User talk:WikiRepairGuy

Your comments and questions are welcomed. Talk away! Please enter new text at the end with your topic as the subject/headline. --WikiRepairGuy (talk) 05:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion with Wmhtucker

To WikiRepairGuy:

I responded to your latest comment on the discussion page, but rather than bog down that page with further exchange on this rather trivial issue, I thought I'd post this to your own talk page.

You write:

I don’t believe Hitssquad intended to misrepresent you, or confused the archiver and archivist. I might have written the same thing given your later acknowledgment to Mehler for “opening his files and his home" to you, together with the striking overlap of your Cattell quotes and his, and the fact that both your quotes and his have been attacked as having the same kind of misrepresentations, taken out of context and interspersed with words that extrapolate or change the meaning of Cattell’s text

This uninformed comment typifies the sort of inaccuracies that pervade the discussion of Cattell. There are some 40-50 citations to Cattell's work in the 10 page section of my 1994 book and probably as many in Mehler's major article on Cattell in Genetica. Exactly two of them cite the same quotes. "striking overlap"??

But even if there had been overlap, even had all our quotes been identical, how could it be that you "might have written the same thing"--i.e., that Tucker "acknowledges Mehler as a source for his material"--on the grounds that 6 years later I wound up spending a day at Mehler's house so that I could inspect his archives for a book that makes no mention of Cattell? Note that nothing about Cattell in the 1994 book makes reference to any archival material--every citation is to one of his published works. What possible "source" could Mehler have been? Isn't there some basic standard of logic that should be respected by people who complain--with no justification as my book will demonstrate--of others' "misrepresentation"? Wmhtucker (talk) 21:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

To Wmhtucker:

Thanks for moving this discussion offline. I believe the wikipedia Discussion pages are supposed to be for working out the wording of an article. And thanks for moving this discussion off of my user page as well. We can point others here to participate in the discussion if you like. So, as I mentioned, I'm traveling and have only occasional Internet access, but I plan to write up a response this week and message you when I post it. I very much agree that there should be “some basic standard of logic respected by people who complain”. You make some good points, but I'm confused on other points. I'll be back to you shortly. WikiRepairGuy (talk) 08:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

(Continuing...) OK, I think I owe you an apology for jumping to conclusions. I do not have access to my books since I'm traveling, but I'll trust your statement that only two of your quotes overlap with Mehler's quotes. My recollection was of more commonality, not with Mehler's article, but with his website. However, I see that he has changed his site since I read it. Likewise, I'll trust you that you had not met or talked to Mehler in 1994, and that I jumped to the same conclusion as Hitssquad from your acknowledgement. I'm happy to edit/delete my incorrect statements on the "public" Cattell Discussion page. Let's see if we can reach some further agreement to put there, as well.

So, please help me understand your thinking. I used the adverb "apparently" because it's unclear where you're coming from. When I read your book and dug up the Cattell books, I felt that you had jumped to conclusions yourself. Admittedly, I might be coming from different assumptions than you, because in my discussions with Cattell's associates, there is universal agreement that he was not a racist. Did you ever talk to Cattell about these topics? Cattell objected to making any decisions based on racial differences, proven or unproven, and he strongly believed in equal opportunity. And he was certainly not "genocidal" or "neo-Nazi" as some have concluded from reading your book or Mehler's web site. Admittedly, his 1930's writing were racist by today's definition, but so were his peers of that time, and he later corrected his views. I disagree with his later writings on Beyondism, for example his argument to encourage competing groups as an evolutionary experiment, but I don't see racism in these books.

So, conceding these points, and even with our different backgrounds, I still don't follow the logic of your conclusions from Cattell's quotes. Looking at the example you mention, for example: Cattell praises the eugenics policies of a number of countries, including the U.S., Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Scandinavian countries. Yet you summarize his position saying “Cattell praised the Third Reich”. Where is the “basic standard of logic respected by people who complain” here? Your summary seems unfair and a tremendous leap to me, especially if you respect the principle of charity that Nectarflowed cites on the Cattell discussion page. It's as if you made up your mind about Cattell and you're trying to fit his words to your conclusions. That is the common theme I see between your writings and Mehler's. Am I missing something?

By the way, I understand it's frustrating that Cattell's proponents aren't willing to debate you or Mehler in publications. You'd naturally like a free and open discussion. But I don't believe they think it worth debate; it's not that you are "unfit" to debate. They don't want to get in a war of words over something they think untrue and also irrelevant to Cattell's contributions. They may also be concerned that Mehler expands his campaign to include the names of anyone who supports Cattell, or that defending Cattell on racism issues will be interpreted as supporting him on all his beliefs. But if you want to talk privately with associates who knew Cattell well, I think I know people who would do that. --WikiRepairGuy (talk) 07:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

To WikiRepairGuy:

I would very much appreciate any reference or citation you could provide--other than the statement issued only weeks before his death, which was prompted only by the controversy over the award--in which Cattell "corrected his views" or modified or retracted them or apologized for or suggested that there was anything in any way wrong with his earlier statements, which you acknowledge were racist. Indeed, again aside from his death bed recantation, I would love to know where I can find Cattell's statement that he "objected to making any decisions based on racial differences, proven or unproven, and...strongly believed in equal opportunity."

You raise the issue of Cattell's opinion of the Reich. So first let's make clear his opinion of Jews at the time of the Machtergreifung. In "Psychology and Social Progress" he writes of the problems created by different groups in the same society:

Whenever a nation has been forcibly put together from differing races, we find a social life unnecessarily disjointed, weak, and feverish. There are thousands of misunderstandings, produced by individuals working for different goals in different ways and at different speeds. Think of the English in Ireland. Examine more closely the contacts of English and Welsh in business, politics, and education. Think of the Jews anywhere.

And here's another reason that more than one race in the same society was harmful, according to Cattell:

Suppose, as may well be the case, that one of these races is naturally courageous, self-sacrificing and enterprising and the other less so. The group will continue to prosper owing to the activities of inventors and explorers of the first race, who, as is generally the rule, will not pass on the usual number of children to the next generation. The nation will be successful in war because the same race has actively responded to the call to arms and to self-sacrifice. Throughout these activities, this first race will on an average be giving more to the group than it can itself recoup. Eventually only the second race will inherit the group advantages acquired largely by the first racial compound. Then like a huge parasite which has devoured its host, will the nation be bereft of all the qualities that gave it power, remain a monstrous frustration of evolution, a biological abortion able in virtue of its inherited wealth, to do untold damage to neighboring races naturally more capable.

The hatred and abhorrence which many peoples feel for the Jewish (and to some extent Mongolian) practice of living in other nations, instead of forming an independent, self-sustained group of their own, comes from a deep intuitive feeling that somehow it is not “playing the game.” Because our unbiologically-minded civilization cannot perceive or appreciate any intellectual causes for these feelings they are readily branded as “prejudice” by would-be intellectuals.

Then, in "The Fight for Our National Intelligence" he mentions Germany twice. In the first quote he refers to "Germany where the community boldly acts upon the wisdom of the biologist and the medical man and where eugenic laws are instantly put into operation." At the time (1937), of course, the Nuremberg Laws--certainly an indication of the biologist's wisdom, from Cattell's point of view--had already been passed, forcing the Jews to play the game. Note too that there is no mention of any other country here. It is true that later in the same book Cattell writes that "Germany has the credit of being the first to adopt sterilisation together with a positive emphasis on racial improvement. The Scandinavian countries, Holland and Switzerland are equally advanced in their practice of sterilisation and their consciousness of the need for maintaining and improving inherited qualities." But the praise for the Scandinavian countries is clearly only for their progress in sterilization. It is Germany and only Germany, having separated out those troublesome Jews from the rest of the population, which is lauded for positive emphasis on racial improvement.

Finally, you write that in "discussions with Cattell's associates, there is universal agreement that he was not a racist." No one is claiming that he was David Duke in a lab coat. This is about the ideology that he created and promoted. There is much more that could be said: for example, his reference in 1987 [!] to the influence on his own thinking of the work of Revilo Oliver, Roger Pearson, and Wilmot Robertson--the three most important neo-Nazi intellectuals in the United States; or the praise that appeared in the Beyondist Newsletter, edited by Cattell and created to espouse his views, for Robertson's book, "The Ethnostate," a proposal for racial balkanization of the United States, which the newsletter described as "a very timely supplement to the argument of the Beyondist." But I have probably gone on too long already.Wmhtucker (talk) 14:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

To Wmhtucker:

Sorry I've been slow to respond, I'm still traveling.

Before I jump into a response, I want to clarify: I believe that racism is the single, biggest problem facing the human race today. I believe inter-group hatred and misunderstanding is the most likely end to us all. I am horrified over and over again by the Holocaust, every day of my life, and I am frightened by those who deny its existence. We must support education and organizations to prevent race-hatred, oppression, and genocide.

I respect and support what you are trying to accomplish in your work. I simply think that you are making a mistake putting so much energy into Cattell as a target. Even if you were right in your claims about him, I believe there are targets that are many, many times more important: people who are alive today that are saying and doing things right now that we need to challenge. Even if people were using some ideology from Cattell (and I don't see this), I believe Cattell has taken the wind out of their sails by publishing his correction and clarification.

Nobody I talk to is interested in the "Cattell Controversy" any more, they feel you are beating a dead horse. And I believe you're doing more damage than good (to your cause and to psychology) by continuing to beat this horse.

It's my understanding that Mehler had some bad history with Cattell via his advisor, but I don't understand your own persistence with Cattell. You never had a conversation with him, is that right? That's unfortunate, because those who got to know Cattell came to very different conclusions about him.

Anyway, let me address your last posting, starting from the beginning.

You ask for a published retraction or correction of Cattell's views of the 1930's, and you reject the retraction that he published at the time of the APA award. I respectfully submit that your position is unreasonable and wrong on multiple counts:

• Cattell had no good reason to write a retraction prior to the publicized misinterpretations of his views. Everyone he knew understood his current position, and nobody was even aware of his 1930's books until you and Mehler brought attention to them. I had a very hard time finding a copy of any of those books myself. Cattell probably had good reasons not to bring attention and raise confusion regarding views he no longer held.
• How many other people have published a retraction of their views from decades earlier? Well-known academics and millions of people in the U.K., U.S., and other countries shared his viewpoint... probably a majority of the people, since they successfully passed eugenics and sterilization laws. Do you see retractions from all the U.S. legislators who voted for those laws? Many years ago it became obvious to everyone these views were a mistake.
• Cattell had no reasonable forum in which to publish a retraction. The APA affair made it possible for him to issue a press release and to write a letter to the APA. Where or when would he publish a retraction of personal philosophical writings from the 1920's and 1930's? A journal paper?
• A retraction is a retraction. Cattell wrote two separate statements in 1997, one in August at the APA meeting itself, and another in December when he wrote to the APA, and he refused the award. His letter[1] includes exactly the statements you ask for, rejecting racial discrimination and supporting equal opportunity. Why can't you accept the validity of his retractions? What purpose does your rejection serve? Cattell had no reason to recant his position in order to receive the award... he refused the award. And he'd have no reason to make false statements "from his deathbed": indeed, that's when you get the most truthful statements from people.
• For those familiar with Cattell's work, there is a great deal of pre-award evidence for his support of equal opportunity and his rejection of discrimination: much of his work and psychological tests were aimed at exactly that, evaluating people fairly without bias from their culture and background. If you like, when I get back to my office I can produce a list for you. Post-1930's, Cattell published dozens of books and hundreds of papers containing none of the positions you accuse him of. He sought out colleagues from diverse ethnic backgrounds. He had Jewish colleagues, friends, and family who refute your accusations of anti-Semitism. Perhaps a hundred people who talked to Cattell about race-related topics can refute your other claims, including psychologists who were not colleagues (I take it you view his colleagues as biased, but that's a Catch-22, since they knew him best.)

Any of these reasons alone would be enough to accept Cattell's position. Can you accept at least one of them?

You provide additional Cattell quotes in your last posting and on the article discussion page. I appreciate that you are trying to enlighten me on Cattell's ideology, and that you think I'm missing something. However, these quotes are all from the 1930's, which are irrelevant for the reasons I've enumerated. And even then, I still believe you are being uncharitable in your interpretation and choice of his words, as I've said. For example, Cattell 1930's books do support equal opportunity to every race, even though he argues for separating groups; and he makes observations about people's hatred and prejudice, but does not say he himself feels that way. You say that he singles out Germany in his book, but he also singles out the U.S., saying they were actually the first to legailize sterilization. Mind you, Cattell is far from "squeaky clean" here, and I do have to concede that Cattell argued for genetically homogenous nations, though in later life he did agree that genetically heterogenous nations like the U.S. were also a valid entry in the "grand experiment" of competing groups. I'm simply arguing that in your book you added more than Cattell said.

I do sympathize with your goals, and there is some truth to what you've said about Cattell, but I believe you have misunderstood many of his beliefs, and haven't given him credit for his efforts to fight discrimination, e.g. developing culturally fair psychological testing. There are many clear cut opportunities to fight racism today. Do you really think that Cattell is the best avenue for your efforts?

BTW, as promised, I deleted from the Cattell discussion page my comment that there is "striking overlap" of your statements and Mehler's. I agree that comment was unwarranted. I can also post a statement agreeing to your correction on the acknowledgment date.--WikiRepairGuy (talk) 22:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

To: WikiRepairGuy:

First, let me express my gratitude for the change you made to the discussion page. While I have certainly benefited from subsequent access to Mehler’s voluminous collection of documents, the 1994 book was written before I was even aware of its existence. I’m also grateful for the time and effort involved in your response, even though I disagree with most of its content. Here are my comments:

Much of your response concerns what you believe to be my goals, what I am putatively attempting to accomplish, whether I should be investing my time and energy on Cattell, and similar observations about my motivation. Let me respectfully suggest that you eschew speculation on such irrelevant personal matters and stick to the issues. I do not presume to suggest what topics should or should not interest you, or how your time is best spent, nor do I ascribe to you any motivation other than a desire for truth. Please do the same for me.

You refer to my “accusations of anti-Semitism” against Cattell. This is egregiously inaccurate on your part. I have never applied that term to Cattell--not in anything I have written about him, nor in my forthcoming book. Rather I have attempted to describe the content of his thought, illustrated with copious quotations from his work. I do not call him names.

In the same vein, you write that Cattell “makes observations about people’s hatred and prejudice, but does not say that he himself feels that way.” Again, I am not interested in his personal feelings or (if they exist) his prejudices, who he likes or dislikes, whether or not some of his best friends come from “diverse ethnic backgrounds.” I am interested in his ideology and the support that that ideology provides for those people who, as you put it, “are saying and doing things right now that we need to challenge.” National Alliance, Mankind Quarterly, American Renaissance--all groups that fit your description--cite Cattell’s work as support for their own appalling ideas. So how did Cattell respond to their use, believing, as you claim, in “support…[for] equal opportunity and…rejection of discrimination”? Well, he lent his name to the masthead of the odious Mankind Quarterly, not to mention publishing a raft of articles there--I mention a typical one below And he sat down for a lengthy discussion with American Renaissance that became a 3 part laudatory series in their eponymous publication, which insists that blacks deserve no rights other than to own property and make contracts--certainly not the right to vote or marry whites or be served in public establishments--and whose readership named Hitler as the foreigner who had done the most for the white race. For some strange reason they believe that Cattell’s work supports their beliefs. Perhaps he neglected to tell them of his support for equal opportunity.

You conclude, from the direct quotes of Cattell’s that I posted, that I am “trying to enlighten you.” I assure you that I have no such presumptuous purpose in mind. Rather my intent is to offer a refutation of your charge that I have misrepresented Cattell, “seriously distorted his words,” or “taken them out of context.” But in response to these quotes from Cattell, intended to demonstrate that I have rendered his thought accurately, you engage in bait and switch, complaining that they are all from the 30s and thus irrelevant. That is, having made one charge, to which I was responding, you dismiss them as being unresponsive to a completely different charge, one they were never intended to counter. Let’s first acknowledge that there has been no distortion on my part. If these quotes are insufficient to make the point, let me know--I’ll be happy to provide lots of others.

Concerning Cattell’s more recent pronouncements: You ask why I don’t “accept the validity of his retraction.” The answer is simple: I read English--it’s my native language. I have read Cattell’s 1972 book, his 1987 book, and his Mankind Quarterly articles, published in the later years of his life, and they show no discontinuity with anything he said four or five decades earlier. Indeed, he describes the 1972 book as merely a “fuller presentation” of the ideas formulated and expressed in Psychology and Social Progress and his other writings from the 30s, a strange observation from a person who, in your words, “had good reasons not to bring attention and raise criticism regarding views he no longer held.” Should you wish me to provide extended quotes from these later works too, again I will be happy to do so.

In a typical publication late in his life--in 1992, at age 87--Cattell contributed an article to the Mankind Quarterly, a journal edited by Roger Pearson, an out-and-out Nazi, and dedicated to promoting exactly the sort of racism that you label “the single biggest problem facing the human race today.” In this article Cattell argued that psychologists had to “wake up to the existence of a natural, innate racism,” which was often “a virtuous gift.” Again, the point is not that Cattell hates anyone or is himself racist but that this prominent scientist chose to publish such baseless claims in this venue, created by and produced for true racists and neo-Nazis, thus providing support for their intolerable ideas and lending them legitimacy through his scientific prestige. The fact that he also authored a lot of works in mainstream journals in which he did not mention his ideology is no more relevant than the fact that Ted Bundy met lots of women that he did not kill.

You also note that “everyone he knew understood his current position, and nobody was even aware of his 1930s books.” This too is simply incorrect. In 1984, for example, John Horn, Cattell’s close friend and defender, called Psychology and Social Progress, published in 1933, “the guide for much of Cattell’s subsequent work.” The same book was also cited, again in 1984, by Cattell’s friends and colleagues Cecil Gibb and Richard Gorsuch as the origin of his thinking and research.

Finally, you state that no one is interested in the Cattell controversy and that I am beating a dead horse, an observation strangely inconsistent with your eager offer a couple of weeks ago to “review…[my] new book and give feedback” before publication. In any event, if you are correct about the lack of interest, then you have no cause for concern, because no one will read it.Wmhtucker (talk) 03:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

To Wmhtucker:

OK, I guess we’re not communicating very successfully. I hear you, that I’m inferring more than you wrote. Sorry. And you hear me, saying that you’re inferring more than Cattell wrote. I believe you’re also reading too much into what I wrote, but I’ll take some fault for poor wording. For example, I didn’t mean that literally “nobody” was aware of his 1930’s books: I meant 99.99+% of people. As you point out, those who knew him well were aware of them. I believe Cattell is likewise guilty of poor wording, as well as poor judgment in his old age, allowing racists to use his name. But for me, the compelling argument is still from those who knew him well: the picture they paint of Cattell’s ideology differs from the one you paint with selected quotations that can be misunderstood out of context.

I also didn’t mean that literally “no one” was interested in the Cattell controversy… obviously you and I are, though my own energy for it is now running low. To me, racial issues in the Middle East seem more important than U.S. crackpots who get little mainstream attention, and both seem more worthwhile than Cattell. I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just expressing my opinion. But I realize I’m not convincing you, nor vice versa.

So I think we should stop, and just agree to disagree. My user talk page is getting too long on this issue. But if you want to contact me, you can always email me by clicking "E-mail this User" on the left of my user page. --WikiRepairGuy (talk) 00:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Cattell and Scientific Method

Hi, WikiRepairGuy.

The first sentence you referred to originally read: As a psychologist, Cattell was rigorously devoted to the scientific method, and was an early proponent of using factor analytical methods instead of what he called "verbal theorizing" to explore the basic dimensions of personality, motivation, and cognitive abilities. I trimmed that as making it shorter made it more readable, with him following the scientific method being understood (introducing statistics into an area that was previously ruled by "verbal theorising" seems to imply this). The sentence During the remainder of his career, he steadfastly pursued this goal, advancing the scientific approach to psychology doesn't seem specific enough - perhaps adding some examples if you restore the original might help.

As I added wikilinks (WW I, Exeter Uni and ILLIAC I) I suggest that if you add those sentences back that you edit rather than revert, as that would leave the wikilinks intact. Autarch (talk) 19:52, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Autarch. Thanks for the response to my posting on your talk page. As you requested, I've made edits rather than revert your changes. I've also left the second sentence deleted as you had it. I split the first sentence into two, to address your readability concern. (I also added a reference to the new article on the 16PF.)--WikiRepairGuy (talk) 01:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)