I do not find criticism to be inappropriate, although dishonesty may be. An academic should expect any non-mainstream ideas (and even some mainstream ones) to receive criticism. What Dreger alleges is more serious though. James Flynn has argued against some of the most hated theories around, but he was always done so in a gentlemanly manner and not sought to bring investigations against his opponents in hopes they would lose their jobs.

I’ve been banned from some places, though not yet Wikipedia (I’m not very active there and mostly correct typos). You should be more specific regarding the nefarious actions of Bailey and Dreger.

Regarding newspapers, see Jefferson. And would you believe some people try to hold him up as their defender?

If you want to discuss any of the 1254 words of the above post not concerning Bailey, feel free.

Also, in belated reply to Stephan Johnson, there are many correlations in the traits of parents and their children. The reason that is the case is explained by people like Judith Harris.

I wish you would find out a little about the Bailey Affair before you retail the claim that I behaved in some inappropriate way in criticizing him. You’re being gossips.

I criticized in public Bailey’s arguments, which were based on ignoring most of scientific evidence on the matter. He abused some women I know and I tried to stop him from profiting from the abuse. I used in all of this entirely appropriate channels, normal in scientific controversy that extends to public policy.

Bailey on the other hand underhandedly modified my Wikipedia entry to make it an attack on me. He was banned from Wikipedia for it. His defender Alice Dreger attempted to stop a conference session critical of Bailey, using similarly underhanded techniques. And on and on.

In brief, let me give you some advice from an old lady: don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper.

Regards,

Deirdre McCloskey

1) McClosky’s actions in the Bailey affair seem abhorent,
2) Her references to historical materialism in this context seem manifestly strained (Darwin’s materialism and Marx’s materialism have about as much in common as does either’s to Paris Hilton’s materialism),

3) She makes a good case against Clark’s thesis,
and,
4) You’re review doesn’t much address her case.

For starters, there is a massive evidential burden in Clark’s thesis which McClosky points out and which he does very little to bridge. Just how can one determine, to the exclusion of other prima facie reasonable hypotheses, his preferred mechanism for cultural change? He doesn’t really give an answer. Birth rates are just not the right kind of data here. Just exactly what are the ‘carriers’ of these middle class virtues such that they couldn’t have spread by word of mouth? For the argument to go through you need an appeal to an exclusionary claim to the effect that nothing else could explain it and Clark’s arguments there are weak and have many current counterexamples (China and Japan among them) that McClosky brings up. It’s not for McClosky to falsify Clark’s hypothesis; it’s for Clark to make the case that we could even find the evidence he needs to warrant the case. Finally, whatever evidential status one wants to accord to rhetoric (which does sound goofy) is really besides the point as regards her criticisms.

“As Francis Galton put it in making a similar calculation —Galton in
1901 got further than Clark—very high inherited height or intelligence or bourgeois virtue dissipates
strongly in children and more in grandchildren, “owning to the combination of ancestral influences—
which are generally mediocre—with the purely parental ones.”13 Galton was part of Darwin’s family,
first notable in Erasmus, Charles’ and Francis’ grandfather. But their sons and daughters regressed.
That puts paid to his long-run story.”

In reality, Erasmus Darwin’s descendants are probably the most intellectually distinguished lineage in world history: they produced ten members of the Royal Academy of Science over six straight generations, plus composer Ralph Vaughn Williams and the most famous golf writer, Bernard Darwin.

If not the Darwins, then the most distinguished lineage might be the Huxleys. Darwin’s bulldog T.H. Huxley was the grandfather of Sir Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley, and the least famous brother, Arnold Huxley, who won the Nobel in Chemistry.

The secret of enduring success was careful marriages — the Darwins married Wedgewoods and Keyneses (e.g., child movie star Skander Keynes of “Narnia” is the direct descendant of Charles Darwin), while the Huxleys married into the Arnolds (of Thomas and Matthew fame).