"We don't need more politics in science, we need a lot less."
No. The point of doing all of this work is to achieve policy outcomes. Knowledge that doesn't impact the world is useless. What's the point of publishing The Bell Curve if not to influence policy!
The problem is that your enemies are defeating you politically despite being wrong. That's a political problem to solve, not run away from. Running hasn't accomplished anything or made your opponents any less insane.
If for instance the science has something to say about education policy, pass some damn laws. People HATE public education right now. Arizona just passed universal school choice. San Fransisco just recalled school board members that tried to get rid of merit. We need a little less "there are no policy implications" and a little more Chris Rufo out there.
I've never seen more support for big child tax credits either. Are these things going to be eugenic (go up to $400k like the Romney plan) or dysgenic (cap at like $75k or whatever under one of those Dem proposals). If the science has something to say, say it. Show at least as big a balls as Elon Musk on this.
Crime...let's just say that people really hate crime now and would like some straight shooting on the matter.
One could go on. There are implications of this research and people shouldn't be afraid to say it. The purpose of scientific research is to improve society by changing he way we live, not to publish papers and have no effect.
"Aha, finally, the truth finally comes out! This is not a real scientific field, but merely fake science meant to support the austerity policies of Donald Drumph!".
Then just push through unapologetically. You aren't trying to convince progressives that use the word Dumpf! And austerity is just another word for fighting inflation these days, turns out it's politically popular now.
You are trying to convince normies who would benefit from your policies. They respond to strength, confidence, and results.
"For example, we might decide that all citizens need to reach basic levels of literacy and numeracy to be empowered to participate in society."
People capable of reaching basic levels of literacy and numeracy usually do so before high school. And it doesn't take the 29k/year/pupil that NYC public schools spend to teach basic literacy and numeracy.
Back in the Stone Age of say the 1960s, we had universal education of basic literacy and numeracy of all those capable of doing so that was provided for 1/3 the cost per capita in real terms with far less administrative bullshit and far better school discipline (probably even worse numbers for places like NYC).
Yes, teaching basic literacy and numeracy to the dims would still pass an ROI calculation in Based Eugenistan, but that doesn't mean research into genetics wouldn't imply massive changes from the policy status quo.
Policies didn't come from these findings at the time because solutions to the brought up problems were non-existent. Any intervention you could have proposed(e.g. "don't let poor and less intelligent people reproduce") would have immediately alienated a huge swath of your voter base and a huge part of the general population as well, being that over 60% of people are under an IQ threshold of +1SD for example. But today things are getting a little bit different, for one you have a population that is less concerned with procreating, especially in the developed world, and on the other hand you have emerging medical and technological solutions to the issue of IQ. It isn't unreasonable to think that in a few decades with embryo selection technology developing, people would be quite supportive of the idea of giving their children the best odds, so a more favourable view of genetics will be adopted.
I think it's to avoid the scrutiny. It's right to say that in order for some "should" to come out of a scientific finding, you have to have some value system with a bunch of "should" beliefs already. But if you have a policy implemented with the explicit goal of raising X, and you find that raising X is not raised by the policy, then surely this has some implications for whether we should be doing that policy. Neven Sesardić has a chapter (Chapter 5) in Making Sense of Heritability where he explains that "in some sense heritability does limit malleability." Equalizing environments is not going to create equality between people as some people would like.
"But after we concede that, indeed, “heritable” does not mean “unchangeable,” there is a temptation to make another step from this truism to a much stronger claim, namely that there is no difference at all between the ways genetic and environmental effects are modifiable. This is a step from truth to falsity" (p. 153).
I wanted to increase human welfare and I used to think increasing E was the way. Now, I think G is likely a better way because of learning about cognitive ability and behavioral genetics. If I didn't update my social and political views on the basis of this evidence, then I would just be dogmatic. The research is relevant, and that is in part why it is so interesting. There are widespread misconceptions about what makes people smart and act the way they do.
I think it would be good to have articles which are strictly empirical and articles which take these emprical results and recommend policies, but I think a seperation between the two is good.
"We don't need more politics in science, we need a lot less."
No. The point of doing all of this work is to achieve policy outcomes. Knowledge that doesn't impact the world is useless. What's the point of publishing The Bell Curve if not to influence policy!
The problem is that your enemies are defeating you politically despite being wrong. That's a political problem to solve, not run away from. Running hasn't accomplished anything or made your opponents any less insane.
If for instance the science has something to say about education policy, pass some damn laws. People HATE public education right now. Arizona just passed universal school choice. San Fransisco just recalled school board members that tried to get rid of merit. We need a little less "there are no policy implications" and a little more Chris Rufo out there.
I've never seen more support for big child tax credits either. Are these things going to be eugenic (go up to $400k like the Romney plan) or dysgenic (cap at like $75k or whatever under one of those Dem proposals). If the science has something to say, say it. Show at least as big a balls as Elon Musk on this.
Crime...let's just say that people really hate crime now and would like some straight shooting on the matter.
One could go on. There are implications of this research and people shouldn't be afraid to say it. The purpose of scientific research is to improve society by changing he way we live, not to publish papers and have no effect.
"Aha, finally, the truth finally comes out! This is not a real scientific field, but merely fake science meant to support the austerity policies of Donald Drumph!".
Then just push through unapologetically. You aren't trying to convince progressives that use the word Dumpf! And austerity is just another word for fighting inflation these days, turns out it's politically popular now.
You are trying to convince normies who would benefit from your policies. They respond to strength, confidence, and results.
"For example, we might decide that all citizens need to reach basic levels of literacy and numeracy to be empowered to participate in society."
People capable of reaching basic levels of literacy and numeracy usually do so before high school. And it doesn't take the 29k/year/pupil that NYC public schools spend to teach basic literacy and numeracy.
Back in the Stone Age of say the 1960s, we had universal education of basic literacy and numeracy of all those capable of doing so that was provided for 1/3 the cost per capita in real terms with far less administrative bullshit and far better school discipline (probably even worse numbers for places like NYC).
Yes, teaching basic literacy and numeracy to the dims would still pass an ROI calculation in Based Eugenistan, but that doesn't mean research into genetics wouldn't imply massive changes from the policy status quo.
Policies didn't come from these findings at the time because solutions to the brought up problems were non-existent. Any intervention you could have proposed(e.g. "don't let poor and less intelligent people reproduce") would have immediately alienated a huge swath of your voter base and a huge part of the general population as well, being that over 60% of people are under an IQ threshold of +1SD for example. But today things are getting a little bit different, for one you have a population that is less concerned with procreating, especially in the developed world, and on the other hand you have emerging medical and technological solutions to the issue of IQ. It isn't unreasonable to think that in a few decades with embryo selection technology developing, people would be quite supportive of the idea of giving their children the best odds, so a more favourable view of genetics will be adopted.
I think it's to avoid the scrutiny. It's right to say that in order for some "should" to come out of a scientific finding, you have to have some value system with a bunch of "should" beliefs already. But if you have a policy implemented with the explicit goal of raising X, and you find that raising X is not raised by the policy, then surely this has some implications for whether we should be doing that policy. Neven Sesardić has a chapter (Chapter 5) in Making Sense of Heritability where he explains that "in some sense heritability does limit malleability." Equalizing environments is not going to create equality between people as some people would like.
"But after we concede that, indeed, “heritable” does not mean “unchangeable,” there is a temptation to make another step from this truism to a much stronger claim, namely that there is no difference at all between the ways genetic and environmental effects are modifiable. This is a step from truth to falsity" (p. 153).
I wanted to increase human welfare and I used to think increasing E was the way. Now, I think G is likely a better way because of learning about cognitive ability and behavioral genetics. If I didn't update my social and political views on the basis of this evidence, then I would just be dogmatic. The research is relevant, and that is in part why it is so interesting. There are widespread misconceptions about what makes people smart and act the way they do.
I think it would be good to have articles which are strictly empirical and articles which take these emprical results and recommend policies, but I think a seperation between the two is good.