June 4, 2010

"Brainwashed"

From Norway:

Norway: Brainwashed Science on TV Creates Storm

By EUSJA member
Bjørn Vassnes, Science Journalist, Norway:
... SOCIAL SCIENTISTS FELT FOOLED BY TV-COMEDIAN TURNED TO SCIENCE JOURNALIST
The heat is generated by Harald Eia, a TV-comedian turned science reporter, who is exposing social scientists and gender researchers in a  not very flattering manner in a TV series called «Brainwashed». The uproar started already last summer, more than half a year before the series was ready. Some social scientists who had been interviewed by Eia, went out in the press to say they felt they had been fooled, tricked to expose themselves by «dubious» tactics.
What Eia had done, was to first interview the Norwegian social scientists on issues like sexual orientation, gender roles, violence, education and  race, which are heavily politicized in the Norwegian science community. Then he translated the interviews into English and took them to well-known British and American scientists like Robert Plomin, Steven Pinker, Anne Campbell, Simon Baron-Cohen, Richard Lippa, David Buss, and others, and got their comments. To say that the American and British scientists were surprised by what they heard, is an understatement.
SCIENCES DOMINATED BY IDEOLOGY
In Norway, the social sciences have been more dominated by ideology and fear of biology than in perhaps any other country. This has a long history starting in the 60s. Social science became very much bound up with the ideology of the Social Democrats, who put pride in the fact that Norway was the most egalitarian country in the world. And with the new wealth from the North Sea oil, it became possible to create a society with very little poverty. Which of course has been good for most Norwegians.

MONEY CORRUPTS SCIENCE
But science started to suffer. With so much easy money, few wanted to study the hard sciences. And the social sciences suffered in another way: The ties with the government became too tight, and created a culture where controversial issues, and tough discussions were avoided. Too critical, and you could risk getting no more money.

It was in this culture Harald Eia started his studies, in sociology, early in the nineties. He made it as far as becoming a junior researcher, but then dropped off, and started a career as a comedian instead. He has said that he suddenly, after reading some books which not were on the syllabus, discovered that he had been cheated. What he was taught in his sociology classes was not up-to-date with international research, and more based on ideology than science.

One of the problems, which has prevailed until now, is that the social sciences in Norway not at all will consider biological (evolutionary, genetical) factors in their analyses of human behavior. Even gender roles and sexual identity are explained as 100 percent determined by culture. The theory is that boys and girls are created equal – at least in their heads. All talk about possible inborn differences in interests or capabilities was taboo. Because Norwegians wanted everybody to be equal, it was considered threatening to even ask if there might be some inherited differences. Not only between the sexes, but between people generally.
... And in Norway this became a big problem because there are few scientists, and most research is sponsored by one source, the Norwegian Research Council, which has strong links with the government.

NO CRITICAL DISCUSSIONS
The situation was such that until recently, there has been no critical discussion of the basic dogmas about sex and gender, about criminality and about the Norwegian school system. Some questions were asked when Norway joined international school tests, and we discovered that we had fallen behind, to a level with much poorer countries. And there was some discussion why the most egalitarian country in the world had bigger differences in choice of education and careers between the sexes, than any other developed country.
This has been called the «gender equality paradox», and nobody could explain it. The common reaction was that we just had to work harder to reach our egalitarian goals. But of course, this «paradox» is easily explained if one takes evolutionary psychology into consideration: Because Norway has such a high living standard that you can live a decent life also with «female» jobs such as nursing, the women now choose careers that suit their psychological needs. But to say such things aloud, was like putting yourself in the gauntlet.
If Eia had presented the series five years ago, he also would have had to try the (media) gauntlet. But even in Norway, the outside world is creeping in, and last year he felt that the time was ripe for this project. He was maybe a bit optimistic, and some of the interviews created such storm, long before the series was aired, that there was a possibility that the project has to be abandoned. Some scientists even threatened to sue him.

But his standing as the most popular TV-comedian in Norway, made it difficult for NRK (the national broadcaster) to back off, and after some delay and bitter dicussions in the media, the series went on air on March 1. It immediately became one of the most watched series on Norwegian TV, and the most watched program on internet-TV.

LOOKS NAIVE, BUT IS WELL PREPARED
For many people, it was difficult to see Eia in his new role as an investigative science reporter (a kind of science journalism’s Michael Moore), but he was well prepared. He could look naive, but he often knew more about the subjects than the scientists he interviewed, which made some of them look like arrogant ignorants. One of them fled the country, declaring that Eia had «ruined her life».

Eias methods have been critisised as being unfair to the Norwegian scientists, but they were given a chance to defend themselves, and his ways of interviewing people are not worse than most politicians or business people are used to. One problem is maybe that the Norwegian scientists had not met any critical journalists before.

But the main problem, which Eia has exposed so brilliantly, is that much of Norwegian social science, and gender science in particular, is built on very shaky ground. Most studies have been done without even considering factors like heredity: The reason why some people turned criminals, or did badly in school, was always explained by social and cultural factors. To even mention heredity as a possible factor, was met with condescending laughter or irritation.
METHODS CRITISIED, RESULTS JUSTIFIED
Before the series, most of the social science community was very skeptical, but now even  established scientists have admitted that the critical light had been justified. Another effect of the series has been that scientists you almost never heard from in the public: psychologists, biologists and other natural scientists, have started to write in newspapers and participating in debates.

So even if Eia’s methods have been critisised, there is now a general agreement that the result of this project has been good for both the sciences and society as a whole. For the first time, science is really being discussed. Even if many strange things have been said and written, this has been (and still is) a unique educational process for both the general public and the scientific community.
______________________________
The series “Hjernevask” (Brainwashed) can be watched, in Norwegian, here:
http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/625996


54 comments:

l said...

Kenny Strasser is this year's king of the real life trolls:

http://www.wsaw.com/home/headlines/91764029.html

robert said...

Did the great Norwegian socialist paradise ever get around to sterilizing "unfit" people en masse, the way that the Swedes - including the government of Secular Saint Olof Palme - did from the 1930s to the 1970s? (We won't even go into the history of Midwestern America's pre-Hitler sterilization laws.)

A Norwegian said...

In the race episode gcochran, Charles Murray and Richard Lynn were given much time to talk. He interviewed Nisbet too, but only for a minute or so. You could tell the latter was unsure about the truth what he was claiming (or knew it to be false) because of nose-scratches.

Btw, is this something you English speakers would like to see subbed (not possible yet, but if avi files become available I'd volunteer to do it)?

rightsaidfred said...

but he (Eias) often knew more about the subjects than the scientists he interviewed

It sounds like social science in Norway is a place to find a sinecure and not be taken seriously.

Pat Shuff said...

Oh-oh, up the academic fjord without a paddle. It is hard to be taken seriously when they are all laughing at you. To paraphrase Reader's Digest, ridicule is the best medicine. Or Ms. Tomlin, no matter how brainwashed you become you just can't keep up with it.

In other 'send in the clowns' Scandinavian news:

Comedian elected Reykjavik’s mayor

Jon Gnarr Kristinsson finished his latest stand-up comedy tour last week. Now he is ready to embark on a career as mayor of Reykjavik.

The popular comic actor looks set to take charge of the Icelandic capital after his satirical political party won the most votes in local elections over the weekend.

Mr Kristinsson set up the Best party last November as a satire of the political incompetence and, in some cases, corruption that contributed to Iceland’s banking boom and bust.

But the parody was seized on quickly by voters looking for a way to vent their anger against the ruling elite, two months after an official report accused the Icelandic government and regulators of “extreme negligence” in the run-up to the crisis.

Other Best party candidates elected included Einar Orn Benediktsson, a former singer with the Sugarcubes, an Icelandic pop band.

This is a big shock, a crash landing for the four political parties,” Ms Sigurdardottir told RUV, the public broadcaster.

http://tinyurl.com/3ajqsw2

With disaster now replacing cod as the top Icelandic export (volcanoes, banking collapse. Like, teach a man finance and he'll be fishing the rest of his life)...exporting this disaster, comic politicians (but Al Franken ain't him) and comedian investigative journalists skewering entire swaths of the systemic pandemic of mass delusions...well, one can hope. Where serious discourse has and ever will fail, the most powerful and egregious subversion,
the crime of lese majeste, laughing at naked emperors, will succeed royally with tears streaming down the cheeks.

Anonymous said...

That's really cool. What a remarkable thing for a TV comedian to do--and it sounds like Eia exposed a lot of naive politicized junk in Norwegian universities. But his choice of experts may have revealed a bit of naivete of his own. While a behavior geneticist like Plomin has an awful lot of strong data behind everything he says, one guy on the list (David Buss) is an evolutionary psychologist noted for a rather high ratio of theoretical confidence to data. Some would say: just-so stories combined with embarrassing efforts to sell books. Consider, for example, his salaciously titled book "The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill" which received pretty poor reviews as seen on the Amazon link below--is this the kind of hard-nosed Anglo-American empiricism that the poor Norwegians need to get on board with? :-)

http://www.amazon.com/Murderer-Next-Door-Mind-Designed/dp/0143037056/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275659472&sr=8-6

Anonymous said...

According to the CIA factbook, Norway's GDP is $477 billion a year.

They have a lot of loose change.

Anonymous said...

I was discussing the Faroe Islands and the Eskimos/Inuit with a Dane once, we got on to social issues and drinking in particular, I mentioned they never invented booze and therefore were biologically suceptible, he shook, visibly, and would no longer talk to me.

Anonymous said...

Any chance we can see these videos subtitled in English? My Norwegian is a bit shaky.

Anonymous said...

"no critical discussions" might describe our policy of immigration, race, and.. .the middle east..

Dutch Boy said...

This phenomenon is universal:
http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/big-science-commercial-science-publishing-corruption-of-peer-review-science/

Anonymous said...
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Melykin said...

In Norway, the social sciences have been more dominated by ideology and fear of biology than in perhaps any other country. This has a long history starting in the 60s.
======================

Canada has the same problem. We need a Harald Eia. In Canada data that correlates race with other variables are either not collected, or never made public. I always find it surprising how much information about, for example, race and test scores, is available in America. This sort of data would probably never be collected in Canada, and certainly never released publicly. It would be considered in bad taste and politically incorrect. I've read that in France it is actually against the law to collect data about race, or make it public.

Anonymous said...

>I've read that in France it is actually against the law to collect data about race, or make it public.<

In most European countries, publication and even discussion of racial disparities in crime rates is criminalized. The ADL is the biggest pusher of these prohibitions and of the rationalizations for them, worldwide.

The elephant in this post is that talking race-crime stats is ILLEGAL in various places, including, I believe, Canada - i.e., there are men serving prison sentences for this "offense." (Of course, the prohibitions are not invariably and impartially applied.) Many government people all over the West are or have been running scared because of what the Bible terms "fear of the Jews."

After all, supression of what they are pleased to call "hate" speech is agenda (or "concern") number one for whole rafts of Jewish committees, foundations, councils, associations, etc. Their enemies list begins with these two things:

1. America's First Amendment (unless porn is involved);

2. an uncensored Internet (unless the target of censorship is porn).

Larry Flint and demoralization = good. Steve et al. discussing HBD = evil.

TH said...

Btw, is this something you English speakers would like to see subbed (not possible yet, but if avi files become available I'd volunteer to do it)?

Yes.

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04interracial.html?src=me&ref=us


interracial marriage article from today's NYTimes. How does the NYTimes always happen to have an article on a topic which Steve has recently blogged about? Methinks someone at the Times is an HBDer.

Mouse-a-tronix said...

Larry Flint and demoralization = good. Steve et al. discussing HBD = evil.

I thought Half-Sigma said that most HBDers are Jews.

Anonymous said...

"Did the great Norwegian socialist paradise ever get around to sterilizing "unfit" people en masse, the way that the Swedes - including the government of Secular Saint Olof Palme - did from the 1930s to the 1970s? (We won't even go into the history of Midwestern America's pre-Hitler sterilization laws.)"

Sounds more humane than welfare.

eh said...

I've read that in France it is actually against the law to collect data about race, or make it public.

Perhaps one reason people become and stay "brainwashed":

French minister Hortefeux fined for racism

Eric said...

"Social Scientists", huh? Any time you need to tell people you're a scientist, odds are you really aren't.

Cordelia said...

A Norwegian said: "Btw, is this something you English speakers would like to see subbed (not possible yet, but if avi files become available I'd volunteer to do it)?"

Melykin said: "Canada has the same problem. We need a Harald Eia.... I've read that in France it is actually against the law to collect data about race, or make it public."


Absolutely! Yes, please. The English-speaking world could definitely use to see this program. And maybe it would then get further translated into French, German, etc. Yes, please! :-)

Nora Helmer said...

@rightsaidfred -- "It sounds like social science in Norway is a place to find a sinecure and not be taken seriously."

The problem is, the reasearchers HAVE been taken very seriously. Government policies over the last few decades have been based upon what these "researchers" have had to say (or maybe what these "researchers" have had to say have been used to back up government policies ... which came first, the chickens or the eggs ...).

The Norwegian "researchers" that Harald Eia went after have been those that have been the most influential ... quoted in the press week after week ... lending "advice" to various governmental ministries. They have helped to destroy Norwegian society and frankly deserve to be run out of the country.

Nora Helmer said...

@Anonymous -- "According to the CIA factbook, Norway's GDP is $477 billion a year.

"They have a lot of loose change."

Oil.

We've been able to afford silly governmental policies for the past couple of decades. We're like the Qatar of the North. ;-) What remains to be seen is will we be able to do so after the oil is all pumped up. ??

Nora Helmer said...

@Anonymous -- "What a remarkable thing for a TV comedian to do--and it sounds like Eia exposed a lot of naive politicized junk in Norwegian universities."

Remember, Harald Eia did study sociology at university so he does have some background in the discipline (i.e. he understood how f*cked up it is here in Norway).

One of the most enjoyable things to watch on the show was to see many of the Norwegian "researchers" laughing -- actually laughing -- when Eia would bring up anything about evolutionary psychological research being done elsewhere (Britain or the States or even in some cases right here in Norway, believe it or not!). Their laughing was so embarassing -- they really made *sses of themselves. There was no need for him to ridicule them (which he didn't). They looked like the right idiots that they are, all by themselves.

Melykin said...

I was discussing the Faroe Islands and the Eskimos/Inuit with a Dane once, we got on to social issues and drinking in particular, I mentioned they never invented booze and therefore were biologically suceptible, he shook, visibly, and would no longer talk to me.
====================
Its the same in Canada. If you try to suggest there are biological reason for the extremely high rate of addiction among the Inuit you will be shunned and called a racist and a Nazi. What these politically correct idiots don't realize is that they are actually hurting the Inuit.
If fundamentalist liberal-creationist were not running the country then we would be free to use science to study the problem and might be able to discover some new and affective treatments for addiction based on genetics.

Svigor said...

The strangest thing here is how it breaks out Norwegian social scientists, as if they're the exception to the rule of social scientist rigor. Come again?

I thought Half-Sigma said that most HBDers are Jews.

No no, there are hordes of Jewish would-be HBDers prevented from joining the ranks because of, well, me. The ole "hothouse flower" gambit.

Anonymous said...

>The English-speaking world could definitely use to see this program.<

Agreed. The English-speaking world is not much better than Norway. In fact, probably it is not better than Norway IN ANY ASPECT intellectually, with the exception of this tiny group of heretics here.

Anonymous said...

> One of them fled the country, declaring that Eia had «ruined her life». <

One wonders what country she fled to.

Anonymous said...

> One of them fled the country, declaring that Eia had «ruined her life». <

How many lives did this hack ruin indirectly? For why else would she flee the country?

Anonymous said...

Inexplicable "fear of biology" strikes again.
http://tinyurl.com/2er9d2l

Anonymous said...

Broadly speaking, I think that the denial of HBD is not as corrosive in racially homogeneous societies as it is in heterogeneous societies. That's probably part of the reason why Norway has been able to get away with it for so long. It's when the class warfare is accentuated by other faction creating issues that HBd denial really hurts. Otherwise, some of the motivational aspects of liberal HBD denial do support a societal sympathy that HBD acceptance may not always do.

Marvin said...

"Its the same in Canada. If you try to suggest there are biological reason for the extremely high rate of addiction among the Inuit you will be shunned and called a racist and a Nazi. What these politically correct idiots don't realize is that they are actually hurting the Inuit. If fundamentalist liberal-creationist were not running the country then we would be free to use science to study the problem and might be able to discover some new and affective treatments for addiction based on genetics."

Melykin,
I have to say its been interesting to watch your transformation on these blog comments from initally being a shocked Canadian liberal to
now an unapologetic HBDer. I guess maybe there's hope that the PC shield can be cracked because ultimately that will lead to solutions that actually work.

Anonymous said...

Norwegian social "sciences" in far worse condition than in America?

Norway is a formerly Protestant, now secular country with very few Jews.

Proof that Paul Gottfried is right and Kevin MacDonald wrong about the causes of Western decadence?

Anonymous said...

Melykin,
I have to say its been interesting to watch your transformation on these blog comments from initally being a shocked Canadian liberal to
now an unapologetic HBDer. I guess maybe there's hope that the PC shield can be cracked because ultimately that will lead to solutions that actually work.


Yes, Ive noted (and commented on) that too. There is hope.

Not many years ago I was an incurable Gurdian reading liberal on these issues too. Steve helped cure me of that, along with various other bloggers/commenters.

Anonymous said...

Norway is a formerly Protestant, now secular country with very few Jews.

Proof that Paul Gottfried is right and Kevin MacDonald wrong about the causes of Western decadence?


Or proof that wider jewish influence of media and academia doesnt need to be micromanaged at the national level. Not when its a relitively small country with a language thats not widely used outside Scandanavia.

Anonymous said...

Or even Guardian reading liberal...

Its not known as the Grauniad for nothing!

adfadfasdff said...

Brainwashed.. and castrated.

A different anonymous said...

"Norway is a formerly Protestant, now secular country with very few Jews.

"Proof that Paul Gottfried is right and Kevin MacDonald wrong about the causes of Western decadence?

"Or proof that wider jewish influence of media and academia doesnt need to be micromanaged at the national level. Not when its a relitively small country with a language thats not widely used outside Scandanavia.

Or an entirely predictable event that the first crack in the political-correctness dam would likely occur in a country with few Jews?
And my hunch is, this IS a significant crack. It's in Norwegian, but as the article says, it's the most-watched internet show. All that's needed is for volunteers who are bilingual in Norwegian and other languages to get busy creating subtitles. That's coming soon, have no doubt.

A Norwegian said...

The thing is, the show doesn't go very heavily into the science parts. First the host interviews Norwegian environment/culture deterministic social scientists and then US/UK scientists, lastly returning to the Norwegian ones, confronting them with his new found knowledge. There wouldn't be much new here to anyone semi-literate in HBD- I watched less that half of the episodes. As the show deals mainly with Norwegians and is very Norwegian, I don't know if it would be a great propaganda tool.

Anonymous said...

Europe`s socialism has nothing to do with jews, at least anymore. As a finn it`s surreal to see pro-Israel leftists in american blogs. Do people on the otherside of the pond know what Ulrike Meinhof said about the holocaust? Answer is something like: It was a good start.

Anonymous said...

Norway have a jewish priminister at the moment, and the Gro Harlem Brundtland, priminister for 10 years, was another crypto jew.

Yet another jew, (Dørum) managed to bring in hate legislation on his watch, but because Norways legal system is based on customary rights, the law became sleeping when lay judges refused to judge people by them, creating a custom that said that people get acquitted for these crimes.

ATBOTL said...

Is the public discourse on these issues in America really much different from Norway?

Norway was influenced by all the same Jewish intellectual movement that MacDonald discusses as America was. No one would argue that Marxism and Freudianism couldn't have influenced America because Marx and Freud didn't live here.

Dutch Boy said...

The Nordic countries are anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic (a distinction the Whiskeys of the world seek to obliterate).

MQ said...

Or proof that wider jewish influence of media and academia doesnt need to be micromanaged at the national level. Not when its a relitively small country with a language thats not widely used outside Scandanavia.

LOL -- anti-semitism with no Jews is the final stage of the disorder. Anti-semites always become idiots even if they don't start out as such.

ben tillman said...

I was discussing the Faroe Islands and the Eskimos/Inuit with a Dane once, we got on to social issues and drinking in particular, I mentioned they never invented booze and therefore were biologically suceptible, he shook, visibly, and would no longer talk to me.

It could be a touchy subject for Danes for reasons other than political correctness.

I've spent enough time in København to notice that a few of the locals still have a propensity for Indian-like drunkenness. Remember, it took a long time for alcohol to reach Scandinavia as well.

robert61 said...

No country in Europe is more anti-Semitic than Sweden

If so, European Jews are doing pretty well. I've been living in Stockholm for the past twenty years, about half the people I hang out with are Jewish and they seem to be thriving.

It is not true that you can be prosecuted for citing stats about immigrant crime. There is a law on the books against hets mot folkgrupp, usually translated as the Act on Persecution of Minority Groups. Said act would not sit well with the First Amendment, but the bar for successful prosecution is higher than merely uttering hatefacts. You have be urging harm on the group in question.

You might look up the case of Åke Green, an evangelical minister who was had up on charges a few years ago for saying homosexuality was an abomination. Of course it's outrageous that he was prosecuted at all, but he was acquitted.

Howard Hughes said...

It isn't the number of Jews that matters - it's the influence of them. Scandinavia got few Jews, but they have much control over the media (5 out of the 6 largest newspapers are owned by Jews). Also, the countries are rather Americanized.

Swedish "anti-semitism" is interesting. Criticism of Israel is very common. There exist well-known pundits who are completely pro-Palestina. Some even mention and attacks the Israel lobby (arguably, the most influential pundit in Sweden, Jan Guillou does just that). Major political partys are anti-Israel. The editorial pages of almost every newspaper is pro-Israel, but they are far more critical towards the country than American newspapers.

I guess you could call that "anti-semitism".

However, talk about Jewish influence is absolutely taboo. The Holocaust is pretty much the cornerstone of the history subject in Swedish schools - in Orweillan manner the state has a special department for teaching about the crimes of the Third Reich, Soviet and the People's Republic of China.

Attacking Israel is accepted; attacking the Jewish community in general is not tolerated.

MT said...

Btw, is this something you English speakers would like to see subbed (not possible yet, but if avi files become available I'd volunteer to do it)?
- Yes, please.

Social sciences need some critical thought here in Finland as well. There are certainly a lot of issues that are silenced to death in an effort to be politically correct. I guess it's because here the non-technological universities get their funding almost exclusively from the state. They don't want to bite the hand that feeds them and some departments just have a clear leftist/feminist/multiculturalist agenda that is left unquestioned.

trey said...

Interesting theory, Whiskey

Anonymous said...

Do people on the otherside of the pond know what Ulrike Meinhof said about the holocaust? Answer is something like: It was a good start.

Meinhof was a leftist from two generations ago and no one recalls what she said.

Except you.

TGGP said...

It is not illegal to point out Muslim crime in Sweden. A Swedish sociology students wrote her thesis on Muslims who describe their street-crime as war against their hosts, and Swedish papers reported on it.

The Inductivist analyzed the World Values Survey, showing Sweden to be the second-LEAST antisemitic.

Anonymous said...

I've read that in France it is actually against the law to collect data about race, or make it public.

In France, only two races can conceptually exist - those who can speak French, and those who cannot speak French. Since everyone in France can and must speak fluent french, there is only one French race. Collecting data about races is meaningless, and therefore socially disruptive.

Sociologist said...

There is no point in collecting data about ´race´ cause it´s a pointless category according to DNA-biologists and every other category is based on ethnic = social grounds. There are 10 diffirent races in the world and 9 of them can still be found in Africa. That means europeans and for example every asian and most of the "black-skinned" nations in the world share the DNA-based "race".

In general, social scientists conduct research about the social dimension not the biological sphere. For this reason, they intentionally avoid making statements that belong to evolution-biologists or other natural science researcers. It´s their business to study the human being as a biological being.