Interesting discussion. I got sucked in and read the whole thread. I wasn't involved and it still felt like hitting my head against a wall. The only redeeming part was that Abiola, Fred and Chuckles made the arguments I would have wanted to make, only better since they are more knowledgable on the subject. When I spotted a weakness in the argument of CK and wanted to add something, they responded before I had to add something at the end of a long discussion where it probably would have been ignored.

I took a couple of swings at David Carr myself in the Samizdata thread. It's exactly that kind of crap that annoys me by playing into the caricature of libertarians as uncaring jerks. But nevertheless, most of the Samizdata crowd are good people and are all most definitely not racists (as a matter of fact they consistently ban genuine white supremacist trolls from their comments as a matter of policy).

On the other hand, the bit Jackie D quoted is actually quite correct. Intentions only matter insofar as they are a precursor to actions. I should think that would be pretty obvious. As long as David Carr supports policies that would make Africans better off, he's doing more for them than the most well-intentioned person who doesn't support effective policies.

Oh and BTW, is threatening people with libel lawsuits "how it's done"? This shit does not impress me. I think Godless goes a bit over the top myself, but responding in this way is frivolous in the extreme. I don't even think he has a case.

I've done a Google search through Abiola's site and I don't see a single post where he actually makes a dent in Sailer. I see a few where he hurls some nice invective at GC, but that's about it. If I'm missing something, please point it out.

It's an awkeard position for me to be in to feel like I'm defending stuff that I don't even necissarily agree with, but this is all pretty thin beer. I read GNXP from time to time, and while I am still skeptical of their positions, at least GC and Razib spend more time on actual arguments than offhand dismissals.They may be wrong (or maybe not, I don't know) but they're certainly not stupid or simple bigots.

As I said in comments over on Abiola's site, I think he's overreacting with the libel thing. As for Sailer, I think Abiola's point is that his data is highly suspicious, given sample sizes, some adjustments made to the country data, and the Flynn Effect. The point, overall, is that these guys are obsessed with purported genetic differences between races when there are plenty of other factors at play here.

Overemphasis on genetic factors is a criticism I can probably be persuaded to agree with. But it's a big jump to go from that to throwing the "white supremacist" label around, particularly since GC is Indian and Razib is Pakistani, IIRC, and they both agree with Sailer on a lot of stuff.

Whoops, I wasn't quite correct, but the point stands anyway.

White supremacist probably is an unfair charaterization of the gene expression people, yes. The VDare crowd, on the other hand ...

Yeah, VDare are mostly just xenophobes. Sailer seems to actually be the most moderate writer they publish, believe it or not. GNXP have criticized VDare on several occaisions but still hold Sailer in pretty high regard.

Oh and funnily enough, one of the VDare guys is also a registered Democrat who ran in the California recall. Looks like it's not just the GOP that has to "repudiate its crazies." ;) (Pardon the snark, finding this out just amused me.)

these guys are obsessed with purported genetic differences between races when there are plenty of other factors at play here.

As a GNXP poster I, of course, disagree with your assessment. Many of us are simply trying to inject a whisper of some genetic causation into the windstorm that is wholly environmental. The Blank Slate proposition is not one that is favored by angels. Genetics and Environment are value neutral and it's unfortunate that people demonize investigation of genetic causation while giving a free pass to the repeated predictive failures ofsome environmental causes and the policies modeled on them, and this demonization will only increase as the science underlying human biodiversity gets stronger and I fully expect these doctors to be labelled racist for their trouble.

BTW, in your comments in this post, you wrote:

I'm happy knowing that in the vast majority of cases there are more genetic variations between individuals of the same race than there are between members of different races.

Perhaps you won't be so happy if you read any of the following papers: Harpending (ctl-f for Lewontin), and for a technical examination see Edwards. Of course there are many more papers that set the record straight but they don't have the favored political impact of Lewontin's work, which is why the erroneous statement you made is still so widely repeated.

BTW, I'm really only talking about Sailer and company here, not the Samizdata crowd.