Nicholas Wade is now at the top of my list of “Bad Rebuttalists”. Mr. Wade has written a book regurgitating all the old racial tropes that have been floating around for the last two hundred years or so. Only this time, with added sciency goodness. Real scientists have called his sciency arguments bullshit. His rebuttal? To get into a qualifications fight. Despite their confident assertions that I have misrepresented the science, which I’ve been writing about for years in a major newspaper, none of these authors has any standing in statistical genetics, the relevant discipline. Raff is a postdoctoral student in genetics and anthropology. Fuentes and Marks are both anthropologists who, to judge by their webpages, do little primary research. Most of their recent publications are reviews or essays, many of them about race. Their academic reputations, not exactly outsize to begin with, might shrink substantially if their view that race had no biological basis were to be widely repudiated. Both therefore have a strong personal interest (though neither thought it worth declaring to the reader) in attempting to trash my book. So, let me get this straight. We have three Ph.D.’s in genetics and anthropology. They are commenting on on the area of their expertise—genetics and anthropology. More specifically, their area of interest and expertise appears to be race. In contrast, we have a guy saying he is qualified to comment on genetics and anthropology because he has been “writing … for years in a major newspaper”. That’s it. That’s his qualifications. Appeal to authority is an informal fallacy when one appeals to the statements of an authority outside of their realm of authority. It’s like relying upon the statements of a chemist to prove a point about the history of French literature. But appeals to an authority acting in the realm of that authority’s expertise are perfectly legitimate and are actually useful as reasoning tools. Mr. Wade seems to be attempting to make the argument Raff, Fuentes, and Marks are not qualified to make reliable statements genetics, anthropology and race. Or at least not as qualified as he is. But his argument in rebuttal here is so incompetently made, he ends up disqualifying himself as a source of reliable statements. Realizing something is not quite right with his misuse of the informal fallacy of argument from authority, Mr. Wade goes-for-the-gusto with the related genetic fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. Those who argue against him have “academic reputations … not exactly outsize to begin with”. In other words, they are small and unimportant people, at least compared to Mr. Wade. This is pretty clearly an attempt to belittle and insult and induce the reader to believe Mr. Wade’s statements—not because he is qualified to make them because he is speaking in the area of his expertise, but rather because those who disagree with him are small and unimportant, even though the speakers are qualified and speaking within their area of expertise. But wait! There’s more! Not content with just genetic fallacies, Mr. Wade advances the complex “bad reasons” fallacy. This is an advanced maneuver and earns Mr. Wade his current top ranking. Simply put, the bad reasons fallacy is the argument that if a bad argument is made for a proposition, that in and of itself is an argument that the proposition is false. Mr. Wade accuses his critics of advocating against his position because of their self-interest. He says his critics’ ”academic reputations, … might shrink substantially if their view that race had no biological basis were to be widely repudiated.” Unstated, but implied by Mr. Wade, is that his critics are arguing only to protect their reputations and that their arguments are bad. And, because their arguments are bad, his proposition must be true. This is also a form of denying the antecedent, which is a formal fallacy. Mr. Wade, my hat’s off to you!
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:33:34 +0000
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