I think Handle has assumed too much by Kling's "Like" but he is exactly right to complain about "thinly disguised racial essentialism." As I have no idea how to access Loury's intro and preface without getting the book, I had to use Google to get a better idea on essentialism. If it does indeed focus on the innate, that's not the same as…
I think Handle has assumed too much by Kling's "Like" but he is exactly right to complain about "thinly disguised racial essentialism." As I have no idea how to access Loury's intro and preface without getting the book, I had to use Google to get a better idea on essentialism. If it does indeed focus on the innate, that's not the same as a realism that includes culture. Note that a racial essentialist could be a realist but a realist does not have to be an essentialist.
It's possible I assumed too much, and if so I deserve Arnold's harsh correction and clarification should he wish to provide one (it's his place, he has every right to do whatever he wants.) I also admit that who 'likes' which comments is a petty thing to get worked up about. I found it surprisingly out of character; I would have expected a line like that to have spoiled the 'likability' of the comment.
I suspect there is a disconnect in meaning and intention here. On the one hand there is the perfectly reasonable position, "One should not *immediately jump* to genetic causes, *to the exclusion* of environmental causes, every time one is trying to explain some new observation of a major disparity between ethnic groups." That's fine, at least, so long as it is paired with "Likewise, one should not *immediately dismiss* genetic causes and dogmatically insist that all big, bad disparities are mostly environmental."
I think Loury and those like him are trying to smuggle in a *different* position, but under the guise of the reasonable one above. The position that one should *only* look for non-genetic explanations, and perhaps only propose or accept genetic explanations reluctantly and in desperation as a last resort when all other attempts have failed, is very distinct from the one above.
For one thing, as experience of decades and millions of examples have taught us, the non-genetic explanations quickly migrate to unfalsifiable territory where no one ever has to admit they fail. And if they haven't 'failed' anyone who proposes or accepts genetic explanations for anything is doing so not reluctantly, but, because 'prematurely', intentionally, i.e. they are a bad evil bigot moron hater, etc., etc. and you shouldn't listen to them, or even allow them to speak in a place where others could listen to them.
This is "Loury's axiom". It is of course no 'axiom' but just an arbitrary rule of ideological constraint on epistemic investigation which in practice operates as a thumb on the scale ensuring the the only possible conclusions one can draw are politically correct, but alas, not factually correct. Stripped of its purportedly nice intentions, it is just a new version of "'Shut Up!' he explained."
My guess is that someone who is in the favor of the former position is very tempted to support the second position, because, given how the second position is expressed in a confusing and misleading way, it's very easy to mistake it for the same thing. But it's not. The reason I ask people to express these ideas in their own, simple words is because, when you pull the sheepskin off, whoops, turns out it's a wolf.
I think Handle has assumed too much by Kling's "Like" but he is exactly right to complain about "thinly disguised racial essentialism." As I have no idea how to access Loury's intro and preface without getting the book, I had to use Google to get a better idea on essentialism. If it does indeed focus on the innate, that's not the same as a realism that includes culture. Note that a racial essentialist could be a realist but a realist does not have to be an essentialist.
It's possible I assumed too much, and if so I deserve Arnold's harsh correction and clarification should he wish to provide one (it's his place, he has every right to do whatever he wants.) I also admit that who 'likes' which comments is a petty thing to get worked up about. I found it surprisingly out of character; I would have expected a line like that to have spoiled the 'likability' of the comment.
I suspect there is a disconnect in meaning and intention here. On the one hand there is the perfectly reasonable position, "One should not *immediately jump* to genetic causes, *to the exclusion* of environmental causes, every time one is trying to explain some new observation of a major disparity between ethnic groups." That's fine, at least, so long as it is paired with "Likewise, one should not *immediately dismiss* genetic causes and dogmatically insist that all big, bad disparities are mostly environmental."
I think Loury and those like him are trying to smuggle in a *different* position, but under the guise of the reasonable one above. The position that one should *only* look for non-genetic explanations, and perhaps only propose or accept genetic explanations reluctantly and in desperation as a last resort when all other attempts have failed, is very distinct from the one above.
For one thing, as experience of decades and millions of examples have taught us, the non-genetic explanations quickly migrate to unfalsifiable territory where no one ever has to admit they fail. And if they haven't 'failed' anyone who proposes or accepts genetic explanations for anything is doing so not reluctantly, but, because 'prematurely', intentionally, i.e. they are a bad evil bigot moron hater, etc., etc. and you shouldn't listen to them, or even allow them to speak in a place where others could listen to them.
This is "Loury's axiom". It is of course no 'axiom' but just an arbitrary rule of ideological constraint on epistemic investigation which in practice operates as a thumb on the scale ensuring the the only possible conclusions one can draw are politically correct, but alas, not factually correct. Stripped of its purportedly nice intentions, it is just a new version of "'Shut Up!' he explained."
My guess is that someone who is in the favor of the former position is very tempted to support the second position, because, given how the second position is expressed in a confusing and misleading way, it's very easy to mistake it for the same thing. But it's not. The reason I ask people to express these ideas in their own, simple words is because, when you pull the sheepskin off, whoops, turns out it's a wolf.