Unexamined priors

Contradictions of technocracy again. Two more from Leiter, like last time, one after the other, but even closer together: 13 minutes. The last time it was 24.

The elite have no right to treat their peers like children...

The "diversity" mafia is insatiable

Three "diverse" scholars explain in Nature that at the current rate at which universities hire "diverse" candidates, "racial parity" (with the population at large) will not be achieved, therefore universities need to hire 3.5 times as many "diverse" candidates.  This would, of course, require a massive increase in discrimination against non-diverse candidates (beyond what already occurs, which as everyone knows is substantial), but that does not figure in the relevant conception of "equity." No explanation is given for why "racial parity" is the desideratum,* and of course there is no discussion of the class dynamics that are central to any serious explanation for the existing racial disparity in higher education. "Racial parity" is already an illegal criterion in hiring, and "diversity" will be unlawful within the year.  What will the insatiable proponents of "diversity" do then?  This is going to get ugly, I fear.

*One line of text asserts that, "Decades of work across policy and the social sciences have established the normative importance and empirical benefits of demographic parity in higher education."  The footnote has a couple of citations.  Authors who make claims like this are clearly counting on the fact that most readers do not actually examine the literature, which establishes nothing of the kind, and which certainly does not make the case for "racial parity." 

but policing the rabble is for our own good. 

The EU continues policing Google

They will now require Google to remove inaccurate information from search results. Google will not go out of business as a result, although opponents of such moves always invoke doomsday scenarios to scare off meaningful regulation in the U.S.

Leiter opposes enforced self-criticsm and denunciation rallies for his own. So do I. The piece in the CHE is a disaster on all sides.

Reparations to The Palestinians and The Native People of Liberia. Technocratic empiricism is an oxymoron.