[snowflake_ptr]

> can civilly and safely debate whether intelligence is statistically correlated to race and gender

Why would you not want to debate that? If it's not true, or there's no evidence for it, then you have an actual argument for fighting people who believe in it. If it's true, then you have a new societal issue to discuss. Either way, you win.

You seem to be making a case against scientific inquiry and intellectual discussion.

> However, it's slightly alarming to hear that Altman defends the promulgation of such ideas because "people need a forum to debate ideas". Too many of these ideas seep into the discussions even here on Hacker News.

This is anti-intellectualism. What possible reason would there be to not debate ideas, of any kind? Bad ideas get analyzed, exposed, and proponents of such are forced to either change their position or be exposed as dogmatic.

[Noos]

Again, they are not bringing racial and gender disparties up for idle conversation; usually what comes after is what they want society to do about it. All you have to do is say "okay, for the sake of argument what you say is true. What happens next?" and then you see intentions. A lot aren't good.