Over 9000

But you didn't say "African population expansion", did you? You said "Some would say "Black lives" or Blacks are an enormous existential problem."

Yes. "Blacks are an enormous existential problem." Isn't name calling. I can expand that to "Blacks are an enormous existential problem because of the African population expansion". Both are debatable statements.

As did StringJunky.

Explain how calling me a "racist" refutes my thesis, and is something other than a label he applied to his opponent by his own undeclared defintion.

If you are not trolling, you are certainly doing a wonderful imitation of it.

You seriously think nobody on Earth thinks replacing Europeans with Africans might not be a dramatic improvement? That anybody who could entertain such a bizarre idea must be "trolling"?

So by your use of the term, you were 'name calling' when you called people 'black'. Therefore I would like to respond to your 'existential' post by saying:

Yes, I can well believe that your political and intellectual analyses extend as far as name-calling.

No, because I used a term to make a point. Using words isn't name calling. Using nothing other than a word is name calling.

Calling me a "racist", because my opinion makes me a "racist" according to whatever definition is in his mind. Should I then change my opinion because somebody decided to label it? Some expansion is needed.

But I get how calling somebody "racist" works. It's a social signal based on the political zeitgeist. Much like calling somebody a "heretic" was in different times. It's not really a point of logic.

I see no reason to protect any religion from criticism, in fact critically examining religion is IMHO exactly what should be done.

Agreed.

We cannot afford to be tolerant to those who are intolerant.

But otherwise we should tolerate everything? We should only not tolerate "intolerance"? If there are any other things we are not tolerant of, then we are by definition intolerant of things other than intolerance.

"Name calling" implies an insult. It is not name calling if it is simply an accurate description.

It is not 'name calling' if I call you 'short' as long as you are short, and it is not name calling if I call you a racist bigot, if you are indeed one.

No, name calling is exactly what it is called. The names can be true. The point is that calling somebody a name, or putting a label on somebody, does not refute what they are saying.

Perhaps I'm a "racist" by some definition. I mean I've heard anyone mention race get called a racist. So what? Am I incorrect?

I'm certainly not a bigot (somebody who fails to update their views in the light or contradictory information) and this is the most laughably hypocritical accusation from the sloganeering reality detached left.

Looks like the emboldened Trump trolls are are already trying to let us know they don't have to hide their racism any longer.

I'm really not trolling. I genuinely see African popuation expansion and migration as a very serious problem. Sorry if that seems like an absolutely crazy thought to you.

Skin color is genetic. Religion is mostly cultural.

So if we can't generalise about genetic statuses (we can of course) but we can generalise about cultures, why can't we generalise about Islam, but can generalise about Nazism?

Hatred and bigotry, however, is simply ignorant.

Hatred is not necessarily "ignorant". It's an emotion people feel. I guess your trying to imply that people who disagree with you feel the emotion of "hatred" for no reason and that's why they have a different opinion. Bigotry means failing to update views in the face of contradicting information. Unfortunately to the left these are just meaningless names they call their opponents.

To be clear, I'm perfectly okay being intolerant of intolerance.

So society should tolerate everything, except people who don't tolerate eveything? How do you square this with practices of law enforcement? Must we really tolerate everything? Are there any things, besides intolerance, we can reasonably not tolerate?

It's not my fault if you associate yourself by choice with an ignorant group and worldview and take this personally.

I'm not trying to claim any group association. I'm just showing that your argument can be applied to tolerate Nazism. I guessed that you don't like Nazism, but that you like Islam, so it kind of exposes the thin veneer of superficial logic you place over your subjective opinions. I am making this simple point. It seems irrefutable to me. You can fly off the handle and call me "ignorant" for no reason if it makes you feel better.

You are a racist bigot and that's all there is to it.

Yes, I can well believe that your political and intellectual analyses extend as far as name-calling.

How can we get diseases from contacting (eg. Viruses) if we can not touch anything?

You're begging the question by using the word "contacting". If by "touch" we mean "maximum proximity before particle fields repel", we mean the same for "contact". So however close we get when "touching" or "contacting" is enough for a virus to stick/enter or whatever it does.

Oh fuck off.

The academic left deploy their killer argument.

 

That's right: BLM means black lives matter as much as everybody elses.

Well that's an opinion. Some would say "Black lives" or Blacks are an enormous existential problem.

But I guess we're all entitled to our opinions.

Edit. Oops, posted without seeing notice above. Feel free to delete.

Try a little experiment. Use the Find/Replace function to change the word "Muslim" to the word "black" or "female" in all of the comments you write/read/see then read those comments again.

 

If it feels wrong or generalizing or bigoted, then that is the same feeling you should be having even when that text says "Muslim."

Try "Nazi". Does it feel generalizing or bigoted?

How does that relate to physics?

No idea. Thanks for the penetrating response. It relates to the OP. How does Kant resolving (or attempting to) a debate between Newtonians and Leibnizians relate to physics. No idea dude. Would be happy if you could think about it and let me know if you work it out. Now I think about it it has absolutely nothing to do with physics. I might as well have just copy pasted from a basketweaving handbook.

I'm feeling pretty silly about my stupid post.

"Is time a real thing"

"Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empiri­cally real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in !hem."

Damn, why I can't I make relevant and useful posts? Why do I waste everybody's time?

"Transcendental Aesthetic": space, time, and transcendental idealism. Despite its brevity - a mere thirty pages in the first edition and forty in the second - the "Transcendental Aesthetic" argues for a series of striking, paradoxical and even revolutionary theses that deter­mine the course of the whole remainder of the Critique and that have been the subject of a very large proportion of the scholarly work de­voted to the Critique in the last two centuries. '3 In this section, Kant at­tempts to distinguish the contribution to cognition made by our receptive faculty of sensibility from that made solely by the objects that affect us (A 2 1-2 /B 36), and argues that space and time are pure forms of all intuition contributed by our own faculty of sensibility, and therefore forms of which we can have a priori knowledge. This is the basis for Kant' s resolution of the debate about space and time that had raged be­tween the Newtonians, who held space and time to be self -subsisting entities existing independently of the objects that occupy them, and the Leibnizians, who held space and time to be systems of relations, con­ceptual constructs based on non-relational properties inhering in the things we think of as spatiotemporally related. '4 Kant's alternat ive to both of these positions is that space and time are neither subsistent be­ ings nor inherent in things as they are in themselves, but are rather only fo rms of our sensibility, hence conditions under which objects of expe­rience can be given at all and the fundamental principle of their repre­sentation and individuation. Only in this way, Kant argues, can we adequately account for the necessary manifestation of space and time throughout all experience as single but infinite magnitudes - the fea­ture of experience that Newton attempted to account for with his meta­ physically incoherent notion of absolute space and time as the sensorium dei - and also explain the a priori yet synthetic character of the mathe­matical propositions expressing our cognition of the physical properties of quantities and shapes given in space and time - the epistemological certainty undercut by Leibniz' s account of space and time as mere rela­ tions abstracted fr om anteced ently existing objects (A 22-5 I B 37-4 1, A 30--2 IB46-9).

Kant's thesis that space and time are pure forms of intuition leads him to the paradoxical conclusion that although space and time are empiri­cally real, they are transcendentally ideal, and so are the objects given in !hem. Although the precise meaning of this claim remains subject to debate ,'5 in general terms it is the claim that it is only from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, time, and the spatiotemporality of the objects of experience, thus that we cognize these things not as they are in themselves but only as they appear under the conditions of our sensibility (A 26-30/B 42-5, A 32-48 /B49-73). This is Kant's famous doctrine of transcendental idealism, which is employed throughout the Critique of Pure Reason (and the two subsequent critiques) in a variety of ways, both positively, as in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" and "Dis­cipline of Pure Reason," to account for the possibility of synthetic a pri­ori cognition in mathematics, and negatively, as in the "Transcendental Dialectic," to limit the scope of our cognition to the appearances given to our sensibility, while denying that we can have any cognition of things as they are in themselves, that is, as transcendent realities con­stituted as they are independently of the constitution of our cognitive capacities.

http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/kant-first-critique-cambridge.pdf

You know,it was probably always going to happen one of these elections .

 

The problem always was "how can so many people be taken (willfully?) in?"

I guess the Media/Finance nexus can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Professor who tweeted against PC culture is out at NYU

By Melkorka Licea
October 30, 2016

An NYU professor crusading against political correctness and student coddling was booted from the classroom last week after his colleagues complained about his “incivility,” The Post has learned.

Liberal studies prof Michael Rectenwald, 57, said he was forced Wednesday to go on paid leave for the rest of the semester.

“They are actually pushing me out the door for having a different perspective,” the academic told The Post.

Rectenwald launched an undercover Twitter account called Deplorable NYU Prof on Sept. 12 to argue against campus trends like “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings” policing Halloween costumes and other aspects of academia’s growing PC culture.

He chose to be anonymous, he explained in one of his first tweets, because he was afraid “the PC Gestapo would ruin me” if he put his name behind his conservative ideas on the famously liberal campus.

“I remember once on my Facebook I posted a story about a kid who changed his pronoun to ‘His Majesty’ because I thought it was funny,” he told The Post. “Then I got viciously attacked by 400 people. This whole milieu is nauseating. I grew tired of it, so I made the account.”

On Oct. 11, Rectenwald used his internet alter ego to criticize “safe spaces” — the recent campus trend of “protecting” students from uncomfortable speech — as “at once a hall of mirrors and a rubber room.”

Two weeks ago he posted on his “anti-PC” feed a photo of a flyer put out by NYU resident advisers telling students how to avoid wearing potentially offensive Halloween costumes.

His caption read: “The scariest thing about Halloween today is . . . the liberal totalitarian costume surveillance. NYU RAs gone mad,” he wrote.

“It’s an alarming curtailment of free expression to the point where you can’t even pretend to be something without authorities coming down on you in the universities,” Rectenwald told The Post.

But the Twitter feed soon sparked a “witch hunt” by the growing army of “social justice warriors,” he said.

In an interview published Monday in the Washington Square News, NYU’s Independent Student Newspaper, the eight-year instructor admitted he was the Deplorable NYU Prof.

“My contention is that trigger warning, safe spaces and bias hot-line reporting is not politically correct. It is insane,” he told the student paper. “The crazier and crazier that this left gets . . . the more the alt-right is going to be laughing their asses off [and] getting more pissed.”, he was quoted as saying.

The divorced father of three came forward because “I thought there was nothing objectionable about what I had said.”

But Rectenwald says he began getting “dirty looks” in his department and on Wednesday figured out why: A 12-person committee calling itself the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group, including two deans, published a letter to the editor in the same paper.

“As long as he airs his views with so little appeal to evidence and civility, we must find him guilty of illogic and incivility in a community that predicates its work in great part on rational thought and the civil exchange of ideas,” they wrote of the untenured assistant professor.

“We seek to create a dynamic community that values full participation. Such efforts are not the ‘destruction of academic integrity’ Professor Rectenwald suggests, but rather what make possible our program’s approach to global studies,” they argued [sic]. Rectenwald likened the attack to “a Salem witch trial. They took my views personally. I never even mentioned them and I never even said NYU liberal studies program. I was talking about academia at large,” said the professor, a popular instructor who was graded 4.4 out of 5 on ratemyprofessors.com.

The same day the letter was published, Rectenwald was summoned to a meeting with his department dean and an HR representative, he says.

“They claimed they were worried about me and a couple people had expressed concern about my mental health. They suggested my voicing these opinions was a cry for help,” Rectenwald told The Post. “Then they said I should leave and get help.”

He said, “They had no reason to believe that my mental health was in question, unless to have a different opinion makes one insane.”

Students told him that professors openly discussed with students how he may be fired.

The leave has “absolutely zero to do with his Twitter account or his opinions on issues of the day,” said NYU spokesman Matt Nagel.

But Rectenwald is disheartened.

“I’m afraid my academic career is over,” he said Rectenwald. “Academic freedom: It’s great, as long as you don’t use it.”

FWIW, I get the feeling that you might have missed the context in which it was dealt with. I suggest that you read that paper, or the excerpts thereof, again. I am not convinced that it attempted to draw comparisons between Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences and IQ per se.

You wrote ""The paper does not deal with the Flynn effect per se, but it points to the development of (multiple types of) intelligence in order to cope with our changing environment."

I wrote "posters are bringing up the theory of multiple intelligences"

So now you think the paper is not about multiple intelligences? I would like to take a look at it and offer an opinion.

The relevant point really is that the discussion has moved to the measurement of intelligence. Which contradicts the closer's claim that we are rehashing the same point (ie. "race does not exist").

Going through the thread after I was banned it appears to be an extended discussion of whether or not to call the hereditarian hypothesis "racist".

Very important question.

*facepalm*

You seem to be missing the point that, regardless of the accuracy of your scientific points, or the excellence of your scientific education in relevant subjects, if you behave like an arrogant, self satisfied asshole, then your posts will be unwelcome.

 

Some of your points may actually be sound. The manner in which you are going about embedding them in vitriolic posts is seriously counter productive. Three possibilities come to the top of the list as to why you are doing this:

 

1. You are an aggressive fool, looking for an argument.

2. You are a troll, looking for an argument.

3. It has genuinely never occurred to you how aggressive and obnoxious your posting style appears to others.

 

I hope it is number 3, in which case you now know and amend your posting style accordingly.

4. I'm actually rather self composed in the face of ad nauseam dishonesty and posters trying to make out that I'm a "Nazi" and insulting me personally about my competence while I contradict them making zero errors, but my POV is unpopular so they use subjective and hypocritical charges of "civility" to ban me because they failed to contradict me on the science angle.

I can believe that my posting is "obnoxious". That's because I'm the "bad guy". I don't post that we're "all equal". So if I call people a "fool" or a "troll" or "obnoxious" or whatever it looks worse. When you do it, it's ok. Nausea is subjective. Sometimes people experience nausea when they are pulled out of their bubble.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/political-diversity-will-improve-social-psychological-science-1/A54AD4878AED1AFC8BA6AF54A890149F

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Volume 38

January 2015, e130

Political diversity will improve social psychological science1

Abstract

Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity – particularly diversity of viewpoints – for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: (1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years. (2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike. (3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking. (4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.

!

Moderator Note

 

Surely you must realise that if we wanted to ban you for your opinions we would have done that many posts ago?

 

I've been banned for the last 7 days. My guess is you don't have the authority to ban me yet without mod consensus. Doubtless as people turn up today you'll get that soon.

!

Moderator Note

 

I try to be disinterested but I know I will fail to an extent. I disagree with your judgment of the civility of Stringjunky's post and with your appraisal of DrKrettin's post - neither are uncivil, neither are slanderous, and neither of them give grounds to brand the author a liar.

 

If they cannot explain their accusations then they are slander and must be redacted. They can show one place where I got something wrong in genetics or statistics. What hypocrisy! I've been contradicting your so-called experts all over the place, as detailed in the OP. If they can explain them I will redact my charges of slander.

Edit: emphasis added above for the hard of reading/intentionally obtuse below.

The term subspecies is certainly not used ubiquitously to describe any level of genetic partitioning below the species level, and I'm repeating myself, but it's generally used using criteria specific to each organismal group as a matter of convenience - see previous "irrelevant" Trypanosoma example.

 

Repeating myself again, one can certainly make some sort of case that human populations represent "subspecies" - however I would suspect that broad acceptance of such a classification would be impeded by the fact that the vast majority of genetic variation is within groups, and identification of hybrids (e.g. F1, F2, backcrosses) would be challenging due to long term genetic transfer between groups, rendering such a classification system of limited practical utility.

Indeed we are repeating ourselves again! But it's always fun to really try to drill the actual truth into the public conciousness, in the face of determined obfuscation by so-called experts.

Is "more variation within groups" a problem for other subspecies? Is it in fact normal? Is this just an ad hoc race denial fallacy only applied to humans and originating from the avowed Marxist Richard Lewontin and parrotted endlessly by social science departments?

Let's take a look.

It is genuinely true that, if you measure the total variation in the human species and then partition it into a between-race component and a within-race component, the between-race component is a very small fraction of the total. Most of the variation among humans can be found within races as well as between them. Only a small admixture of extra variation distinguishes races from each other. That is all correct. What is not correct is the inferene that race is therefore a meaningless concept. This point has been clearly made by the distinguished Cambridge geneticist A.W.F. Edwards in a recent paper “Human genetic diversity: Lewontin’s fallacy.” R.C. Lewontin is an equally distinguished Cambridge (Mass.) geneticist, known for the strength of his political convictions and his weakness for dragging them into science at every possibile opportunity. Lewontin’s view of race has become near-universal orthodoxy in scientific circles. He wrote, in a famous paper of 1972:

 

It is clear that our perception of relatively large differences between human races and subgroups, as compared to the variation within these groups, is indeed a biased perception and that, based on randomly chosen genetic differences, human races and populations are remarkably similar to each other, with the largest part by far of human variation being accounted for by the differences between individuals

 

This is, of course, exactly the point I accepted above, not surprisingly since what I wrote was largely based on Lewontin. But see how Lewontin goes on:

 

Human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. Since such racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxnomic significance either, no justification can be offered for its continuance.

 

We can all happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes on forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn’t mean that race is of “virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.” This is Edwards’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.

Emphasis added.

Wright's (inventor of F statistics) values:

<0.05 = little genetic diff.

0.05-0.15 = moderate genetic diff.

0.15-0.25 = great genetic diff.

>0.25 = very great genetic diff.

!

Moderator Note

 

Over 9000

 

Stop accusing the membership of slander and stop branding them liars. This is not a request it is an instruction; your continued participation is contingent on your compliance.

You're biased.

This comment

"What does such a discussion, by amateurs like yourself, not skilled in statistical analysis and genetics, achieve in the end that is not negative?"

is about as uncivil as it gets. Especially with no explanation of why that's the case. But me complaining about this comment is sanctioned? How entirely dishonest. Naturally this is an excuse to ban me, because you don't like my scientific opinion.

Sorry to have stepped on the toes of "the membership". I'll leave you to your sad little echo chamber.

 

Yes, I can, but it is full of amateurs not skilled in statistical analysis and genetics, so you would not like it.

Do they at least have the ability to not cherry pick studies and endlessly repeat the same debunked fallacies?

If you're implying my statistics or genetics is incorrect please show us where.

Unless you are slandering me.

What does such a discussion, by amateurs like yourself, not skilled in statistical analysis and genetics, achieve in the end that is not negative?

I've pointed out the failures of your so-called experts. Your comment is nothing more than empty slander. Would you be surprised to learn that I'd been trained in genetics and statistical analysis? Perhaps that would affect your authority argument, which is detached from any points I engaged in. Please explain to us where my statistics and genetics was incorrect? You are a liar.

We seem to have achieved one thing, which is establishing that this board is scientifically weak. That's a positive for any but the regulars.

Can anybody recommend an actual science forum without biased ignorant self-righteous moderators, whining about the supposed "tone" of certain posters they happen to disagree with for career reasons, where we can continue the discussion?

Anyway, thanks for the little hosting you provided. Enjoy.

I've just come off a 7 day block for supposed lack of civility (perhaps complaining about argument by repetition from Arete, endlessly repeating that <0.5 Fst invalidates taxa?) and "not understanding biology", presumably for correcting one of your "experts". It would be nice if you could point out my most uncivil comments so I can avoid this in future. I'm sure this was the actual reason I was banned, and not because mods here don't like my opinion.

I notice this thread has been locked very recently.

"The thread is now repeating arguments and rehashing old discussion"

Totally false. We seem to have overcome the race denial hurdle and were at the point of discussing behavior genetic studies. I pointed out to your "expert" Arete that he'd cherry picked a study (Turkheimer 2003) on which he'd based his argument, so he learned something there. Then there was an extended discussion where a poster tried to imply that I was a Nazi. Was this my civility issue? Posters are bringing up the theory of multiple intelliegences vs. IQ. This has not been covered. The thread is just getting interesting. There is an interesting idea here from biology expert Arete that we apply the same methodology that we use to detect genetic differences in geographically separated stickleback fish to the racial IQ question. I certainly have something to say about that, the least of which being how it makes an iota of sense.

Of course, I do not expect it to be unlocked.

If James Watson can be fired pour encourager les autres for saying "testing suggests Africans don't have the same intelligence as us" or something similar, what hope can an Internet poster have? I mean imagine if one of you got associated with similar comments. You'd be fired, right? Much safer to say "race doesn't exist" or "but the environment though", or simply demand mathematical proof for one hypothesis and failing which assume the opposite based on nothing. Meanwhile you can ban anyone who disagrees on trumped up charges so you don't have to suffer the cognitive dissonance and public embarassment of your shoddy logic.

It's just sad that on a so-called science forum we still have to toe the PC line. It's embarassing that mods here pretend to be "scientific" while doing that though.

At best, you picked up a map that was created as a piece of white nationalist propaganda with no explanation for where the data used to create it, if any, came from and reused it to bolster your argument without taking a critical look at either the source or accuracy of the image.

 

Perusing the source that you provided as an alternative doesn't do much to refute this.

 

Cherry picking would be one thing and certainly is to be frowned upon. Uncritically regurgitating propaganda that you found on the Internet without first looking at where it came from or how it was created simply because it seems to line up with your own argument is considerably worse.

It's based on Lynn's figures. I checked that. In fact I'm already very familiar with them. Would you like to contradict my data or carry on speculating from your genetic fallacy position?

What are your thoughts on the heritability issues I raised above? It's quite complicated.

If you can't cope with that material you can go and on about an image I found with a google search.

Perhaps you picked it up innocently, but that still doesn't reflect well on your ability to vet the sources you use for accuracy.

Perhaps I picked it up because I'm a Neo-Nazi extremist. Or "guilty" according to your subjective-normative argument. Is the data incorrect though? Surely the accuracy is established independently of the source? You don't think so?

Throw in your own use of arguments and resources that only exist bouncing around that same ecosystem

You're a liar. In my last post that wasn't related to your science detached character assassination, I referenced:

Analysis of East Asia Genetic Substructure Using Genome-Wide SNP Arrays, PLOS ONE