Is scientific objectivity really part of the left-right debate?

From Andrew Sullivan's latest …

Has Ezra Klein lost his mind?

The much-anticipated podcast discussion between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein, though frustrating at times, was nonetheless clarifying in one core respect. Klein doesn’t believe you can discuss the latest scientific arguments about genetics, environment, and IQ without integrating an account of the historical and political context that surrounds them. That means, for Ezra, that any contemporary discussion must defer to the context of the history of white supremacy, and its nefarious abuse of science, and thereby be deemed guilty of racism until proven innocent. What Harris is insisting on, in contrast, is that the science is the science regardless of history, and you can discuss that separately from a discussion of social policy or the past, and that, in scientific debate, the race and gender and identity of the participants are irrelevant, and only the arguments matter.

This is, in fact, a central question being debated right now in our culture — far beyond the race and IQ debate. Much of the left now holds that structural racism/sexism et al. is so overwhelming that it pollutes the exercise of reason itself.

I sit somewhere on the left's spectrum, probably farther to the left than most. Nevertheless I agree with Sullivan — and Harris — on the absurdity of clouding scientific objectivity with "historical and political context." Honestly derived facts are facts, notwithstanding preceding "structural" power differentials. Being honestly derived — i.e., assuming they are — they are also subject to change, of course, as fresh, countervailing evidence emerges. Changes in scientific opinion are often painful, laborious things, as any reading of physicist and science historian Thomas Kuhn's work reveals. But given honesty of the process, changes indeed come in the now-famous form of "paradigm shifts."

My problem with Sullivan's conspectus, however — again, one I mostly agree with — is the impreciseness of his phrase, "Much of the left now holds …"

How much is much? I certainly agree that historical power differentials and their effects on scientific opinion are taught (rather tediously, insofar as their pedagogical repetition is tedious) in college courses and seminars from what can fairly be called a leftist point of view. But do graduated leftists at large walk about burdened by, and hopelessly affixed to, these teachings? No doubt some do, but "some" do not constitute "much," or the equally troublesome "many." In fact I as well as Sullivan have no percentage whatsoever in mind when we throw around words such as much — and in this case, I suspect much isn't much.

As a leftist, I for one see scientific objectivity shorn of past cultural-historical contexts as no part of the left-right debate. Am I in the leftist minority? Or majority? You got me. And I would have Sullivan, were I to press him on it. Nonetheless the general assumption prevails.

 

Comments

[Jason]

Correct. However, I’m perfectly comfortable saying that, “Much of the right now holds that science, especially concerning the environment, is just a liberal conspiracy.” In other words, when it comes to discussing scientifically established fact, the left ain’t who you need to be worrying about,

[Max]

But by their not understanding or trying to understand statistics, to name one problem, much of the left are engaging in their own anti-intellectualism. In the past the ceded knowledge of national security issues in he same manner and thus took themselves out of the discourse entirely.

[Max]

This is one debate where most of them are mostly wrong because they are mostly ignorant. I agree with PM on his strict reading of Sullivan but only strictly here. Sullivan has an absolutely shameful history here and still has his tongue stuck up Charles Murray's ass. Sullivan doesn't understand statistics. Klein has become exasperating and lost me a couple years back when he wrote it was fine to punish innocent college boys falsely accused of sexual wrongdoings. ... because the current narrative is more important. Speaking as a parent of a college boy, fuck you, Ezra. He's doing the same thing here.

[Peter G]

This has been going on for a while.
There's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9FGHtfnYWY which I do not seriously expect anyone to watch. I did, live, because this debate occurred at my Alma Mater in the hall where I received my diploma and about two hundred feet from where I studied for years. The Engineering building is next door.

Now Rushton was an academic producing just the sort of science Harris thinks should be acceptable if scientifically sound despite the icky funding sources for his research (white supremacists). And Suzuki took the Klein position. Frankly Suzuki was a terrible choice for this debate and did a terrible job. He missed the point that I longed to get up on the stage and make for him.

It is useless science. Now Rushton found ordinal rankings by race and they probably didn't please his funders. He put Asians ahead of Whites. Blacks,of course, were last. The question is, if you did find statistical differences by race for something called IQ what could you do with it? Can you use it in court to help make a conviction? Or mitigate a sentence? Can you use it to judge a candidate for employment standing before you? Can you use it to make social policy and discriminate against an individual on this "scientific" basis? You're an idiot if you do or believe that is possible.

The same people who pursue these scientific investigations on race also note differences in gender too. What are you going to do with that? Use it to reverse the enfranchisement of women? I can think of no more useless pursuit than this science. But by all means pursue it if you want. Who do you think you will convince that they are inferior and thus worthy of being discriminated against?

[S Comstock]

Debates like this are at once infuriating and boring to me. Like men arguing about the appropriate punishment for a legal health care procedure (which they will never confront on a personal physical basis), what is the point of ranking different races on intelligence? In Charles Murray's case, he is advocating for not helping poor people, because in the long run, nothing can help them. I guess. I didn't read or listen to Ezra Klein about this, except for excerpts. I cannot read Andrew Sullivan these days (surprised he didn't work Hillary into this latest essay). Here's Matt Yglesias, someone I disagree with half of the time, but I think he mostly gets this right:
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17182692/bell-curve-charles-murray-policy-wrong

Sue n Seattle

[Marc McKenzie]

"Sullivan has an absolutely shameful history here and still has his tongue stuck up Charles Murray's ass."

Yep. The sad fact is that Harris has chosen to stick his tongue up there too.

[Max]

Thank you on several fronts. This Yglesias piece slipped by me, and it is an excellent Murray take-down. When Yglesias is good he's good, and he put a great deal of thought into this piece. Yglesias' thinking is far more clear than Klein. I too have gotten sick of this discussion.

It's not reported enough that when Charles Murray, growing up in lily-white Iowa, was 14 years old, one night he burned a cross on a black family's lawn. A fair amount has been written about this incident, and Murray says all the right contrite things. Two points:

- Child psychologists will tell you it is not necessarily alarming if your four year-old is caught pulling wings off flies, but a twelve year-old with this behavior is a red flag;

- Charles Murray grew up to be exactly the person one would expect, at age 14 burning a cross on a black family's lawn.

I scan Sullivan on Fridays just to keep score of his Hillary Derangement Syndrome.

Too bad so many won't tackle the statistics. Does anyone cite here how when real statisticians got ahold of the original data from The Bell Curve, they showed quite precisely how Murray and Richard Herrnstein (co-author) manipulated the data. No, scratch that - they lied about the data. Someone needs to get in the trenches and slug it out with these fuckers. Klein and the rest are too afraid of the statistics to do that.

I bet the whole DNA ancestory front is the final blow to the relationship between race and IQ. But by all means bring it on. Not Klein, not Sullivan; obviously not Murray are having honest discussions here. Yglesias does this without knowing the statistics so we'll take the half a loaf for now.

[Max]

Thanks; I find Harris so toxic in just about any forum I avoid him at all costs. So thank you for this observation. Sue in Seattle has an excellent post below.