Alt-right double standard on science?

[arandomuser]

Hi i was wondering to ask a question, I was thinking about this earlier after going through /altright on reddit, they seem to have an affinity, almost an alt-right bible, and this book is called the bell curve, the general gist of the bell curve from my understanding is the author says that IQ is genetic, and none white races have lower IQ, commit more crimes and that its in their genetic nature and any policy regarding to environment is pointless, You can read it yourself I havent but just going by what i heard about it thats what it states, but anytime you criticize this book they shout you out as anti science, there simply following the science thats supposedly in the book, my question is though, how come they worship a book based around supposed science based around tests and studies, but if you ever bring up climate change and carbon emissions they ignore the tens of thousands of scientific papers on the consensus, but you should never question the bell curve because they claim its just science.

[Kujako]

Well... IQ is meaningless and has no standard of measurement, but I assume they're referring to the early tests in the US which were setup to have a "anti-negro" slant.

[rogueMatthias]

Because now we use "Alt-Right" for pretty much anyone at all right wing, supports the republicans or for people who just DON'T think Antifa are a reighteous Nazi freedom fighting force.

Even without the hyperbole in my previous statement, the term covers such a huge range of people and opinions that of course there will be many different viewpoints.

You're clearly using "Alt-Right" in the redneck-nazi-skinhead way, but a lot of the self described Alt-Right are just assholes trying to get a rise out of people so will say or do whatever's neccesary to trigger people.

[Gestopft]

Assuming that the alt-right will maintain any consistent principles or standards is only going to lead to confusion.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Your first mistake was assuming the alt-right knew (or I guess "understood" would be the proper term) anything about science.

And if we're talking about the same "bell curve" study of intelligence that always shows blacks to be in the lowest quintile, that study was made in the 60's and has been thoroughly debunked since then. However it makes it easy to spot nazis/KKK because they always use it to "prove" that blacks are just dumb animals who want to be subjugated and they loved slavery. (their words, not mine)

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Assuming that the alt-right will maintain any consistent principles or standards is only going to lead to confusion.

This too. Their acceptance of reality is one of convenience of belief, not of consistency.

[Tijuana]

Hi i was wondering to ask a question, I was thinking about this earlier after going through /altright on reddit, they seem to have an affinity, almost an alt-right bible, and this book is called the bell curve, the general gist of the bell curve from my understanding is the author says that IQ is genetic, and none white races have lower IQ, commit more crimes and that its in their genetic nature and any policy regarding to environment is pointless, You can read it yourself I havent but just going by what i heard about it thats what it states, but anytime you criticize this book they shout you out as anti science, there simply following the science thats supposedly in the book, my question is though, how come they worship a book based around supposed science based around tests and studies, but if you ever bring up climate change and carbon emissions they ignore the tens of thousands of scientific papers on the consensus, but you should never question the bell curve because they claim its just science.

Trying to figure out a group of people, who don't even understand their own ideology (nothing of what they believe is of the right), is akin to trying to teach ants Shakespeare.

[Shadowmelded]

Because climate change science doesn't make them feel warm and fuzzy inside.

[Endus]

"The Bell Curve" has been pretty thoroughly debunked over the years, on a bunch of mutually-supportive levels, including author intent;

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...he-bell-curve/
https://bolesblogs.com/1998/03/23/a-...d-conclusions/
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5877.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Criticisms

The alt-righters pushing the "race realism" angle don't care, because "race realism" isn't about science, it's about dressing up pure racism with cherry-picked data that, taken out of context and twisted beyond recognition, gives that racism a false glamour of truthiness. That's why they still cite much-debunked studies like this; they don't CARE about the methodologies, they only care if it looks like it backs their racist views, at first glance.

I wouldn't even say this describes all alt-righters, even. But it's only race realists who'll pull this nonsense, and "race realism" is just straight racism with the addition of lying about science.

[xChurch]

IQ is seriously a dumb way to measure intelligence and it's even dumber to try and use it as an excuse to marginalize people.

[-Nurot]

@Knadra, maybe you can provide us insights into the alt-right mind and their love affair with this book, seeing that you've thoroughly read it?

[Spectral]

the author says that IQ is genetic, and none white races have lower IQ...

This isn't Murray's position.

I'm sure that this ridiculous simplification of the matter is held in mind by a good number of none-too-bright racists, but it doesn't really resemble Murray's position.

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IQ is seriously a dumb way to measure intelligence and it's even dumber to try and use it as an excuse to marginalize people.

Could you be more specific about what your objection to IQ as an aggregate measure it?

[Rukh]

This isn't Murray's position.

I'm sure that this ridiculous simplification of the matter is held in mind by a good number of none-too-bright racists, but it doesn't really resemble Murray's position.

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Could you be more specific about what your objection to IQ as an aggregate measure it?

What do you believe is Señor Murray's position?

[Spectral]

And if we're talking about the same "bell curve" study of intelligence that always shows blacks to be in the lowest quintile, that study was made in the 60's and has been thoroughly debunked since then.

This is false. Racial differences in IQ are a thoroughly replicated piece of science - they're one of the few major findings in psychology that does replicate. Here, read the Wiki summary. The cause of the difference is hotly debated, but only those who aren't familiar with the current body of evidence would claim that there isn't a difference in IQ between racial groups.

[xChurch]

Could you be more specific about what your objection to IQ as an aggregate measure it?

I don't have a problem with it as a generalized idea of where X person might fall, but too often it is viewed as something set in stone or as the end all be all of a person's mental capacity. I guess my problem isn't with IQ specifically, but rather how it tends to be looked at and factored in by some. Even people on this forum sometimes use it as an excuse for why they should be taken more seriously than others.

[Spectral]

What do you believe is Señor Murray's position?

Murray's position is that IQ is partially genetic, but that it's not clear how much of measurable IQ is genetic, development, environmental, or caused by other factors. He certainly doesn't claim that "none white races" have lower IQ; here's the summary of the relevant snippet from The Bell Curve:

This part of the book discusses ethnic differences in cognitive ability and social behavior. Herrnstein and Murray report that Asian Americans have a higher mean IQ than white Americans, who in turn outscore black Americans.

...

According to Herrnstein and Murray, the high heritability of IQ within races does not necessarily mean that the cause of differences between races is genetic. On the other hand, they discuss lines of evidence that have been used to support the thesis that the black-white gap is at least partly genetic, such as Spearman's hypothesis. They also discuss possible environmental explanations of the gap, such as the observed generational increases in IQ, for which they coin the term Flynn effect.

It's a massive distortion of what they actually wrote to claim that they're just saying that non-white people are inherently stupid.

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I don't have a problem with it as a generalized idea of where X person might fall, but too often it is viewed as something set in stone or as the end all be all of a person's mental capacity. I guess my problem isn't with IQ specifically, but rather how it tends to be looked at and factored in by some. Even people on this forum sometimes use it as an excuse for why they should be taken more seriously than others.

OK, cool. I agree that fetishizing IQ and being purely deterministic is a pretty poor understanding of the facts on the ground.

[Endus]

It's a massive distortion of what they actually wrote to claim that they're just saying that non-white people are inherently stupid.

Given that they had no evidence to back the claims of genetic causes, but included them regardless, when there's plenty of evidence that improving education options has direct and significant effects, as well as home cultural attitudes towards education, it presents the genetic claim with a false sense of equivalence to those others. That's the central issue (not the only one, by any means).

The equivalent would be a climate change denier writing a book about how we don't know what's causing the climate to change, and it could be volcanoes, when we've got plenty of evidence and none of it points to volcanoes. Raising false doubts isn't any more honest than claiming false "facts".

[Spectral]

Given that they had no evidence to back the claims of genetic causes, but included them regardless, when there's plenty of evidence that improving education options has direct and significant effects, as well as home cultural attitudes towards education, it presents the genetic claim with a false sense of equivalence to those others. That's the central issue (not the only one, by any means).

The equivalent would be a climate change denier writing a book about how we don't know what's causing the climate to change, and it could be volcanoes, when we've got plenty of evidence and none of it points to volcanoes. Raising false doubts isn't any more honest than claiming false "facts".

Heritability and twin studies are actually decent evidence for partially genetic causes. You're pretty substantially misrepresenting the state of where science was at when the book was released and you're even farther off base when it comes to the most up-to-date science. Pinpointing specific genes remains a far away goal, but GWAS studies and other recent work indicates genetic, highly polygenic influences on innate intelligence. Here, I'll let NLM summarize for me:

Researchers have conducted many studies to look for genes that influence intelligence. Many of these studies have focused on similarities and differences in IQ within families, particularly looking at adopted children and twins. These studies suggest that genetic factors underlie about 50 percent of the difference in intelligence among individuals. Other studies have examined variations across the entire genomes of many people (an approach called genome-wide association studies or GWAS) to determine whether any specific areas of the genome are associated with IQ. These studies have not conclusively identified any genes that underlie differences in intelligence. It is likely that a large number of genes are involved, each of which makes only a small contribution to a person’s intelligence.

Your climate change analogy is almost the exact opposite of what's going on here - those that deny the heritability of intelligence muddy the waters by noting that we don't know how much is caused by genetics. This is quite similar to climate deniers that whine about how we can't pinpoint exactly how much of the observed climate forcing is from human CO2. It's a distraction from what we do know and it's very obviously motivated by a prior belief in rejecting AGW or genetic intelligence.

[Endus]

Heritability and twin studies are actually decent evidence for partially genetic causes. You're pretty substantially misrepresenting the state of where science was at when the book was released and you're even farther off base when it comes to the most up-to-date science. Pinpointing specific genes remains a far away goal, but GWAS studies and other recent work indicates genetic, highly polygenic influences on innate intelligence. Here, I'll let NLM summarize for me:

That's genetics on the family level, rather than on the broader population level, which was what I was talking about, and what The Bell Curve asserts.

[draynay]

Thats not science, its just racism, they might as well be using phrenology.

[Spectral]

That's genetics on the family level, rather than on the broader population level, which was what I was talking about, and what The Bell Curve asserts.

While it's theoretically possible IQ is substantially heritable, ~50% genetic, and the difference between populations has nothing at all to do with genetics, it's certainly not the most parsimonious of explanations.

It's a particularly lame motte to fall back to after having gone out into this bailey:

...they had no evidence to back the claims of genetic causes...

It's also pretty silly to act like they didn't give any serious consideration to environmental causes - Murray and Hernstein are the ones that coined the Flynn Effect as a term in the first place.
Given that it was the '90s, they almost certainly got things wrong that they wouldn't now. They may have overextended arguments or drawn improper conclusions. That doesn't actually justify the kind of rhetoric you're tossing around above though.