the boys' disorder was an advantage.
Not until (relatively) recently had the Apaches been stuck on reservations. Their ancestors had lived as nomadic hunters and warriors; and for such people, a certain restlessness of the mind would've been an asset. It would impel them to keep looking about, thereby helping them to notice animal tracks and dens, useful plants, etc. Only when forced into a sedentary lifestyle would they exhibit attention deficit disorder; but in earlier times, their shorter attention spans would be properly ordered to their way of life.
So as regards this topic: even if women, blacks, whites, etc. are less inclined to go into certain fields of study -- even if they are less able -- it may very well indicate a difference of intelligence and not a defect.