James Flynn censored by his publisher

He writes,

Discussing why free speech should extend to questions of race and gender necessarily involves presenting views (such as those of Jensen, Murray, and Lynn), if only for purposes of rebuttal, which upset those who believe that racial and sexual equality is self-evident. If upsetting students or staff or the public is a reason for banning speech, all such discussion is at an end. I end the book by quoting from George Orwell’s original preface to Animal Farm, which was itself rejected by Faber and Faber for being too critical of Stalin: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

His publisher decided not to publish his book on free speech. Read the whole essay. Note that this is the Flynn of “the Flynn effect,” which is the most prominent scientific argument against DNA determinism.

29 thoughts on “James Flynn censored by his publisher

  1. To be clear, he is being censored by British law, to which the publisher is just responding. The publisher is merely the private arm of what is in truth State Action (which is a kind of common circumstance libertarian analysts often overlook when drawing lines between permissible private activity and unjustified state activity).

    It’s often a dicey determination on whether to call any particular private decision to reject publication as ‘censorship’ if it isn’t part of a broadly applicable policy, but in this case, the censorship is at the behest of the UK.

    Now, it’s certainly possibly that they are just making up or exaggerating potential legal risks as a cover story and screen for their true motives of wanting to avoid controversy and, in their words, “reputational risk”. “Of course we’d love to publish, but unfortunately, our hands our tied, it’s the law, what can we do?”

    That seems to be a pretty common tactic, and, by the way, is one of the reasons it’s so important to have extremely robust legal protection for free speech, because then publishers can’t raise false liability concerns as a fraudulent excuse and must at least provide a rationale that doesn’t shift responsibility away from their private decisions.

    Still, the UK “racial incitement” law is apparently wide enough to drive ten lanes of trucks through, if it means that not only is talk about race off limits, but meta-talk supporting the idea of being able to talk openly about race is also off limits, so the law, once established, is effectively irreversible because self-protecting against contrary arguments or re-opening of debate about it’s wisdom or prudence and effectively rises to the level of whatever is equivalent to Constitutional Law.

    Now there is not just official heresy, but auto-immunized meta-heresy, and who know if it’s turtles all the way up with more levels. Can we openly talk about Flynn’s manuscript, or the fact that he was censored, without also possibly running afoul of British law?

  2. Handle discussed this article in the comments on an unrelated topic. My reply then still applies:

    …why writers don’t self-publish is a head scratcher for me. Is legal liability an important consideration? It seems to me that the traditional book publishing deal is akin to an elaborate pay day loan.

    For me, this issue is about law and laziness: 1. the emergent order of common law is sometimes negative sum when it comes to liberty and meritocracy, 2. some very smart people/specialists seem to be very lazy when it comes to self-interest in areas they find uninteresting such as business, technology, and law.

  3. Flynn himself has admitted that “the Flynn effect” isn’t related to ‘g’. People talk about Flynn like its proof we are getting dramatically “smarter” generation after generation, but that isn’t really what it says. It says we are getting better at providing certain kinds of answers that are looked for on certain IQ tests, but often these are the least ‘g’ loaded ones. Most people when they say “IQ” think “smart enough to do lots of useful things in modern society.” That’s ‘g’, and it isn’t the same. Your statement that the Flynn effect is “the most prominent scientific argument against DNA determinism” is simply false.

    Anyway, the point is taken that someone typically associated with “anti-hereditarian” IQ research has been censored is noted.

    In related news, the judge ruling that Harvard did not discriminate against Asians cited in her ruling that “it believes that Asian Americans are not more intelligent or more gifted in extracurricular pursuits than any other group” as part of her justification for the ruling. She also stated that the 25 year time limit mentioned in the 2003 Supreme Court case should likely be overturned because “as time marches on and the effects of entrenched racism and unequal opportunity remain obvious, this
    goal might be optimistic and may need to change.”

    • In related news, the judge ruling that Harvard did not discriminate against Asians…

      Perhaps Kling’s claim that the social sciences lack rigor should be extended to common law.

      • That’s not a common-law ruling. Under the common law, one could discriminate at will. Come to think of it, that’s back where we are now, under rulings like this: Discrimination is okay if it suits the current ruling class.

        • There seems to be a glaring lack of rigor in my use of the english language. In my mind, “common law” was meant to represent the style of law practiced throughout the Anglosphere. I was trying to be more global than American law which is implied if I said “the legal system”, given the context.

          The point I was trying to make is that judges appear to lack rigor based on the quote asdf provides: “as time marches on and the effects of entrenched racism and unequal opportunity remain obvious, this goal might be optimistic and may need to change.”

          I lack the skill to make pithy points. My bad.

          • “Common law” means the judge-made law all Anglosphere countries inherited from England, as opposed to law based on modern constitutions and statutes (including all of our discrimination law). Of course, most of our constitutional jurisprudence is “common law” in style, as its relationship to the constitutional text has usually been very tenuous, at least until the advent of originalism over the last generation or two.

  4. Note that this is the Flynn of “the Flynn effect,” which is the most prominent scientific argument against DNA determinism.

    More nitpicking on my part: the Flynn Effect is an unsolved puzzle not a prominent scientific argument for or against anything. It is one of those special “That’s Funny” vs. “Eureka” moments described in an Isaac Asimov quote referring to Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. Perhaps we need a better term for this category of puzzles.

    • That’s a good point. It’s nice if people who disagree can admit that they are both looking at the same data set and agreeing on what the data says. The thing they are disagreeing on is *what can be concluded* from the data.

      EXAMPLE: I was just browsing Paul Tough’s book on Geoffrey Canada. I believe he was able to state that Charles Murray and James Heckman both saw a Black-White racial gap in standardized scores that opened up by 8th grade if not far earlier. They both agreed on the data. The thing they disagreed with was the underlying cause of the racial “gap” in the data.

      • Thanks for mentioning Paul Tough. There are both “This American Life” and EconTalk podcasts with him from 2012 about his book “How Children Succeed”. I don’t know why I missed these but he seems well informed about Judith Rich Harris and Charles Murray which is impressive for someone with progressive views. I liked the reference to the IS 318 chess team; I’ve seen the documentary Brooklyn Castle and it is an interesting case to think about with respect to IQ and “character”.

  5. It’s important to point out that sometimes the “upsetting” views which are being presented are things like black students saying what they really think about race relations. I.e. telling white people what THEY don’t want to hear. (Colin Kilpatrick)

    And often the discussion is not so much about “censoring” particular views, but about guiding the discussion in a direction that people think will be productive. For instance, not rehashing questions and discussions repeatedly, allowing different perspectives to have equal time and opportunity to present their point of view, filtering against speech that is going to inflame emotions and prevent civil discourse.

    I am of course against government intervening to ban certain views. But private forums that are trying to advance civil discourse often do need to regulate and limit certain speech to make room for other speech, to advance the discussion in a productive direction and/or maintain the civility of the forum.

    Now that can of course be used to manipulate the discussion to exclude valid arguments and reach a predetermined conclusion. But that’s not the ONLY reason to exclude some arguments from consideration. Sometimes an argument is excluded because it’s so inflammatory that it will effectively derail the conversation. Now, if you’re a crank who is just fixated on that topic and has to keep bringing it up in every discussion, it sure might feel like you are being censored. But that’s not censorship, and the crank is (by nature) unable to recognize that the rest of the group is just past that and wants to talk about other stuff.

    • “Now that can of course be used to manipulate the discussion to exclude valid arguments and reach a predetermined conclusion.”

      Which is exactly what happened in Flynn’s case. No issues with cranks or civility or fairness or hogging the discussion, etc. A law intended to penalize those who whip up race riots is now stretched to the point such that it means Flynn can’t publish a book defending open debate.

      The trouble is that every censor always pretends its not about censorship and viewpoint favoritism, and they abuse socially-accepted excuses by claiming their decisions fit into recognized and popular exceptions, for instance, of merely making a reasonable effort to keep the conversation civil, to protect people from harassment and harm, of being welcoming and inclusive, and so forth.

      There is motive to lie, and no incentive against it, so one would reasonably expect lots of liars. E.g., what deterring recourse does one typically have even if one can somehow prove the censor is lying?

      So, given this, the question becomes why should anyone trust those claims? Instances like this demonstrate that they shouldn’t.

      • Again, as you pointed out upthread, this is government mandated censorship, and I’m against that.

        An equally valid question is why should anyone trust people who claim they just want to civilly discuss race differences in intelligence. If you have a forum that’s trying to filter against people that are trying to inflame racial tension, then there’s an incentive to lie. How do you know that the people claiming they just want to dispassionately discuss the IQs of black people aren’t just racist trolls?

          • Great article. I’m inclined to agree with Klein’s position. It’s impossible to ignore the historical context in which whites have continually claimed that Africans were inferior intellectually as a justification for social stratification. So today, we have one group of people saying there are all these complex ways in which society operates to discriminate against African Americans, and then you have another group saying basically that, no, African Americans are just on average less intelligent, and using that to more or less defend a status quo in which black people have less wealth and income. And then they say “we’re just being rational and objective here, what’s the problem?”
            There’s always been “science” which has been produced to justify the status advantages of the elites. 100 years ago it was phrenology, and back then I’m pretty sure more or less the same people would have been saying “blacks are just inferior, look, science!”

          • Which is why this should be a big area of research and intellectual debate. Prove that it is wrong that “African Americans are just on average less intelligent” or that the racist stereotypes have some truth. And if they do have some truth, how much?

            Instead, we have a taboo that no one is supposed to question because the possibility of it being wrong is so awful.

          • Hazel can’t prove anything, so he’s going to call people names. It’s the only go to evil men like him have.

        • It’s generally impossible to know who is trolling, but there are some signs. People who only discuss such matters when it relates to the previous conversation in some obvious manner are less likely to be trolling. People who are indicate awareness of relevant evidence (and its limitations) are less likely to be trolls. Moderate tone and overall courtesy are also generally accepted signs of sanity.

        • Well do they in fact discuss the matter dispassionately. Just like any other highly controversial/emotional topics like whether vaccines cause autism or other problems, 9/11 was an inside job, creationism vs evolution, was using the atomic bomb on Japan was racist, etc.

          • Yes, and it mostly works. Those conversations add up to fairly strong evidence that vaccines don’t cause autism, 9/11 almost certainly wasn’t an inside job, and evolution is well-supported by the evidence but the story with the talking snake and the magic fruit is implausible. That last one is more of a definitional issue about what counts as “racism”; the fact that America and Japan were systematically trying to destroy each other is not in question.

          • Good point. That would fall into other reasons to exclude certain arguments. Sometimes, you just want to talk about something other than whether vaccines cause autism or whether black people are less intelligent. Sometimes you want to discuss some topic in evolutionary theory without being interrupted by a creationist decrying the entire enterprise. Sometimes you want to talk about the state of public education in African American communities without being interrupted by someone yelling “But black people are just STUPIDER! See, I have studies!”

          • Hazel, if you want to discuss whether KIPP schools serve black populations better than other schools, or whether black kids learn reading better with phonics or whole language, feel free. For this blog those are odd topics, but I wouldn’t have anything to say about them. And saying “please don’t derail with talk about annoying topic is fair, especially for the host and/or when the annoying topic is not relevant.

            When the thrust of the conversation hinges on the annoying topic, someone will eventually mention the elephant in the room.

          • Hazel,

            It depends on what exactly you’re discussing when it comes to “education in the black community”.

            If the Null Hypothesis is true, then we ought to be very skeptical about proposals to achieve some grand outcome in the educational sphere. Especially when those proposals entail large sacrifices and tradeoffs.

            There is an example in Howard County right now where they are proposing radical school redistricting (busing essentially) in order to spread around the poor brown kids based on the theory that what is holding back poor brown kids academically is not being in a school building with enough white/asian kids. This has caused a massive uproar with lots of protests.

            Your are asking these families to endure lots of hardship on the basis of a theory that we know not to be true.

            It’s also useless to say that we can ignore discussing race when editorials from the Baltimore Sun and other outlets calls parent who oppose the plan racists.

            Or if you prefer another example Baltimore has discipline problems in schools related to its use of “Restorative Justice”. Again, this was based on the theory that the only reason for discipline problems in blacks was racism. We know this assumption is false. Empirical results show that this restorative justice has terrible effects, especially on black students.

            People talk about IQ and Race because people who don’t want to talk about IQ and Race don’t want to do so *because they have an agenda*. If we talk about these things, their agenda falls apart. And their agenda effects peoples lives in meaningful ways they can’t ignore.

            Think about the issues effected by IQ.

            1) Education
            2) Immigration
            3) Housing
            4) Crime
            5) Employment Policy

            That’s a lot of things that are very important to peoples lives.

            I mean we could talk about it less *IF* people with blank slate views weren’t using those views to drive policy and demean their opposition…but we don’t live in that world.

            If you have an idea for educational reform in the black community that has a reasonable ROI based on empirical evidence you aren’t going to get pushback…but what are those things and whose stopping you from doing so?

        • Group IQ differences as a topic doesn’t seem peculiar in this respect. Every discussion that is politically charged has this problem: some fraction (sometimes post) participants are just there for red meat, and not interested in dispassionate discussion. Even something as mundane as net neutrality rules still largely leads angry flame wars. The most peculiar thing about IQ debates is the taboo associated with the topic. Either that or I’ve somehow missed the part of the internet where people calmly, rationally, and politely discuss income inequality and the Iraq War.

          • Sometimes you want to discuss the Iraq War without being interrupted by people yelling “9/11 was an inside job!”

    • We’re talking about a book being (not) published, not a conversation. Is society as a whole is just ‘past’ all discussion of intelligence, it’s just a settled issue, and anyone who tries to reopen it is a crank to he ignored?

      How is that not an equally good (actually much better) description of Kaepernick than Flynn, who’s stick is to keep repeating empirical research-refuted claims about the alleged role of racism in police homicide disparities? Plenty of people are tired of hearing about certain people’s fixations with race and gender identity and constantly inflamed persecution complexes, and feel its time to move on. Which of these are really the cranks?

      • Yeah, I’m not saying I agree with it in this instance, I’m just saying it can’t be generalized to purely private forums, which are entitled to regulate speech to achieve their private objectives. You can’t say that always an in every forum, it should be okay to bring up whatever argument you want, because there are lots of cases where that’s just going to derail whatever conversation you’re trying to have. If you do that, you’re always going to have people with their own hobby horses going at it, so if you want to get anywhere you’re going to have to exclude those people.

  6. We dislike authors that convince others of our own doom.
    Who wants to hear someone else prove one’s own permanent exit path?

  7. This general discussion reminds me of a book well worth reading that came out a few years ago. It is by Peter Shuck. He is currently a law professor at Princeton, now professor emeritus.

    The book is called _One nation undecided: Clear thinking about five hard issues that divide us_. It’s a tough read and I’ve only skimmed it.

    I thought Schuck did a pretty good job of defining what a “hard issue” is, how to recognize one when you encounter it, and how to grapple with the challenges of discussing a “hard issue.”

    A link is here.

    https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691167435/one-nation-undecided

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