From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Wed Jan 27 1999 - 22:31:49 MST
hal@rain.org wrote:
> [Steven Jay Gould] He has been
> one of the main opponents of the view that IQ is largely hereditary,
> which he also sees as leading to racism...
there is a logical error called the argument of irrelevance (if i remember
my college logic class correctly) wherein one argues that concept
x cannot be true because the consequences of x are unacceptable.
after reading murray and herrnstein's bell curve, then sjg's rebuttal
to it, i suspect he and others might argue against murray and herrnstein
on the basis that it leads to racism. the fact that the concepts found
in the bell curve may lead to racism is entirely irrelevant to the
question of whether or not the concepts are true.
the concepts i refer to are two: 1. iq is a real quantity, and 2. it is
inheritable.
looks to me like these two concepts lead to not only racism,
but in fact could eventually lead to race war, which is truly bad,
however, the two concepts seem correct to me. thoughts? spike
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