I find this article to be riddled with questionable statements, judgements, and explanations. The argument schema is that “X is prominent where Y would be better”—but in most cases, it’s not at all clear that Y would be better, or that the explanation for X’s prominence is correct. In some cases, the triumph of Y would be in the author’s self-interest, in other cases I think it’s just that he’s not aware of alternative considerations or perspectives.
Let’s start with the claim that rule by scientists and economists would be better than rule by politicians and lawyers. I see this as self-interest, or even as the vanity of believing that one’s own group—here, rationalists and quantitative thinkers—is generally superior. Politicians have people skills and lawyers know how the system works, both attributes which are actually needed to run a government well. At its worst, a government by number-crunching intellectuals would be an ineffectual technocracy, first trying to reshape the world according to the wacky theories of academics, and then helpless when a mob of pitchfork-wielding villagers show up, wanting to kill the monster.
It’s funny that in one paragraph, we hear that science is frequently dysfunctional, and then a few paragraphs later, that scientists should be in charge. So maybe it’s only the right sort of scientists who should be in charge. Someone else remarked that parapsychology is hardly a good example of what is prominent in science; parapsychologists are shunned like creationist biologists, as pseudoscientists. So, just as the item about politics can be read as a statement that “people in my cultural group should be running everything”, perhaps the item about science can be read as a statement that “stuff like parapsychology shouldn’t exist at all!” Certainly, the remarks about journals which achieve prominence because they have low quality control and so get to publish the breakthroughs, seems like pure mythmaking, a “just-so story”; I can’t think of a single journal which matches that description—and there ought to be a dozen such journals, if this really is the basic explanation for the existence of bad science in print. In the real world, breakthroughs tend to be achieved by quality people and published in quality journals which everyone reads because they are known to have high standards. Bad journals may provide a space in which bad science gets to see print, but they aren’t “widely read and widely cited”.
The argument that having five girls for every boy would be better for the species is new to me. Obviously this is sexually appealing for males, so we can count this as another case in which the supposedly all-around-better situation conveniently happens to be better for the author’s specific group. Despite the evo-psych opinion that women want quality rather than quantity in a mate and that they are more bisexual than men, the odds are that women would be personally worse off in such a world. However, what is asserted here is that this 1:5 sex ratio is evolutionarily superior to the 1:1 ratio, because the population grows and adapts faster. That is a very dubious assertion. It’s often said that the 1:1 regime works through a functional division in which males are a reservoir of genetic variance and female choice of mates provides a selective filter. Maybe in reality the mate selection by both sexes is equally important, but for different traits. In any case, I don’t see the knockdown argument in favor of 1:5, once you take sexual selection into account.
Politicians have people skills and lawyers know how the system works, both attributes which are actually needed to run a government well.
As an example, consider Laplace, one of the cleverest mathematicians in history, who got fired from his ministry position after six weeks.
Geometrician of the first rank, Laplace was not long in showing himself a worse than average administrator; since his first actions in office we recognized our mistake. Laplace did not consider any question from the right angle: he sought subtleties everywhere, only conceived problems, and finally carried the spirit of “infinitesimals” into the administration.
The argument that having five girls for every boy would be better for the species is new to me.
I’ve seen it in a lot of places; it works better for species where male parental investment is minimal (which isn’t as true for humans). Even then, the “good of the species” math and the “good for my line” math point in different directions.
I find this article to be riddled with questionable statements, judgements, and explanations. The argument schema is that “X is prominent where Y would be better”—but in most cases, it’s not at all clear that Y would be better, or that the explanation for X’s prominence is correct. In some cases, the triumph of Y would be in the author’s self-interest, in other cases I think it’s just that he’s not aware of alternative considerations or perspectives.
Let’s start with the claim that rule by scientists and economists would be better than rule by politicians and lawyers. I see this as self-interest, or even as the vanity of believing that one’s own group—here, rationalists and quantitative thinkers—is generally superior. Politicians have people skills and lawyers know how the system works, both attributes which are actually needed to run a government well. At its worst, a government by number-crunching intellectuals would be an ineffectual technocracy, first trying to reshape the world according to the wacky theories of academics, and then helpless when a mob of pitchfork-wielding villagers show up, wanting to kill the monster.
It’s funny that in one paragraph, we hear that science is frequently dysfunctional, and then a few paragraphs later, that scientists should be in charge. So maybe it’s only the right sort of scientists who should be in charge. Someone else remarked that parapsychology is hardly a good example of what is prominent in science; parapsychologists are shunned like creationist biologists, as pseudoscientists. So, just as the item about politics can be read as a statement that “people in my cultural group should be running everything”, perhaps the item about science can be read as a statement that “stuff like parapsychology shouldn’t exist at all!” Certainly, the remarks about journals which achieve prominence because they have low quality control and so get to publish the breakthroughs, seems like pure mythmaking, a “just-so story”; I can’t think of a single journal which matches that description—and there ought to be a dozen such journals, if this really is the basic explanation for the existence of bad science in print. In the real world, breakthroughs tend to be achieved by quality people and published in quality journals which everyone reads because they are known to have high standards. Bad journals may provide a space in which bad science gets to see print, but they aren’t “widely read and widely cited”.
The argument that having five girls for every boy would be better for the species is new to me. Obviously this is sexually appealing for males, so we can count this as another case in which the supposedly all-around-better situation conveniently happens to be better for the author’s specific group. Despite the evo-psych opinion that women want quality rather than quantity in a mate and that they are more bisexual than men, the odds are that women would be personally worse off in such a world. However, what is asserted here is that this 1:5 sex ratio is evolutionarily superior to the 1:1 ratio, because the population grows and adapts faster. That is a very dubious assertion. It’s often said that the 1:1 regime works through a functional division in which males are a reservoir of genetic variance and female choice of mates provides a selective filter. Maybe in reality the mate selection by both sexes is equally important, but for different traits. In any case, I don’t see the knockdown argument in favor of 1:5, once you take sexual selection into account.
I could question some of the other items too.
As an example, consider Laplace, one of the cleverest mathematicians in history, who got fired from his ministry position after six weeks.
I’ve seen it in a lot of places; it works better for species where male parental investment is minimal (which isn’t as true for humans). Even then, the “good of the species” math and the “good for my line” math point in different directions.