Talk:Steve Sailer

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[edit] Biographical information

This article is in desperate need of biographical information. If anyone knows anything about Sailer's background, and can provide a credible source, please do. Bulldog123 04:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite, don't discard

The "vanity" text has a strong POV tone, but the description of Sailer's work is accurate. It gives a far better picture of his views than the stub that was there before. It should be de-POVed and perhaps somewhat shortened, not deleted entirely. Rast 03:26, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Biographical articles tend to have some built-in favoritism attached to them, because human beings are usually sympathetic at an individual level (it is rare to find someone with no redeeming qualities). A "non-POV rewrite" would probably include greater attention paid to the criticisms of Sailer, which are covered pretty well by the article. Anyway, most of the criticism of Sailer can be summed up in one argument: "Racist!" (unsigned)
Sailer's a realist, not a racist. (Celtic1)
Dictionary.com: racism n. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. The Wikipedia definition is a little more forgiving: Racism refers to the beliefs and practices that assume inherent and significant differences exist between the genetics of various groups of human beings; that assume these differences can be measured on a scale of "superior" to "inferior"; and that result in the social, political and economic advantage of one group in relation to others. Sailer would probably argue for a definition of racism based on actions, not beliefs. Rast 03:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Exactly, he's a realist. Only the simpleminded PC thugs call people like him "racist" for merely providing the truth. Celtic1
He is a racist. Page updated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.99.152.178 (talk • contribs).
If we have a published source that labels him a racist, we can call him that and cite the cource. Otherwise, it's a violation of WP:NOR and WP:BLP. Jokestress 18:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Cognitive dissonance. Anyhow, that's not the arguement. The arguement is that a criticism of Sailer is that he's racist. Vegasrebel29 06:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Astanhope's comments

This article has become a vanity page for Steve Sailer. I'm leaving the descriptive paragraph and link to his website, moving the rest here:

Examples of recent issues about which Sailer has made interesting observations:

  • In 1999, he debated economist Steven Levitt on Slate.com and called into serious question Levitt's theory that legalized abortion played a key role in the reduction in crime rates in the U.S. during the 1990s. For references and more details, see legalized abortion and crime effect.
  • He played a substantial role in debunking a hoax that had circulated among hundreds of liberal-leaning Internet sites, and was even picked up by The Economist magazine, that Democratic-leaning states had much higher average IQs than Republican-leaning states. [1]
  • During the 2004 presidential election campaign, he analyzed scores on IQ-type military aptitude tests released by the George W. Bush and John Kerry campaigns, and concluded that contrary to many reports in the mainstream media, Bush was likely the more intelligent of the two. [2]
  • As early as 2000, he concluded that the GOP's electoral future depended not on trying to reach out to minority voters, but rather on increasing its share of the white vote. [3] He argued that the GOP's successes in the 2002 midterm elections were mainly due to increased turnout among whites [4], and concluded that Bush's win in 2004 was largely due to increasing his share of the white vote from 54% in 2000 to 58%. [5]
  • In the same article in which he noted Bush's improved performance among whites in 2004, he also called into serious question exit polling data that indicated that Bush received 44% of the Hispanic vote. In a later piece, he demonstrated that the numbers claimed in the exit poll were completely unrealistic. [6]
  • In a series of three columns in 2000, he examined the racial hierarchy of Mexico, little-known in the United States, and its implications for American society. [7] [8] [9]
  • In 2003, during the buildup to Annika Sörenstam's appearance in a PGA TOUR men's golf event, he analyzed her performances leading up to the event and the relative difficulty of courses on the PGA and LPGA tours, and concluded that she would miss the cut by four strokes. [10] His prediction came true down to the margin by which she missed the cut.

[edit] Sailer's analysis of the Red and Blue states

Perhaps his tour de force was an extensive analysis of the factors that led to the red-blue divide in U.S. politics, which he published in the wake of the 2004 presidential election.

First, in a cover story in the December 20, 2004 edition of The American Conservative, he discovered a very strong correlation between a state's white fertility rate and its support for Bush in that election. (He included the District of Columbia in his analysis because it has electoral votes.) The state with the highest white fertility, Utah (2.45 children per woman of childbearing age), had the highest vote for Bush (71%). The District of Columbia, with both an overwhelmingly African-American population and the lowest white fertility of any jurisdiction in the country (1.11), gave only 9% of its vote to Bush. More tellingly, when each state's Bush share was plotted against its white fertility rate, the correlation coefficient for a straight line was 0.86. In the social sciences, a correlation coefficient of 0.6 is considered "high". [11]

Several weeks later, Sailer discovered a second demographic variable that correlated even more strongly to each state's vote for Bush than white fertility. By analyzing census data, he determined the average number of years that a white woman in each state could expect to be married during her normal childbearing years (ages 18 through 44). When each state's Bush share was plotted against this variable, the straight-line correlation coefficient was 0.91. As in the previous analysis, Utah and the District of Columbia were at the two extremes. [12]

Sailer recognized the possibility that including the District of Columbia could skew his results. He then looked at an Internet site known as the Laboratory of the States, which is devoted to analysis of statistical differences among U.S. states. Of the 377 variables included in the database, and excluding the District of Columbia, he discovered that the two variables he had already identified were first and third in strength of correlation with a state's 2004 Bush vote. (Years married for whites was first, and white fertility was third.) Ranking second among these variables was inflation in housing prices between 1980 and 2004. Here, states with lower housing inflation were more likely to vote for Bush. [13] In fact, Bush won the 26 states with the lowest housing inflation during that period. [14]

Finally, Sailer tied all of these trends into a phenomenon he called "The Dirt Gap," which he outlined in another American Conservative piece. [15] Examining the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., Sailer discovered a fundamental geographic divide between many Democratic-leaning and Republican-leaning areas:

  • 73% of the population of the biggest blue-state metropolitan areas lives in cities where suburban growth is constrained by oceans or Great Lakes.
  • By contrast, only 19% of the population of the biggest red-state metropolitan areas lives in cities that are so constrained.

Physical constraints to growth are a major factor that drives high housing inflation in many areas. This in turn makes housing less affordable for young families. Sailer argues that young adults who decide to flee expensive areas to find affordable housing are more likely to become Republican, while those who stay behind tend to vote Democratic.

[edit] Six Degrees of Kevin Racism

I removed the following text as not being relevant to Steve Sailer.

VDARE, the organization Sailor publishes many of his writings through, is currently on the Southern Poverty Law Center hate-group watch list. This indirect connection, however, should be taken in the context of the Southern Poverty Law Center itself being engrossed in controversy regarding, among other things, mismanagement and its aggressive hate-group labeling (main article: Southern Poverty Law Center).


(For those interested in proving Steve Sailer racist, the six degrees goes something like this...

Steve Sailer publishes some of his work on VDARE, which has also carried articles by Jared Taylor, who edits American Renaissance (magazine), which is a White nationalist organization, just like the Ku Klux Klan.) --Rast

It does seem like the SPLC has so much baggage that it's unnecessary to discuss it here, especially since he's just a columnist for VDARE.--Nectar T 05:44, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks to editors who moved that excessive praise off the main page. Though they are only one outlet making accusations, SPLC has written about Sailer's racist, anti-immigration, and heterosexist viewpoints. Jokestress 20:19, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Jokestress's hateful and inane comment keeps getting put back. What does "heterosexist" even mean, and why does a self appointed and controversial group that has been accused of institutionalized racism itself give Jokestress any right to parrot libelous comments? Insane.
There is nothing hateful or inane about the comment. Please do not remove it again. It is a discussion of Sailer's critics, the SPLC in particular, and listing some of the points of criticism which should be included in this article. If Sailer or his supporters have responded then their responses should be included as well. That is part of the WP:NPOV policy. Cheers, -Will Beback 07:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
From that first link: "Gregory Cochrane, a physicist who has suggested the existence of a genetic "gay germ."" -- I think they got that exactly wrong, no? See Pathogenic theory of homosexuality. --Rikurzhen 07:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
You mean that they refer to it as a "genetic germ?" That article's denial of IQ variation between ethnic groups and preference for offensive language suggests they've chosen to not participate in productive discussion in this area.--Nectar 10:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks?

Regardless of whether or not they are extreme POVs, racism, anti-immigration, and heterosexism are legitimate criticisms, not personal attacks on other Wikipedia editors (which is what the policy officially refers to). That's the only justification needed, but beyond that, a reference is given to a notable source making the criticisms, which makes them eligible even to be considered for inclusion in the article. (We can leave the comment under discussion on this page until a conclusion is reached, as the burden of proof is on those who would remove comments.)--Nectar 16:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

No, the ANON poster that deletd these POV attacks is correct in doing so. Those are all ad hominem attacks in this context as the author Jokestress has backed these allegations by facts. It is strange that you keep putting this back up when a few keep taking the POV attacks down. Please desist as it is against Wiki guidelines Nectarflowed. -- Amanda Ravel
The racism criticism holds that Sailer's arguments malign ethnic groups because of innate characteristics (the definition of racism). That's a criticism of his arguments, not of him himself.--Nectar 19:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
No it does not. Please re-read the comments again. Sailer has used documentation to back up his opinions, so how can this be construed as "racist"? The "criticisms" are not even thinly veiled personal attacks. -- Amanda Ravel
The documentation Sailer cites, such as varying mean IQ scores between ethnic groups, are disputed by many, and even some who don't dispute that documentation consider his frank discussion of it to be racist.--Nectar 00:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

This POV attack will keep being taken down by myself and others. Even Steven Pinker says there are differences between groups, and he is mainstream as you can get. http://www.isteve.com/ Go read Sailer's site.

Also, your last sentence was bizarre. How can his "frank discussion" of facts be considered anything -ist aside from realist? How can facts be "racist?" That doesn't make sense. -- Amanda Ravel

Well, it makes sense to those who make that argument. Most critics dispute the science. You need to acknowledge that the burden of proof here lies with those who would remove comments.--Nectar 07:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Libelous comments have no place on Wiki nor do ad hominem attacks. 2. Quoting a self appointed group like the SPLC that has been accused of racism itself does not justify those comments. 3. Why you feel the need for an editing war is beyond the people that keep taking those heinous remarks down. Amanda

1 & 2: Racism is of course a very common criticism in this area, made even by scientists. For example, see C. Loring Brace's Racialism, Racism, and the Bigot Brigade:Book Review of Jensen on Intelligence-g-Factor. 3. Insisting on removing comments when that action is disputed doesn't seem productive and may result in your being blocked.--Nectar 16:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

You should be blocked by repeatedly placing ad hominem attacks up. It is against Wiki standards, so that threat should be directed towards you. Amanda

[edit] Stricter moral guidance

I don't think the brief blogosphere tempest over S.'s Katrina article is worthy of its own section. He's written a lot of controversial stuff over the years.Rast 04:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I think noting the controversy may be worthwhile because it did create a lot of attention in the blogging world that he is a part of, including being picked up on the National Review Online, and was one of the most emailed-out on VDARE, which posts original articles from some much bigger names. Additionally, it's a pretty representative snapshot of his writing and his approach to politics and to race.--Nectar T 23:07, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

His approach to politics and to race involve telling the truth. This makes people that wish to look at the world with rosy tinted glasses upset as it upsets their dogma driven beliefs.-Anon

IMO, his piece on Katrina is in line with his other sentiments; he just applied it to a controversial topical issue, thus multiplying the response to it. Put differently, if you say those lower in intelligence require moral guidance, and that the black average IQ is less than that of whites, you cannot avoid implying blacks (and inner-city ones at that) need more guidance than whites, on average. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.127.169.69 (talk) 03:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] HBI obviously not a scientific institute

1st an "Institute" can not argue, people argue, so the previous version is simply ungrammatical.

2nd put a scientic sounding name on the "Human Biodiversity Institute" presents it as if it is an established scientific entity. It clearly is not, and in this version the simple facts from the website are reported.

82.141.187.170 10:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't claim to be a research organization, if that's what you mean. I've added specifications of it's activities so it won't interpreted as something it's not. It's discussion group is populated by scientists who are prominent in this field, according to the SPLC[16] and Sailer's writings. Sailer's paper being included in Pinker's The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004 suggests Sailer's claims of correspondences with Pinker and other scientists are not fabricated. (e.g. see here - ctrl f " subscriber ")
It's common to attribute the official, unsigned, position of an organization to that organization, and we can only speculate that Sailer was the only author of that statement. --Nectar 11:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Racism statement should be removed

I believe the following sentence: He does not argue against immigration in the traditional form of simple racism against a new incoming group.

from paragraph 1.1 should be removed. A better phrase would be something along the lines of He argues against immigration using arguments that are substantially different from those habitually used to advance that position.

This would provide a more neutral POV that does not imply that immigration reduction is inherently racist.

[edit] SPLC is a controversial organization

Obvious race baiters such as the SPLC should have a disclaimer such as, "a controversial civil rights group". Myself and others keep adding this important qualifier yet nectarflowed and others that may or may not work for the SPLC charlatan organization state that this group is not controversial! Oh really, then why does the wikipedia article on this shamster group have a huge category on SPLC critiques.

It's clear to anyone with a brain that the group tries to scaremonger old grandmothers into thinking the next genocide is around the corner in order to extract money. Of course this group is controversial as they need to witchunt people such as Steve Sailer. Any group that seeks to police and control people's thoughts are indeed controversial. That is, unless you work for them. Sandy Alamare

What's important here is that the SPLC isn't generally seen as being controversial. The authors of the pulitzer finalist investigation later discussed how they were surprised how well it's regarded. We're not here to decide if a group actually is good/bad, we just report mainstream views and any other notable views. You can see from my work on race and intelligence that I'm not a proponent of the SPSPLC.--Nectar 21:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite, don't discard

One of the things that is lost in the discussion of the "controversy" of Sailer's work is how little publicity it has actually received. The accusation of "racism" by John Podhoretz was about 100 words long, published in a stream of comments on the NRO blog, and did not really deal with anything Sailer wrote. The mention of Sailer in the "Queer Science" book review on the SPLC website was under 200 words long. Note that this was a review of a book written by someone else. The mention of Sailer in the SPLC's criticism of VDARE.com is a paragraph under 44 words. I think for the people trying to edit this page, it is incorrect to say that Sailer has received meaningful or significant criticism.

A reasonable reader will agree that Sailer's work is "controversial" by the nature of the subject he writes about, but to pretend that this means he has generated controversy is a little strong. By and large, major media outlets have responded by simply ignoring what he writes, and choosing to focus on "traditional" story lines about race, immigration, gender, culture, etc.

I agree that the cited criticisms are brief. However the SPLC seems to "address" Sailer's writing. It'd be speculation and original research for us to draw a conclusion of our own. -Will Beback 08:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Sailer's writing has generated controversy and response, enough to warrant the removal of the qualifier "brief", I think. I have described further examples of this criticism.
I disagree with the notion implied elsewhere on this page and in the article at various times that a response to Sailer must contain point by point rebuttals before we can consider it "legitimate" criticism. For many journalists and academics (though certainly not all), views like Sailer's regarding the scientific "fact" of race were last fashionable in the 19th century. For them, "debating" Sailer would be a bit like debating the usefulness of physiognomy in predicting criminality--i.e., why bother, we've kinda already settled the question. There probably aren't enough common assumptions held by Sailer and this mainstream about how race works to engage in a meaningful debate. That doesn't mean people haven't been critical of Sailer.--Birdmessenger 12:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
The added points under "controversy" help bolster the "controversial" argument, although I would note to the Wikipedia community that all one has to do to tar-and-feather an argument on taboo topics is (literally) to simply call the person "racist" or "bigoted" - that's it. That is an impressive level of censorship we have erected around certain ideas. Along these lines, that because John Podhoretz allocated 100 words on the NRO blog to say, effectively, "that guy is scum," that rises to the level of legitimate criticism. Birdmessenger: your logic as expressed above is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor, and I think you should recuse yourself from editing this wiki pages, and probably others. Here's why: if there were measurable, significant correlations for physiognomy, it would be a valid science. To lump anything on issues of race, gender, etc, in the same bucket, and to say that Sailer's ideas are so far from reality as to be effectively crazy and undebatable, then you should be out there trying to find more information, not editing. Editing a wiki page is about engaging with facts, and there are too many observable and testable correlations on the subjects Sailer writes about to dismiss them out of hand.
Actually, what I said was that "[f]or many journalists and academics (though certainly not all), views like Sailer's regarding the scientific "fact" of race were last fashionable in the 19th century." I don't believe you'll find that any of my edits to this page reflect partisan support for that perspective (although, since you bring it up, I do happen to think that Sailer's views on race are ridiculous in exactly the way that my analogy implied).
All Wikipedia editors come to the project with this kind of bias and non-neutral perspectives. Even you, I'd imagine. And the minute one of us rewrites an article to reflect those biases, someone else should intervene with an edit. That's how this thing works.
PS: on the race taboo--please note that in my last edit, I took pains to point out that Media Matters seemed to be more interested in Sailer's professional associations rather than in direct engagement with his specific arguments.--Birdmessenger 22:29, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

If you're interested in a perhaps less one-sided view of the literature in this area, you might check out Steven Pinker's recent summary.[17]--Nectar 23:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why no one debates Sailer--should we care?

I changed this edit: "Sailer's work is typically characterized by critics as racist, and as a result is rarely debated."

...to read: "Sailer's work is typically characterized by critics as fringe racism, and as a result is rarely debated."

(The original said, "Sailer's work is typically characterized by critics as racist.")

Although I think my version is closer to being accurate, I'm not sure a Wikipedia article should be speculating why Sailer's work doesn't attract much public debate. Perhaps Nectarflowed could comment? --Birdmessenger 12:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that last point. Unless someone has said, "I won't debate Sailer because his work is racist", we should not speculate that that is the cause. We may make both assertions without making them dependent: "Sailer's work is typically characterized by critics as fringe racism and his ideas are rarely debated or discussed." -Will Beback 19:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
His work doesn't get much debate because not only is it racist, but it's obviously flawed and inflammatory. For example, his nonsense about Katrina... I don't recall things going out of hand there as much as anywhere else. I saw REPORTS of looting after people had been trapped there for how long... over a week? What is amazing to me is his reliance on IQ as some kind of indicator of something. How be it then that the "more intellgent" white people (conservatives who share his views) are unable to respond to the clear and present situations like Katrina and instead provide excuses for the obvious, if racISM is not the cause? His arguments are not addressed because he does not consider the fact that racism and not racial biology(which is honestly his viewpoint) is the root cause. If I debated him, I would embarrass him in every venue, on TV, radio, on here, anywhere. But that won't happen. --Zaphnathpaaneah 19:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral point of view

Wikipedia has a policy of neutral point of view. Adding random quotes without commentary under a title of "anti-black discrimination" has no purpose other than to try to make an article look bad.--Nectar 01:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

THE quotes are provided with the commentary above and below. You need more Ok fine, here's more. But commentary is not a form of original research so don't go into a loop. --Zaphnathpaaneah 01:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


Secondly these quotes are not random. These quotes are important and purposeful. These are anti-black and the article itself looks better when the facts are shown. What I am seeing is pretend naivete and a desire to keep the hard core facts out of this article... lets call him "fringe" racist instead of just "racist". No, let's call it what it is. You read the quotes, they are indicitive of his character and his position. It is blatently racist. He does not need to say "I am a blatent racist" does he? --Zaphnathpaaneah 02:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

That may be true, Zaph (or would you prefer Joseph?) but what definitely does not make an article better is putting quotes in place of prose. This is not wikiquote. If you can write something based on the quotes, (being sure to conform to NPOV) and reference them, then that should solve the whole problem. --tjstrf 05:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Texas

Putting WikiProject Texas here so the bot doesn't retag this article

[edit] Academic Background

I arrived here from the article on the SPLC (after reading the Harper's article). One question, is there any way we can list Sailer's educational background? That might give us some basis on where he is coming from or if he has any credibility at all. Lochdale 21:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

yes, this article is short on biographical details. -Will Beback 22:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
He went to Rice University.

[edit] VDARE

Is justa website run by a full-time loon. How can it possibly be a source? I think the information realted to VDARE should be removed. Any objections? JJJamal 02:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I object. Just because you don't like VDare's politics is no reason to censor it. Argyriou (talk) 18:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fake link

Can someone remove the fake link to the "Human Biodiversity Institute"? As far as I know Sailer's HBI is a closed discussion group without a web page. The page linked to as such and appended to the article is a bizarre concoction featuring a link to "Black men f--ing White Men." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Donvalle (talk • contribs).

Link updated. Jokestress 03:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
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