parrhesia
User ID: 910
parrhesia
2yr ago
Alfred Binet created a test of cognitive ability for French school children. IQ was previously a quotient of scores that correspond to mental age over chronological age for children times 100. That doesn’t work well for adults. They changed it to the standard deviation method where the norm was just 100. I think the reason was likely that 100 was already the norm for a child of perfectly average mental age. I’m not certain though.
parrhesia
2yr ago
Who have you seen saying “IQ is everything!” and “The race is all that matters”? I don’t actually see that attitude from people who talk about this. Perhaps you’ve seen different people from me. I’ll take your word for it. But I want to mention that often I see people say “IQ is very important” and that is strawmanned as “IQ is everything.” I see “IQ is highly heritable” become “IQ is genetically determined.” I just don’t see this among the more sophisticated people talking about IQ. Maybe it’s common among people I don’t interact with.
parrhesia
2yr ago
Yes, I believe that is the point of this rhetoric either consciously or subconsciously. Some might intentionally do this while others find this argument persuasive because it conforms to their desire to be inclusive toward transwomen.
parrhesia
2yr ago
The reason we don't do this is that transactivists would not be satisfied if we shifted language. They do not want us all to use terms like "female" or "biological female." They want full integration. If we replaced "woman" with "female" everywhere, they would insist that transwomen are female and should be treated accordingly. It is not actually a semantic debate, it is an ethical debate.
parrhesia
2yr ago
This argument is also made against genetic enhancement and cochlear implants. From my article:
Singer (2003) excellently critiques these sorts of arguments:
If the use of cochlear implants means that there are fewer Deaf people, is this ‘genocide’? Does our acceptance of prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion mean that we are ‘drifting toward a eugenic resurgence that differs only superficially from earlier patterns’. If the use of the term ‘genocide’ is intended to suggest a comparison with the Holocaust, or Rwanda, it overlooks the crucial fact that cochlear implants do not have victims. On balance, it seems that they benefit the people who have them; if this judgment is contestable, it is at least not clear that they are worse off for having the implant. Imagine a minority ethnic group in which all the parents reach separate decisions that their children will be better off if they marry a member of the majority group, and hence urge them to do so. Is this encouraging ‘genocide’? If so, it is genocide of such a harmless form that the term should be divorced from all its usual moral associations.
I've written an article in which I discuss a somewhat common idea regarding the idea of trans people "existing" [1]. Some trans rights activists (TRAs) refer to denying the statement "transwomen are women" as denying the existence of trans people. Another manifestation of this is when people argue that denying that transwomen are women is threatening to transwomen's existence. The same applies to transmen of course. I argue that these arguments rely on ambiguity in language about "existence." Denying the existence of transwomen seems very silly because that is an unusual way to describe rejecting that a transwoman actually is a woman. Phrasing this as a threat to existence evokes thoughts of genocide. I think this is another case of language being used in an unusual way that is misleading, although perhaps not intentionally. This description of "anti-trans" attitudes should be avoided as it is not accurate and morally charged in a misleading way.
[1] https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/do-transgender-people-exist
As repugnant as you find his stance, he does not say people should be hunted for sport or broken down for parts.
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