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Letter on justice and open debate

Started by Treehugger, July 08, 2020, 03:22:05 AM

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writingprof

Quote from: Hibush on July 08, 2020, 05:19:49 PM
At my place, the old faculty are strongly pro free speech, even speech with which they vehemently disagree. Younger faculty are more conservative.

Hibush, the usual thing is to call revolutionaries "conservative" only after they win formal governing power and entrench themselves for a few generations.  Hence the American progressive tendency to apply that word to, e.g., Konstantin Chernenko.  The old villain would have been surprised to hear himself described as a man of the right!

What you're doing is either rank ignorance or gaslighting.  Your "old faculty" clearly have a conservative attitude toward free speech, irrespective of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.  Your "younger faculty" are more progressive

Or do you really want to argue here that it's conservatives who are driving cancel-culture, shouting down speakers, equating free speech with "violence," etc.?

Puget

Pinker and Murrey are terrible scientists who willfully misconstrue data to make the points they want to make. The fact that some people with opposite views do the same doesn't excuse it or make them any less wrong. Pinker was a bad psycholinguist before he became a bad pseudo-scientific public intellectual. I know less about Murrey's history but his views are also pseudo-science not backed up with sound scientific reasoning or current data. I could give you the whole undergraduate lecture on bias in IQ testing and misinterpretation of group differences on IQ tests, but I doubt that would make a difference for those who want to believe otherwise. You have no reason to feel bad for either of them-- they have both majorly cashed in.
"Never get separated from your lunch. Never get separated from your friends. Never climb up anything you can't climb down."
–Best Colorado Peak Hikes

Hibush

Quote from: writingprof on July 09, 2020, 06:31:58 AM
Quote from: Hibush on July 08, 2020, 05:19:49 PM
At my place, the old faculty are strongly pro free speech, even speech with which they vehemently disagree. Younger faculty are more conservative.

Hibush, the usual thing is to call revolutionaries "conservative" only after they win formal governing power and entrench themselves for a few generations.  Hence the American progressive tendency to apply that word to, e.g., Konstantin Chernenko.  The old villain would have been surprised to hear himself described as a man of the right!

What you're doing is either rank ignorance or gaslighting.  Your "old faculty" clearly have a conservative attitude toward free speech, irrespective of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.  Your "younger faculty" are more progressive

Or do you really want to argue here that it's conservatives who are driving cancel-culture, shouting down speakers, equating free speech with "violence," etc.?

I meant little-c conservative in that they are less inclined to provide something in favor of conserving it for themselves.

mahagonny

Quote from: marshwiggle on July 09, 2020, 04:50:48 AM
Quote from: Treehugger on July 09, 2020, 04:19:48 AM

QuoteIf you want to see heads actually explode, go to Charles Murray who has offended nearly everyone who has not read the Bell Curve or Coming Apart. Anyone who thinks this guy is some radical simply hasn't read a single word he's said, yet he's the poster child for racism in the academy for including one section in a text on cognitive ability the implications of differences among ethnic groups. This is definitely a topic that is not allowed, not even because the Middlebury mob crowd cares about the race per se. You're HAVE to say everything is due to environment because if anything is heritable or innate, that leaves no room for a government "solution."

To be honest, I haven't read Charles Murray precisely because I had heard such bad things about him and his work. However, I probably should given that I do think that it is highly unlikely that there aren't cognitive differences among ethnic groups. It feels incredibly politically incorrect to even write this, but it just makes sense. It is widely recognized, on the one hand, that there are significant physical differences between races (it's not just all about skin color, but difference races are more susceptible to different diseases and have differing physical/athletic abilities) and on the other that the mind/brain is actually just another part of our physical body (unless you are religious or a dualist which many scientists are not). So what conclusion can we draw?

To be honest, Charles Murray makes heads explode (for people who haven't read his work) because the very idea of innate differences in certain abilities bothers them. (Ironically, these people have no problem accepting that character qualities are entirely determined by skin colour, sex, etc.)

Definitely worth reading. (And of course, no matter how many times it's pointed out, the fact that small, measurable differences in the means of distributions tell you virtually nothing about individuals it doesn't suit the narrative of the detractors so gets ignored entirely.) Case in point: even though my wife and I were both STEM people, she had WAY better spacial reasoning than me.

But, not to keep score, I notice the age old theory off 'women's intuition' (which I have recently heard attributed to a woman's ability to use both sides of the brain in concert more effectively than a man's whereas a man is able to use one side or the other predominantly to better effect; sorry, no citation) doesn't seem to offend.

writingprof

Quote from: Hibush on July 09, 2020, 07:26:20 AM
Quote from: writingprof on July 09, 2020, 06:31:58 AM
Quote from: Hibush on July 08, 2020, 05:19:49 PM
At my place, the old faculty are strongly pro free speech, even speech with which they vehemently disagree. Younger faculty are more conservative.

Hibush, the usual thing is to call revolutionaries "conservative" only after they win formal governing power and entrench themselves for a few generations.  Hence the American progressive tendency to apply that word to, e.g., Konstantin Chernenko.  The old villain would have been surprised to hear himself described as a man of the right!

What you're doing is either rank ignorance or gaslighting.  Your "old faculty" clearly have a conservative attitude toward free speech, irrespective of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.  Your "younger faculty" are more progressive

Or do you really want to argue here that it's conservatives who are driving cancel-culture, shouting down speakers, equating free speech with "violence," etc.?

I meant little-c conservative in that they are less inclined to provide something in favor of conserving it for themselves.

I apologize?  However, I am searching the world's dictionaries in vain for the assertion that "conservative" can mean "less inclined to provide something in favor of conserving it for themselves."

fishbrains

Quote from: Puget on July 09, 2020, 06:55:25 AM
Pinker and Murrey are terrible scientists who willfully misconstrue data to make the points they want to make.

So that's where my admins got it from. I've always wondered . . .
I wish I could find a way to show people how much I love them, despite all my words and actions. ~ Maria Bamford

ab_grp

I am familiar with a number of the signatories, mostly by reputation, not through deep reading of their work.  The text of the letter seems reasonable, though the matter seems somewhat complicated.  On the one hand, I have grown more and more frustrated with cancel culture, especially involving academics who are putting forth ideas that others find unpalatable.  It seems there has been an increase in attempts to get individuals fired for their unpopular stances or for not speaking up or not doing so "correctly".  That does not seem very scholarly to me.  On the other hand, I think that there are some who are well known for trying to draw conclusions from their research that support particular agendas (e.g., there are differences between the races or sexes in IQ, therefore [something bad for the purported lower IQ group]). 

I keep up (superficially) with a lot of different areas of research, and these kinds of studies that are poorly designed or executed and/or rely on bad data but that draw conclusions or make implications that have negative effects on (usually) marginalized groups keep popping up and being rebutted and/or retracted.  Sometimes, it seems as though the retractions are a result of a very quick piling on and shaming due to the implications of the results, but so far I have not personally seen any studies in this category that didn't seem as though they should be retracted (there could be some, of course).  Therefore, while I agree with what the letter seems to be supporting overall (robust academic dialogue, even on topics that may not be "politically correct"), I think there are some underlying factors that are causing a lot of disagreement with it, and rightfully so. 

Does it matter who signed it? Objectively, maybe it shouldn't.  However, if you are familiar with the work of some of the signatories or the work they prop up and support, it might seem as though this is some manifesto for encouraging more of the lousy and irresponsible research that has been put forth.  In case you didn't see it, one of the signatories apologized for signing the letter after realizing who some of the other signatories were after the fact.  I am torn... there are certainly some scholars I would not want to be associated with.  But maybe a bipartisan (?) letter supporting more freedom of academic dialogue is a good thing, especially if it is supported by individuals with disparate ideologies.  Some pointed out on social media that it's ironic to sign a letter effectively taking a stand against cancel culture and then apologize for it so that you yourself won't be canceled.  Anyway, having seen a lot of flare ups and attacks on academics due to their studies or opinions, I think the situation is complicated.  I like the surface idea of the letter but am a bit wary of the intentions behind some of the signatories.

downer

The list of signers of that letter was a mixed bunch, but all were basically liberal.

Who would sign a similar letter also signed by Charles Murray or Jordan Peterson? Probably not many. Is that because their views are too right wing or crazy, or that they are not good academics? Hard to say. Most people would say both.

Are there "respectable" right wing academics with whom liberals would be happy to co-sign a letter on academic freedom? I'd think of some Catholic scholars.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."—Sinclair Lewis

marshwiggle

Quote from: ab_grp on July 09, 2020, 09:11:43 AM

Does it matter who signed it? Objectively, maybe it shouldn't.  However, if you are familiar with the work of some of the signatories or the work they prop up and support, it might seem as though this is some manifesto for encouraging more of the lousy and irresponsible research that has been put forth.  In case you didn't see it, one of the signatories apologized for signing the letter after realizing who some of the other signatories were after the fact.  I am torn... there are certainly some scholars I would not want to be associated with.  But maybe a bipartisan (?) letter supporting more freedom of academic dialogue is a good thing, especially if it is supported by individuals with disparate ideologies.  Some pointed out on social media that it's ironic to sign a letter effectively taking a stand against cancel culture and then apologize for it so that you yourself won't be canceled.  Anyway, having seen a lot of flare ups and attacks on academics due to their studies or opinions, I think the situation is complicated.  I like the surface idea of the letter but am a bit wary of the intentions behind some of the signatories.

That to me is one of the most pernicious things about cancel culture, that rather than evaluating an argument based on the evidence, there is a preliminary "motive purity" test that has to be implicitly passed. Research may be done for all kinds of reasons, but if the methodology is sound, then the conclusions should be debated on their merits. The best way to challenge someone's agenda is not to dismiss their research out of hand, but to point out alternate interpretations of their data which are equally valid.

As Steven Pinker has pointed out, when research is supressed because people object to the agenda of the researchers, it's only a matter of time until curious people find the results, and get even more obsessed with it because it was supressed.

Data are neutral. Ideology which cannot incoporate it needs to change.
It takes so little to be above average.

ab_grp

I would agree that research should not be dismissed out of hand just because it doesn't fit within a particular ideology.  If a study is well designed and executed, the data are sound, and the methods used are appropriate, it should be evaluated on its own merits.   Those criteria are not always (or maybe even usually) the case.  Data may be neutral (if you mean that they do not make any claims or conclusions on their own), but they may not be representative, accurate, or the result of a well designed data collection for other reasons.  Similarly, we know that there is a fair amount of data misuse or misrepresentation.  It can be difficult to evaluate some of these studies without examining the data, and journal articles also do not always provide the amount of detail required to do a rigorous evaluation.  That seems clear given that some have made it through peer review (presumably rigorous, probably not in all cases).  Scholars don't always get it right. 

I don't think it's right to suppress research just because individuals or groups might agree with or like the outcome, but if you are going to publish something controversial, you should expect that an intense discussion and evaluation in the public sphere might arise.  From my own experience, I have worked on a lot of research that has the potential to have negative outcomes for my organization.  The policy was absolutely not to quash that research despite any consequences.  If the research is done well, it should stand.

In mentioning the agendas of the signatories, I was referring to my impression that the letter's content seems (superficially) like something most or all scholars might be prone to agree with.  Academic freedom and robust discussion are crucial.  We can't shy away from (well founded) outcomes that don't fit with our ideologies just because we don't like them.  But, not all of the signatories are scholars, and even among those who are, I do wonder whether this is some attempt to defend something other than what it seems on the surface.  I have not mentioned specific signatories because I think this is a larger issue than who in particular signed it or what they might or might be know for espousing.  I absolutely agree that there is too much cancel culture going on.  There are topics that cannot even be broached without a complete flame war resulting.  As I said before, I do not think that's very scholarly.  In fact, it has made me hesitant to even get involved in academic discussions, and this is true for even non-controversial topics!

Hibush

Quote from: writingprof on July 09, 2020, 08:22:06 AM
Quote from: Hibush on July 09, 2020, 07:26:20 AM
Quote from: writingprof on July 09, 2020, 06:31:58 AM
Quote from: Hibush on July 08, 2020, 05:19:49 PM
At my place, the old faculty are strongly pro free speech, even speech with which they vehemently disagree. Younger faculty are more conservative.

Hibush, the usual thing is to call revolutionaries "conservative" only after they win formal governing power and entrench themselves for a few generations.  Hence the American progressive tendency to apply that word to, e.g., Konstantin Chernenko.  The old villain would have been surprised to hear himself described as a man of the right!

What you're doing is either rank ignorance or gaslighting.  Your "old faculty" clearly have a conservative attitude toward free speech, irrespective of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.  Your "younger faculty" are more progressive

Or do you really want to argue here that it's conservatives who are driving cancel-culture, shouting down speakers, equating free speech with "violence," etc.?

I meant little-c conservative in that they are less inclined to provide something in favor of conserving it for themselves.

I apologize?  However, I am searching the world's dictionaries in vain for the assertion that "conservative" can mean "less inclined to provide something in favor of conserving it for themselves."

You are the writing professor, so I have to give this observation consideration. Irregardless though, I should have Merriam Webster update their definition to reflect my usage. But it does seem to fit within the fiscal conservative use.

financeguy

Mahaggony, I've heard that example as well, which I believe is usually explained by the need of males in hunter/gather societies to have extreme focus on a single thing (the animal they intend to kill, for example) rather than balance multiple competing interests. (Multiple children under care, for example.)

Take a more macro view of this and you might explain the under performance of your boys in k-12 education, a system almost specifically designed against their presumed biological preference for "short duration intense work" followed by leisure as opposed to "low intensity consistent work" which can be more associated with female experiences through evolution. Going to war is short term high intensity. Maintaining a household is long term low intensity. There's something to be said about the male simultaneous stereotypes of the aggressive alpha behavior and the lazy Homer Simpson caricature. These are not mutually exclusive. To ignore these innate traits is exactly how we get a generation or two of young boys put in the least biologically advantageous environment (the M-F 8 hour classroom), largely led by an industry of female instructors. Is it any wonder why so many are on attention related medication for ADD, ADHD, etc? Neither high intensity/low duration or low intensity/long duration are preferable predispositions independent of context, but we've decided boys need to have their biology rejected and medicated into being week betas as soon as they enter a class room.

Why is the stereotype of the uncle at Thanksgiving rather than the aunt the one who delights in bringing up controversial subjects? Well, if you have to "make things work" in the world like building a bridge, curing a disease, winning a war, then what's true matters regardless of how someone feels about it. If you are largely disabled by pregnancy and not allowed to work outside the home, what the tribe THINKS of you matters independent of what is true. This can explain women's high desire for social cohesion and low tolerance for social judgement/shaming or ostracism exists. This is not necessarily bad, but it is certainly relevant to a social media age in which silencing dissent and critiquing acts such as "slut shaming, body shaming, xyz shaming, etc" are prioritized.


Puget

Quote from: financeguy on July 09, 2020, 01:54:36 PM
Mahaggony, I've heard that example as well, which I believe is usually explained by the need of males in hunter/gather societies to have extreme focus on a single thing (the animal they intend to kill, for example) rather than balance multiple competing interests. (Multiple children under care, for example.)

While there are some sex differences in cognition, this, like most pop science evolutionary psychology, is a load of hokum.

It is true that boys on average are several years behind girls in certain aspects of brain development during adolescence-- this is most likely tied to the fact that a lot of these changes are linked to puberty, which is later on average in boys than girls. Notice I say "on average" in both cases-- there is generally more variation within than between groups on all of these variables.

My broader point is that nothing good comes of non-experts mixing up half-understood and misinterpreted data with an agenda and coming out with things like explanations of why woman are underrepresented in some STEM fields. This is not an "opinion" which deserves equal billing with other "opinions", it is bad science and should be denounced as such. Take the "hear out all sides" argument to its natural conclusion and you have the people who want creationism taught alongside evolution in public schools.
"Never get separated from your lunch. Never get separated from your friends. Never climb up anything you can't climb down."
–Best Colorado Peak Hikes

dismalist

Quote from: Puget on July 09, 2020, 02:23:16 PM
Quote from: financeguy on July 09, 2020, 01:54:36 PM
Mahaggony, I've heard that example as well, which I believe is usually explained by the need of males in hunter/gather societies to have extreme focus on a single thing (the animal they intend to kill, for example) rather than balance multiple competing interests. (Multiple children under care, for example.)

While there are some sex differences in cognition, this, like most pop science evolutionary psychology, is a load of hokum.

It is true that boys on average are several years behind girls in certain aspects of brain development during adolescence-- this is most likely tied to the fact that a lot of these changes are linked to puberty, which is later on average in boys than girls. Notice I say "on average" in both cases-- there is generally more variation within than between groups on all of these variables.

My broader point is that nothing good comes of non-experts mixing up half-understood and misinterpreted data with an agenda and coming out with things like explanations of why woman are underrepresented in some STEM fields. This is not an "opinion" which deserves equal billing with other "opinions", it is bad science and should be denounced as such. Take the "hear out all sides" argument to its natural conclusion and you have the people who want creationism taught alongside evolution in public schools.

Yup, we want the experts, and only the experts to make decisions for us! Who determines who is expert? The experts, of course!

Who will guard the guardians?
That's not even wrong!
--Wolfgang Pauli

Parasaurolophus

An additional irony: Jenny Boylan tweeted an apology for signing the letter once it became clear to her who else had signed it. Yashca Mounk, Malcolm Gladwell, and J.K. Rowling then took to Twitter to mock and shame her for doing so. "An intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming" indeed.



I know it's a genus.