IQ in Scientific Life: Questions & Answers

[Evo]

In Canada and many Western European countries, however, there are laws against free speech, ostensibly enacted to inhibit "hate" and the spreading of "false news."

Oh, well we wouldn't want to inhibit hate and the spreading of false news.

After harassing me and dragging my name through the dirt for six months, the Attorney General of Ontario declined to prosectue me and dismissed my research as "loony, but not criminal."

:rofl: My mistake, the Canadian government decided he was a loon, not a criminal. :rofl:

 

[Mandrake]

What attack, to note a very well publicized fact that they all have ties to The Pioneer Fund? Show me proof that they have no connections to The Pioneer Fund. Also, I haven't called them racists, have I?

Are you now denying that you wrote that the authors of The Bell Curve were racists? We discussed that assertion before.

I believe Jensen considers himself a eugenicist, a eugenicist is not necessarily a racist, they can have absolutely no racial bias at all.

Please provide one reliable reference in which Jensen wrote or said that he considers himself to be a eugenicist. You may be correct. If you are, do you believe that eugenics and racism are identical? Do you oppose eugenics? If so, what aspects of it do you oppose? Do you promote dysgenics? If we define eugenics and the avoidance of dysgenics do you think the goal is worthwhile?

Rushton, however was investigated for hate crimes in Canada,

It appears that BlackVision has properly addressed this spurious comment.

 

[hitssquad]

Jensen's views on eugenics

I believe Jensen considers himself a eugenicist

Please provide one reliable reference in which Jensen wrote or said that he considers himself to be a eugenicist.

If you go to Amazon's page for Miele's interview book done with Arthur Jensen and search inside the book for the keyword eugenic, you will see the following excerpts show up on the results pages:

• on Page 173:
  "... more visible. We also discuss dysgenics, that is, the decline in the average IQ (which Jensen argues is taking place; eugenics (which Jensen favors, though on the basis of family choice rather than societal mandate);
  
• on Page 183:
  "... are statistically "at risk" for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. Miele: Then do you consider some form of eugenics to be feasible and ethically acceptable? Jensen: Yes, but more ethical than feasible in the present climate of public opinion. ..."

From pp183-184, here is Jensen's complete answer to the question:

• • Miele: Then do you consider some form of eugenics to be feasible and ethically acceptable?
  
  Jensen: Yes, but more ethical than feasible in the present climate of public opinion. Negative eugenics is already available on a personal, individual basis, in the form of genetic counseling of married couples who wish to minimize the risk of having a child with a high liability of some genetic disease. Few people object to that. Singapore is the only country I know of that has instituted measures intended to promote positive eugenics, essentially by giving tax credits to parents who are college graduates for every child they have, and awarding college scholarships to all of their offspring who can qualify for admission. These and other measures should, I think, be taken in other countries as well, provided they do not conflict with the need for zero population growth or even a birthrate that would reduce the present size of the world's population. Reducing population seems more urgent to me than eugenics per se. But unless people in the upper half of the bell curve for g have at least as many offspring as those of the lower half, there will inevitably result a dysgenic trend in the overall ability level and the educability of the population as a whole.
  
  Adam Smith was correct, I believe, when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations that a country's most important natural resource is the level of educated ability of its population. This depends in large measure on the overall level of g as well as on the quality of the educational system and the cultural environment, which in turn reflect the society's level of g. The distribution of g in a society and the environmental, cultural, and educational conditions that affect the outward manifestations of g are not independent forces. Generally, environmental conditions are created by people, not imposed on them, and g is one of the crucial factors determining that creation.

 

[Mandrake]

• on Page 173:
  "... more visible. We also discuss dysgenics, that is, the decline in the average IQ (which Jensen argues is taking place; eugenics (which Jensen favors, though on the basis of family choice rather than societal mandate);
  
• on Page 183:
  "... are statistically "at risk" for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. Miele: Then do you consider some form of eugenics to be feasible and ethically acceptable? Jensen: Yes, but more ethical than feasible in the present climate of public opinion. ..."

Does this mean that Jensen described himself as a Eugenicist, as Evo asserted? Is agreement with the broad concepts the same as accepting a categorical name? If one is a Eugenicist, would that imply that he is actively promoting a eugenics agenda (as it seems to me), or that he understands that such an agenda is not a conspiracy to commit evil acts?

 

[Mandrake]

Evo:
Besides anti-immigration projects, the Pioneer Fund has also used its money for eugenic research.

If an organization opposed illegal immigration, does that make them racist? Is it racist to encourage an understanding of the mechanisms of dysgenics? I fail to see why you quote such material, other than to imply that it is something inherently evil. It is not. The material you have presented here can be directly lifted from the race baiting web sites you have previously listed.

Much of the material you cited is obviously intended to have undertones, but you do not give us the details that substantiate the presence of activities that are immoral, illegal, or racist. In fact, you want us to believe that assertions to the effect that one organization is racist (assertions which I reject) and that anyone associated with that organization is therefore also racist. By that logic, we can conclude that all members of the United States Senate are racists, since they all associate with former KKK member Robert Byrd of West Virginia. We can likewise conclude that Mr. Byrd is a racist and that all of the people who voted (in many elections) for him are racists as well.

Your logic would also force us to conclude that people who buy Japanese and German products or who accept scholarships or sell to them must be racists, since they have done business with the most horrible racists of the past century. Do people who own Yugo cars (obviously imprudent shoppers) assume the racist attitudes of the people who built them?

Eugenics is defined as “The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.”

And, when applied to humans, it has primarily involved the idea of addressing the strongly inverse relationship between fertility and intelligence. There has not been any proposal by anyone in the field of psychometrics that has suggested actions such as murder or mass sterilization as the race baiters wish to imply.

A much more indepth look at recent Pioneer Fund activities.

I suggest that you balance your reading and read this:
Lynn. R. (2OOI). The science of bunian diversity: A history of the Pioneer Fund. New York: University Press of America.

I have tons more on the Pioneer fund, but this should be ok for starters.

As with your prior sources of information, these represent your proclivity to search sources that are outside of science and which hold political agendas, including race baiting. You directly practiced this yourself when you asserted that the authors of The Bell Curve were racists.

I again challenge you to list for us any actions that you consider to be illegal, immoral, or racist that are connected to the individuals you named as recipients of tainted funding. Your scurrelous implication was quite clear, but you do not have facts to back up your race baiting. The scientists who publish in the field of psychometrics have discussed the Pioneer Fund on numerous occasions and all have said that the funding they received was completely without strings attached. They were totally free to pursue their work independently.

Once again Mandrake, you make unfounded personal attacks on me, it just so happens that researching The Pioneer Fund has been one of my pet projects for the last year.

Since you informed us that you have actually researched the Pioneer Fund, I assume you have read the following:

Weyher, H. F. (1998a)The pioneer fund, the behavioral sciences, and the media's false stories. Intelligence, 26 (4), 319-336;

Weyher, H. F. (1998b). Contributions to the history of psychology, CXII: Intelligence, behavior genetics, and the Pioneer Fund. Psychological Reports, 82, 1347-1374.

Please tell us the specific issues in these texts with which you disagree and why.

Here is the funding policy of Pioneer:
The Pioneer Fund likewise keeps our procedures simple. We make no grants to individuals but only to research institutions, mainly universities, mostly for specialized “niche” projects, which have difficulty attracting funds from government sources or from larger foundations. A few particularly important research projects, however, have received substantial ongoing funding over the years (see Grantees). The Fund keeps its paperwork to a minimum; we have no standardized forms or specifications for grant applications but require only letters from scholars with institutional support, briefly summarizing proposals and the researchers’ qualifications. Decisions are made quickly, usually in a matter of days, by consulting grantees with the relevant expertise, Board Members, and, if necessary, with external peer reviewers. Typically, the fund does not require written reports from its grantees following their research, leaving the accounting procedures to the universities, or submission of the standard IRS information.

The Pioneer Fund is neutral on political and social issues and avoids grantees with social agendas to push. The only exception is that we are committed to freedom of enquiry in all matters, and generally, to an open society, broadly conceived. A recent Pioneer-funded book, The New Know-Nothings by Morton Hunt (2000, Transaction), documents recent intrusions into freedom of enquiry from both the political left and right, from which some of our grantees have suffered.

 

[Evo]

Mandrake, you seem to be awfully hung up on "race". You read racial bias into everything. "You" are the one that in your own mind see an evil connotation. The term "racist" is not a bad word, it simply describes a particular viewpoint, usually the belief that one race has traits which are superior to another race. It is only when someone tries to hurt another group of people (I'm not talking physically) with these beliefs that it crosses the line.

I disapprove of people that make wholesale classifications of entire populations in the attempt to denigrate them. I particularly disapprove of attempts to then use these classifications to harm these people by trying to take away help from them. That is why I am disgusted with organizations such as The Pioneer Fund and the people that choose to affiliate themselves with such an organization.

The best advice I ever got was from my mother. She told me to never pre-judge a person based on what another person says about them. She told me to make my own decisions based on facts.

I don't base my opinion of The Pioneer Fund on what any person or group on either side of the argument thinks about them. I base it on the facts, I have looked at the actual grants, I have looked at the history of the researchers that have accepted grants to see what their track record is, I have seen the attempts to stop desegregation. I provided you with quite a list of facts, not opinions.

If an organization opposed illegal immigration, does that make them racist?

It depends on what is said, how it is said, and what the intent of the group or individual is.

Is it racist to encourage an understanding of the mechanisms of dysgenics?

It depends on what is said, how it is said, and what the intent of the group or individual is.

I fail to see why you quote such material, other than to imply that it is something inherently evil. It is not. The material you have presented here can be directly lifted from the race baiting web sites you have previously listed.

Are you referring to The Pioneer Fund? Because people need to know the "whole" truth so that they can make an educated assessment.

It may surprise you that I don't consider either BlackVision or hitssquad to be racists. I believe that they are interested in the much broader area of intelligence regardless of race. I will disagree with them if they cite sources that try to pigeonhole ethic groups because I do not see that there is enough evidence to do so. I think there are too many unknowns.

As as I have previously stated, eugenicists do not have to have racist views. There appear to be many schools of thought within eugenics. I think that a lot of people do not understand eugenics, visions of mass sterilizations and even mass murder come to mind. That goes against the mainstream of current eugenic belief. As with any group, there will always be a lunatic fringe and this has caused a misunderstanding. I am against "labeling" groups of people. For example, discussions I have seen today, "terrorists are Muslim, therefor all Muslims are evil". It amazes me that some people think like this.

 

[iansmith]

You might not realize this but Canada does not have freedom of speech like America does.

I will not glorify this statement by a responce but you got me
:rofl:

 

[Nereid]

Pioneer Fund - confidentiality clauses?

As is becoming increasingly clear, in the pharmaceutical industry there has, and still is, a distressing practice regarding the non-publication 'negative results'; specifically, in order for (some) university (and other, independent) researchers to receive (certain) funds from (some) pharma companies, they must sign certain confidentiality agreements. Surprisingly, these agreements cover aspects including the following:
- non-publication of any negative results (e.g. researchers found a drug did not have the effect the pharma company was looking for)
- if the pharma company provided data to the researcher, that data could not be used in papers published by the researchers (the data may have been a database of negative results, from previous research)
- the existence of these clauses within the contracts to remain secret
- horrendous penalties for violating these conditions.

Wrt any research funded by the Pioneer Fund - now or in the past 50+ years - does anyone know if there were clauses like these pharma ones in the researchers' contracts?

 

[Mandrake]

Mandrake, you seem to be awfully hung up on "race". You read racial bias into everything.

Not true. I have noticed that you, however, have projected an agenda of race bating. When people see such an unfortunate perspective, it is appropriate to point it out and correct it.

The term "racist" is not a bad word, it simply describes a particular viewpoint, usually the belief that one race has traits which are superior to another race.

Your use of the word "racist" here has been to condemn people for positions which you wish to imply include prejudice, mistreatment, and unfairness. Since you have used the term with respect to describe "the authors" of The Bell Curve, you have attacked honorable people and are race baiting for the purpose of causing ill feelings.

I disapprove of people that make wholesale classifications of entire populations in the attempt to denigrate them.

You seem to be trying to have us believe that the above actually applies to the full range of people you listed in connection with the Pioneer Fund. Is that correct? What you are suggesting is that the study of human differences is inherently corrupt, if the findings do not meet with your personal approval.

I particularly disapprove of attempts to then use these classifications to harm these people by trying to take away help from them. That is why I am disgusted with organizations such as The Pioneer Fund and the people that choose to affiliate themselves with such an organization.

You listed honorable scientists as recipients of Pioneer Fund grants (true). But you attempted to have us believe that these people were tainted by those grants. I have challenged you to demonstrate that these people are anything other than honorable scientists. You declined to show any evidence to demonstrate otherwise. If you are going to smear someone, I suggest that you back it up by something more substantial than the guilt by association. So far, I see no reason to believe that the Pioneer Fund is presently pursuing any agenda. Your sources are not from science, but from blatantly race baiting web sites.

It may surprise you that I don't consider either BlackVision or hitssquad to be racists.

How kind of you. It is surely important that you evaluate all of the participants here and determine for us who is and who is not a racist. This is certainly a public service from someone who is qualified as you have shown.

As as I have previously stated, eugenicists do not have to have racist views.

You also tried to use the term "eugenicist" as a slur. You tried to use that slur to discredit a highly respected and accomplished scientist. There is a degree of humor when "little people" take on the task of judging "big people."

 

[BlackVision]

I will not glorify this statement by a responce but you got me
:rofl:

You're going to state that I'm incorrect? Read this thread for a deeper evaluation on this topic.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=40646&page=2