31 Search Results for: boutwell

Dealing with the Reality That Not Everyone Can Succeed

Published by Brian Boutwell

As a society, we’ve failed to confront a reality that has emerged time and again from psychological research. Two traits — general intelligence and self-control — are perhaps our best individual level predictors of living a successful life. More on what “successful” means momentarily. However, failure to appreciate the reach of intelligence and self-control, though troublesome in the past, will become increasingly problematic as our modern American economy becomes ever more technological and our economy ever more global. In fact, had we appreciated the importance of these traits more fully in the decades leading up to now, we might have foreseen more clearly the rise of a Donald J. Trump style presidential candidate. What does it mean to live a successful life? Quite frankly, it can mean a lot of things. I’m not referring in this case to having any particular occupation, level of education, income, or living in any particular region of the country. By “living a successful life” I mean that when possible, avoiding the many negative occurrences that can creep up. Avoiding …

If You’re Reading This Essay, You Should Probably Have (More) Children

Published by Jonny Anomaly and Brian Boutwell

The 20th century saw explosive population growth, fueled by a combination of declining infant mortality, decreasing violence and steady growth in agricultural productivity. These trends resulted in large part from technological advances  —  like chemical fertilizers, genetically modified food, antibiotics, and vaccines  —  which acted as a tremendous boon to human welfare. By the 1970s, some were convinced that population growth would soon lead us back to a dark age of famine, disease and war. But they were wrong. Instead of the downward spiral forecasted by Thomas Malthus, a somewhat unexpected trend emerged. Citizens of industrialized countries in the late 20th century began having fewer children. So few, in fact, that current fertility rates in Europe, Australia, East Asia and other developed regions are well below replacement levels. The result has been an aging population that faces workforce shortages and empty nests. Despite these facts, some journalists and pundits have renewed the call to have fewer kids. Why? Their main worry is climate change. A number of popular articles (and books) have implored people to …

Does Religion Cause Violence?

Published by Brian Boutwell and Jonny Anomaly

The streets of small rural towns in United States are typically tranquil places, but they are especially still on Sunday mornings. On those mornings, people dutifully report to their local places of worship, pay their tithes, listen to the sermon, sing the hymns, and bow their heads for the prayers. Religion is a cultural bulwark; it is a glue of the community. But southern piety, like all incarnations of faith, harbors a dark history. One spotted with racism and contempt for minorities, and incredulity that women might do much else than sing in the choir. What’s worse is that there is no shortage of scripture from which to justify these iniquities. And God, at least in the past it seems, provided ready dispensation. More insidious are the acts of violence and aggression committed under the auspices of religion: the crosses burned, the houses of worship destroyed, and the lives taken, all with the apparent sponsorship of no less than the “creator of the universe“. Religion, it would seem — all brands included, but some more …

Medicine Must Not Forget the Psychosocial

Published by Tim Rogers

A 54 year old woman in Chicago recently lost her only child to opioid addiction. She had become depressed and had stopped taking her statins and other medication. Her smoking had increased. She is eventually brought to the ER by paramedics following a 911 call by a member of the public. She describes crushing central chest pain, but within 20 minutes of arrival her consciousness level is slipping and no further history is obtainable. Tests quickly show evidence of heart failure, while venous and arterial bloods reveal that she is seriously hypoxic, has a raised blood sugar, and multiple biochemical upsets. She is dangerously ill. There is a significant risk she will arrest in the Emergency Room, but she is transferred to High Dependency Unit and over the next six hours her condition is stabilised. The following day she is taken to theatre where a blocked artery is repaired, and within 48 hours of admission she is mobilising well, eating meals, and watching TV with other patients in the day room. The young female medical intern who …

Saints & Sinners: A Dialogue on the Hardest Topic in Science

Published by Michael Rocque and Brian Boutwell

 “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall” – Escalus; in ‘Measure for Measure’ by William Shakespeare There is arguably no topic more incendiary (about which scholars say less, ironically) than race differences in general, and in particular, race differences in behavior and achievement. There are certain subjects that are so politically charged and fraught with consequences that any scientific research on the topic is instantly applauded or demonized (depending on your viewpoints), no matter the findings. The subject of race differences, broadly defined, falls squarely in this category. For the purposes of this discussion, and because we are behavioral scientists, we focus on the issue of race differences in behavior. In our experience, the perception seems to be that two camps exist for the study of race differences in behavior. In the first camp, race is seen as a social construction, one that, if it is consequential, is so because of the way people react to individuals on the basis of race. Any race or ethnicity differences that emerge — for behavior, intelligence, …

Monks in High Towers: A Plea to Our Fellow Academics

Published by Jonny Anomaly and Brian Boutwell

“The man who knows more and more about less and less is becoming a public nuisance”¹ Emblazoned above the entrance to the religion department at Florida State University is an inscription: The half of knowledge is to know where to find knowledge. The imperative of knowing where to find knowledge cuts deeper than we might imagine in science. Knowledge isn’t quarantined off in a single corner of the academy. Rather, it is dispersed among different fields, much like information is spread across the hard drive of your computer. The sad reality of the modern academy is that many academics work under the assumption that knowledge is proprietary to their field. A great many modern scholars do not even know where to find knowledge. Monks in Many High Towers Academic life involves a menagerie of different fields of study. For a scholar working in any given area, decades of time are invested in understanding her subject with great intensity. The goal is to be an expert in a very particular nook in an increasingly narrow corner. …

Help Us Build Our Platform for Free Thought

Published by Claire Lehmann

Dear reader, Quillette has been proud to offer an independent source of unorthodox commentary since November 2015. With your support we wish to increase the frequency and variety of commentary available to you. Jerry Coyne has described us “as a site you should be bookmarking. Think of it as Slate, but more serious, more intellectual, and without any Regressive Leftism.” We’ve hosted distinguished writers such as Jamie Palmer, Brian Boutwell, Jeffrey Tayler, Toni Airaksinen, Brian Earp, Cathy Young, Sumantra Maitra, W. Kevin Campbell and Heather Mac Donald. We’ve published articles on a range of challenging political issues including free speech, political correctness, Islam, immigration, feminism, foreign policy, and crime. And we’ve published a number of expert articles on scientific topics such as genetics, evolution, psychology, Bayesian statistics and technology. An open-minded readership has found Quillette and we are grateful to you for your loyalty and feedback. But we are now asking for small contributions to grow and improve the website. And we would also like your input. We would like to know what works and what doesn’t, and …

What is a Sexist?

Published by Jonny Anomaly and Brian Boutwell

What kinds of statements about men and women constitute sexism? Is it sexist to say, for example, that on average, men are taller than women or that women live longer than men? Most people already accept the obvious truth that men and women differ in these physiological respects, and it would strain credulity to argue that such statements are sexist. Suggestions about psychological differences, however, can stoke controversy. Pressing the issue further by claiming that psychological and cognitive differences might partly explain wage gaps, employment gaps, and the like, will certainly invite harsh rebuke and likely a charge of sexism. Like “racist”, the definition of “sexist” seems to have ballooned in such a way as to include any claim about average differences between males and females from the neck up. Some feminists, in particular, fear that assertions about differences between men and women threaten the social progress we’ve made over the past few centuries. Perhaps they have a point (as we discuss below). But we should consider whether such an expansive definition of sexism is …

What is a Racist? Why Moral Progress Hinges on Getting the Answer Right

Published by Jonny Anomaly and Brian Boutwell

The charge of “racist” represents a scalpel that has been substantially dulled in recent years. The result is an inability to cut cleanly around the cancerous tissue of racism. The term has been co-opted by well-meaning social justice advocates, and is no longer reserved for people who treat members of other groups as inherently inferior to members of their own group. Nor is it used to identify people who fail to treat members of other groups as the individuals that they are. Instead, “racist” is casually hurled at anyone who expresses ideas that have been emblazoned on an intellectual “no-fly list.” This is not to say that the charge of racism lacks punch. Most reasonable people want to avoid being called a racist, or having people think that they are racist. Perhaps nowhere is this more pronounced than in the modern academy. Scholars are well aware of how damaging a charge of racism can be to a career. Luminaries like E.O. Wilson, Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein, Hans Eysenck, and the Nobel Prize winner James Watson …

On the Reality of Race & the Abhorrence of Racism Part II: Human Biodiversity & Its Implications

Published by Brian Boutwell

If you observe the residents of Japan and compare them to residents of the rural southern United States, you’ll note some differences. Some differences will be stark, others less so, yet they will not be isolated to religious and cultural practices. The differences that emerge will bleed into psychological and temperamental traits that also vary in noticeable ways across populations. The reason for the existence of these differences, though, admits of no simple answer. Prevailing wisdom holds that the cultural and psychological differences that exist across human population groups were shaped largely by a confluence of history, sociological forces, and pure chance. This is likely true to some degree, but the prevailing wisdom — from my point of view — is incomplete. In Part I, we argued that human races exist, meaning that humans can be meaningfully classified into coherent groups based on genetic ancestry. If we’re going to take seriously the existence of meaningful racial variation we also have to at least consider that the genetic differences that exist across racial and ethnic groups …