[IkmoIkmo]

Sorry but, are you at all familiar with Rushton? He's been blatantly called a racist by just about everyone and his work has been academically criticized left and right for a lack of unbiased scientific rigor. In your own words, to use his work as evidence is to me, an absurd display of intellectual dishonesty.

[ebfe]

I have no doubt that he's a racist, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the accuracy of this particular paper. What do you see as the error that invalidates its conclusions?

[IkmoIkmo]

I haven't read the paper. I know it sounds like a cop out (have you?). But then if I'd read it, it wouldn't really have mattered as I'm not an expert in the field. I'm no more qualified to criticize his data as someone who refuses global warming or evolution. Yet in all three topics, I can still hold an opinion that I believe to be the right one, which isn't the opinion of the average citizen, journalist or politician, but that of the average scientist. And here we see scientists overwhelmingly opining the validity of evolution, global warming, and that Rushton's work is utter bs. His work has been routinely dismissed on scientific grounds by the vast majority of scientists who have bothered to look into them. On them I depend for my own opinion. You may dismiss me on grounds that if I haven't read, analyzed and researched the paper's data, theories and conclusions, that I shouldn't speak on it. That's fine. I disagree but I can see why you'd say that. But to dismiss the fact that overwhelmingly scientists have looked upon his work unfavorably on scientific, but ideological grounds I think is myopic.

Anyway, I'll return the question... Did you read and believe in the validity of his data, theory and conclusions in this paper or in a general sense? And do you believe that the majority of scientists in relevant fields agree with his conclusions? You have my answers on these two (no and no), I'm curious to hear yours.