August 24, 2011

Something in the Water at National Review?

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John Derbyshire responds to my post about science yesterday:

I see from that Kevin Drum piece that our own Kevin [Williamson] linked to, that at least one liberal has already sold the pass, or at least half of it, on the heritability of intelligence. (Though Drum, along with the rest of liberaldom, is still clinging for dear life to the dubious Turkheimer paper I had some words for here.) What price, then, those grand liberal plans to Fix The Schools, Kevin (Drum)?

These National Review guys sure are weird. I’m pretty sure that none of them read me regularly — and there’s no reason they should — but first Williamson and now Derbyshire seem awfully sure that they know all about me anyway. What’s the deal with that? Liberal I may be, but I’ve been writing about the genetic basis of cognitive traits for years and have been a skeptic of school reform plans nearly as long.1 They can disagree with me all they want, but if they’re going to do any more than that they should at least have the courtesy of figuring out what I actually think about stuff.

1Though I am a fan of intensive early interventions.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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