June 27, 2009

Interview with Richard Nisbett at HBD Books

Here's a probing interview with Richard Nisbett, author of Intelligence and How to Get It, at HBD Books.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

By Steve Sailer on 6/27/2009 Labels:

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

How does this guy manage to get interviews with people like Nisbett, Geoffrey Miller, and Richard Lynn? He's just an anthropology grad student.

6/28/09, 12:52 AM
Steve Sailer said...

Via email?

6/28/09, 12:55 AM
Anonymous said...

Of course; I meant that this is an impressive line up of academics who agreed to an interview for a publicly published blog. Razib has a bigger collection of such interviews, but he has a fairly high profile in the science blogging world while HBD books is a brand new blog.

6/28/09, 1:06 AM
Steve Sailer said...

He shows initiative!

6/28/09, 2:50 AM
Anonymous said...

Hoste: I presume hereditarians and environmentalists would only debate what percentage of the underclass can’t be helped. What should be done with these people, particularly when it comes to passing on their genes?

Nisbett: It’s true that I don’t doubt that IQ – and intelligence however measured – are substantially influenced by genetics. I don’t believe we know exactly how much for any population. I certainly think some proportion of the population are unable to care for themselves. Does anyone not believe this? I wouldn’t care to hazard a guess as to what proportion that would be. Are you suggesting eugenics for such people? That’s not been a popular position since WWII.

---
I love how these people think they can win any argument by throwing around the word "eugenics." It's just like people who throw around the word "racist" or use the old "reductio ad Hitleram." They can't win an argument on the merits, so they try to foreclose the possibility of argument.

6/28/09, 9:32 AM
Anonymous said...

Eugenics not popular? Break your
news to the dairy farmers. Then
whisper with those involved with
directing/managing/ human sperm donations to otherwise infertile
couples.

6/29/09, 7:25 AM
Anonymous said...

Actually, I know of no research or
even anecdotal reports as to how
many dull normal people or EMH
people have been suitably interviewed about voluntary eugenics for themselves. The
celluloid image is that birth control is usually softly or directly imposed upon them. Interviewing these people requires
expertise and caring (& objectivity

6/29/09, 8:05 AM
Anonymous said...

Asking Nisbett the question about eugenics took some guts. I'm impressed. The article on Tim Wise and other one on whiteness studies were something else too.

What's wierd is that nobody brought up the following

"Hoste: Regarding the study of the French children adopted into the top social class having IQs 12 points higher than those adopted into the lowest SES group: even hereditarians will concede that intelligence is to a certain extent malleable in childhood. Is there any evidence, from this or other studies, that these gains hold into adulthood?

Nisbett: There are no data that I am aware of on IQ of adult adoptees. Such data would be extremely informative."

No data on adult adoptees? It sounds like he means at all, not just in this study. Could he really not know what he's talking about to that extent?

6/29/09, 12:18 PM
Anonymous said...

Re portion of Interview about
The Milwaukee Project/ Rick Heber.
The main case against Heber was
in Fed Court for W. Dist. of WI
and is Case No. 81--CR--20--C.
The 09-day jury trial ended July 30, 1981 and that same day Heber was
found guilty on all 13 counts he
was indicted for. He served prison
time in a min. security facility
at Bastrop, TX.--36 mo or less.

7/3/09, 2:35 PM
Anonymous said...

The Heber Affair has been so beclouded for nearly 30 years that there is even misinformation as to when he died. Heber was among 13
American tourists and a Kenyan pilot who were all killed Dec. 03, 1987 in Rwuanda. His address then
was Monument, Co, where apparently
he settled after transitioning from the min. security prison in
Bastrop, Texas.

7/6/09, 6:09 PM
Anonymous said...

Monument Colorado "where apparently
he settled after" Not so. He lived in Colorado--probably at the Monument "ranch" (He was a multi-
millionaire, not dependent at all on a professor's salary ) where, in
addition to one or two other ranches, he imported, trained, bred, and showed fine Arabian Horses. He reportedly was in realistic terms, domiciled in Colorado for years during which time he was a full time tenured professor at U. of Wisconsin, Madison. He reportedly exuded power and prestige wherever he went, was a close friend of the Kennedy family, of Anwar Sadat, and so on. He had a ranch about 20 miles from Madison, but it appears it was more or less a "travel stop" (whenever he dropped into Madison?) He was not convicted for getting funny with money granted into the Milwaukee Project (and there was oceans of it) or for not having detailed raw research data for the Project. It
appears no one--feds, University, etc.--wanted to touch with a hundred foot pole anything involving the issue of Blank Slate
IQ boosting vis a vis Jensenism. Once he had a covert operative generate a whole lot of media hype in the summer of 1971 about how the
Project (Blank Slate based, in the
final analysis ) was creating a "Miracle" of boosting IQ's as much as 30 points---no one wanted to hear later that it was "fool's
gold". In Octoberf 1972 a respected educational psychologist,
Prof. Ellis Page, published a several page paper detaiing all the
oddities and "question marks" hanging over the Heber Milwuakee "Miracle". For eight years--repeat: eight years--no one could think of Page's paper, see anything wrong with Heber's cloud covered project. By the late 70's,
Heber was whispered on campus to
be "The Howard Hughes of Retardation Research" because most of the time no one knew where the hell he was or what he was doing.
He bought and sold valuable research, flew his own private jet
planes, taveled all over the world about Arabian horses, and did a lot of presentations, etc. about
mental retardation. When he was hauled into court to be convicted on 13 counts of money fraud it was for funds that had been granted to a workshop/ seminar / project he had on campus attendant to his being head of the campus (U of MADison Wisconsin ) center for the study of retardation. No one appears to have wanted to even touch the Milwaukee 'Miracle" project because of the taboo nature of any face off between environmentalism and Jensenism. Heber spent about 03 years in fed
country club prisons, some of it near his horse ranch at Monument,
Co. Information about the Project
is oddly scattered and meagre. How a ton of money could be poured
into the Project with no accounting on campus, in D.C. etc.
is great comedy material.

2/27/13, 3:04 PM
Anonymous said...

ref comment made on 02/27/2013
**************
I believe the commentator must
have intended to say "bought and
sold real estate" (not "research")

3/2/13, 2:24 PM

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