Quote:
Originally Posted by Pokesan
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what would be the point of such research? what would be useful about it?
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A greater understanding of our world? Are you seriously arguing against the acquisition of knowledge simply because you don't like what might be learned? Talk about backwards thinking.
Even beyond the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, this information could have obvious practical use. For instance, we base a lot of social policy on the idea that we should see equal outcomes among the races. If we see that one racial group is underrepresented in a field, let's say medicine, we explain this difference as being caused by some kind of unfairness, and thus we tip the scales in favor of the race that is underrepresented. In medicine, this takes the form of blacks getting accepted to medical schools with wildly lower test scores than whites/Asians. The thought here is that if we just introduce a little unfairness for a period of time (years, maybe decades), then the problem will sort itself out and we will eventually be able to remove this unfairness and we'll have equal outcomes with no discrimination of any kind. If the difference is instead something biological, then our response to the disparity may change. Even if we were a completely egalitarian society that believed everyone should have the same standard of living, the means for achieving this would shift. Rather than attempting to force people into jobs that they are not suited for, it would be more optimal to have each person doing the job that they are best at, and then redistributing wealth to even things out. People being pushed into professions that they are not suited for adds a lot of inefficiency to the system.