Christopher Rufo, credited with helping oust school’s first Black president, touted critic associated with ‘scientific racists’

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
    431·
    9 months ago

    Groups don’t stop having different average IQs simply because they are defined as racial or ethnic, intelligence is 57-80% heritable after all. What should be controversial is discrimination based on average test scores of other people, not acknowledgement of reality regarding differences between groups.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      231·
      9 months ago

      Groups don’t stop having different average IQs simply because they are defined as racial or ethnic,

      But race and ethnicity themselves are not determinative.

      intelligence is 85% heritable after all.

      Citation needed. Most citations I could find said genetics may account or anywhere from 30 to 50% of a person’s intelligence. But they have no idea what genes would possibly be contributing to that and how. So basically it’s a hypothesis with zero proof. Either you are operating on junk science or straight up eugenicist.

      While it is true that random groups of people may have different average IQs. It has more to do with what they eat, how often they eat and their exposure to different ideas than it does their genetics, etc. Even then, IQ is not actually a useful measure of intelligence.

      • DarkGamer@kbin.social
        315·
        9 months ago

        I stand corrected! According to wikipedia:

        Early twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%, with some recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

        Thanks, I’ll edit my comments to reflect this. Intelligence remains heritable, just not as heritable as I thought.

        It has more to do with what they eat, how often they eat and their exposure to different ideas than it does their genetics, etc.

        One cannot discount the role of nature in the nature vs. nurture debate. Some twin studies are quite remarkable in illustrating the significant role it plays.