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Bob Morrison's avatar

Adam Grant once again refuses to admit that the research he citing is actually supportive of Coleman's position. Chris Anderson refuses to accept that the conditions for posting Coleman's video have NEVER been applied to any other speaker... EVER. Gaining through the archives there are several other videos where that same approach should have been applied but was not. Why?Coleman has done a great service by calling out the hypocrisy of this once highly regarded institution.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

How do you know it has never been done to anyone other than Coleman? Not being snarky, just curious.

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Aaron H.'s avatar

You can never “know” a negative for certain, but despite looking no one has found any example of it.

When asked about it directly the founders of TED have also not pointed to any other instance - which they undoubtedly would if they could.

THAT’s how we know.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Thanks. Inferences are valid evidence.

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Bill Emerson's avatar

So, according to the Social Scientist poring over his meta-analyses, color blindness is ineffective. As someone who grew up in and served in the military I can personally attest to the absurdity of this claim, as demonstrated by the multiple black Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Military. I would also point out that all of the many new approaches to addressing racism, such as “How to be an Anti-Racist”, have not only not provided progress but have done incalculable harm. It’s worth considering that identifying a white person as a racist simply because he/she is white is the equivalent of assigning attributes to someone based on the color of their skin which is, indeed, the textbook definition of racism. So our advancement over color-blindness is to become racist. I’ll stick with color-blindness and considering individuals as individuals, regardless of the color of their skin.

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Bill Raetz's avatar

As a fellow vet (and a fellow Bill!) I agree with you. The military is a meritocracy. Not a perfect one, mind you. Every single vet knows of someone that got an award erroneously, or got promoted ahead of someone more deserving, or got shafted by their chain of command for one asinine reason or another, but damn if it doesn’t work the majority of the time. And I love it for that reason.

I work with people from many different walks of life and cultures and races and ethnicities that I never would have been exposed to had I not joined. But we come together and we succeed because what matters is the mission, not the man.

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George Neidorf's avatar

As a musician, I was frequently the only white person in all Black bands. Maybe they didn't notice my color, or lack thereof? Or was it that I played what they wanted to hear?

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Bill Emerson's avatar

My guess is that it was because you were/are a great musician. Meritocracy still rules there.

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George Neidorf's avatar

"Great" is an overstatement. Thank you.

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mathew's avatar

yep, I was thinking about my military service when I read that. We all just treating each other as people, didn't matter what your skin color was. And thus we had an amazing group of people.

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Bob Morrison's avatar

Well said, Bill. I completely agree. The anti-racism crowd have perpetuated more racism... not less and have been one of the significant contributors to our polarized society.

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Sep 27, 2023
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Prof. Lanner's avatar

Reading the paper right now, it is full of political sociology jargon and straw-men definitions of the topic of 'colorblindness' to the point that it is hard what to know what to make of it. It is hard to tell what the study population in the experiments were (all college students? workers at different businesses?), and it looks like it mostly survey data which is often not very indicative of behavior at all.

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HD Burke's avatar

Thank you for getting curious!!

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Heather Chase's avatar

Adam Grant gives no specifics in his summary and no citations of where his evidence came from, the sample sizes, etc. In an academic context, his words would get an F grade for substance and credibility.

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Sep 27, 2023Edited
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Pacificus's avatar

Nicely said, Max!

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RSL's avatar

Right! The Wall Street Journal did a story this week about this and people who expose the faulty “research.”

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Balancer's Eye's avatar

“The Band of Debunkers Busting Bad Scientists”…there was also the Patrick Brown article posted here (a couple weeks back) that covered similar concepts regarding Academic Journal publishing.

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Remesh's avatar

I missed this. Gonna check the article. Thanks!

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Lynne Morris's avatar

But oh my stars has Patrick Brown been lambasted. I have had at least 10 articles in my feed doing so.

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Remesh's avatar

By “publications” like a Rolling Stone and Vox an Slate I presume?

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Actually no. To my surprise.

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Sep 30, 2023
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Jeffrey Smiley's avatar

Actually it is based on critical scientific review. Amen, there is a serious problem with replication of scientific research. It is widely recognized. The social sciences are ground zero in that regard. It is an easy search e.g. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.114.303819

The “in breeding” of faculty in these departments will make it an even harder ship to correct. A meta-analysis of bad, biased research will output the same results. Garbage in, garbage out. Occam’s razor, the public is wiser than you might ever give them credit for.

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