Your post reminds me that this research seems to miss another way that people delude themselves: persecution-complexes.
Once you believe that others want to do bad things to you for your beliefs, you become far more entrenched. And ridiculous exaggerations such as yours allow you to more fully insulate yourself from facts: because you're under attack and your freedom is at risk, you have to protect yourself from these terrible people, and therefore, their beliefs.
>So why don't people "believe" in climate change? Because they realize it's a political, not a scientific, topic. It has winners and losers to the order of trillions of dollars.
How can you possibly say it's 'not scientific' when it's entirely scientific. The responses to climate change are political, but the topic itself is minimally political.
But you do enforce the point that people will cut themselves off from reasoning logically, if the conclusion is one they don't want to face. If your political buddies may be hurt, one is much more likely to fight the truth.
My favorite example of this is how the left attacks and ostracizes those who dare to oppose the gay rights agenda in any way (two examples which immediately spring to mind are [1] [2], but there are many more).
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
I could go on at length about the importance of defending someone's right to state unpopular opinions even (or perhaps especially) if you disagree with them, but I hope HN'ers are smart enough to fill in the details of that argument themselves.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same-sex_marriage_c...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membershi...
Well done.
The topic becomes political the moment it has political ramifications. The bigger those ramifications are, the more of a political topic it is.
The parent knows it is a scientific topic, but when it's brought up, it's likely not. When it's argued, it's likely being argued by people who arn't looking at evidence, but looking at effect.
Because it's a truthclaim that's outside of the ability of science to test, short of jesus coming back to earth with his fairy wand to endow you with platonic (and measurable) definitions of race, intelligence, average, and genetics. Whatever definitions you choose there is going to be some difference, even if that difference is zero, but that difference is going to differ wildly depending on what definitions you choose.
By the way, when I was younger and there was very little immigration here in Italy, I looked around me and saw people - whole families - with blond hair, with dark hair, with red hair. I saw people (and families) with blue eyes, green eyes, hazel eyes. I saw very tall people, very short people, very smart people, pretty dumb people. And there were people with very pale skin, medium skin, and pretty dark skin. So, how many "races" where there already?
I'm under the impression that, when you talk about race, you really mean something like breed[1]. But there isn't selective breeding in humans - at least, that I'm aware of.
So, the question is not moot. If you have to define "race" scientifically, how do you go about it?
I honestly can't tell if you are joking or not.
There is, however, a systemic bias tied to things like skin color, or accent, and not at all associated with the ability of such applicants to do well in the institution. As a result of this systemic bias, applicants that would, were they white, be admitted in a heartbeat, are judged significantly more critically, so we attempt to correct this problem by giving them more 'points' or whatever in the admission process for possessing physical attributes that incorrectly hold them back.
I'm not sure what other system you would propose in such an environment?
Oh. Then please provide the list asked for, and while you're at it, list the genes and loci you use to classify members of a "race".
I mean, if human "races" are not a matter of belief but are a matter of science, that should be really easy for you and the parent commenter.
Right?
Ask any university humanities department whether their African-American Studies program isn't just as bogus as a Unicorn Studies program since neither group actually exists, and see what they say.
Ask the US federal government what categories they include on the census under "race".
Ask a liberal supporter of minority business set-aside programs for a list of who these so-called "minorities" are. Are they proposing setting aside contracts for businesses run by left-handed people, or do they have a different set of categories in mind? Ask them for their list of who should be given preference over whom.
To top it off, your first example is incredible. Universities usually lump all Asians into one category though most people would consider an Indian and a Japanese person to be of different race. If that is your list, you have done your argument a grievous injury.
There are different races in the sense that there are different colors on the visible electromagnetic spectrum. There is no "correct" categorization on the spectrum itself, but you can observe clearly different clusters in many situations. Take all the red, green, and blue elements from several video monitors and graph their frequencies and despite that fact that there is a lot of diversity, there won't be a uniform distribution. Three clusters will be easily visible, and you can call them clusters red, green, and blue. In the application, unlike the theoretical spectrum, these categories do exist.
History has clustered human beings, too. Nobody here really denies that humans have descended in a complex tree with lots of crossovers. There is no right way to categorize all leaves of the tree itself into sharp "races". Even so, historical accident has resulted in a lot of clustering of genetic affinity where members of a cluster share lots of relatively recent common ancestors but have mostly very distant common ancestors with members of other clusters. The fact that there are individuals of all sorts on the human tree doesn't mean that there is no clustering.
So Han Chinese, Central American Indians, Northern Europeans, and West Africans diverge long ago and don't intermix genetically for a thousand generations, then history brings them together recently in the Americas where they begin to interbreed.
Nothing wrong with that (at least IMO). Eventually this interbreeding may reduce the clustering to mere random clustering, but today there are still strong, clear clusters of genetic affinity. You can call the clusters races or call them foo, but they aren't just figments of the imagination. The admissions department at Stanford has no difficulty in most cases distinguishing an Indian from a Japanese by genetic affinity with other members of these groups. Whether they then make that two different racial preference categories or assign them to the same "Asian" group is just identity politics.
Instead I'll go for the route of scientific analogy. If dogs have races, why wouldn't humans? After all, humans are not biologically above or separate from animals. Why would basic evolution stop applying with humans?
Mind you, the existence of races doesn't have to imply inferiority or superiority between them. People seem to be afraid that would happen, so they throw the baby out with the bathwater by denying the whole concept of race altogether. Much like the article says.
Also, since the invention of boats and planes, humans have been interbreeding like crazy, so it's pretty much ceasing to matter.
Of all the injustices in the world, extra scholarships for racial minorities hardly seems like a high priority, though. I'd rather cut through the Gordian Knot with free education for all (not as an entitlement, but rather as an investment).
We're about 1.5 generations away from race not mattering at all; young people simply don't care. Like so many vestiges of the old world, race-based entitlements will eventually disappear.
Where I disagree with you is that while science can uncover issues (such as global warming or gmos) that can be politicized, that doesn't mean that the underlying questions are somehow no longer scientific. Politics can't compete. Sorry.
This is the problem with reifying "science". Even the "scientific method" itself - as in the way that it is practiced - is suspect. Why are certain conventions of running null controls the ones that are accepted versus others? Why in some instances is "eliminating variables" good (I often take the position that if you can consistently measure a result under sloppy conditions that means it's robust)
Scientists are from all walks of life and funding comes from many different sources.
>Who gets to publish results so they can be peer-reviewed?
I think this is how it works... Anyone with a paper can submit it to a journal, then the journal decides if they are going to publish or not. There are many journals with different amounts of specialization and reputation.
> Who sets the "consensus" about if a "model makes a prediction". Who gets to decide whose opinions are included and disincluded in this consensus?
You will find the answer to those questions in the definition of the word "consensus".
> What is the punishment for making an incorrect prediction? Do you get to be disincluded from "consensi" for a spell if you get it wrong?
Its kind of like other communities (including this one)... the better your reputation the more seriously people take your input.
If you have a better approach to understanding the universe, I am extremely interested in what it could be. I do like the idea of open journals (aaron swartz style), but i honestly don't know what the ramifications would be.
So in subtle (and usually insignificant but always nonzero ways) politics can creep into these "measurements".
Because it is not a scientific statement.
So why don't people "believe" in climate change? Because they realize it's a political, not a scientific, topic. It has winners and losers to the order of trillions of dollars. Science can't compete. Sorry.