Human Stupidity: Irrationality, Self Deception » controversial topics

Bruce Rind Study: Scientific Publications Condemned and Repressed by US Congress and Senate

Devils Advocate — Sat, 01 May 2010 05:26:33 +0000

One of the most prestigious peer reviewed research journals of the American Psychological Association published a meta-research (an overview of lots of other research papers) with disturbing findings. Result: the US Senate and US congress condemned the Research. After all, the preconceived notions behind our criminalization of Teenage Sexuality must not be disturbed.

Disclaimer: The issue here is repression of research and denial of the truth. One still may defend the laws as they are, but should not repress free research that could challenge one’s personal political opinions.

http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2002/decjan/silenced.html

Another clash between highly charged political rhetoric and scholarly discourse concerned Associate Professor of Psychology Scott Lilienfeld. It began with a 1998 paper in Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association (APA). Temple University’s Bruce Rind and two colleagues had conducted a review of quantitative literature, finding a weak link between childhood sexual abuse and later psychopathology. Radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger blasted the article as an effort to normalize pedophilia. Both houses of Congress passed resolutions condemning it, and finally, the chief executive of the APA wrote that the findings “should have caused us to evaluate the article based on its potential for misinforming the public policy process. This is something we failed to do, but will do in the future.”

Lilienfeld submitted an article to another APA-sponsored journal, American Psychologist, criticizing the apa’s capitulation to political pressure. The protests and their impact, he argued, detract from scientists’ ability to report their findings without undue interference, undermining all research on controversial topics.

Lilienfeld’s article, titled “When Worlds Collide,” was reviewed and accepted for publication following revisions to “tone it down.” It was slated to appear in the June 2001 issue. On May 10, however, Lilienfeld received a letter from the journal’s editor. “My article had now been unaccepted for publication,” Lilienfeld says. “He asked me to write an entirely new article removing all material dealing with the Rind et al. article and its aftermath, which amounts to about 60 percent of my article.”

Facing strong protests from the psychology community and some negative press, American Psychologist agreed to publish the article in a special section, along with several commentaries, in the December 2001 issue, at the earliest. “The APA never acknowledged that something was seriously amiss, even though it was clear that this action was politically motivated,” Lilienfeld says.

See also the excellent article by Wikipedia on Bruce Rind controversy

The authors’ stated goal was “…to address the question: In the population of persons with a history of CSA [child sexual abuse], does this experience cause intense psychological harm on a widespread basis for both genders?” Some of the authors’ more controversial conclusions were that child sexual abuse does not necessarily cause intense, pervasive harm to the child;^[3] that the reason the current view of child sexual abuse was not substantiated by their empirical scrutiny was because the construct of CSA was questionably valid; and that the psychological damage caused by the abusive encounters depends on whether the encounter was consensual or not.^[1]

Rind et al. concluded with a statement that even though CSA may not result in harm, this does not mean it is not wrong or morally repugnant behavior and denied that their findings implied current moral and legal prohibitions against CSA should be changed.^[1] Numerous pro-pedophile advocacy organizations have quoted the paper in support of their efforts to lower or rescind age of consent laws, and defense attorneys have used the study to argue for minimizing harm in child sexual abuse cases.^[4]^[5]Wikipedia on Bruce Rind

Race differences in intelligence: how research changed my mind to overcome the “all races are equal” dogma.

Against Irrational Unconscious — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:09:34 +0000

I grew up indoctrinated by political correctness. Like a large part of citizens in Western countries I was brainwashed: Races do not exist, all are equal. Saying anything different, saying that there are racial differences, is racism, a crime.

Read this, everything you need to know about scientific research about racial differences: RACE, EVOLUTION, and BEHAVIOR: A Life History Perspective, by J.P. Rushton

In school I heard disparaging remarks about Artur Jensen and other “unscientific” “dishonest” “cheating” scientists doing faulty research about race differences.

The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray actually looked fairly convincing to me, but if even President Bill Clinton denounced it, there must be something wrong about it.

There always was some complex theory to explain away the IQ differences:

different culture
parental expectation
mother’s malnourishment
IQ measurements are racially and culturally biased

Adopted Children's IQ by Race

My opinion changed when I read about trans-racial adoption studies. That was the last drop that really disproved all these desperate attempts to explain away racial differences in intelligence.

“The best evidence for the genetic basis of race-IQ differences comes from trans-racial adoption studies of Oriental children, Black children, and Mixed-Race children. All these children have been adopted by White parents at an early age and have grown up in middle-class White homes.”

Chart 9 summarizes the results for Oriental children adopted into White middle-class homes.
Korean and Vietnamese babies from poor backgrounds, many of whom were malnourished, were adopted by White American and Belgian families. When they grew up, they excelled in school. The IQs of the adopted Oriental children were 10 or more points higher than the national average for the country they grew up in. Trans-racial adoption does not increase or decrease IQ. The three-way pattern of race differences in IQ remains.”

In plain English: adopted Asian babies grew up to be very bright, adopted black babies grew up to have low intelligence.

One more desperate argument that was posed to save the “racial equality” dogma:

They claimed “expectancy effects,” not genes, explained the pattern. They argued that the Black and White children were not treated the same. Even if parents took good care of their children, the schools, classmates, and society as a whole discriminated against Black children and this hurt their IQs. Because we expected Black children to do poorly in school, they lived up to our low expectations.”

Even that argument got promptly destroyed. Rushton:

A special analysis of the Scarr study compared parents who believed that they had adopted a Black baby but, really, had adopted a Mixed-Race (Black-White) child. The average IQ for these Mixed-Race children was just about the same as for other Mixed-Race children and above that for adopted Black children. This was true even though the parents who adopted these Mixed-Race children thought their babies really had two Black parents.

Quotes and chart from RACE, EVOLUTION, and BEHAVIOR: A Life History Perspective, by J.P. Rushton

That did it for me. It destroyed my ingrained indoctrinated beliefs that all races must be equal. It opened up my mind to the possibility that there could be racial differences.

Before we go on, may I stress a few more points

I have no axe to grind against blacks. I am not interested in proving that blacks are stupid or inferior. I am not a white supremacist
I have an axe to grind against dogmatism, blindness, stupidity. I have an axe to grind against the catholic church for repressing Galileo’s truth about the moving and revolving earth. And I have an axe to grind about political correctness repressing the truth, repressing research.
This site is about human stupidity versus truth and consciousness
Rushton, though much maligned, is not some crazy cook but one of the most prestigious research scientists to date: Rushton holds two doctorates from the University of London (Ph.D. and D.Sc) and is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American, British, and Canadian Psychological Associations. He is also a member of the Behavior Genetics Association, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, and the Society for Neuroscience. Rushton has published six books and nearly 200 articles. In 1992 the Institute for Scientific Information ranked him the 22nd most published psychologist and the 11th most cited. Professor Rushton is listed in Who. Some of Rushtons scientific publications can be found on his University page: http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushton_pubs.htm

Summary of Racial differences

Racial differences summarized (J.P. Rushton): Why does history show Africa trailing behind Asia and Europe? Why do Whites average between Orientals and Blacks in so many areas? Why do the groups with larger brains have lower rates of two-egg twinning? To know the answer you must look at all of the traits taken together (see Chart 1). The traits in Chart 1 form a pattern. No known environmental factor can explain all of them taken together. There is, however, a gene based explanation. The patterns make up what is called a “lifehistory.” They evolved together to meet the trials of life -- survival, growth, and reproduction.

Then of course, the non-scientific “evidence”, the hearsay, the anecdotal evidence, our daily experience, suddenly made sense:

The Whites who explored China were just as racist as those who explored Africa, but their descriptions were different from what they and the Arabs had written about Africans. In 1275 Marco Polo arrived in China from his native Italy to open trade with the Mongol Empire. He found that the Chinese had well built roads, bridges, cities connected by canals, census takers, markets, standardized weights and measures, and not only coins, but paper money as well. Even a postal system was in existence. All of these made him marvel when he compared the Chinese to what he saw in Europe and the Middle East.
Even though he was an Italian, proud of his people and well aware of the greatness of Ancient Rome, Marco Polo wrote: “Surely there is no more intelligent race on earth than the Chinese.”

In amazing ways, Rushton forms a coherent picture to make sense of all the racial differences shown in reasearch. Some differences are biological and can not be talked away by simple psychobabble or sociology-babble.

In a few cases medical treatment and medication showed racial differences. which proves a real quagmire for race equality dogmatist. Should they talk away and hide the differences as racist and cause medical malpractice and suffering for black patients? Or should they accept the scientific facts and actively promote racial analysis of medical studies and see their beloved pet dogma undermined?

Rushton’s book sums up the relevant research. Please forgive me for always quoting Rushton, incessantly. Nobody can say it better, nobody summed up the entire field in a more concise and coherent manner then Rushton.

Many statistics in Chart 1 come from the United States, where Orientals are a “model minority.”
They have fewer divorces, fewer out-of-wedlock births, and fewer reports of child abuse than Whites.
More Orientals graduate from college and fewer go to prison.
On the other hand Blacks are 12% of the American population and make up 50% of the prison population. In the U.S., one out of every three Black men is either in jail, on probation, or awaiting trial. That is much more than the number who graduate from college.
Chapter 2 shows how this racial pattern in crime is found worldwide. INTERPOL Yearbooks show the rate of violent crime (murder, rape, and serious assault) is four times lower in Asian and Pacific Rim countries than in African and Caribbean countries. Whites in the United States and in European countries are intermediate. The 1996 INTERPOL violent crime rates clearly show this pattern: Asian countries, 35 violent crimes per 100,000 people; European countries, 42; and African countries, 149.
Chapter 2 also finds that Oriental children are slower to mature than White children while Black children are faster to mature. This is true for the rate of bone and tooth development and the age at which a child first sits, crawls, walks, and puts on clothing. Oriental children do not begin to walk until about 13 months, White children at 12 months, and Black children at 11 months.
Chapter 3 looks at racial differences in sexual activity. Orientals are the least sexually active, whether measured by age of first intercourse, intercourse frequency, or number of sexual partners. Blacks are the most active on all of these. Once again Whites are in between. These contrasts in sexual activity lead to differences in the rate of diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, and chlamydia. There are high levels of AIDS in Africa, Black America, and the Caribbean and low levels in China and Japan. European countries again fall in between.
The races differ in rate of ovulation (Chapter 3). Not all women produce one egg during the menstrual cycle. When two or more eggs are produced at the same time, a pregnancy is more likely. So is the likelihood of producing fraternal twins (i.e., two-egg twins). The number of twins born is 16 out of every 1,000 births for Blacks, 8 out of every 1,000 births for Whites, and 4 or less for Orientals. Triplets and other multiple births are rarest in Orientals and highest in Blacks, with Whites in between.
Chapter 4 is about race and intelligence. Hundreds of studies on millions of people show a threeway pattern. IQ tests are often made to have an average score of 100, with a “normal” range from 85 to 115. Whites average from 100 to 103. Orientals in Asia and the U.S. tend to have higher scores, about 106, even though IQ tests were made for use in the Euro-American culture. Blacks in the U.S., the Caribbean, Britain, Canada, and in Africa average lower IQs — about 85. The lowest average IQs are found for sub-Saharan Africans — from 70 to 75.
Chapter 4 also looks at brain size. Bigger brains have more brain cells and this leads to higher IQs. The races vary in brain size. The Collaborative Perinatal Project followed more than 35,000 children from birth to seven years. Orientals had larger brains than Whites at birth, four months, one year, and seven years. Whites had larger brains than Blacks at all ages (see Chart 2). The data on adults in Chart 2 come from a sample of 6,325 U.S. Army personnel.
Chapter 5 asks whether differences in our brain size, our bodies and our behavior are because of genes, environment, or both. It also asks whether individual differences can tell us anything about race differences.

Chapter 6 discusses the gene based “life-history theory” I have proposed to explain the racial pattern in brain size, intelligence, and other traits. Evolutionary biologists call it the r-K scale of reproductive strategies. At one end of this scale are r-strategies that rely on high reproductive rates. At the other end are K-strategies that rely on high levels of parental care. This scale is generally used to compare the life histories of different species of animals. I have used it to explain the smaller but real differences between the human races.

On this scale, Orientals are more K-selected than Whites, while Whites are more K-selected than Blacks. Highly K-selected women produce fewer eggs (and have bigger brains) than r-selected women. Highly K-selected men invest time and energy in their children rather than the pursuit of sexual thrills. They are “dads” rather than “cads.”

Chapter 7 shows that the race differences in reproductive strategies make sense in terms of human evolution. Modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Africans and non-Africans then split about 100,000 years ago. Orientals and Whites split about 40,000 years ago.

The more north the people went “Out of Africa,” the harder it was to get food, gain shelter, make clothes, and raise children. So the groups that evolved into today’s Whites and Orientals needed larger brains, more family stability, and a longer life. But building a bigger brain takes time and energy during a person’s development. So, these changes were balanced by slower rates of growth, lower levels of sex hormones, less aggression, and less sexual activity.

Why? Because Africa, Europe, and Asia had very different climates and geographies that called for different skills, resource usage, and lifestyles. Blacks evolved in a tropical climate which contrasted with the cooler one of Europe in which Whites evolved and even more so with the cold Arctic lands where Orientals evolved.

Because intelligence increased the chances of survival in harsh winter environments, the groups that left Africa had to evolve greater intelligence and family stability. This called for larger brains, slower growth rates, lower hormone levels, less sexual potency, less aggression, and less impulsivity. Advanced planning, self-control, rule-following, and longevity all increased in the non-Africans.

I realize that these topics are controversial and that readers will have many questions. Chapter 8 lists the questions I am most asked about Race, Evolution, and Behavior, and my answers to them.

Conclusion

Race is more than “just skin deep.” The pattern of Oriental-White-Black differences is found across history, geographic boundaries, and political-economic systems. It proves the biological reality of race. Theories based only on culture cannot explain all the data shown in Chart 1. The next three chapters describe the scientific findings on race differences (summarized in Chart 1) in greater detail. Later chapters explain why these differences follow such a pattern.

Quotes and chart from RACE, EVOLUTION, and BEHAVIOR: A Life History Perspective, by J.P. Rushton

You can download the abridged version, in various languages, here: RACE, EVOLUTION, and BEHAVIOR: A Life History Perspective, by J.P. Rushton

If you really are interested, then, of course, you will read the unabridged version. Unfortunately, I could not find it at Amazon

Richard Dawkins debunks Creationism. “The purpose of purpose”

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:52:48 +0000

“Intelligent design” or “scientific” creationism are buzzwords created by religious fundamentalists, with the agenda to put content of 2000 year old religious books into our children’s school science curriculum.

Dawkins just takes apart all the religous arguments, shreds them into pieces. Watch the video “the purpose of purpose”.

I have seen discussions, where poor scientist just could not lower themselves to argue on the same level of demagogic obfuscation as the religious dogmatists, and thus looked bad. See the following example of a scientist that was too shy to counterattack.

Evolutionary theory has yet unexplained gaps. Therefore we need to be open-minded and to offer out children alternative theories, like “intelligent design”.

Biological knowledge of embryonal development has unexplained gaps. Therefore we need to be open-minded and to offer out children alternative theories, like “stork theory of child delivery”.

The geology of the earth is still not fully explained. Therefore we need to be open-minded and to offer out children alternative theories, like “flat earth theory” and “hollow earth theory”.

Same about alchemy in chemistry classes, astrology in astronomy classes, and witchcraft in medical first aid courses.

If Dawkins is too fiery for you, follows a very cool scientific analysis of scientific creationism

The following video explains:
Theory is not “guesses or hunches”, as in lay people language. Theory to a scientist means explanation, logical constructs of tested hypotheses, facts, laws.

Links to other 23 videos in this series:

Sexual Desire for Pre-Pubescent Children. The worst of all crimes?

Devils Advocate — Tue, 26 May 2009 11:55:15 +0000

As child abuse experts point out, about 50 children are reported kidnapped and raped or murdered by strangers annually, compared to more than 3,000 children murdered by parents and other family members in non-sexual cases.

Most sex offenders, says one therapist who works with sex offenders in a state prison system, are “Gentle grandfathers who made one mistake in judgment years ago and fondled their grandchild.

At issue her is:

Legal punishment for sexual “crimes” against minors is a modern witch hunt.
Totally out of proportion to damage caused by it.
Hysteria
Purposeful confounding of criminal violent sexual crime against minors nearly or totally harmless fondling or consensual sexual acts
any reasonable open-minded unbiased discussion or scientific analysis of the issue regarding underage sexuality is totally shunned, repressed, ignored, prohibited.

The blog cited below is pretty extreme. I am not saying that I totally agree with all of this. It is an interesting “devil’s advocate” article meant to shake up ingrained prejudices.

In spite of being Devil’s advocate, I personally still think that messing with children is somewhat of bad taste and maybe should not be totally liberated.

What I question, though, is if it is such vile a crime as it is being treated by the law in the US and most other countries.

My doubt is:

Is it really necessary that the punishment for slightly fondling a child is higher then for throwing the same child out of a third story window or throwing boiling water on it and getting the child seriously injured?

all quotes from http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/6/5/1990675.html

Of course among these sex offenders are indeed some criminals who have caused extreme harm: violent rapists of adult women as well as children. A few of them have kidnapped, tortured or murdered their victims.

Dr. Fred Berlin of the Johns Hopkins University Sex Disorders Clinic in Baltimore estimates that such crimes account for less than 1/10th of 1% of all sex offenses in America.

His studies also show that fewer than 10% of child sex offenders re-offend—though recidivism is usually given as a reason for draconian measures against them.

Most sex offenders, says one therapist who works with sex offenders in a state prison system, are “Gentle grandfathers who made one mistake in judgment years ago and fondled their grandchild.

Or lonely, geeky gay men—teenagers some of them—who sought mutual sexual release with adolescent boys.

Or young female teachers who succumbed to the wiles of handsome adolescent boys or girls. Or young men who got drunk and pushed their girlfriends over a line that is now called date rape.”

Yet the media, police, prosecutors and politicians continue to insist that children are in dire need of protection from serial rapists and murderers.

Two-thirds of parents surveyed said they feared their children would be kidnapped and or murdered by strangers. Facts simply do not matter when hysteria is involved.

“Child Abuse” Dogmatists Repress Scientific Research

admin — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:03:00 +0000

The blog put up a very very nice listing of persecution of scientists, of repression of scientific research by dogmatic people. It is correctly called radical left. I would not sign off blindly on all their statements.

[Disclaimer: My main topic is "defense of free research", "freedom to find the scientific true facts" without getting death threats. This is not a crusade for underage sex, it is rather about unbiased truth & freedom of research versus dogmatic preconceived ideas]

http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/6/5/1990675.html

In the only instance of a U.S. Congressional resolution against a scientific paper, the House of Representatives, with only minimal opposition, denounced a study by Dr. Bruce Rind & others, published in the scholarly review, Psychological Bulletin, in 1998.

This “meta-analysis” reviewed several research protocols about adult-child sexuality, and summarized them as showing that relationships in which force was not used did not appear to cause harm, and sometimes might be beneficial. Rind and his co-authors have been systematically ostracized and excluded from many scholarly journals.

In 2005, a book by a major publisher, which contained another scholarly article by Rind, was withdrawn by that publisher (Hayworth) because of protests from fundamentalist Christians.

Other gay writers like William Herdt and John DeCecco who researched sexual outlaw behavior in the U.S. (DeCecco) or intergenerational sexuality in non-western cultures (Herdt) simply moved on to other topics.

This did not keep DeCecco from experiencing extreme persecution—while a Professor in San Francisco he had to hire bodyguards to protect him from right-wing attackers.

A number of women researchers and radical feminists have attempted to undermine or slow down the sex panic.

Among them have been Camille Paglia, Debbie Nathan, Joan Nelson, Elizabeth Stoney, Laura Marks, Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, Carole Vance, Marjorie Heins, Joanne Wypijewski, Janice Irvine and Judith Levine.

Paglia has been castigated by other sex researchers and many feminist writers for her defense of man-boy sexual relationships in particular.

Although she has published lengthy, well-researched summaries of the history of sexuality and sexual research, she is seldom included in university curriculums involving these topics.

Many of the other women writers suffered similar consequences or censorship of their views. Debbie Nathan, who exposed and virtually stopped the so-called satanic cult child sex panic with her book Satan’s Silence (Basic Books, 1996), has spoken of the icy reception her work has sometimes received.

She said, “… I have often had a sense of being intellectually and professionally marginalized, and I have experienced instances of editors killing pieces I’ve written about sexual hysteria because they got cold feet, as well as refusals to assign such stories.”

One woman writer, who had never had problems with previous articles on other subjects for a prestigious national magazine, attempted a balanced look at the crusade against Catholic priests, especially the sensational case of Father Paul Shanley. She was called in by the editor who said he simply could not run her piece.

Even before Judith Levine’s Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex was published in 2002, a massive campaign by fundamentalist Christian groups, including Concerned Women for America, attacked the publisher, the University of Minnesota Press.

While the book was published, the Press created a new process for reviewing its books before publication.

Levine spoke publicly about how she was humiliated time and again in public. She said the manuscript for her book had been turned down by many publishers, treated as if it were “radioactive.”

Among other insights, Levine wrote that “obsession with pedophiles stems for the reluctance to confront incest and the rampant sexualization of children” in American culture.

“Adults project the eroticized desire outwards, creating a monster to hate, hunt down and destroy.” Of the outcry against her book she added, “What happened to me is a perfect example of the hysteria my book is about.”

Nowhere is censorship and shunning greater than against those who would describe or depict childhood or adolescent sexuality, or mere nudity.

The “victims” of the evil perpetrators must also be protected—and projected as the spotless mirror image of their violators—at all costs—their purity and innocence asserted (even in the face of post-Freudian revelations of the sexual lives and interests of children).

Anything portraying the physical beauty of children or erotic aspects of their lives must be banned. (See Bob Chatelle’s excellent summaries of the impact of the child porn crusade on freedom of expression: Kiddie Porn Panic, 1993; Limits of Free expression & the Problem of Child Porn, 1997.)

Are there women paedophiles?

Against Irrational Unconscious — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:43:56 +0000

If a man to believes that his sexual problems stem from being “abused” by an attractive female when he was fourteen, this normally would not pass as scientific evidence. But on issues with dogmatic preconceived dogmas, such faulty evidence can be presented in scientific conferences.
Follows an article showing a collection of anecdotal evidence trying to prove that teenage boys get lifelong traumas from sex with adult females.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8022861.stm

‘Teen fantasy’

Professor Kevin Browne, who has been researching the maltreatment of children for 30 years, says between 5% and 10% of abuse against pre-pubescent children in the UK is committed by females, but only about 5% is thought to involve a woman acting alone.

[..]

Female offences against teenagers are more of a mystery, he says, because victims don’t come forward, partly because in a patriarchal society boys are even expected to enjoy that kind of abuse, and not admit how scared they are by it.

[...]

Like male paedophiles, many female offenders convince themselves they are not harming children, says psychologist Sharon Lambert who this month presented her research on the subject to the British Psychological Society’s annual conference.

[...]

Disclaimer: The issue here is not so much my personal opinion as to how laws should be. Rather the issue is that eminent scientist become “stupid” and irrational when facing issues where society has a strong preconceived dogmatic notion. Instead of true academic research, they just reinforce the stereotypes.

Newspaper report about femail pedophilia. Unfortunately, the report is too vague to understand what really has happened …