Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”

Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014

Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com

Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Journal Founding: August 2, 2012

Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year

Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed

Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access

Fees: None (Free)

Volume Numbering: 12

Issue Numbering: 3

Section: A

Theme Type: Idea

Theme Premise: “Outliers and Outsiders”

Theme Part: 31

Formal Sub-Theme: None

Individual Publication Date: August 1, 2024

Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2024

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Word Count: 2,192

Image Credits: None.

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN): 2369-6885

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the publication.*

Abstract

Bob Williams is a Member of the Triple Nine Society, Mensa International, and the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. He discusses: cultural frames on intelligence research; social dynamics and American ideologies; cancel culture; John Stuart Mill; Woke, Wokism, Wokeness, and the like; and the core of woke lines of reasoning.

Keywords: American Dream ideology, educational enrichment, epigenetic effects, environmental explanations, gene-environment interactions, general intelligence research, high heritability of intelligence, leftist control in academia, nativist arguments, social programs impact.

Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We have covered some of the technicalities around intelligence research. Some of the obvious stuff. Some of the less apparent or known material. Whether we admit or not, general intelligence is here to stay, as it’s like evolution insofar we know some things then it’s one of the best games in town. Researchers have lost careers. Insofar as I can tell, one root in liberal political circles is an emphasis on environmental explanations; whereas, in conservative groups, the focus is on nativist arguments. Naturally, it will depend on the topic and the area to know the particular answer backed by the evidence on any given topic. Is this generally correct, to start?

Bob Williams: Yes, that is correct. Among intelligence researchers, I have not found any who believe that intelligence is totally determined by the environment. At this point, the high heritability of intelligence has been firmly established. What I see among those who are obviously seeing science from the perspective of the left, is that they are trying to introduce claims that there are environmental effects that are hidden, but are really there and are exerting powerful control over intelligence. This nonsense was promoted by Flynn and Dickens (discussed earlier) and is still found in papers arguing that there are strong gene-environment interactions or that there are epigenetic effects that are rooted in the environment. These arguments continue without data showing that they exist. It is like people describing religious things (angels, heaven, etc.) in accord with their religion. No data, but lots of imagination.

I think that there are gene-environment interactions of various kinds. The thing I have not seen demonstrated is that such events boost or reduce g (excluding reductions related to disease, toxins, and head trauma). It is obvious that people with a particular interest or ability will seek environments (university majors, careers, etc.) that complement the interest. Predictions made (from measurements) early in life remain impressive late in life. Environmental dose does not show up as a change in g that is consistent with the magnitude of the accumulated dose.

Education is one of the paths that can be taken by environmentalists. Yes, IQ can increase for low IQ students who are forced to stay in school for one or two extra years, but the IQ scores have been examined and shown to be orthogonal to psychometric g. The extra schooling apparently increases the specificity variance, as is consistent with numerous studies of test preparation.

Those who want to hide the very high heritability of intelligence also take the political path of making the study of hot topics so dangerous that researchers are frightened of the consequences, as we have already discussed. This works for a good many researchers, but a few have been willing to take the heat.

Jacobsen: We can extend this to the emphasis on social programs, nutrition programs, educational enrichment, etc., for many kids to boost performance within the available arena of environmental influence on general intelligence. Obviously, as anyone with sense recognizes, they have their positives effects and do not seem bad insofar as they have positive effects, but there are limits and diminishing returns to such programs. The late James Flynn’s emphasis on entering into general intelligence research seems no surprise as a liberal and arguing for environmental contexts more. He seemed to garner more easy prominence than someone like Plomin. I suspect this has to do with social lies in the West, e.g., the American Dream. The retort: It’s a dream, thus meant to be unrealistic and not everyone will attain it, or want it. The idea of individualistic achievement, attainment of goals, and furtherance of enlightened self-interest willed forward from the strong self. Americans love biblical theology with free will forms of agency, unbounded. They love free market capitalism, individualism, the self-made individual, etc., ironically not liberal values necessarily. Some prefer variations of capitalistic socialism. How do these social dynamics and American ideologies play into the prominence, or not, of various intelligence researchers, implementations of programs, etc.?

Williams: You are right that people like Flynn become popular by appealing not to public understanding of real science, but by promoting things that people want to believe. It’s like selling after-life; it is appealing and cannot be disproved. The same easy acceptance can be seen in Gardner’s multiple intelligences, emotional intelligences, and grit.

My sense is that old America was interested in such things as individual freedoms, the opportunity to rise socially and economically, and a patriotic support for such things as the Constitution. As has happened in other Western nations, there has been a drift to the left, to government as Daddy, and to massive regulation and control over private enterprise. When the liberal left opened our borders, we experienced mass illegal immigration, mostly from low IQ nations. The hordes of illegals who have entered the US have come here not because they love the nation and its values, but are here for government support. I see them showing disrespect for the nation that allowed them to enter and that gives them food, clothing, shelter, medical care, money, and automatic enrollment in colleges (some places). Obviously, the political party that wants them does so to gain House seats, election delegates, and votes.

More to the point of your question, the rise of various extremist groups has fueled the ability of the left to control what happens on campuses, as we saw following the Hamas attack on Israel. When we see this degree of protest against American values, such small targets as intelligence research seem ripe for destruction. Most of the actions that have actually harmed intelligence researchers have happened on university campuses, either by students, faculty, or both.

Jacobsen: There is discussion about cancel culture. Personal view: It seems more like a tactic rather than a culture, not confined to any particular subculture. I’ve been subjected to it, plenty. You learn to simply not care after a while. It takes perspective. Others more prominent have been subjected to it. That’s the nature of the game. It is better than more primitive times in which outsiders and outliers were killed and tortured in the West. I’ll take it as a relative win in some losses. Left, right, and center, use it. It just so happens, on the topic of intelligence research, the majority of the research with strong evidence points to more of a nativist general intelligence rather than an environmental general intelligence, especially as development proceeds forward, and the larger culture in which the general intelligence research exists believes in/assumes environmentalist orientations on life. Which is to say, it goes against the strong grain of striving to mark one’s path and determine one’s destiny, when the Fates pre-ordained boundaries and borders on it. It is culturally offensive. The cancel tactic is used to silence those who deem themselves automatically correct and, so, have decided the matter for everyone else. Thus, they censor them. In the area of intelligence research, the evidence favours more of a nativist assumption than an environmentalist approach, though both have their truths. What are some other stories about intelligence researchers being silenced, censored, and fired?

Williams: The attacks on researchers and scholars (I would put Murray in this category) have been related to their willingness to report IQ differences in breeding groups and sexes. In some instances, the high heritability of IQ and g have been part of the rage from the left. The figure below identifies 56 people who have been attacked over their willingness to report facts about the third-rail topics.

Source: Carl, N. and Woodley of Menie, M.A., 2019. A scientometric analysis of controversies in the field of intelligence research. Intelligence, 77, p.101397.

It is a bit surprising that Shockley is listed as having suffered more than all but Jensen. Going through the list, I found that I have had first hand contact with 23 of these people, at the conferences we jointly attended (plus indirect contact with 3 more). Some of the names are of people who are generally obscure, but those at the top of the list were well known and were subjected to organized protests, if they appeared on a campus. This happened repeatedly to Jensen and Murray, but they did not show defeat. It is amazing to me that Murray accepts invitations to speak, knowing that he will be mistreated by the students and probably not allowed to speak.

Jacobsen: John Stuart Mill was smart. He said, “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation, those who dissent from the opinion, still more those who hold it.” In this domain of general intelligence research, why are the social and political left acting with ferocity to silence countering views, which, in fact, have evidence in support of them? Why is this, in the words of Mill, “evil” to both the perpetrators and those who never knew/heard/read?

Williams: The underlying reason is probably control, which is at the base of many group actions from organized crime to large scale wars. Unfortunately, it is not just “opinion” that is being silenced, but it is the accurate understanding of science. In the 1600s, it was the Church that defined astronomy and other aspects of science. They used their power to silence Galileo in the same manner as the political left uses its power to support its version of science by silencing intelligence research. The friction point is, as we have been discussing, about genetically determined group differences in intelligence. When this is magnified to examine the fine detail, it shows that it is much more about one group (blacks) than all of the others. I presume this focus is due to the very large difference between mean IQs of this single group and all others. Secondarily, some of the opposition is probably based on an intuitive understanding that intelligence is not only distributed in a way that makes Mother Nature seem unfair to the least intelligent groups, but also shows that she has produced a Matthew Effect.

Jacobsen: Several definitions have been floating around the ideas of Woke, Wokism, Wokeness, and the like. There are multiple reactions to it. Some see this as a dismissive term to blanket all progressive ideas and politics with an epithet. I have seen that done, but not much. It’s noteworthy and a fair counter-critique. However, that’s not the core of the phenomenon. I have published one article by a colleague who posits Woke as a mind virus. Obviously, this more academic approach is the best means by which to define the phenomenon to tackle it more appropriately, see where it makes sense and where it does not. The censorship is the key ingredient of the egregious aspect of it. It’s dogmatic progressivism. Ultimately, it’ll be ineffective and counterproductive while damaging people’s lives. What are some of the unconsidered short-term and long-term effects of this new leftist dogma and bipartisan tactic?

Williams: One starting point is education. We presently have university policies that are blatantly racist, admitting students on the basis of their skin colors. While this is favored by the woke left, the result is opposite of the rational direction of developing the brightest students to the high levels they are capable of reaching. When admission is based on race, the long term results suggest lower quality health care (based on medical school admission policies), and poor performance of engineers, airline pilots, the Secret Service (as recently demonstrated), and investment fund performances (based on woke investing in high risk businesses that are operated on the basis of leftist objectives).

Other examples of how woke beliefs have shown up in education is the destruction of gifted education programs and the increasing number of universities that have either made SAT/ACT optional or discontinued them completely.

University priorities are often shown as being the inverse of scholastic abilities:

Jacobsen: What, to you, are the core of woke lines of reasoning?

Williams: I first heard the term “woke” in 2019. To me, it seems to be used as another misleading term that refers to the political goals of socialism and is simply another label to add to “progressive” and “liberal.” The idea is to suggest that people who are not woke are not aware. It is yet another banner for the left, which also treated us to such gems as BLM and DEI. In every case, the idea is to ignore such features as racism, sexism, and the inevitable consequences of turning over the running of a nation to those who want to establish a single party system that looks like those seen in North Korea, China, Russia, etc. Woke claims that people are equally able to do any job, that there are no breeding group differences in measurable abilities, and that the most disparaged groups should pay the cost of inefficiency caused by woke policies in public and private sectors.

Jacobsen: Thank you, once again, Bob.

Williams: Scott, thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss the topics you have skillfully presented.

Bibliography

None

Footnotes

None

Citations

American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition): Jacobsen S. Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”. August 2024; 12(3). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/williams-woke

American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition): Jacobsen, S. (2024, August 1). Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”. In-Sight Publishing. 12(3).

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Fort Langley, v. 12, n. 3, 2024.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2024. “Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 12, no. 3 (Summer). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/williams-woke.

Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition): Jacobsen, S “Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 12, no. 3 (August 2024).http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/williams-woke.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. (2024) ‘Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 12(3). <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/williams-woke>.

Harvard (Australian): Jacobsen, S 2024, ‘Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 12, no. 3, <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/williams-woke>.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. “Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture”.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vo.12, no. 3, 2024, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/williams-woke.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Scott J. Conversation with Bob Williams on the Woke and “Cancel Culture” [Internet]. 2024 Aug; 12(3). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/williams-woke.

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