In 1994, after the publication of Herrnstein and Murray's
The Bell Curve, a symposium of academics and political leaders set up a two-hour denunciation session for the press. Nominally, it was intended to denounce
The Bell Curve. In reality, they denounced not only
The Bell Curve but also the established facts of the
mainstream science on intelligence.
The video is here:
[video]
Stephen J. Gould was among them. At the time range
1:36:10-1:37:53, he spoke as follows:
Now the main thing I wanted to say in here, and I credit my good friend Alan Dershowitz with putting it this way in a private discussion, and I think this captures both the moral and the practical point beautifully, and that is: we really don't know the causes of these differences. We really don't. That's the only honest statement, but think of it this way, since we don't know [...] suppose Herrnstein and Murray are right. But, since we don't know that, we continue to try our very best to help out even though it can't be totally effective. That's one scenario. Suppose, however, that we're right, and that these are substantially remediable because the immutability assumption of those four is wrong, but we follow Herrnstein and Murray's recommendations. You see the differential results is so great... after all, if they're right but if we do our program, what's the result? So we've spent some money and we've encountered some frustration, but to think of the tragedy involved if they're right and we follow their program, because then we have extinguished the human spirit in millions of people where it could have been acknowledged and nurtured, and that's ultimately on any cost/benefit analysis or moral argument where it comes down! Since we do not know, all we can do is follow our program, which I expect is correct because the consequences of not doing so are so horrendous, if we're right.
At first I thought maybe I misheard Gould when he spoke those last few words: "...all we can do is follow our program, which I expect is correct because the consequences of not doing so are so horrendous, if we're right." It is the most direct and plain statement of the fallacy of
appeal to consequences. He doesn't stop at the cost/benefit argument, but he stated that he expects he is right because of the potential consequences. I suspect that this ideological fallacy [..etc]