Godfree - like most of the standard talking points, that is emphatically dealt with in the long essay that is linked to above, which you apparently haven't read ....
Kent - I am pretty sure that Hanania knows that such critiques exist, and I'm also sure that the rhetorical slipperiness is deliberate on his part. I don't think that is true of Bryan Caplan, whose views are, as best as I can tell, honestly arrived at if bizarre and often offensive. For what it's worth, I will also say that he's very far from stupid, and he has changed his mind on things in the past. Perhaps he'll change on this.
I'm always down for a good Dan Davies quotation, but there is another economist whom you might have invoked: "Suppose someone sits down where you are sitting right now and announces to me that he is Napoleon Bonaparte. The last thing I want to do with him is to get involved in a technical discussion of cavalry tactics at the Battle of Austerlitz. If I do that, I'm getting tacitly drawn into the game that he is Napoleon Bonaparte."
Anyway, I don't agree that Hanania's premises "seem superficially reasonable." It aggregate, they may make an imposing chorus, but when examined individually, none of them can withstand scrutiny - as you have just demonstrated. And I reflexively examined them individually as I read them.
Am I hopeless naive to be optimistic, believing that it is possible that our Mr. Hanania is a fair-minded, reasonable individual who will be interested to learn (no doubt for the first time) that these critiques exist? And that perhaps he will read them and learn some things? And that a lot of liberals out here (like me) don't know that these critiques exist, and can also learn from them. (Which I did, and will continue to; thanks for the links.)
I feel like one thing I'm learning of late, from so many different sources, is that "we" -- by which I mean social scientists, but also sadly hard scientists -- really know almost nothing about, well, anything. There's (a) the inability to use statistics correctly; (b) the incredible ability to mis-use statistics via p-hacking etc.; and (c) the total lack of funding/institutional support/interest from the public in double-checking scientific conclusions.
I always enjoy reading people like Bryan Caplan and Eliezer Yudkowsky, because they give the impression that they know many things. They define themselves as rationalist heroes up against the myth- and prejudice-infected hordes, and they spin a good yarn. But ... it seems clear that a lot of what they think they know, they don't actually know. The yarn becomes less entertaining when you begin to suspect it's being knitted into a scarf to be placed over your eyes.
All of which is a very long-winded way of saying ... thanks very much for this post, Henry.
Godfree - like most of the standard talking points, that is emphatically dealt with in the long essay that is linked to above, which you apparently haven't read ....
Kent - I am pretty sure that Hanania knows that such critiques exist, and I'm also sure that the rhetorical slipperiness is deliberate on his part. I don't think that is true of Bryan Caplan, whose views are, as best as I can tell, honestly arrived at if bizarre and often offensive. For what it's worth, I will also say that he's very far from stupid, and he has changed his mind on things in the past. Perhaps he'll change on this.
IQ appears to have more predictive power than almost any metric.
Tell me your child's IQ and I'll tell you how her life will work out.
Tell me your national IQ and I'll tell your country's GDP/capita.
I'm always down for a good Dan Davies quotation, but there is another economist whom you might have invoked: "Suppose someone sits down where you are sitting right now and announces to me that he is Napoleon Bonaparte. The last thing I want to do with him is to get involved in a technical discussion of cavalry tactics at the Battle of Austerlitz. If I do that, I'm getting tacitly drawn into the game that he is Napoleon Bonaparte."
Anyway, I don't agree that Hanania's premises "seem superficially reasonable." It aggregate, they may make an imposing chorus, but when examined individually, none of them can withstand scrutiny - as you have just demonstrated. And I reflexively examined them individually as I read them.
Am I hopeless naive to be optimistic, believing that it is possible that our Mr. Hanania is a fair-minded, reasonable individual who will be interested to learn (no doubt for the first time) that these critiques exist? And that perhaps he will read them and learn some things? And that a lot of liberals out here (like me) don't know that these critiques exist, and can also learn from them. (Which I did, and will continue to; thanks for the links.)
I feel like one thing I'm learning of late, from so many different sources, is that "we" -- by which I mean social scientists, but also sadly hard scientists -- really know almost nothing about, well, anything. There's (a) the inability to use statistics correctly; (b) the incredible ability to mis-use statistics via p-hacking etc.; and (c) the total lack of funding/institutional support/interest from the public in double-checking scientific conclusions.
I always enjoy reading people like Bryan Caplan and Eliezer Yudkowsky, because they give the impression that they know many things. They define themselves as rationalist heroes up against the myth- and prejudice-infected hordes, and they spin a good yarn. But ... it seems clear that a lot of what they think they know, they don't actually know. The yarn becomes less entertaining when you begin to suspect it's being knitted into a scarf to be placed over your eyes.
All of which is a very long-winded way of saying ... thanks very much for this post, Henry.