The media spent a lot of time discussing Palin’s intelligence presumably because many voters cared about it.
I agree that “political disagreement puts us in a situation where our biases are even less under control than usual” but additional information could reduce these biases. The situation under PitMK isn’t hopeless.
Lots of Republicans thought that Bill Clinton was a sociopath. Let’s say he was. PitMK would make it challenging for Democrats to see this. But if an analysis of Clinton’s genes showed that a child born with his genes had a 70% chance of being a sociopath then I doubt Clinton would have won the Democratic party nomination.
The media spent a lot of time discussing Palin’s intelligence presumably because many voters cared about it.
Not because the voters cared about her intelligence per se, but because demonstrating that she’s a moron constitutes an argument the Republicans can’t easily defend against. It was pretty obvious that Palin isn’t exceptionally intelligent—far more obvious for a typical voter than any DNA test could be—and still the debates weren’t any less irrational than usually.
I would also expect soon emergence of social defense mechanisms against such tests. Saying that somebody is probably an idiot based on her genetic background is like saying somebody is probably a criminal based on his being black. You can expect counterarguments like
people are born equal and nobody is responsible for his genes
discrimination based on DNA test is unfair, because there will necessarily be some non-morons harmed by such a practice
well, even if it is 99% sure that she’s a moron, there still is a 1% chance that you can’t neglect, so the whole probability argument is worthless
People struggle to get Bayesian probabilistic arguments to work in courts where many bias avoiding mechanisms are already employed. In politics, even the most obvious everyday rational arguments don’t work regularly. To expect a fairly abstract argument based on numerical probabilities obtained by a method which almost nobody understands to be persuasive in a heated political debate is naïve.
Also worth noting: A candidate who has views I disagree with is even MORE dangerous if they’re intelligent. Genes demonstrating intelligence would only really affect things at the primaries, where you’re choosing which candidate will best represent your views.
The media spent a lot of time discussing Palin’s intelligence presumably because many voters cared about it.
I agree that “political disagreement puts us in a situation where our biases are even less under control than usual” but additional information could reduce these biases. The situation under PitMK isn’t hopeless.
Lots of Republicans thought that Bill Clinton was a sociopath. Let’s say he was. PitMK would make it challenging for Democrats to see this. But if an analysis of Clinton’s genes showed that a child born with his genes had a 70% chance of being a sociopath then I doubt Clinton would have won the Democratic party nomination.
Not because the voters cared about her intelligence per se, but because demonstrating that she’s a moron constitutes an argument the Republicans can’t easily defend against. It was pretty obvious that Palin isn’t exceptionally intelligent—far more obvious for a typical voter than any DNA test could be—and still the debates weren’t any less irrational than usually.
I would also expect soon emergence of social defense mechanisms against such tests. Saying that somebody is probably an idiot based on her genetic background is like saying somebody is probably a criminal based on his being black. You can expect counterarguments like
people are born equal and nobody is responsible for his genes
discrimination based on DNA test is unfair, because there will necessarily be some non-morons harmed by such a practice
well, even if it is 99% sure that she’s a moron, there still is a 1% chance that you can’t neglect, so the whole probability argument is worthless
People struggle to get Bayesian probabilistic arguments to work in courts where many bias avoiding mechanisms are already employed. In politics, even the most obvious everyday rational arguments don’t work regularly. To expect a fairly abstract argument based on numerical probabilities obtained by a method which almost nobody understands to be persuasive in a heated political debate is naïve.
Also worth noting: A candidate who has views I disagree with is even MORE dangerous if they’re intelligent. Genes demonstrating intelligence would only really affect things at the primaries, where you’re choosing which candidate will best represent your views.