Multiculturalism has failed.

[Guest Raidne]

Only a scientist would, at this particular point in history, say that there even are "correct ideas."

It's interesting that there has been such a cultural break between scientists and everyone else. I've never understood the whole "science is our God" thing before, but I think I get why people make such a point of saying this now.

Ent, just a nitpick, but nobody believes in cognitive indistinguishibility between individuals, such that grouping that with cognitive indistinguishibility between populations looks like a shady rhetorical trick, IMHO.

[Happy Ent]

Ent, just a nitpick, but nobody believes in cognitive indistinguishibility between individuals, such that grouping that with cognitive indistinguishibility between populations looks like a shady rhetorical trick, IMHO.

You didn’t really think me above those, did you?

But I maintain that lots of policies are built on cognitive indistinguishability between individuals. It’s a widely accepted benevolent untruth. Whether anybody believes in it is not important.

[Altherion]

Red Sun, I agree with you 100%. Things are certainly more or less true in history. And, by the way, a skeptic would say that there's no truth in anything, and maybe we just do the best we can by using the three legs of Plato's tripod put forth in the Theaetetus - stipulation (i.e. "actually, I'm going to designate this as the 'starting turtle'"), empiricism, and logic.

But in our particular historical moment, this isn't the culture (as Ent and Altherion have aptly demonstrated). In our cultural moment, math and science seek "truths" and nobody - in science, anyway - cares about these skeptical objections.

We do care. Perhaps "truth" as I have been using it is not the correct thing to say -- I agree that we can never actually be sure we have found it. However, would your skeptic disagree that the Copernican heliocentric universe was closer to the truth than the geocentric theory before it and that Kepler's refinement (ellipses, not perfect circles) is even closer and general relativity is closer still?

But in the liberal arts and some of the social sciences, people do care. Post-modernism is inherently skeptical. So it's a strange split. And so we have scientists that are derisive of not only the liberal arts, but also the social sciences, while they totally ignore any skeptical critiques of their own disciplines, and they get away with it. Because they make stuff that works, that has improved our lives in a multitude of meaningful ways.

More or less. The skeptical critiques are not ignored, they just aren't acted upon because it is not clear what the critics want us to do. The philosophical games are amusing and they are correct, but they're unhelpful: they do not suggest an alternative course of action (except of course for saying things more carefully).

And so we worship science, and let the "hard scientists" take a piece out of other disciplines (even when, say, they are demonstrating a total lack of knowledge on the subject they are criticizing and probably don't even know what the top-ranked peer review journals or best respected-disciplines in the social sciences are).

Alright, enlighten me: what do you think the top-ranked peer review journals and best respected disciplines are? I do not study the social sciences. In fact, the few papers that I have read in detail are related to debates on this board. One of them was actually published in Nature and not only had a remarkably lousy understanding of statistics, but when a few years later somebody called them on it and asked to see the original data, it turned out that it had gone missing. More generally, the social sciences that we all study as part of history has almost inevitably tried to push an ideology without giving much consideration to how their ideas will work out (sometimes with disastrous results).

For now, anyway. It seems like there's a little bit of building resentment towards physicists in the air....we'll see.

You mean on this board, in academia or in society? I have not felt the latter.

[Aemon Stark]

You didn’t really think me above those, did you?

But I maintain that lots of policies are built on cognitive indistinguishability between individuals. It’s a widely accepted benevolent untruth. Whether anybody believes in it is not important.

Having just completed a rotation in pediatrics, I'm forced to ask just what "policies" you're talking about. If little Johnny is on the hyperactive side of normal, he may get labelled with ADHD, but his outcomes will have a lot less to do with a Concerta prescription and everything to do with whether his parents are well off professionals vs. separated and on social assistance. And of course he's more likely to be diagnosed simply by coming from more unstable social circumstances.

"Nature" isn't an unimportant determinant - especially when it's pathological - but "nurture" is fundamental. That's probably why "multicultural" countries that allow for easy integration and assimilation handle these things a lot better than Germany.

[Happy Ent]

That's probably why "multicultural" countries that allow for easy integration and assimilation handle these things a lot better than Germany.

Which countries? (Honest question—I finished a Spiegel article on failed German immigration policies that pointed to Sweden, of all places. Is Sweden an example such a country?)

And I though multicultural and "assmilation" were considered opposites in this thread? (Honest question again, because I don't have an easy time distinguishing these concepts.)

As for

Having just completed a rotation in pediatrics, I'm forced to ask just what "policies" you're talking about.

I am thinking chiefly of education. Unlike in medicine, "heritable diseases" don't exist in education.

[Aemon Stark]

Well, I suppose I meant Canada as well. This is a very long account of the history of multiculturalism in Canada, but I think this quote is most relevant:

When the policy was announced in 1971, the Canadian ethnic mosaic was still very much dominated by those of European heritage and was designed to recognize their contribution to Canada. However, as immigration to Canada from the developing world increased, the multiculturalism policy had to deal with the concerns of visible minorities. These new and emerging communities were less worried about recognition of their heritage in Canada. They looked to the multiculturalism policy, not for support of cultural enrichment but rather for aid in the elimination of racial prejudice and discrimination. They wanted to ensure equal access to jobs, housing and education.

The government responded. While it did not turn its back on the kind of culturally-based programming which dominated the early years of the multiculturalism policy, it did address issues important to the newer groups. In 1981, federal multiculturalism officials established a unit devoted to race relations in Canada. This was later expanded to make race relations a primary focus of the multicultural policy. Most provinces and many larger municipalities have followed suit within their areas of jurisdiction, primarily education, policing, social services and the protection of human rights. In Quebec, which still had difficulty with the term multiculturalism, the provincial government has developed its own programs in response to the new ethnic and racial reality. These programs are similar in many ways to those of the other provinces and the federal government. Today, most federal multicultural programs focus on institutional change, race relations and citizen integration and participation. The federal multiculturalism policy costs Canadians about one dollar each per year.

So what we have is not some sort of banal celebration of diversity but an explicit policy to promote integration among people who "look different". On balance, it's worked pretty well.

I am thinking chiefly of education. Unlike in medicine, "heritable diseases" don't exist in education.

A substantial component of pediatric practice is devoted to developmental and behavioural issues that relate to school performance. Still, what educational policies?

[Altherion]

In a sense, Altherion, the sentence I quote you for is exactly what authors like Thilo Sarrazin or Charles Murray seem to reiterate in their books: a society aligned with wrong ideas (for example, cognitive indistinguishability between individuals or populations) will cease to be successful. Deutschland schafft sich ab.

I would love this to be false.

I don't think it will necessarily cease to be successful, it'll just be less successful than it could have been. Societies can go on for a very long time without incorporating new ideas. After all, there are still some absolute monarchies around and while they lose a lot due to the inherent inefficiencies and inequalities of such a system, they have enough to still keep going. Societies that close their eyes to new ideas are very unlikely to be in the game for hegemony or be particularly nice to live in for most people, but they can exist and maybe even vie for regional dominance. For example:

Iran has imposed new restrictions on 12 university social sciences deemed to be based on Western schools of thought and therefore incompatible with Islamic teachings, state radio reported Sunday.

The list includes law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and the two subjects that appear to cause the most concern among Iran's conservative leadership — women's studies and human rights.

"The content of the current courses in the 12 subjects is not in harmony with religious fundamentals and they are based on Western schools of thought," senior education official Abolfazl Hassani told state radio.

Iran is clearly suppressing ideas its government finds unfavorable by force, but it is still a formidable power in the Middle East.

[Happy Ent]

Iran is clearly suppressing ideas its government finds unfavorable by force, but it is still a formidable power in the Middle East.

And what about those people who want more than 400 posts in a thread? They usually get censored by the fascists.

[Red Sun]

This phenomenon arises, for example, in debates about multiculturalism. Education is another example where the whole edifice is built on a factually wrong, but socially useful assumption of equality. So far, that seems to work out quite well. Blank Slate-based societies have won.

But Germany, is a bad example, since education in Germany is not based on the idea that everyone's abilities are equal. The three-type-school system with Gymnasium, Realschule and Hauptschule is based on the assumption of different abilities, and the few Gesamtschulen, schools that include all children, are far from a majority. There are a few alarming tendencies, however, I find it dangerous to conflate the problems of the school system and dropping quality of abilities unilaterally with the "integration debate". There might be a small overlap, but the qualitiy of education is a general societal problem.

I do sort of agree with you that I think education should offer a more varied range of methods to answer of different learning types. However, I also think it is necessary to encourage all people to be curious, to read and to form their minds, even if there will always be differences of abilities or if they can never become a genius, because we are still a literal society.

[Datepalm]

You are arguing against a position that nobody holds. Of course science is funded by society and it can slow it down by other means (e.g. burning people with new ideas at the stake). But, as I said before, all of this is only in the short term. In the long term, if some accepted idea is wrong, it will lead to inconsistencies in places which are not directly related and will eventually be corrected even if the scientific community or society in general greatly prefers the wrong idea. Unless you stop all studies, the truth will win out in the end.

How do you explain some scarily high proportion of citizens of developed nations firmly convinced that evolution is fake and the earth 6000 years old? The truth is out there, but it serves certain power structures to convince people of something else.

[Happy Ent]

I do sort of agree with you that I think education should offer a more varied range of methods to answer of different learning types.

More dramatically, I very much don’t want teachers reimbursed according to how good students “they produce.” It’s like paying doctors for the terminally ill nothing, and giving all money to the plastic surgeons. (This is only one example of how blank slateism as real, operational, and dangerous effects.)

[Shryke]

How do you explain some scarily high proportion of citizens of developed nations firmly convinced that evolution is fake and the earth 6000 years old? The truth is out there, but it serves certain power structures to convince people of something else.

Yes, but notably the scientists don't give a shit what those idiots think and have just continued on with their scientific endeavors.

[Happy Ent]

I always feel wicked and counter-cultural when posting over the 400 limit.

“I wonder when Dance comes out.”

[Altherion]

How do you explain some scarily high proportion of citizens of developed nations firmly convinced that evolution is fake and the earth 6000 years old?

Evolution does not yet have any applications that are immediately obvious to non-specialists and thus will take time to get all of society to accept it. This does not really matter -- the important opinion is not what the masses think, but that of the elite (the people who make laws and distribute funding).

[Datepalm]

Thread in Sin!

Evolution does not yet have any applications that are immediately obvious to non-specialists and thus will take time to get all of society to accept it. This does not really matter -- the important opinion is not what the masses think, but that of the elite (the people who make laws and distribute funding).

The creationist movement is clawing and snuffling its way down from the top.