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From: eric@snark.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,sci.bio
Subject: Stupidity about intelligence
Message-ID: <126@snark.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Jun-87 21:30:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: snark.126
Posted: Tue Jun 16 21:30:26 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Jun-87 01:11:18 EDT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Organization: Thyrsus Enterprises, Malvern PA 19355
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Xref: utgpu talk.politics.misc:3082 sci.bio:387
Summary: closed minds see what they want to see

In response to my posting on the heritability of intelligence, an irate
netter I shall spare embarrassment by leaving unnamed sent me a flame by
e-mail. It unintentionally illustrates the exact points I moved this
to talk.politics to see explored. I will quote it in its entirety here.

>Perhaps you should stop to consider that the "data" you are basing your
>intelligence postings on is based on Cyril Burt's fraud.

I am well aware of Burt's fraud. You are making a completely unwarranted
assumption here. More recent studies (cited in _The_Mismeasure_Of_Man_)
have turned up the sorts of correlations I describe. Gould's attempt at
refutation *doesn't* challenge the recent data; it depends on a philosophical
criticism of factor analysis.

[don't go away yet, this will get interesting in 4 paragraphs or so]

>  I also doubt that anyone
>has a satisfactory definition of "intelligence" yet, let alone a method
>for testing it--your postings have cleverly ignored most of the controversy
>in this area as well.

You should learn to pay more attention to what you read. I specified that
the 'intelligence' I was describing was a statistical composite of the
results of standardized acuity tests. Yes, I skipped over the details.
This was not because of any reluctance to admit or debate the issues
involved, just because it's been a while since I read anything in the area.

>I suppose intellectual honesty is too much to expect from a USENET
>poster--but it would make an entertaining change.

I suppose a careful reading and reasoned reactions are much to expect from a
USENET reader--but it would make an entertaining change.

[here's where it gets interesting]

Really now. That was gratuitous of you. It looks as though you saw
'intelligence' and 'heritability' in the same paragraph and charged like
a bull at a red flag. Read my lips: I am not a neo-Nazi, nor an apologist for
Cyril Burt and his sorry elitist ilk. I *am* a fascinated collector of Damned
Things -- facts that the sciences (for which I have enormous respect)
cannot acknowledge for political or social reasons. Biology is full of them.

Here's another one (yes, this is a test of your mental flexibility). Do
you know that matings between Kalahari Bushmen and non-Bushmen are
generally infertile? And that the Bushmen have significant, grossly detectable
morphological differences from homo-sap-elsewhere including a region in
the gluteal muscles adapted like a camel's hump for storing water?

Can you say 'different species'?

There. I'll bet you're reacting to that as though I'd written 'inferior
species'. Sigh. That's why that fact is a Damned Thing. Some people never
learn...
-- 
      Eric S. Raymond
      UUCP:  {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax}!snark!eric
      Post:  22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355
      Phone: (215)-296-5718