There is a lot more debate, or at least debate between people I have heard about, on hereditatrianism. It is getting rancorous and I am finding that part unpleasant. There is no practical reason why I need to follow the debate, I am just fascinated by it and have been for a few decades. But I am also only in it for pleasure now, and can drop it if it is less...fun...entertaining...something. I don't need the grief. But I will continue following it for now. I usually put up posts on controversial topics if I mostly agree with them, less often if they are simply interesting new looks. But I am duty bound to post more of both sides on this one now, because of my own uncertainty. I will say that there is not only new evidence, but new arguments on the field, and keeping up will mean some updating for everyone.
I won't hit you with all of them at once. There was ACX on 12/3, two mixed in today and 2.5 tomorrow. After that we'll see.
The return of psychiatric eugenics Thomas Reilly at Rational Psychiatry shows how it is not only a hateful idea, it won't won't work. It's been tried. Sasha Gusev, who I have not been fond of, gets this one exactly right, so perhaps I am on my way to revising my opinion about him.
Twins Reared Apart Do Not Exist Another essay attacking one of my central hereditarian beliefs. We'll see if the ground continues to shift.
Europe is Under Siege I wanted to argue with parts of this, but some of it is uncomfortably true.
Of course motherhood drives the gender wage gap by Ruxandra Teslo. Lyman Stone gives credit to Camille Landais and Henrik Levin rather than Claudia Grondin for the heavy lifting on this, even though Grondin won the Nobel Prize for it.
1 comment:
I'm glad you report on the blow-by-blow so I don't have to read the originals. My main observation is that the environmentalists are more fanatical than the hereditarians and this suggests more politics and emotion on the environmentalist side. Hereditatians since Galton have admitted a substantial environmental contribution, and hereditarian purists are extremely rare. Environmentalists since Boas have been, as I read them, far more absolutist in their claims. I also note that many hereditarians admit that they would like to be wrong because environmentalism gives more grounds for hope, but I have never once heard an environmentalist say that he wishes hereditarianism was true.
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