Invention of the white race // Rakesh on eugenics

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:49 AM 5/28/98 -0700, C. Petersen wrote:
>   Arthur Jensen just came out with this really thick heavy book that
>supposedly 'scientifically' demonstrated the superiority of whites and
>japanese people over everyone else. I flipped through it but didn't read
>the whole thing. He  says that there is the existence of a 'g factor'
>that is a definable and measurable factor equal to IQ, and he came to the
>conclusion that there is no difference between men and women on average,
>but that sub-saharan Africans have an average IQ of 70. It goes on and on
>with this crap, and he includes all the irrelevant details of his
>regression analyses etc. as though that will make it more legitimate, but
>his overall results agree with the Bell curve, that the demographic groups
>in the world that are the wealthiest right now, also are the most
>intelligent. He showed samples of 'nonverbal' questions that were given on
>his tests and it would just be recognizing a pattern or guessing the next
>shape in a sequence... and it's just total bullshit. 

What Jensen & Co. do is not much different for what passes for standard
fare in economics:  applying sophisticated mathematical models to bullshit
data (the Garbage In Garbage Out syndrome).  In fact, these folks use
scientific jargon and technical mumbo-jumbo to cover the glaring emprical
emptiness of their thought.

But the bottom line is that these folks are using paper and pencil tests
-yes, PAPER and PENCIL TESTS (that is what all this IQ-testing crap is) -
to address problems of genetics or molecular biology.  If an astrophysicist
used a paper and pencil population survey to prove or disprove, say, the
Big Bang Theory - he would be laughed of the stage.  But charlatans who do
precisely the same, from a methodological point of view, thing in social
sciences - are not.  Why? 

The problem lies not in the existence of quacks like Jensens or Murrays,
but everyone else - especially publishers -- taking their
flat-earth-science drivel seriously.  The public attention this crap is
getting gives it legitimacy.

That might be indicative of two, not necessarily mutually exclusive things:

- the supremacy of form over content in what passes for 'science' - if a
theory is suffcienctly 'mathematical' in its form, or uses a lots of
mathematical formulas, equations, and kindred technical abrakadabras -- it
must be true (cf. economics);

- the instigation of a Kulturkampf  by publishing worthless yet inflamatory
bullshit by those who control the means of material production of culture -
and I wonder why?

Regards,

Wojtek Sokolowski