As the prior threadmakes clear, distinguishing between genetic and environmental causes of intelligence is immensely complicated—especially given the confusion over what intelligence is.
However, it is well known that people don’t like being told that they’re statistically less likely to be intelligent. There are actually a fair number of studies showing that promoting stereotypes can actually reduce test scores. This is called “Stereotype Threat”. While there is a recent meta-study which claims that the effect is an artifact of publication bias, that study had not been published when Grace wrote her email.
Grace (a) has no new data, and (b) has no new arguments. When she makes the claim that the search for evidence that the race-iq correlation is not genetic has been “unsuccessful”, she hurts people. But she does not, in return, contribute anything at all to the discourse.
She cannot even claim the virtue of curiosity—note that her open-mindedness extends to the idea that African Americans might be as smart as whites, but not to the idea that they might be smarter.
Someone whose grasp of evidence is that weak, should not be working in the law.
Should someone who callously performs any act which she knows or should know will cause harm to people without any offsetting benefit, should probably be publicly shamed.
Execute by Default: +3 in limited circumstances. I used this (without realizing it) when bungee jumping, and when learning to do drops in aerial silks. I should try it other cases.
Resolutions: −3. Ineffective, and made me feel like a failure.
Utility Function Experiment: +1 -- briefly effective but not long-term (context: using ChoreWars for exercise motivation).
Structured Procrastination: + 2 -- when I remember to do it, and when I have a good long todo list. Especially helps get cleaning done.
Every Other Day Off: +1 -- my variant is to have a lot of vacation relative to most Americans. This does seem make me more productive at work. I would probably be even more productive if I took more time off.
Being Watched: +4 -- for me, that’s not general watching, but pair programming. You can’t check time-wasting sites if you’re at one machine with someone else who is expecting you to actually work. On the other hand, I am extremely introverted, so it uses a lot of energy for me even with a very low-impedance person like my present partner.
Close the Dang Browser: +1 (works occasionally) -- but perhaps will work better now that I have removed the icons too. I think I should also try bookmarking sets of tabs so that I can more easily close without losing state.
Cripple your Internet (editing /etc/hosts, for me): +2 but I need to keep adding sites, including, embarrassingly, the coral cache version that I have used to get around my crippling.