> Your criticism of Jussim is rooted in the claim that he is biased; and in so doing, you implicitly claim that you are unbiased. This is necessary, otherwise how would you be qualified to criticize him for being biased?

I don't think anyone is truly unbiased, although some people are more biased than others. I did not mean to claim that I was less biased than Jussim.

I was actually trying to make a much simpler point. An article titled "Four Scientists Respond", addressing a topic that is not itself part of academia, suggests at least a possibility that the responses are representative of most scientists' views (more precisely, the views of most scientists with relevant experience). When three of the four responses are largely in agreement with each other, one might imagine that their position is the consensus of scientists, and thus arguably of science itself, with its associated cachet and authority. Indeed, if the scientists had somehow been chosen randomly, it would be quite significant that there was such a level of agreement. But they were not.

Indeed, the question of what it means to be "conservative" is to some extent a distraction. I could have said it much more simply: The three scientists in question (those other than Schmitt) have all written columns in the past criticizing liberal orthodoxy as stifling. Among scientists with relevant experience, even those that write opinion pieces, I'd assume most have not written about that specific subject. Therefore, those three are very likely to be an unrepresentative sample.

Please note that I'm not claiming Quilette did anything wrong. They said four scientists, and they quoted four scientists. Those individual opinions do come with more inherent authority than a random Joe's, due to their authors' having some understanding of the relevant research in connection with their work; it is just that they fall short of actually representing science. Besides, a frequent reader of Quilette would be aware of their bias as an outlet, and wouldn't expect a representative sample in the first place. (I hope it is not controversial that Quilette has a bias; to be clear, this is not inherently bad.) It is not their fault that they were linked to out of context on HN. But by the same token it is appropriate to point out that context.

Anyway, I could have left it at 'criticized, therefore unrepresentative' in my followup comment, but by then I had claimed that Jussim (along with the others) was conservative and been called out on it; while I felt bad about the possibility of having made a false accusation, I also wanted to defend my point, after investigating further and deciding it hadn't been false.

> This should have been the end of your comment. The next line should have been, "This is obviously irrational, and therefore my criticism of you is as well. Therefore, I will now stop and reevaluate my position from first principles."

> But instead, you doubled-down, following the pattern of those who got the man fired, essentially confirming his argument.

I was attempting to be upfront about the potential weaknesses of my argument, something which I believe helps advance rational discourse. From your tone in these paragraphs, I am not sure you have the same humility.