Leftist projection about political bias

Projection is so rife among Leftists that seeing what they say about conservatives is a handy guide to what is true about them. And nowhere is that more evident than in the various discussions about IQ. Quite plainly, what Leftists say about the subject is guided by their "all men are equal" ideology rather than by the facts. Their stance has everything to do with ideological bias and has only an incidental concern with the facts.

So what do they do when non-Leftists confront them with the facts? They accuse their opponents of ideological bias! -- as we saw in Metcalf's recent attack on Saletan. Saletan himself could not readily be accused of much but someone he quoted (Rushton) has some association with people who believe that racial differences are widespread (which makes them "racists" in Leftist parlance) so that was enough to throw all Saletan's pesky facts onto the trashheap. Logicians call such reasoning an ad hominem fallacy. A popular description of it is "playing the man and not the ball".

So the Leftist argument is that pro-racist bias completely discredits any facts you put forward but anti-racist bias makes whatever you say virtuous. Logically, however, if ideological convictions in a writer make anything he says of no worth then it is writers like Metcalf and Flynn who should be dismissed from consideration.

The underlying argument of course is that Leftists are immune from blame because of their "good" intentions but it would be naive indeed to accept their own claims of that sort about themselves. Judging by their results across history worldwide their intentions are in fact destructive. "By their fruits shall ye know them". What Leftists pine for is revolution, and, as Friedrich Engels said: "Revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon"

Be that as it may, however, the logic remains that judgements based on the facts are going to be much more reliable than judgments based on the apparent good or bad character of the arguer. The world would be a con-man's paradise if all that mattered was the apparent good character of someone! And following Leftist logic, bad character would equally be a foolish guide. Hitler liked dogs so liking dogs would be disgraceful! Maybe even dogs would be condemned!

I notice that Saletan does not seem to have been up to making the ancient points I have put up immediately above. His response to Metcalf's attack on Rushton was to apologize for not mentioning Rushton's associations! What he should have said to Metcalf is: "I don't see any problem in referring to someone with opposite biases to yours. The truth is probably best ascertained by hearing from both sides".

At least Saletan did not back down completely. He merely apologized for not including mention of Rushton's associations rather than condemning Rushton's work outright. I myself know very little about Rushton beyond what I read of his work in the academic journals. And to get that work published it has to pass peer review -- i.e. Rushton's work has to be passed as properly reasoned and accurately analysed by experts in the field. Rushton could of course still be making things up but most of the data he uses is publicly available -- so it is not amenable to that. And I have heard no claim that any of his findings are unreplicable. Rushton's work is in fact high-quality orthodox science and Saletan was right to refer to it.

For all I know Rushton f*cks bicycles in his bedroom every night. That has nothing to do with the quality of his published academic journal articles. His articles must be judged in their own right. John Nash (of "Nash equilibrium" fame) was as mad as a hatter but he still got a Nobel for the brilliance of his economic reasoning.


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