1) As far as I can say, Freund is the only one who has compared gay men’s and straight men’s physiological reactions to underage stimuli. But he conducted the comparison more than once, and never found a difference between the groups.

2) The conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia lies in the belief that gay men are more likely to be interested in children and, therefore, to molest them. Well, if gay men are shown to be no more affected by stimuli depicting children and adolescents than het men, then there’s no space to argue they’re more likely to be pedophilic, i.e., more likely to be interested in children, right? (Since this kind of assessment does show differences between child molesters and non-child molesters in their reactions to adults and children.)

Many other researchers who have experienced with the penile plethysmograph, such as Ray Blanchard, Michael Seto, Bill Marshall, etc., besides Freund himself, have also documented that men who molest boys are not attracted to adult males: mostly, they either have an exclusive attraction to children or they have a heterosexual preference. Therefore, according to at least one set of assessment, men attracted to adult males (i.e., gay men) are not overrepresented amongst child molesters.

Is there a good refutation of this anywhere?

There is. This issue was studied by Dr. Kurt Freund by means of phallometric tests (psychophysiological tests that measure sexual arousal). In many of his studies, Freund compared non-criminal heterosexual and homosexual men in their reaction to adults, teenagers, and children of both genders. He found that homosexuals were no more aroused by depictions of children or teenagers than heterosexuals.

Yes, after geocentric astronomers had observed the planets apparently zig-zagging back and forth across the sky for a few hundred years they were in a position to predict the way they would go on zig-zagging in the future. But we discover new heavenly bodies all the time whose movements, once speed and distance have been established, we accurately predict on the basis that they are, in fact, orbiting the sun. Would the geocentric model - with its assumption that planetary bodies sometimes change course for no apparent reason - allow us to do so without decades or centuries of observation?

By the way do you prefer the heliocentric model to the geocentric one? If so, why?

Due to the way geometry works, you can define any point as the central point of a 3-D system. The equations are easier for some things, and harder for others, if you stipulate the sun as the center rather than the earth–but you can accurately describe the motions of the planets in either case.

Extending my prior remarks: “black people are less intelligent than whites” is not like “winter has more sunlight than summer”; it is like “squares are more down than figures with sides”.

I know Feyerabend denies it - I want to know why you apparently think he has a case for doing so.

Might I repeat my question: What does the geocentric model of the solar system allow us to correctly predict which the heliocentric system doesn’t?

If the answer is “nothing”, then it’s probable that it is precisely the predictive power of the heliocentric hypothesis which led to it’s being adopted, right?

[...] when we came to accept the heliocentric and reject the geocentric view of the solar system, we didn’t do so because we were following a fad of fashion. Rather, it became apparent with the passing of the years, the development of astronomical instruments and the accumulation of data that the heliocentric hypothesis was indeed the better, the more reliably predictive one.

This is precisely what Feyerabend denies. I guess you ought to read Against Method.

All the arguments I’ve seen against that proposition are either of the form “intelligence cannot be meaningfully and specifically enough described and measured to make any usefully true statement about it” or of the form “race cannot be meaningfully and specifically enough described and determined to make any usefully true statement about it”. Neither of those objections makes the statement false; they make it utterly useless.

These ideas are beyond the pale because of that interaction. These ideas are demonstrably false, so people who labor under those delusions are generally not people who I have a desire to be talking to. Either they’re ignorant (sometimes correctable, but one has to be in the mood to do so), or more likely they’re attached to social inequality and have chosen to believe demonstrably false theories so they can create a psuedo-scientific cloak for their racism and homophobia.

First of all, I don’t recall saying blacks are less intelligent than whites, which I also believe is a thoroughly silly idea. I believe this for a variety of reasons, many of which have been addressed in this thread. I think it is highly likely that certain traits definitely have genetic linkage, but the idea of “intelligence” is such a complex, ill-defined concept that in the end everything comes out in the wash. But the reason that 2 is incorrect is a lot more complex than the reason that 1 is.

However, the point that I was trying to make was not that one shouldn’t engage [insert crazy argument here]. It was that there are limits to what “science” can and cannot tell us. Merely asking if there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia suggests that some sort of objective science can provide an objective answer to a complex social issue. I did not intend to get into a conversation about hysterical “what ifs”, per se, as you fourth point suggests.

I suppose this is a case of perspective. I apparently find this conversation less fresh than you, and I have less frequently come across a conversation that discusses the difficulties of using science to influence social policy and the consequences that arise from that, particularly on issues of equality. Clearly you have more exposure to that.

The extrapolation of data is essential when discussing “good” science v. “bad” science and the paradigm shifts that happen around new theories. Tests measure distinct parameters. And clearly compiling of data in a particular way can manipulate the apparent “results”, as you are undoubtedly well aware of and is particularly easy to do in the social sciences where it is unethical to take children from their parents and raise them under controlled conditions.

But scientists don’t sit around pulling parameters out of the air and seeing if they are linked. As a long as there are racists and homophobes there will be racist and homophobic hypotheses. And Rich B., above, is right: merely refuting studies as being poorly designed does little to persuade someone that their preconceived notion is wrong. And the bias of the scientist can go both ways; a non-racist scientist may be motivated to find racial equality by downplaying certain differences in a given parameter that they might be inclined to accept if said parameter had no racial implications.

Now I guess I’m confused as to why these two positions, as political positions, are beyond the pale? Is it because they are demonstrably false claims or is it because they are repugnant in their implications to a diverse society with metaphysical notions of equality? I believe that the latter is more important to freedom than the former.

None of the Above: What I.Q. doesn’t tell you about race.
by Malcolm Gladwell

http://tinyurl.com/yvg85g

Using the “R” word (which I didn’t in this case) will get you labeled the most prolific racist which will then be tagged onto some unflattering photo of yourself and posted with your name all over the internet. Just fallout from when my elected official publicly called me a racist because I said one of the subcommittees of the elected body was for White men only after a senior Latino elected official was passed over for a just-sworn-in White man on a body that’s seniority based. So locally, there’s been a lot of discussion including online on the issue.

This in my opinion isn’t bannable if it were my decision for beyond the pale as a topic, but it does cause one to ask, is it worth engaging? Sometimes, maybe. Other times, it’s not.

Both insults rely on comparing people to something else. The person is supposed to be insulted by the comparison. This means that the thing they’re bieng compared to is being constructed as a bad thing to be.

A paramecium is non-human. Retarded people are an oppressed group.

It’s the same reason why it’s not okay for me to say about George Bush “He’s such a girl” or “He’s so gay.” The problem wouldn’t be that I was insulting Bush, it’d be that I was insulting women and homosexuals by implying they’re something it’s bad to be.

One side uses science to bolster their bigoted agenda and the other side uses science (or lack of rigorous data or proper controls, etc.) to disprove that bigoted agenda. But that loses sight of the reasons why we treat people equally. Furthermore, what is statistically significant is not necessarily socially significant. I don’t think we should forget this. If I write a paper demonstrating that it we could reduce our reliance on foreign oil by burning the homeless, the proper response is not to attempt to demonstrate that burning the homeless won’t have an impact or that it will increase greenhouse gases. The proper response is, um, we don’t burn people for fuel, dickwad.

Eh.

First, there are plenty of places all over the internet where people can go for that kind of refutation. I have no intention of being another one of them, and certainly not at times when I don’t take that mantle on deliberately.

Second, there are plenty of places where that refutation has been made — and solidly, despite your suggestion that the science on whether black people are less intelligent than white people is less solid. Sincere people have opportunities to view those proofs. This place does not need to be one of the places that offers them.

Third, there are plenty of positions that neither I nor anyone else is expected to engage with thoughtfully. If someone says — as people occasionaly leave comments saying on this blog, particularly if Amp o rRachel S. has been linked by a white power site — something like “Jews are taking over,” I have no need to respond to that paranoid, baseless rambling. I don’t calmly explain the history of Jewish oppression; I don’t calmly explain that we aren’t reptilians; I don’t calmly illuminate the ways in which Christians have control of the country.

“Blacks are less intelligent than whites” is a thoroughly disproven, thoroughly racist, thoroughly silly idea. It may under some circumstances be useful to engage it with certain people — which, of course, is not ruled out in a post which merely says that one is not *obligated* to engage it. It is also sometimes useful to engage the arguments of David Icke. The fact that only one of these ideas wears a mantle of thoroughly disproven science doesn’t make it a better argument or deserving somehow of more respect, and certainly not from me or in this place.

Fourth, I’d like to point out that this has been an interesting conversation thus far. And the conversation that dwelled on “But but but… WHAT IF!” and civility would have been boring. It would have all looked like this post, and whatever your reposnse is to this post. I’ve read that conversation 50 times on the internet. This conversation I’ve only had about 6 times in the classroom. So sure, neither is new territory, but at least I have the feeling that people are learning from each other in this one.

Your viewpoint isn’t baseless. It’s probably even true; that’s what the preponderance of evidence suggests, racist reductivist attempts aside. But if you’re looking for scientific evidence to support your belief, you need to keep one thing in mind: you cannot describe a complex system in a simple way.

Thank you for your full response. I am still, however, looking for that “base” for my non-baseless belief. While I can accept that my view of equality is not baseless, it is essentially baseless TO ME because all of the non-racist stuff I’ve read (primarily The Mismeasure of Man and responses to The Bell Curve, but other shorter pieces as well) fits the form of criticism of racist pseudo-science — not original science or secondary sources explaining good original science.

I — personally — do not believe in racial intelligence stereotypes because that’s what my parents taught me to think, and I haven’t seen any good science that would lead to believe that what my parents taught me on the subject was false (unlike, say, their claims regarding the extreme health benefits of red meat.)

I guess I’m having a “There but for the grace of” moment, imagining a counterfactual world in which my parents were racists and raised me with the same racist views, and realizing that the literature I have read on the subject might not be strong enough to push me away from that view, either.

Proof that a given study purporting to support my beliefs is flawed is not sufficient to get me to change my beliefs.

Proof that something can’t be measured scientifically (like, say, the relative quality of Mozart and Brahms) will not be sufficient to make me give up my preference for Mozart and accept that Brahms was equally talented. The are many things in the world that are (a) not subject to scientific measurement; and (b) nonetheless true.

It’s not astrology; this stuff can be measured, and conclusions can be drawn from the data. But not simply. And the results will never be something we can reduce to a quick soundbyte.

And this is what I simply do not see. It sounds like your view is that good science is being done, but not being adequately publicized or well explained. If the stuff is being measured, and there are conclusions being drawn of racial equality or comparability, where is the newspaper headline? Where is the equivalent of “The Mismeasure of Man” that focuses on the good measurements and conclusion? It seems like a quick and oversimplified soundbyte of “New Study Shows All Races Have Same Intelligence” that doesn’t give enough attention to all the caveats and footnotes should be just as easy to produce as the opposite type, with the added advantage of it being (at least superficially) TRUE.

So if you believe that homosexuality is linked to pedophilia and that whites are more “intelligent” (whatever that means) than blacks, you are a shit-covered paramecium. This is probably accurate. But what if you are right? If “science” demonstrates that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia, does that mean gays should be jailed or denied parenting rights? What if we somehow, miraculously, come up with a culturally unbiased, absolutely accurate test for a universally agreed upon definition of intelligence and it turns out that blacks actually are less intelligent than whites? Does that mean it is ok to not admit blacks into medical school?

The two positions both demonstrate the desire to correlate neutral phenomena (sexuality and race) to negative phenomena (child abuse and stupidity). The correct response should be “so what?”

A more tangible example along these lines is gay marriage and parenting and domestic situations of gays. I consider it likely that there might be some slightly significant increase in domestic violence in gay couples, probably due to equality of physical stature (dunno, just throwing hypotheticals). That, of course, would be no reason to deny gays marriage any more than it would be reason to deny blacks car insurance if they, as a group, got into more accidents.

One side uses science to bolster their bigoted agenda and the other side uses science (or lack of rigorous data or proper controls, etc.) to disprove that bigoted agenda. But that loses sight of the reasons why we treat people equally. Furthermore, what is statistically significant is not necessarily socially significant. I don’t think we should forget this. If I write a paper demonstrating that it we could reduce our reliance on foreign oil by burning the homeless, the proper response is not to attempt to demonstrate that burning the homeless won’t have an impact or that it will increase greenhouse gases. The proper response is, um, we don’t burn people for fuel, dickwad.

This is most likely true, but I was discussing a hypothetical non-racist society, and in such a society, the “dominant group” would not be a particular race.

I meant dominant in the numerical sense, not the political/power sense. Sorry, should’ve been clearer. But what I mean is, even if/when racism is removed, society will almost never contain exactly-equal proportions of people of different races (unless the melting pot from hell comes along and makes us all uniformly beige). Test designers aim for the “norm” — that is, whatever the majority of the population needs/does. If Latinas/os eventually become the largest subpopulation US society, test designers who want to be statistically correct will re-norm their tests, and that will inevitably cause the test’s “standard” measurements to shift toward the new Latina/o norm. *That* isn’t politics, just the way the math works.

Granted, there might suddenly be a large sub-subpopulation of bakers among the Latinas/os, which could skew results toward a “baker norm”. Which, I firmly believe, will be a great day for America. (Mmmm… flan…)