My admiration for him makes his current dissent into the inexplicable defense of bad science in the name of free speech that much more depressing.
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What bad science are you talking about?
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General intelligence is still a total mystery. Otherwise we would have general super AI long ago. At the moment we don't have it.
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Are you suggesting we couldn't possibly test for g without being able to build an intelligent computer?
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No, we would have super AI if we fully understood what general intelligence even was. It's a complete socially constructed concept that measures performance against artificial values.
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Knowing what something is has never been contingent on knowing how to artificially create it. You can call it whatever you'd like, the variables measured by g are clearly laid out. It has utility insofar as you're looking to score ppl along those dimensions.
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You need to look a little deeper. The question is, what is that utility? What is it based upon? Whats the ultimate value that defining general intelligence along those specific parameters reinforces? Achievement and future success. What does those mean?
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The utility is the ability to measure one's capacity to reason and solve novel problems It is based on relative differences in inductive and deductible reasoning skills. The value of defining intelligence that way is that it's intuitive.
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Well said. Couldn't agree more - I'd add to list that he's also almost certainly Vulcan. The man possesses beyond Spock-level calmness & logic.
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Actually he seems to lose his temper a lot. The result is his interviews are sometimes derailed and become unfocused and confused. I was winging at the one with Shapiro and Weinstein. Weinstein “youngonatnit kids”
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Harris loses his temper a LOT? well that's certainly an interesting interpretation. Harris is a paragon of a person who can regulate emotion. Even when confronted with outrageous accusations by Batman. (link: https://youtu.be/vln9D81eO60 )http://youtu.be/vln9D81eO60
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Haha he was calm there. Yes a lot was an exaggeration. It is true however that Sam’s interviews are frequently unnececessily difficult, largely in my view because of ways that he tries to control his conversations.
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That's not "loosing his temper" tho is it? In fact it's probably the opposite. His patience allows him to labour over a single point that he deems important, when others may move last it. Most listeners obviously don't see that as constructive. Personally I value it
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I see it as losing his temper or his cool or whatever you want to call it. Of course he’s not flying off the handle at anyone.
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So he remains calm, dsnt raise voice, remains polite, lets the other person talk & explain their position as much as they like, patiently repeats his objection in a multitude of ways, but stubbornly sticks with it to the annoyance of some viewers... & that's "loosing his temper"?
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By far my favorite podcast.
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Agreed.
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Really? The guy claimed, in a peer reviewed scientific paper, that some unknown difference between two groups of people being tested, exists, even though the fMRI results were essentially the same. That's not scientific. That's not intellectual. That's not straight and open.
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do you have a source?
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For the theist group, affirmation of god claims showed almost the same results as rejection of god beliefs in the "atheist" group.http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0007272 …
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Rather than saying "hey, same thing" he came to the conclusion that a different reason exists for the same cognitive signature, but provides no real explanation and so currently the claim is not even falsifiable.
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Sounds like it is more about the limits of fMRI.
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There are limits to fMRI, but the explanation for the nearly equal and opposite reactions between the two test groups is not really scientific.
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Nearly equal? Aren't those the unknown differences he was referring to?
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Look at the graphic. Between Christian and non-believer, you see the signals almost reverse. I'm not talking about difference between reaction to religious and non-religious stimulus. I'm talking about the nearly equal and opposite reaction between groups.
End of conversation
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