chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa Chabot) (06/08/84)
Tracy Tims says: > I suspect that William's net posting came from some discussions > that he, some others and I had concerning this. What we were > wondering was: > > If there was research that demonstrated there was > structural differences between men and women that > affected their abilities as a class to perform some > tasks, what would be the reaction? Would it be wise > to restrict research in those areas? > William has probably been talking to people who believe a > priori that such research shouldn't be done. It's an > attitude I've encountered. Why can't he speculate? If the question had originally been phrased as Tims has written it, there would have been less heat in discussing it. But Hughes instead approached the subject from the point of view that those to whom he was writing had already closed their minds to any research in this area, which as Tims speculates, is because outside of this newsgroup this is the prejudice that Hughes has encountered. But these are two different groups, and the discussions will be different. > I often urge people to have an open mind. Do you know why? > It's because most of them don't. If you've already told them what their opinions are (without them having a chance to express them themselves), and then tell them to have an open mind, well, this is generally a good way to alienate your audience. And maybe they'll try to alienate back. This discussion has been especially weird, since Hughes started off with the premise that it was invalid philosophically to discover any non-environmental basis for differences in intellectual performance between the sexes. This is simply not true. We've had many anecdotes posted to this newsgroup about environmental differences created because of the preconception that there are inherent differences in intellectual performance between the sexes. So, the premise is wrong! Read Gould! He's written about non-anecdotal examples! Lots of them (although most are more directed at racism)! Read Russ! > What nerve was touched? It's very simple to explain. It has to do with the assumptions in Hughes' letter, the false premise that it is invalid philosophically to discover these differences. Those who have had to bear the weight of a society's prejudice declaring an inherent inferiority, when told that such a prejudice does not exist, will not react amiably to such a bizarre statement. Some may choose to stare in disbelief as their reaction. The letter I last wrote on the subject was after many letters after the original Hughes letter describing the research as being philosophically invalid. Although many offered counter-examples as to the philosophic invalidity, there was no response from Hughes about his premise. I decided to continue pressing. It's an argument game to match techniques, especially if one thinks one can do better at it, so I thought I could match wild paranoia with more wild paranoia, and if I couldn't get any answers, or rebuttals, or recantings, at least I could inflate the discussion to some amusing level of flaming: I can't get any answers to questions about just what the prejudices are operating behind Hughes' letters, so I decide to accuse them of being sexist and paranoid...this is called "baiting"(No, I'm not a Master.). Good grief! Here I've gone and given away the game. Takes all the fun out of it somehow, like having to explain puns. And so I shall: "envi-ornament": to those who read William Hughes's letters were obvious some interesting misspellings-- some other time I played upon the mistake of "preformance" on IQ tests--"envi-ornament" is a play on the consistent mistake "enviornment" Gad, puns are foul once explained. L S Chabot UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA USFail: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iorn Way, Marlborough, MA 01752 "Give me a number, any number." --Eddie