Shocking questions. Should scientists refrain from studying topics for fear of PC (political correctness)? Is political correctness more important then finding the scientific truth about important issues of our modern life (crime, intelligence, scientific and economic progress, etc.).
Though we disagree with the idea of censorship, we thank Nature Magazine for bringing out the issue into the open.
This is much better then Canadian law, where even the discussion of censorship is censored by hate speech laws. See Canada
NATURE Magazine Has A Poll (That You Can Vote In!) On "Taboo Genetics"
Probing the biological basis of certain traits ignites controversy. But some scientists choose to cross the red line anyway.
Erika Check Hayden
02 October 2013
Scientists cited or quoted include Steve Hsu, Geoffrey Miller, Christopher Chabris, Francis Galton, Robert Plomin, and Bruce Lahn.
And here is Nature’s tut-tutting editorial:
Behavioural geneticists must tread carefully to prevent their research being misinterpreted.
Here are the four questions in Nature’s poll.
-
Should scientists refrain from studying the genetics of intelligence?
-
Should scientists refrain from studying the genetics of race?
-
Should scientists refrain from studying the genetics of violence?
-
Should scientists refrain from studying the genetics of sexuality?
Human-Stupidity has described politically correct censorship in academic research about Domestic violence, Race and IQ, childhood sexuality (Rind study, child sex trauma myth).
The left half of the Bell Curve
Southeast Asians have repeatedly launched murderous pogroms against the Overseas Chinese who dominate their economies, such as in Indonesia in 1998. African-Americans burned down hundreds of Korean stores in South Central L.A. in 1992. Fijians, Ugandans, and Trinidadians have all tried to oppress the more clever Asian Indians in their midst. The Turks killed huge numbers of Armenians in 1915. And from 1933 to 1945 the Germans eliminated most European Jews, at a time when German Jews were the best-educated ethnic group in the world. (The Nazis banned IQ tests specifically because Jews outperformed gentile Germans.)
Thus the truly unmentionable Unpleasant Fact today is not that blacks have mean IQs well below the white average. It’s that other groups have mean IQs well above it.
This censorship may be prudent. But it is crippling American intellectual discourse.
more about
Feminist speech codes:
Should the BBC be paying the wages of a sexist dinosaur?
Andy Murray: nobody made any comments about HIS looks during Wimbledon
and nobody will be attacked or fired if s/he does!