Making People Better
Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave.
Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) Serenity
Some of the worst atrocities of the last century were done under the rubric of making people, and society, better. Stalin and Mao killed millions, Pol Pot killed a third of all Cambodians, all in the name of creating "better" people and a better society.
The impulse to make people better was discredited, for a time, but it never really has gone away. Every generation, very smart people emerge who believe that they know how to make people better and lack the humility and shame to recognize how dangerous their impulses are.
Lyndon Johnson tried to create a Great Society and instituted a whole panoply of compassionate programs meant to help the poor become better off; they worked for a time but the built-in obstinacy of the human race combined with the well known, but too often neglected, principle of unintended consequences, to cause terrible damage to many millions of people. Welfare helped millions of people but the unintended consequences included an epidemic of father-less children and the explosive growth in numbers of teen mothers. By now, almost everyone can recognize what a cruel disaster this has been for the poorest Americans.
Social engineering continues to be a growth industry in the West.
Modern liberalism contains an internal contradiction that should be enough to inter it permanently but alas, is generally ignored. Modern liberalism contains the baseline Lamarckian assumption that people are essentially equivalent at birth and that everything from gender to intelligence is socially determined. At the same time, modern liberalism also contains the assumption that traits formerly considered undesirable by society, such as homosexuality, are genetically determined. Modern liberalism thus comes down squarely on both sides of the Nature-Nurture dialectic depending on which approach is more useful at the moment.
The assumption of perfect equality and equivalence has been extremely successful. It is the philosophical basis for Title IX and other forms of Affirmative Action. In a rather chilling article, John Tierney notes a new frontier for social engineering, a development that has the potential to do significant harm to our society.
A New Frontier for Title IX: Science
Until recently, the impact of Title IX, the law forbidding sexual discrimination in education, has been limited mostly to sports. But now, under pressure from Congress, some federal agencies have quietly picked a new target: science.
The National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Energy have set up programs to look for sexual discrimination at universities receiving federal grants. Investigators have been taking inventories of lab space and interviewing faculty members and students in physics and engineering departments at schools like Columbia, the University of Wisconsin, M.I.T. and the University of Maryland.
So far, these Title IX compliance reviews haven’t had much visible impact on campuses beyond inspiring a few complaints from faculty members. (The journal Science quoted Amber Miller, a physicist at Columbia, as calling her interview “a complete waste of time.â€) But some critics fear that the process could lead to a quota system that could seriously hurt scientific research and do more harm than good for women.
The members of Congress and women’s groups who have pushed for science to be “Title Nined†say there is evidence that women face discrimination in certain sciences, but the quality of that evidence is disputed. Critics say there is far better research showing that on average, women’s interest in some fields isn’t the same as men’s.
In reality there is very little evidence that women are globally discriminated against or discouraged from entering the sciences, though one can always find anecdotes of base behavior and personal bias upon which to construct a theory of wholesale discrimination. Nonetheless, the relative dearth of women at the upper echelons of science and math related fields is a fact.
Despite supposed obstacles like “unconscious bias†and a shortage of role models and mentors, women now constitute about half of medical students, 60 percent of biology majors and 70 percent of psychology Ph.D.’s. They earn the majority of doctorates in both the life sciences and the social sciences. They remain a minority in the physical sciences and engineering. Even though their annual share of doctorates in physics has tripled in recent decades, it’s less than 20 percent. Only 10 percent of physics faculty members are women, a ratio that helped prompt an investigation in 2005 by the American Institute of Physics into the possibility of bias.
Since to admit that men might be more interested and/or adept at science and math than women is anathema to modern liberalism and threatens to destroy the entire edifice of preferences based upon the theory, the facts must be ignored or finessed.
When Title IX was extended to athletics, it could have been seen as a relatively harmless bit of academic engineering. After all, even if women were not as interested in sports as men, the worst result was to have more women in college on scholarships for sports such as volleyball; the cost was to men's sports such as hockey. Interestingly, the growing body of evidence that men are suffering from our current pedagogy and their numbers are falling in college has been simply ignored by academia at large. The contradictions in modern liberalism would be mind-boggling were the academics to pay attention. It is, of course, easier to tolerate cognitive dissonance when one is capable of simply ignoring inconvenient facts.
Tierney concludes by quoting Christina Hoff Sommers's prediction that soon the lawyers will be "on the case":
The reviews so far haven’t led to any requirements for gender balance in science departments. But Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written extensively about gender wars in academia, predicts that lawyers will work gradually, as they did in sports, to require numerical parity.
“Colleges already practice affirmative action for women in science, but now they’ll be so intimidated by the Title IX legal hammer that they may institute quota systems,†Dr. Sommers said. “In sports, they had to eliminate a lot of male teams to achieve Title IX parity. It’ll be devastating to American science if every male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women’s level of interest.â€
Whether or not quotas are ever imposed, some of the most productive science and engineering departments in America are busy filling out new federal paperwork. The agencies that have been cutting financing for Fermilab and the Spirit rover on Mars are paying for investigations of a problem that may not even exist. How is this good for scientists of either sex?
If I may include a disclaimer for those who believe I am somehow denigrating women in science. My daughter is in her third year of Medical School and loves science. She spent a summer doing research and decided she did not love research though she loved reading and thinking about the cutting edge. In this she takes after her father. As well, my (Almost) Daughter-in-law is an engineer who is running a development project for a large American corporation. When my son bought a rowing machine it did not get put together until she took over the construction project. My son's skills do not lie with mechanical tools. Both of these exceedingly bright young women have never felt discriminated against in their science and math education; both are doing what they are interested in and relish the freedom to do what they love.
If the modern liberals have their way, we will surely introduce quotas and affirmative action to science, and once science has been perverted by ideology we will surely be destroying what makes us great.
"If the modern liberals have their way, we will surely introduce quotas and affirmative action to science, and once science has been perverted by ideology we will surely be destroying what makes us great."
And (just like Europe), this ideology will age and crumble while Islam waits patiently to pick up the pieces/pillage the ruins as a liberator.
"Nothing's worse than a monster who thinks he's right with God." -- Capt Mal Reynolds, Free Trader Serenity
Yes there is, Mal. A monster who KNOWS he's right with God -- "Al'lah'u Akbar!"
Posted by: Headless Unicorn Guy | July 15, 2008 at 11:41 AM
"Modern liberalism contains the baseline Lamarckian assumption that people are essentially equivalent at birth and that everything from gender to intelligence is socially determined"
I completely agree with the idea behind this sentence but it has nothing to do with Lamarck's theories.
If you haven't already read it see Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" for an in-depth discussion and debunking of this liberal worldview.
Posted by: Marvin | July 15, 2008 at 01:51 PM
Perhaps we should include Iraqis among those whose lives have not been made any better (especially those who are now dead) by the neoconservative do-gooders who felt that "freedom" and "democracy" could be delivered to them by American might.
And, once again, you have indulged in the logical fallacy of invidious comparisons. Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were hardly liberals and their totalitarian regimes were hardly comparable to the "Great Society" or, even more ludicrously, Title IX legislation. It may be pleasing to you to lump Muslims in with child molesters and liberals in with mass murderers, but it discredits any argument you are attempting to make.
Posted by: Judge_Crater | July 15, 2008 at 04:46 PM
Judge Crater: with regards to Stalin, Mao etc. the only ludicrous thing is the fact that modern 'educated' liberals don't even know that all of them grew out from the same pool of ideas that created Title IX.
It's too bad that those who think like Judge Crater are in the intellectual majority today. My only consolation is that once stalins, maos and their movements come to power, the first ones they exterminate are the very same 'intellectuals' who promoted them to begin with. People like Judge Crater, you know. The despised Bible-loving rednecks, on the other hand, usually manage just fine under such regimes. :-)
Posted by: Marvin | July 15, 2008 at 09:59 PM
The facts of life are conservative, not liberal. Liberals do not accept this. They believe the facts of life and reality in general are optional, and they have opted out. Going against reality always results in a mess, and that is what liberals do. They makes messes. The make a mess of everything they touch, they destroy all that is natural and good, they create nothing worthwhile. And of course, being liberal means you never have to say you are sorry. Liberals never accept responsibility for the messes they make. Liberalism is social sickness, social injustice.
Posted by: Flash Gordon | July 16, 2008 at 10:53 AM
Perhaps we should include Iraqis among those whose lives have not been made any better (especially those who are now dead) by the neoconservative do-gooders who felt that "freedom" and "democracy" could be delivered to them by American might.
Social engineering done right is a glory magnificent. Social engineering done wrong is like the Bubonic Plague.
WWII was good or evil depending on which side you were on, which ideology to be specific. One fought the war for good reasons and did good, one fought the war for wrong reasons and did evil. Same with social engineering.
Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were hardly liberals
Democrats and fake liberals are "hardly" liberals, Sirrah.
Posted by: Ymarsakar | July 16, 2008 at 02:24 PM
"My only consolation is that once stalins, maos and their movements come to power, the first ones they exterminate are the very same 'intellectuals' who promoted them to begin with." -- Marvin
Intellectuals might start utopian revolutions, but the street thugs finish them.
Because street thugs are very good at seizing and holding POWER with no inhibitions to handicap them.
Posted by: Headless Unicorn Guy | July 16, 2008 at 03:55 PM
Hi Shrink, I miss you guys' podcasts.
Can I suggest another way to look at this and ultimately what I see as the fundamental difference between the Right and the Left?
Conservatives believe in the general capability of others and the corresponding accountability.
Because I see you as capable, no further action from me is needed.
On the other hand, the Left holds a condescending belief in others as incapable and therefore unaccountable.
Because I see you as incapable, I feel compelled into action.
You see and hear it everywhere, in their words and policies. Title IX is a perfect example. You also see it in; Abortion, condom distribution, affirmative action, welfare, the ACLU, needle exchange programs, press one for English, bilingual education, etc… all attempts at freeing others (and themselves) from accountability. It all comes from the same place; you are incapable, so I’m going to see to it that you aren’t held accountable. Notice that most of the stated values of the Left; compassion, generosity, caring, empathy, etc., are emotions and actions that require me to first see you as incapable.
Posted by: JohnMac | July 17, 2008 at 08:08 PM
Lamarkism has nothing to do with "blank slate" paradigm: it is conviction that aquired traits can become hereditary. "Blank slate" theorists simply deny existence of hereditary traits.
As for women in hard sciencies, most of them simply do not have required intelligence. This does not means that they are more dumb than men in average: average IQ scores for women are just the same as for men, that is, 100. But the dispersion of this character, as in every other measurable parameter, is significantly higher for men than for women. That is, there much more geniuses and idiots among men that among women. In the last decile of IQ curve there is tenfold predominance of men over women (among idiots, too). When we need excelence (in mathematics and theoretical physics, for example), qute a few women are adequate in their upper limit of possible performance. This is genetics, stupid.
Posted by: Sergey | July 19, 2008 at 12:31 PM
Men also have the ability to zone out. Meaning focus your entire being on a task to the exclusion of all other considerations. A useful survival trait in our hunting days, when being focused on kill or be killed was supreme.
Women, however, were more designed to pay attention to their surroundings and the people and their behaviors around them. They have to concentrate on activities, but they need to be aware of other things, like things in the future, as well.
The "zoning out" trait is also present in Zoroastrianism, certain schools of warrior philosophy, and the Marine sniper school when they teach stealth and stillness.
These traits help men excell in hard sciences where focus is extremely important. Women can focus as well, but they don't have as many positive reinforcing tools to do so as we do. And besides, many women wouldn't prefer to do so even if they COULD.
Posted by: Ymarsakar | July 19, 2008 at 10:49 PM