Definitely a borderline non-appropriate post for the sub, but since mods allowed this one discussing Kathryn Paige Harden - and I’m just really curious about finding an answer here and don’t subscibe to any other subs I can think of with users with relevant, knowledgeable backgrounds - I’m hoping it’ll barely fit or the mods will find the topic interesting enough to arbitrarily allow it. Even if it’s to tell me that I’m off-base here.
Obvious he’s a real scientist and science communicator, but he also seems present enough in the “There’s a left-wing war on reason and free inquiry, and this includes IQ heritability”-sphere (albeit in a calm, non-confrontational and even charming style) that I’m getting bad vibes.
Initially I considered him maybe akin to David Reich, another legitimate researcher who nevertheless is naive in a frustratingly blinkered way about the political ramifications of his public remarks, but he’s also appeared on enough shows with the likes of Pinker, and culture-war content-creators, and written articles for UnHerd, that I see him as more actively engaged with caliper-types than Reich, even if he’s still fairly tangential to the worst of them.
Am example of what I’m thinking of is his appearance on this podcast/YouTube channel (suggested to me just this morning, I assume because I lift weights, and the host seems like he’s in the “physical fitness + Western chauvinism with a veneer of intellectual curiousity” genre), where Ritchie gives a brief and uncharitable explanation of why Behavioral Genetics would attract critics: which is that the field makes politically-correct folks anxious, and they let their biases, and misconceptions about what links between behavioral traits and genetics mean, govern their responses to data.
Maybe I’m misapplying American science history to a specifically British context here, and Behavioral Genetics in the UK sprung forth fully-formed, pristine and politically-neutral, but ignoring that the field in its inception at least in North America included devout racists, and not taking a brief moment to explain why current research represents a different paradigm, to me is a specific choice that implicitly casts critics as hysterical rather than having grounded concerns, even if he disagrees with them. I dunno.
I used to know a guy who went to school with him who said he was alright.
I think he’s just a defensive genuine liberal-minded centrist who really has a hard-on for data and not a massive capacity for self-awareness, who in that mould particularly seems to feel that attacks on people in his general area (even bad people!) are implicitly attacks on him, and isn’t enormously skilled at separating that out
I don’t think he’ll ever go full nazi but I also don’t carry any particular water for the guy
He reacts badly to fame though, and it will/has got the better of him (I don’t mean that in a kind way)
Stuart Ritchie is good stuff. I’ve read both his books and his substack or newsletter is mostly focused on digging into the messy data on interesting topics where strong or credulous opinions are often held.
His recent post on growth mindset is a great example of science writing for a popular audience and addresses a very trendy idea uncritically adopted by many in education and business. I’d recommended it.
You might not like his behavioural genetics stuff, but side eyeing good writers like Ritchie because you don’t agree with him on that contentious topic looks a lot like looking for an excuse to call him ignorant or lacking in self-awareness because you don’t like that he writes openly about where he sees the evidence leaning.
I wish this sub was a bit less dogmatic in who it despises. Jordan Peterson, yes please, that dingbat writing about AGI risk, give me more, but Ritchie isn’t your guy and he’s not an easy target because he doesn’t say stupid things.
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Genetic engineering is a great idea. It’s such a great idea that its what feeds the planets humans and has bred its livestock: selective breeding of plants and animals.
Give a retard a calculator…
Instead of using genetic engineering to modify human genes for longevity, disease resistance, and overall better life outcomes these idiots singlemindedly focus on dumb shit like skin color and other irrelevant features.