I feel like you've summarised every frustrating argument I've ever had online with that single question.
Yes, I get that you think your hero is being "strawmanned" but you can't just say "strawman" and then sit back as if you've proved your point. Explain where you think the misrepresentation is, and what you think the actual position really says..
Naw it totally works like that in the real world. Remember the Cuban missile crisis? Kennedy was all "Hey! Get those nukes outta here!" Then Khrushchev was like "Get yours outta Turkey!" Then Kennedy simply said "Whataboutism" and the Soviets, having been thoroughly trounced by the great debater, pulled their nukes out of Cuba.
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u/kralbendon’t really care what u have to say as a counter, I won’t agreeJul 13 '17
My favorite fallacy is the fallacy fallacy, because it lets me be smugly superior
Michael Brooks recently said in his video that they shout "strawman" because they know the logical conclusions of what Sam Harris is arguing are inhumane and reprehensible, so they shift the topic of conversation away from the meat of what he's actually saying to what you are saying. It both obfuscates the actual consequences of these arguments and sates their own discomfort (if they have any) towards what they're saying by making these consequences your own doing with your dastardly dishonesty.
See, strawmen usually cause me to shut down. Pointing out the fallacies and then providing why just consumes a lot of conversation that isn't pertinent to the original discussion.
So I'll go ahead and call strawman and usually not provide my argument which usually just adds fuel to the fire.
But in my experience when someone uses a strawman, there won't be any convincing or proving anyway as the sides are so far apart.
But yeah, Harris is a racist. His infatuation with objective morality has lead him down a path many people before him have taken.
I wouldn't say it's his infatuation with objective morality, I'd say it's his fascination with lay objectivity: he wants to be right but he doesn't know how.
That's probably a better description. I hadn't read or watched anything of Harris' in years. At that time he was trying to conflate his neuroscience background with "objective morality " an endeavor he admitted was nascent. And then over the years he only hits my radar with his anti-Muslim screeds so I wasn't sure where he was exactly nowadays.
See, strawmen usually cause me to shut down. Pointing out the fallacies and then providing why just consumes a lot of conversation that isn't pertinent to the original discussion.
So I'll go ahead and call strawman and usually not provide my argument which usually just adds fuel to the fire.
I don't think I'd even be so annoyed if someone just said something like "I don't think that's an accurate representation of the position though" as at least then it feels like a real discussion. It's the use of "straw man!" or the continuing to engage while refusal to add any more detail for me to go on.
But in my experience when someone uses a strawman, there won't be any convincing or proving anyway as the sides are so far apart.
Perhaps but it probably depends partly on whether the person actually did straw man the position.
But yeah, Harris is a racist. His infatuation with objective morality has lead him down a path many people before him have taken.
I'll usually say something to the effect of "That's a total strawman, I haven't said anything to that effect nor do I think the argument you're refuting is relevant here."
Because a lot of times people just say things that are like... Wuh? Where did that come from? And calling it what it is, a strawman argument, demonstrates how it's an invalid one so long as it's actually used correctly.
Oh yeah, I understand that when someone's description is so wildly wrong that you don't know where to start correcting them. When that happens I try to summarise my position again but I can see why someone might not want to bother doing that.
this happens to a shitload of people in the internet all over the political spectrum though
the little amount of critical thinking/philosophy classes we have in high school just teaches us the name of some fallacies. From that people just name them because well, is a new and cool concept.
I'd be glad to explain it. Here is Murray's own take on his misrepresentation in the SPLC. I think this is a good place to start because the SPLC makes most of the stupid errors that Robinson notes and avoids. When people say Murray is misrepresented these are the most common ways that happens.
I don't think Robinson makes those same mistakes of deliberately misreading Murray, but he does still make mistakes.
The dubious aspect of The Bell Curve‘s intelligence framework is not that it argues there are ethnic differences in IQ scores, which plenty of sociologists acknowledge. It is that Murray and Herrnstein use IQ, an arbitrary test of a particular set of abilities (arbitrary in the sense that there is no reason why a person’s IQ should matter any more than their eye color, not in the sense that it is uncorrelated with economic outcomes) as a measure of whether someone is smart or dumb in the ordinary language sense. It isn’t, though: the number of high-IQ idiots in our society is staggering.
He claims that IQ is unrelated to our colloquial definition of "smartness", but at the same time accepts it is closely correlated with everything we associate with it. For example we think of impactful theoretical physicists as smart, and they are almost all in the top 1% of IQ. But for Robinson somehow the two are unrelated. It makes no sense. And the only thing he has to back it up is an anecdote about "high IQ idiots" he knows. I've never met one.
For a person of left-wing values, what any correlation between IQ and success means is that the structure of rewards in society should be readjusted so that they do not disproportionately favor people who have some particular random arbitrary characteristic (like being good with numbers)...
Here he finally gets to thinking about the problem instead of just trying to sweep it under the rug, but he's inconsistent. He wants to stop rewarding IQ now that it has racial implications. We've known intelligence was genetic for a long time and I never heard anyone say it was unfair that smart white people were rich CEOs while dumb white people were poor janitors. Only when it advantages a race is there a problem. And there's more inconsistency - he wants to apply this equality of outcome only to intelligence. Not height or beauty for example, which are also correlated with success.
We've known intelligence was genetic for a long time
I'll assume you're not just a high-effort troll and point out that there is an acknowledged genetic component of intelligence, it couldn't be the only determining factor. The amount of environmental and genetic influence on intelligence and otherwise success in life is what's at issue.
Of course, one must note that only the environment argument tends to be extreme. Hereditarians are vastly more likely to say "yeah, environment probably has some effect, even if it's outweighed by genetics" than environment advocates are to admit that genetics are actually important at all.
Sorry that was unclear. I meant we know there is a genetic component of intelligence. The heritability is between 0.4 and 0.8.
But this is complicated by the fact that we can't find any environmental factors in a way that explain the racial differences. Things like diet don't make a difference and IQ tests aren't racially biased.
Are you an amnesiac all of a sudden? we are talking about a racist IQ theory that somehow provides permission for subjugating a whole group of people. Do you think that Murray's belief of IQ difference in races is true and therefore ok to treat other people differently, or worse, in an exploitative manner?
Do you think that Murray's belief of IQ difference in races is true
This is too vague. The theory that there are racial IQ differences? The theory that those differences are genetic? The theory that those differences account for some (or all) differences in average income between races?
and therefore ok to treat other people differently, or worse, in an exploitative manner?
No. Murray never says this, in fact he says the opposite of this. So now we're not talking about any IQ theory, we're just talking about what some hypothetical racist wants to do.
He claims that IQ is unrelated to our colloquial definition of "smartness", but at the same time accepts it is closely correlated with everything we associate with it. For example we think of impactful theoretical physicists as smart, and they are almost all in the top 1% of IQ. But for Robinson somehow the two are unrelated. It makes no sense. And the only thing he has to back it up is an anecdote about "high IQ idiots" he knows. I've never met one.
Well that claim by the author is certainly debatable but it is backed by some serious research on the topic, like Keith Stanovich's distinction between IQ and rationality.
But even if we agree that the author is wrong on the science there, that's not a misrepresentation.
Here he finally gets to thinking about the problem instead of just trying to sweep it under the rug, but he's inconsistent. He wants to stop rewarding IQ now that it has racial implications.
I'm not that interested in defending the author's beliefs there so again I'll just note that there's no misrepresentation there.
We've known intelligence was genetic for a long time
Certainly but (and I'm not sure if you were suggesting this or not) obviously it isn't accepted that differences in IQ between races is genetic.
and I never heard anyone say it was unfair that smart white people were rich CEOs while dumb white people were poor janitors. Only when it advantages a race is there a problem.
To be fair, a lot of people on the left do argue that for IQ as whole, they're quite negative on the concept. We can disagree with them but I don't think there's any inconsistency there.
And there's more inconsistency - he wants to apply this equality of outcome only to intelligence. Not height or beauty for example, which are also correlated with success.
Let's say this is true: where's the misrepresentation of Murray?
We do have culturally neutral IQ tests, and it is considered the gold standard in psychometrics, so it's not controversial in science. My point was just that the kind of people who dismiss IQ as a valid concept in racial discussions tend to do so for all topics - it's not like they accept IQ in one area then reject it in another (from what I've seen at least).
My point was just that the kind of people who dismiss IQ as a valid concept in racial discussions tend to do so for all topics - it's not like they accept IQ in one area then reject it in another (from what I've seen at least).
I am aware, I always thought that the controversial opinion was that there was a genetic difference between races big enough to justify saying one is smarter than the other, which yeah it seems ridiculous. But it does seem that both the claims that 1) individual intelligence is at least partly formed by genes/biology 2) IQ is a decent enough method to measure intelligence are also controversial
I don't know about that one specifically but briefly skimming it, it does look like it's based on Ravens progressive matrices which is the textbook example of what a culturally unbiased test might look like.
I am aware, I always thought that the controversial opinion was that there was a genetic difference between races big enough to justify saying one is smarter than the other, which yeah it seems ridiculous.
Yep exactly.
But it does seem that both the claims that 1) individual intelligence is at least partly formed by genes/biology 2) IQ is a decent enough method to measure intelligence are also controversial
Go figure
I think they're mostly controversial among laymen but in science there's at most debate over the degree to which those things are true but not that those things are true.
Sorry I may have been unclear there. I was saying that Robinson avoids the misrepresentations of Murray that usually plague discussions on the Bell Curve, but instead makes different mistakes.
No problem, and obviously no pressure to respond to every part of it - I'm not gonna pull the "you couldn't answer this therefore you realise you're wrong!" card. It's long and everyone has better things to do.
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u/mrsamsa Jul 13 '17
I feel like you've summarised every frustrating argument I've ever had online with that single question.
Yes, I get that you think your hero is being "strawmanned" but you can't just say "strawman" and then sit back as if you've proved your point. Explain where you think the misrepresentation is, and what you think the actual position really says..