Re: Moorad's comment is sound

In a message dated 6/23/2005 11:08:39 AM Eastern Standard Time,
rich.blinne@gmail.com writes:
Yeah. Let's fight bad science with bad science.

http://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=200506081150
Already the Utah study has attracted national attention, and won tempered
praise from high-level cognitive scientists such as Steven Pinker, in a recent
New York Times article. But the authors of research on Jewish genetic diseases —
on which the new study is based — were quick to question whether the
connections made in the new study are sound.
"The only controversy among geneticists is how polite to be about this
study," said Montgomery Slatkin, a mathematician at the University of California,
Berkeley. Slatkin has written papers tracing the genetic history of sphingolipid
disorders, a cluster of four common diseases. "I don't know anyone who thinks
it's true."
Cochran, the lead study author, is an independent researcher who was trained
as a physicist and moved into population genetics late in life. He has not
been afraid to dive into controversial material, and he has argued with
mathematical modeling that homosexuality can be attributed to a viral infection.
...
The work of Cochran's team has been criticized on a number of levels, but at
the most basic, Cochran's critics say his study provides only statistical
speculation, not physical proof of a link between the sphingolipid diseases and
higher intelligence — and the study team makes no attempt to find the genetic
location of the genes responsible for heightened intelligence.
"There's no original data in this," said Harry Ostrer, director of the human
genetics program at New York University. "From that point of view, I would
argue this is bad science. Bad science is what got eugenics into trouble in the
past."
Cochran acknowledges that his team's work is a product of historical and
statistical modeling, but he said that its goal from the beginning was to find a
plausible hypothesis for other scientists to fully test.
...
For his part, Cochran said he hopes that someone takes up his team's
challenge to test his hypothesis. To begin, he proposes a study looking at whether
people with Gaucher disease have higher IQ scores than siblings without the
disease. But even once the findings come in, he is not sure they could make a dent
in conventional wisdom.
"I predict that if we turn out to be right," Cochran said, "we'd change the
minds of maybe 100 people worldwide."
 
Does this approach sound familiar to anyone?
I really don't understand your cryptic comment. NYU's Biomolecular Institute
is doing work on the Ashkenazi gene pool but the rejection of Harpending's
paper is not substantive; only as Pinker said - it is not PC.
If Jews have been practicing eugenics (as the paper suggests) and that has
enabled them to rise to positions of power and influence over other peoples
throughout history what motive exists for the Jewish Forward to agree with
Harpenindg and disseminate the Jewish secret to success? None. Use some critical
thought in your choice of references. Of course this is debated, but is it bad
science? No, nor have you demonstrated how it is bad science. Would you like a
copy of the original paper rather than the critique from the Jewish Forward?
If you want to wage a scientific argument, please present one.

Cochran said if he's right, only about a hundred people in the world would
realize it. He's right about that.

rich faussette
Received on Thu Jun 23 13:02:48 2005