# I pit ITR Champion and his 'concerns'...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 17, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063 "2014-01-17T15:42:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/121 "2015-12-15T20:25:48Z")
…and now he’s claiming that Harvey Mudd college practices no affirmative action, despite overwhelming proof to the contrary.
I really think it’s gotta be lies. I didn’t even know about Harvey Mudd college an hour ago, but it took me five minutes to find the evidence that he’s wrong. Stupidity can’t account for this sort of behavior.
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/122 "2015-12-15T20:45:00Z")
It goes right alongside one of the more facile and stupidly simplistic dismissals of Freud, psychological science, and the entire concept of subconscious bias I’ve ever seen.
There are plenty of arguments to be made against Freud, **ITRc**. You are clearly unequipped to make any of them.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2015, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/123 "2015-12-16T17:32:25Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> Several times I’ve followed up on his cites and found that they actually say something almost diametrically opposed to what he claims they say. I try really hard to attribute such behavior to stupidity, not malice
I don’t. The man has a Jesuit-like mastery of the half-truth, the rhetorical misdirection and the glaring omission.
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### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/124 "2015-12-16T21:59:52Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> Well, take [this example](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18937648&postcount=102). He tells about an eeevil librul professor who faked a hate crime against herself. All of which is technically true.
>
> However:
>
> 1. His cite is to the most biased and obnoxious retelling of the events possible (I recounted in the other thread details, if you’re interested); and
> 2. He lies about how students responded to the hate crime (they apparently asked for an FBI investigation and held anti-hate rallies **before** the hoax was revealed, and afterward were appalled and confused at what a bizarre act it was); and
> 3. This event, which National Review calls [The Godmother of Fake Hate Crimes](http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/39720/godmother-fake-hate-crimes-nathan-harden)? Looky here, it so happens that ITR was present at that campus when it occurred! He doesn’t mention that it’s a rare and bizarre and notable event that’s being written about many years later; no, instead, he conveniently places himself on-campus and just acts like this is the way campuses go.
>
> I think he’s lying. I don’t think he was on campus. But even if he was, it’s very hard to attribute the other inaccuracies in that post of his to his obvious stupidity; those are inaccuracies he had to go out of his way to achieve.
He’s not lying. He was there. I was there too. **ITR Champion** and I were in the same graduating class at Harvey Mudd.
As to point 2, there was an anti-racism rally. I marched in it. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I can’t imagine I would have done so after the hoax was revealed. Cite that this didn’t happen?
As for him referencing this event without pointing out how rare it is, I think that complaint isn’t really valid if you accept the truth that he was actually there. We all have our personal experiences, and they affect us far more deeply than an intellectual understanding of the data does. I do think that there’s real racism on college campuses, and in society. I think we have a long way to go. And I understand, at least intellectually, the concept of white privilege. But if I were talking frankly about my actual experience of racism on campus, it was 99% something I wasn’t aware of, and 1% total fraudulent bullshit liberal victimhood.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2015, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/125 "2015-12-16T22:47:12Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> Several times I’ve followed up on his cites and found that they actually say something almost diametrically opposed to what he claims they say. I try really hard to attribute such behavior to stupidity, not malice, but he makes it hard.
I remember the thread when i first became aware of **ITR Champion** ’s rather problematic relationship with evidence and argumentation.
He started a discussion about what he called [The Lies of Sam Harris](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=508549), in which he argued that Harris tells lies about Christians, especially with respect to the role of Catholicism in the Inquisition.
I had never heard of Harris before that and, while i do teach university history, it’s as a US historian. European history and the Inquisition definitely are not my area of expertise. But, believing that historical method and evidence work pretty much the same in all branches of the subject, i engaged **ITR** in his own conversation, pointing out a variety of problems with his assertions, and using specific evidence from history journals, book reviews, and scholarly books about the Inquisition.
And he basically disappeared from the thread.
I understand that i have no particular claim on anyone’s time, and that **ITR** was under no obligation to interact with me specifically. But he (apparently) cared enough about a topic to start a thread on the subject, and to make a series of clear factual assertions about the historical claims made by Sam Harris. If you essentially start a debate and invite a discussion on a topic that is clearly important to you, and other posters makes a series of long and carefully researched and argued posts in response to your OP, it says a little something about you when you turn tail and run rather than engaging them.
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### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2015, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/126 "2015-12-17T01:45:46Z")
> [@mhendo](#):
>
> If you essentially start a debate and invite a discussion on a topic that is clearly important to you, and other posters makes a series of long and carefully researched and argued posts in response to your OP, it says a little something about you when you turn tail and run rather than engaging them.
This is what pisses me off about **ITR**. Not that he has whacky ideas I disagree with, but that he doesn’t respond to substantive points made against them. He so often just abandons his threads and starts another “look how dumb liberals are now” thread.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/127 "2015-12-17T02:45:53Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#):
>
> He’s not lying. He was there. I was there too. **ITR Champion** and I were in the same graduating class at Harvey Mudd.
I start off assuming people are honest. ITR has squandered that assumption, so now I won’t trust anything he says. You, however? Your vouching is good enough for me :).
I no longer doubt that he was there.
> [@](#):
>
> As to point 2, there was an anti-racism rally. I marched in it. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I can’t imagine I would have done so after the hoax was revealed. Cite that this didn’t happen?
Woah, you really misunderstand me. I absolutely think there were rallies etc. ITR characterized student responses as nothing more than a shakedown, a demand for more money for their preferred academic departments and such. That’s where we have evidence that he was lying. The rally you describe is further evidence that he was lying about this point.
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2015, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/128 "2015-12-17T03:50:13Z")
> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> Googling for ITR, and specifically for the phrase “ITR Champion”, it appears to mean International Touring Car Champion, referring to a genre of car racing.
>
> [Example page from message board devoted to the subject.](http://www.improvedtouring.com/forums/showthread.php?33287-1992-Porsche-968-ITR-Championship-race-car)
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Not “Improved Touring [Class] R”? — [Improved Touring - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improved_Touring)
Ahem. As I pointed out in [post 90](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17761987&postcount=90) last year.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2015, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/129 "2015-12-17T04:25:32Z")
This may yet prove to be the most interesting thing about him.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-itr-champion-and-his-concerns/679063/130 "2015-12-17T20:09:48Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#):
>
> This is what pisses me off about **ITR**. Not that he has whacky ideas I disagree with, but that he doesn’t respond to substantive points made against them. He so often just abandons his threads and starts another “look how dumb liberals are now” thread.
I’m curious to see if that’s how he handles himself [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18946473&postcount=169), where I provide precisely the cite he asks for.
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