Rufo described Jonatan Pallesen as “a Danish data scientist who has raised new questions about Claudine Gay’s use – and potential misuse – of data in her PhD thesis” in an interview published in his newsletter and on the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal website last Friday.

He did not tell readers that a paper featuring Pallesen’s own statistical work in collaboration with the eugenicist researchers has been subject to scathing expert criticism for its faulty methods, and characterized as white nationalism by another academic critic.

The revelations once again raise questions about the willingness of Rufo – a major ally of Ron DeSantis and powerful culture warrior in Republican politics – to cultivate extremists in the course of his political crusades.

The Guardian emailed Rufo to ask about his repeated platforming of extremists, and asked both Rufo and the Manhattan Institute’s communications office whether they had vetted Pallesen before publishing the interview. Neither responded.

    • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      I acknowledged this in my first post:

      [to criticize categorizing groups by IQ scores] cite the cultural bias of most IQ tests and how IQ tests may not be accurately measuring G

      I’m not sure what made you assume I thought IQ testing was perfectly accurate and unbiased. Lots of people here are arguing against positions they imagine I hold rather than what I actually wrote.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        What units does G have or it is a fundamental constant? How does G interact with the physical brain, midi-chlorian perhaps? What particles make up G? Please show me the property table handbook that matches up G with other physical testable measurable units.

        Prove to me that it is as real as gravity and temperature or volts. Because if you can’t I am throwing it in the basket of horoscopes.

        • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          It is a construct. One can argue that G / general intelligence factor does not exist, I believe it does since mental ability seems to correlate with general competence across many domains. I believe it’s a better argument that IQ tests may not be an effective method of deriving it.

          The g factor (also known as general intelligence, general mental ability or general intelligence factor) is a construct developed in psychometric investigations of cognitive abilities and human intelligence. It is a variable that summarizes positive correlations among different cognitive tasks, reflecting the fact that an individual’s performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person’s performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I see. So you have faith that it is there, not evidence. And if your test is not good at finding it, it must be the test that is wrong not that you are trying to detect the undectable. The same logic can be applied to horoscopes, prayer, god, and Bigfoot. Did we make a detection? No? Oh well we must have been looking wrong. We have faith that it exists so any type of failure can be safely disregarded with our preconceived notions intact.

            Your Midi-chlorianians don’t operate like anything else in science. In science we find out things exist by following the evidence, in Midi-chlorianians we assume something exists and find “evidence”. I wonder why they don’t give you hard evidence of their existence. Why does your god… sorry G spirit hate you so much?

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Answer my questions. What units does G have? How does spiritual G interact with the physical human brain? What is the G particle? Is G quantized or fully analog? Why can’t you produce a property handbook with G as it “correlates” with other physical measurable testable things? Does G act like a point charge? Is there a counter-G and if so what equation models how they repeal? How much does it weight per units G? Does it move in waves or as particles?

                You are using the rhythms of science without the actual science. You name the physical thing I can show you as much as you wanted to know about it and then some. But not your Midi-chlorianians. I have more evidence that ghosts, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness are real than G is because I can at least point out to eyewitnesses. No one even claims to have even seen G.

                Now admit the father of eugenics is the person responsible for its invention as a concept.

                • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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                  10 months ago

                  IQ is supposedly the measure of G, in which 100 is average human intelligence, and ±15 represents one standard deviation. It is a measurement based on population averages, derived from various forms of testing, and not some natural unit.

                  However, if you must insist that non-physical things don’t exist, (like many mathematical and sociological constructs are,) note that intelligence has physical correlates.

                  Now admit the father of eugenics is the person responsible for its invention as a concept.

                  Okay, evidently he was. I fail to see why this is relevant though. Whether IQ is valid conceptually or not has nothing to do with the one who invented the concept; this is fallacious reasoning. It does, however, make it clear that you think veracity is at least in part determined by ideology of the messenger.

                  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    Of all the questions I asked you, you tried to answer one. Not a great start.

                    Averages don’t have to be unit less. I do agree with you however that IQ is not natural unit. It has very little whatsoever to do with the natural world. You know like the power of prayer.

                    I never once insisted that non-physical does not exist. I am clear that we have no evidence of non-physical things and as such we should put that stuff in the stuff outside of our knowledge. Like invisible unicorns. Yeah sure maybe they are real but no evidence so moving on.

                    Mathematics is a shit comparison. Math falls under symbols, sometimes those symbols match real world stuff and sometimes they don’t. There really isn’t an integral but there is stuff that we can model with it. Not the same thing at all with IQ. With IQ you claim to have developed a detection of the G-Spirit and your proof is that it came out to a round number. You started with the premise that G-Spirit is real and tried to invent evidence for it instead of finding evidence and detected the G-Spirit. What you are doing has no difference at all than those who dress in black and claim to have found ghosts on the history channel.

                    I am glad you bothered to look up your hero. It does matter. You see you said it yourself. IQism is a construct and when someone invents bullshit why they invent it really does matter. If I declare you unfit to live and demand you take me on faith do you have no right to question me?

                    Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."

                    ― Voltaire