A couple of things with regards to this week’s toxic discussions on race and eugenics.
@TomChivers has written a typically insightful piece around the expression of controversial ideas:
1/n
bit.ly/38JTvd2
@TomChivers has written a typically insightful piece around the expression of controversial ideas:
1/n
bit.ly/38JTvd2
There are some things to add; the main one is that *facts are not context free*. They come with historical baggage of how those ’facts’ were generated, and how they were used. 2/n
It is not good enough to assert facts in relation to these types of issue without context, and Twitter is obviously a grim wasteland when it comes to complexity or nuance. 3/n
It is effectively an expression of privilege to assert ‘facts’ without context, or without acknowledging their history or genesis. To be tone deaf to or ignorant of the context of these types of idea is not intellectually good enough. 4/n
Furthermore, to subsequently opine about policy or social implications without considering that the consequences are not directed at you historically or in the present is deeply problematic. 5/n
The matters under discussion (eugenics, ‘race science’, IQ) have been part of the longstanding link between genetic determinism and enacted racism, and ht @daaronivich ‘the way in which in argument that element seeks to adopt the “just saying” mode of defence.’ 5/n
E.g. The efficacy of eugenics from an evolutionary point of view is a complex social and scientific question, because it requires definition of what eugenics is (which is not straightforward), and how it could be or actually *was* implemented. 7/n
#facts such as the attainment gap, or indeed the dominance of African American sprinters in the Olympics, should be the *beginning* of enquiry for the scientifically minded, not the end point. 8/n
Both of the above are incredibly context dependent and historically mediated (and need to be scrutinised scientifically anyway); expression of them without context is a recapitulation of pseudoscientific ideas from the birth of scientific racism 9/n
I've learnt a couple of things in the talks I’ve been giving around race: it’s all very well chuckling about a) how stupid white supremacists are and b) how ridiculous Voltaire/Linnaeus'/etc views on black people were, 10/n
but these were the basis for genocide not for white people, but for the ancestors and families of specific groups. I think the databros either don’t know or can’t process this as being as relevant to the ‘facts’. 11/n
Finally: ‘Facts don’t care about feelings’ is a really *really*, profoundly idiotic thing to say. 12/12
