Christopher Rufo, credited with helping oust school’s first Black president, touted critic associated with ‘scientific racists’

Rufo described Jonatan Pallesen as “a Danish data scientist who has raised new questions about Claudine Gay’s use – and potential misuse – of data in her PhD thesis” in an interview published in his newsletter and on the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal website last Friday.

He did not tell readers that a paper featuring Pallesen’s own statistical work in collaboration with the eugenicist researchers has been subject to scathing expert criticism for its faulty methods, and characterized as white nationalism by another academic critic.

The revelations once again raise questions about the willingness of Rufo – a major ally of Ron DeSantis and powerful culture warrior in Republican politics – to cultivate extremists in the course of his political crusades.

The Guardian emailed Rufo to ask about his repeated platforming of extremists, and asked both Rufo and the Manhattan Institute’s communications office whether they had vetted Pallesen before publishing the interview. Neither responded.

  • @afraid_of_zombies
    2•11 months ago

    I was listing an example. I pointed out that it is possible to discuss awful things without endorsement. You are discussing g IQism and it’s good buddy eugenics and are giving everyone the impression that you are fans of both. Which you pretty much have to be. Once you assume the spiritual belief in the holy G you have to assume that there are people with less Holy Spirit than others. Meaning humanity can be evaluated by 1 number and ranked accordingly. At some level there is a cutoff of who is unfit to live and who is fit to live. Since more G is always good it differs from all other rankings.

    You can’t apply this to anything else. Being a better long distance runner means very little. You could still be in bad health you could still die at a young age. You could still be a jerk. However Holy Spirit G is always good. You take up as much space and use the same level of resources as someone with less Holy Spirit. A plus with no downsides since it measures all aspects of the human mind. Belief in IQ and you are going to believe that humanity should get rid of those with less IQ.

    As I told you before, it doesn’t act like anything else in existence. You aren’t a better human because you have a higher temperature, or eat more calories, or have darker skin. Which should set off massive alarm bells, because right now you are pleading for special treatment. A well known logical fallacy.