Just to get this straight. Is the "clap-trap" Garance rejects in paragraph 5:

1. Brooks' comments she cites about the motivation of white flight to the exurbs and Sailer's parallel description (in paras 3 & 4 )?

2. if so, is she saying the notion of white flight is clap-trap, or the notion that some of these people are deliberately having more (white) children is clap-trap, or that Brooks is saying something OK but Sailer isn't?

3. or is she saying that the "natalism" movement is itself clap-trap?

4. or is she saying that it's clap-trap if you think there's such a thing as the "natalism" movement?

5. or is she saying that Sailer's comments always come, when you dig deep enough, with some pretty ugly baggage that's clap-trap.

I've seen enough of what Sailer's written, or more often that of folks he's chosen to affiliate himself with, to be highly suspicious of anything he writes, because there's a blatant agenda that's mostly bogus. One of the reasons Tacitus had such a flameout a while back, IIRC.

But if Sailer's pointing out that there's a higher birth rate among white families who are in the lower-income white-flight category, that's an interesting piece of data for lots of reasons. WHY they're choosing to have bigger familities may be pretty disgusting from moral and philosophical grounds, but THAT IT'S HAPPENING, is something that shouldn't be ignored, any more than we ignore evolving patterns of family structure in black areas of inner-cities.

Any idea which it is? Or is it something different I'm missing.

Same sort of problem with a bunch of the bioscience/genetech stuff Sailer's linked to -- some of it is probably decent "science," regardless of the political beliefs of the people doing it, or how they twist the results to "prove" their beliefs. What's really hard to tell, however, when you have such politically motivated people, is just where the science stops and their political beliefs or assumptions begin.

In any event, I certainly think Brooks should be called out for giving a legitimate forum for this fellow. No reason to enhance his reputation. He'll be dining out on Brooks' citing his work in the NYT for decades.

""The Baby Gap: How birthrates color the electoral map" (get it? color)"
Yes, moron, as in red/blue.

The article itself was interesting, and you don't have to accept his explanations to wonder about it.

Also where does this line of yours come from:
" WHY they're choosing to have bigger familities may be pretty disgusting from moral and philosophical grounds" so is liking large families now a perversion to the left. If so, the right doesn't have to worry about the future at all.

If you spend any time reading genetics papers, you will find that the political views of the writers are strange in BOTH directions. Most of Gould's idiocies in "Its a WOnderful Life" spring from his Marxism. Didn't make him less interesting to read as long as you knew your Sewell Wright or JM Smith.

Anyway, praktike's whole point is wrong anyway. Most on the right don't know who Sailer is, and wouldn't try to read him if they did. The wack jobs on the left appear to be more prominent. And "so's your old man" is not an argument likely to change that perception.

Sucks to be on the defensive, doesn't it?

Maybe Garance is on the defensive because of this.

Search down for
In Attack on Hispanics, American Prospect's Garance Franke-Ruta Is Accused of Journalistic Fraud

I note that AP supposedly threatened to sue over this report, so it is hard to tell who is crazy here. I vote for all of them, since the argument in the article seems a bit lame.

Actually what sucks is the PC mindset which stirs so much of this up....

YMMV

I was just recognizing that there's probably a small minority for whom large families are the underpinnings of "nativist" nataiism -- it's our duty to have large families to keep America America. Otherwise, even if we sealed off the borders tomorrow, we're going to be overwhelmed by all those black and brown people who breed like rabbits.

All I was saying was that there might be something one found distasteful about some of those attitudes, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't "study" what their familiy structures and attitudes are.That's the ultimate in PC, which I hope my comments rejected totally.

That's also why I made my comment about the politics of scientists. There seems to be something about folks attracted to human genetics -- don't they seem to have a larger portion of "weird" than average, or is it just that their "weird" is a little more easily on display.

I do, however, think NYT editorial page writers should be cautious about whom they cite because people use that apparent legitimacy the rest of their lives to "prove" their ideas are "right."

I'm sure a scientist could find all the various holes in Sailer's work, but I'm not too interested in taking the time to discover them. 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.

In any case, as you suggest, these guys effectively get "laundered" by having their work cited by reputable folks. I've seen it with the climate folks and the smoking folks and I just have no patience for nuance or tolerance with people whose entire m.o. is deception. It's best to make them so radioactive that nobody wants to go near them. I think Garance is trying to do the same, and very effectively I might add.

I could go further, though, and ask, why does Brooks bring in race? Very subtly and probably without even realizing it, I think, he's saying, wow, these nice white people are just trying to raise their babies away from all those icky blacks in the inner cities ...

"'I'm sure a scientist could find all the various holes in Sailer's work, but I'm not too interested in taking the time to discover them."

Then with all due respect, why even comment? I don't like Sailer's politics either, but that doesn't have any bearing on his research, which I should think is the important issue here. The sort of article like the one in Tapped just seems like one big exercise in poisoning the well.

I'm against racialism and people who try to further it.

Sounds to me like there's two seperate issues bound up in that one word "racialism", though: the factual issue (biology, whether or not there actually are measurable differences between races -- and for the record I'm on the fence on this), and the legal issue (whether the law should treat people differently on the basis of race). To my knowledge (and I could be wrong since I don't follow the guy too closely), Steve has never advocated the latter; if he did, I'd certainly repudiate such a thing. The factual issues are totally politically neutral however, so I don't see why anyone needs to be demonized over it.

Why doesn't Sailer publish his work in scientific, peer-reviewed journals?

Maybe because people are too busy treating him like he's radioactive?

I suppose I'd be less irritated with Brooks if his paen to exurbs had captured some of the downsides for the community at large, especially in blue states with aging populations that rely on property taxes.

Whether a large number of states will be able to follow Michigan down this sensible route remains to be seen. But it certainly would help shift some of the sprawl incentives for developers and homeowners by reallocating some of the indirect public costs.

Some are looking at the Michigan model: It sends all property taxes to the state, which redistributes money from rich communities to needy ones.

Nadezhda,

For what its worth, Howard Dean instituted a level funding plan for public education similar in structure to Michigan's while he was governor of Vermont.

More states need to follow the example.

That's that Fast Eddie is trying to pull off here in Pennsylvania, although the problem I have with it is that I believe he's trying to finance the thing with slot machines in classrooms and allowing principals to open up their own liquor shops, or something.