1. According to Dr. Thomas Sowell, writing in "Intellectuals and Race," intellectuals, opinion-makers, are dangerous because they decide on their conclusions, and then impose same on the populace. Many accept 'expert' opinion without questioning the underpinnings.
a. The same danger accords acceptance of 'scientific understanding,' if one is so careless as to forget that scientists are simply human beings, who also have attitudes ....and biases.
2. Madison Grant was a social scientist who focused on racial differences in his influential 1916 book, "The Passing of the Great Race." For those who attempt to argue that, somehow, the interests and mandates of early progressives have been reversed in later years, it is simple to view those interests, and find them prominent in progressives of today. One such is a desire for a society guided from the top down by intellectual elites...and community organizers.
a. And while the claim today is that the progressive view of racial differences is very different today, what is certainly the same is that whatever view prevails among intelligentsia at the time is axiomatically deemed to be superior to conflicting views held by others. The racialist views of Madison Grant, which he called 'genetic determinism,' was contrasted with what he deemed 'sentimentalism.' In later times, those who disagreed with the prevailing racial orthodoxy were branded as racists.
3. Association of genetics with particular races led directly to the view of a hierarchy of racial excellence. Here is one of those examples where evidence to the contrary is simply ignored: history shows profound changes in the achievements of different races over time, and this clearly defeats the idea of 'genetic determinism,' e.g., the Chinese and the Europeans: first one group excelled, then the other.
a. Well, if the link between genes and achievement is shown to be broken, the astute mind seeks non-genetic factors that produce the observations. Otherwise, 'science' is no more than some incantation to support ideology, and silence critics of fashionable assumptions.
4. Almost synonymous with 'the Progressive Era' is the idea that science was the basis for the ideas behind it. The impetus for the scientific views was the huge European immigration, especially the shift from Northern and Western Europeans, to Southern and Eastern Europeans. Unhappiness with the way these new waves looked, or behaved, scientists leapt to explain how inferior they were! For same, came the efficient manner of dealing with these problems. The start was the accumulation of data on crime rates, disease rates, mental test scores, school performance.
a. 100,000 soldier were tested during WWI, and those of English, German, and Irish ancestry scored considerably higher than those of Russian, Italian, and Polish.
Brigham, "A Study of American Intelligence," (1923), p. xx.
b. Carl Brigham, authority on mental tests, and creator of the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test- claimed that the Army test 'disproved the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent.'
Brigham, Ibid, p. 190.
c. Black children in Youngstown, Ohio, scored higher than children of Polish, Greek, and other immigrants there.
Pinter and Keller, "Intelligence Tests of Foreign Children," Journal of Educational Psychology,(April 1922), p. 215.
d. What to do with these 'facts'? For progressives and liberals, "theirs was the vision of the anointed as surrogate decision- makers....[including] an expanded role for government and an expanded role for judges to re-interpret the Constitution so as to loosen the restrictions on the powers of government."
Sowell, "Intellectuals and Race," p. 26.
5. So....where did our Progressives take us? Eugenics, the attempts to prevent the breeding by the wrong kind of people, "the multiplication of the unfit, the production of a horde of unwanted souls."
From "The Control of Births," The New Republic, March 6, 1915.
a. " The New Republic (TNR) is a liberal American magazine of commentary on politics and the arts published continuously since 1914... The New Republic was founded by Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann..." The New Republic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So....be careful as to the "science" you accept....
...it may be politics in disguise!
a. The same danger accords acceptance of 'scientific understanding,' if one is so careless as to forget that scientists are simply human beings, who also have attitudes ....and biases.
2. Madison Grant was a social scientist who focused on racial differences in his influential 1916 book, "The Passing of the Great Race." For those who attempt to argue that, somehow, the interests and mandates of early progressives have been reversed in later years, it is simple to view those interests, and find them prominent in progressives of today. One such is a desire for a society guided from the top down by intellectual elites...and community organizers.
a. And while the claim today is that the progressive view of racial differences is very different today, what is certainly the same is that whatever view prevails among intelligentsia at the time is axiomatically deemed to be superior to conflicting views held by others. The racialist views of Madison Grant, which he called 'genetic determinism,' was contrasted with what he deemed 'sentimentalism.' In later times, those who disagreed with the prevailing racial orthodoxy were branded as racists.
3. Association of genetics with particular races led directly to the view of a hierarchy of racial excellence. Here is one of those examples where evidence to the contrary is simply ignored: history shows profound changes in the achievements of different races over time, and this clearly defeats the idea of 'genetic determinism,' e.g., the Chinese and the Europeans: first one group excelled, then the other.
a. Well, if the link between genes and achievement is shown to be broken, the astute mind seeks non-genetic factors that produce the observations. Otherwise, 'science' is no more than some incantation to support ideology, and silence critics of fashionable assumptions.
4. Almost synonymous with 'the Progressive Era' is the idea that science was the basis for the ideas behind it. The impetus for the scientific views was the huge European immigration, especially the shift from Northern and Western Europeans, to Southern and Eastern Europeans. Unhappiness with the way these new waves looked, or behaved, scientists leapt to explain how inferior they were! For same, came the efficient manner of dealing with these problems. The start was the accumulation of data on crime rates, disease rates, mental test scores, school performance.
a. 100,000 soldier were tested during WWI, and those of English, German, and Irish ancestry scored considerably higher than those of Russian, Italian, and Polish.
Brigham, "A Study of American Intelligence," (1923), p. xx.
b. Carl Brigham, authority on mental tests, and creator of the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test- claimed that the Army test 'disproved the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent.'
Brigham, Ibid, p. 190.
c. Black children in Youngstown, Ohio, scored higher than children of Polish, Greek, and other immigrants there.
Pinter and Keller, "Intelligence Tests of Foreign Children," Journal of Educational Psychology,(April 1922), p. 215.
d. What to do with these 'facts'? For progressives and liberals, "theirs was the vision of the anointed as surrogate decision- makers....[including] an expanded role for government and an expanded role for judges to re-interpret the Constitution so as to loosen the restrictions on the powers of government."
Sowell, "Intellectuals and Race," p. 26.
5. So....where did our Progressives take us? Eugenics, the attempts to prevent the breeding by the wrong kind of people, "the multiplication of the unfit, the production of a horde of unwanted souls."
From "The Control of Births," The New Republic, March 6, 1915.
a. " The New Republic (TNR) is a liberal American magazine of commentary on politics and the arts published continuously since 1914... The New Republic was founded by Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann..." The New Republic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So....be careful as to the "science" you accept....
...it may be politics in disguise!
