Re:Is there a general factor of intelligence?
by runarberg on Friday March 25, 2022 @02:49PM
(#30805748)
You are doing the very thing you are accusing Gould of doing. Rebutting a claim based on the fact that the person making that claim was wrong in an unrelated claim. This is called an ad-hominen fallacy.
You might be right that Gould was a fraud, however you still have to show that his claim about the fact that intelligence isn’t normally distributed is wrong. In fact the burden of proof is kind of weird here, since assuming a normal distribution is a pretty strong assumption, and rejecting that assumption based on a lack of evidence should be enough. However Gould goes further and cites evidence that intelligence has a pretty skewed distribution.
If you want to reject Gould’s claim here, then do so. Don’t just say he’s a fraud and then assume his wrong about everything.
You might be right that Gould was a fraud, however you still have to show that his claim about the fact that intelligence isn’t normally distributed is wrong. In fact the burden of proof is kind of weird here, since assuming a normal distribution is a pretty strong assumption, and rejecting that assumption based on a lack of evidence should be enough. However Gould goes further and cites evidence that intelligence has a pretty skewed distribution.
If you want to reject Gould’s claim here, then do so. Don’t just say he’s a fraud and then assume his wrong about everything.