“A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop”

Re:“A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop” by tptacek on Thursday June 11, 2015 @01:09AM (#9697725)

William Saletan does not hold that position. He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly. To argue that he agrees with you today requires you to argue that he wrote dishonestly. Were that the case, I'd have no reason to believe anything he wrote was in good faith. As it stands, the simplest explanation was: he was writing discursively, as an essayist; his ideas seemed good at the time; he was corrected; he changed his mind.

I also didn't call Saletan an idiot, obviously.

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Re:“A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop” by devalier on Thursday June 11, 2015 @02:25AM (#9697965)

OK, apologies for the misquote. Let me apply a patch to replace "yet he called Saletan an idiot for holding this third position" with "yet he called an article idiotic that provided supporting evidence for this position." The gist of my comment still stands.

"He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly"

Are you referring to this article? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... I read this as him downplaying the certainty of the genetic hypothesis, in order to get the heat off his back. It is pretty obvious he is scared at getting purged: "I don't want this role...You'll have to judge the evidence for yourself." It is not obvious that he changed his mind. And he apologizes for not disclosing Rushton's associations, not for citing Ruston. He doesn't make any claims that Rushton's studies were bad science that should not be cited. Again, sounds like non-apology apology to get the heat off his back. But I can't peer into Saletan's soul so I don't know.

I don't actually think Saletan's article is a great article. I'm lukewarm on how accurate Rushton's stuff is; I think other evidence for the hypothesis that Saletan leaves out is actually more compelling. But I don't think the article is idiotic either.

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Re:“A Statement with My View on Curtis Yarvin and Strange Loop” by tptacek on Thursday June 11, 2015 @11:48AM (#9700385)

If your argument requires us to stipulate that Saletan wrote something dishonestly, I'm not sure why I have to concede that the apology was the dishonest bit. Let's just conclude then that he's entirely untrustworthy and move on.

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