Black failure in American schools
Richard Fangnail
do okay in our schools?
Bruce McGuffin
> "Richard Fangnail" <richard...@excite.com> writes:
>
> > Does it mean anything to you that kids from Nigeria come to America
> > and do okay in our schools?
>
> Doesn't mean much on the face of it. The Nigerians who come to
> America probably tend to be the smart ones, the John Ogbu types. Or
> it's even possible that Nigerians (or whatever that tribe is, the Ibo
> or whatever) are just smart compared to other Africans and even
> compared to African-Americans.
In other words you don't know about this, but you're not going to
let possible new evidence ruin you're nice theory.
> Same way that white people have low
> IQs but white Jews have high IQs, relative to East Asians.
Hey, maybe only the smart European Jews emmigrated to America, and the
dumb ones died in the holocaust.
Bruce
Michael Zeleny
> The Other <ot...@other.invalid> writes:
>> "Richard Fangnail" <richard...@excite.com> writes:
>>> Does it mean anything to you that kids from Nigeria come to America
>>> and do okay in our schools?
>> Doesn't mean much on the face of it. The Nigerians who come to
>> America probably tend to be the smart ones, the John Ogbu types. Or
>> it's even possible that Nigerians (or whatever that tribe is, the Ibo
>> or whatever) are just smart compared to other Africans and even
>> compared to African-Americans.
> In other words you don't know about this, but you're not going to
> let possible new evidence ruin you're nice theory.
You see Simon, there are three kinds of "there."
There's "there" T-H-E-R-E.
There are the donuts. Then there's "their," T-H-E-I-R, which is the
possessive. It is their donut.
Then finally, there's "they're," T-H-E-Y-apostrophe-R-E, a contraction.
Meaning they're.
They're the donut people.
Got it?
-- Hal Hartley, Henry Fool
>> Same way that white people have low
>> IQs but white Jews have high IQs, relative to East Asians.
> Hey, maybe only the smart European Jews emmigrated to America, and the
> dumb ones died in the holocaust.
Close, but no cigar. You goyim applied selective pressures by killing
off the dumbest Jews until you made us smarter than yourselves. Got it?
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
smw
The Other wrote:
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>Bruce McGuffin wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hey, maybe only the smart European Jews emmigrated to America, and
>>>the dumb ones died in the holocaust.
>>
>>Close, but no cigar. You goyim applied selective pressures by
>>killing off the dumbest Jews until you made us smarter than
>>yourselves. Got it?
>
>
> Have you read that recent paper by Cochran and Harpending? They do in
> fact claim that Jews got smart by natural selection. (All the
> standard genetic explanations for Jewish intelligence posit one form
> or another of sexual selection, not natural selection.)
>
> I haven't read the paper, but your summary doesn't sound too far off:
> the Christians forced the Ashkenazim to be moneylenders, middle-men,
> etc. Those are professions where it especially pays to be smarter
> than other folks, so poverty killed off more of the children of dumb
> Jews than of the smart ones.
What's left to fall under "culture" if legislation is out?
Michael Zeleny
>>> Hey, maybe only the smart European Jews emmigrated to America, and
>>> the dumb ones died in the holocaust.
>> Close, but no cigar. You goyim applied selective pressures by
>> killing off the dumbest Jews until you made us smarter than
>> yourselves. Got it?
> Have you read that recent paper by Cochran and Harpending? They do in
> fact claim that Jews got smart by natural selection. (All the
> standard genetic explanations for Jewish intelligence posit one form
> or another of sexual selection, not natural selection.)
>
> I haven't read the paper, but your summary doesn't sound too far off:
> the Christians forced the Ashkenazim to be moneylenders, middle-men,
> etc. Those are professions where it especially pays to be smarter
> than other folks, so poverty killed off more of the children of dumb
> Jews than of the smart ones.
You are a wild card, Aaron. Do you also enjoy Kevin MacDonald?
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/
So what is the party line on the evolutionary origins of fuckwits?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/larvatus/23766.html
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
Sy Grass
"Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128080946.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Close, but no cigar. You goyim applied selective pressures by killing
> off the dumbest Jews until you made us smarter than yourselves. Got it?
How 'bout that. Finally he's starting to sound almost sort of halfass
unabashedly menschliche. Of course, he has a mere, lowly mischling of the
first degree, such as, namely, Seymour to thank for the precedent. One
thinks of another Harvard man, Robert Kennedy at long last deciding to try
the temperature of the water--only after the mere Minnesota Man had long
since waded in to warm it up. ;-)
--
Mackie http://mackiemesser.741.com
"With friends like these, who needs an enema?" --T. Coraghessan Boyle
--
.............................................................
> Posted thru AtlantisNews - Explore EVERY Newsgroup <
> http://www.AtlantisNews.com -- Lightning Fast!!! <
> Access the Most Content * No Limits * Best Service <
Bruce McGuffin
> Bruce McGuffin <mcgu...@edinburgh.ll.mit.edu> writes:
>
> > The Other <ot...@other.invalid> writes:
> >
> > > "Richard Fangnail" <richard...@excite.com> writes:
> > >
> > > > Does it mean anything to you that kids from Nigeria come to
> > > > America and do okay in our schools?
> > >
> > > Doesn't mean much on the face of it. The Nigerians who come to
> > > America probably tend to be the smart ones, the John Ogbu types.
> > > Or it's even possible that Nigerians (or whatever that tribe is,
> > > the Ibo or whatever) are just smart compared to other Africans and
> > > even compared to African-Americans.
> >
> > In other words you don't know about this, but you're not going to
> > let possible new evidence ruin you're nice theory.
>
> Hey, that's what the Intelligent Design people say to the Darwinists!
>
> Let's look at the evidence and the theory though. It's not seriously
> disputed that IQ tests measure *something* that causes much of the
> variation in school performance, in all races. The controversial part
> is what that "something" is -- intelligence, stereotype threat, or
> what. So "my" nice theory is that that "something" is intelligence,
> or something close to it. It's irrelevant here what causes the
> variation in *that*; irrelevant in particular whether or not genes
> have anything to do with it. This theory -- I mean, "my" theory --
> has support from leading scientists on the political left who believe
> that the causes of racial differences in IQ are 100% cultural.
>
> Now the evidence. I'm told that Nigerian immigrants do OK in schools.
> If those immigrants have low IQs, around the African-American mean of
> 85 or even lower, and they still perform say at the level of the white
> mean, then that's a serious problem for "my" theory. It would
> probably require an unlikely (literally, low likelihood) explanation.
>
> Since I believe in my theory, based of course on a thoroughly
> impartial and absolutely scientific examination of the evidence, my
> suspicion is that the Nigerians who do OK in school have IQs higher
> than 85. An analogy would be a Darwinist who believes that so-called
> "irreducibly complex" features have some as-yet-unknown evolutionary
> history. A finding that the Nigerians have low IQs (analogy: that a
> biological feature is truly irreducibly complex) would cause me to
> re-examine and maybe even scrap "my" theory. But no one's given that
> kind of evidence. That's what I meant when I said that the example
> doesn't mean much ON THE FACE OF IT.
The implication I've taken from your previous statements: blacks
EVERYWHERE riot, whites EVERYWHERE usually don't riot, east asians
EVERYWHERE hardly ever riot, is that this is not a cultural but a
genetic trait. After all, culture changes much faster than genes, and
we expect more cultural than genetic diversity. In fact, didn't you
make arguments about observable, but not understood genetic
differences at the start of this discussion? It's all coming back to
me now. But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
groups?
Any way, my own personal observation is that a family can go from the
sort of self-destructive anti-social behavior you were talking about
(alcoholism or drug abuse, violence, little or no interest in
education, economic irresponsiblity, lack of familial or social
cohesion) to solidly middle class in one or at most two generations
with just a little help. Encouragement from high school teachers, and
maybe a college scholership, for example.
That suggests the issues (when discussing a large group of people, not
just a few individuals) are more cultural and economic than genetic,
and that in the right circumstances culture can change pretty fast.
Bruce
Michael Zeleny
> But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
> diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
> groups?
No.
ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
Bruce McGuffin
> Bruce McGuffin wrote:
> > But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
> > diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
> > groups?
>
> No.
>
> ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
> http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
Funny, I thought they did.
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/
Bruce
Michael Zeleny
Population structure and migratory exchanges between populations
are extremely important for understanding human evolution. They are
also beginning to play a major role in medical genetics, for a simple
reason. It is becoming clear that human population "isolates" are very
common. They are populations who have been through a demographic
bottleneck at some stage in their lifetime and have limited migratory
exchange with neighbors. They are strongly subject to drift, and the
result is that their genetic epidemiology is quite different from that
of the general human population. Many hereditary diseases common
elsewhere are rare or absent in some of these isolates, while other
genetic diseases rare or absent in the general population are common.
Examples of such isolates are Ashkenazi Jews, French Canadians,
Afrikaner, and many other smaller populations like that of the island
of Tristan da Cunha, etc. Most hereditary diseases like schizophrenia
or allergies are due to many different genetic causes and are therefore
difficult to study in the general population, but responsible genes are
easier to identify in these isolates. In fact it is likely that a
single gene is responsible for all of a given disease found in an
isolate, or at last it is much easier to dissect there a complex causal
genetic system.
-- Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, A Panoramic Synthesis of My Research
http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
In summary, the combined results suggest that a major portion of
NRY biallelic diversity present in most of the contemporary Jewish
communities surveyed here traces to a common Middle Eastern source
population several thousand years ago. The implication is that this
source population included a large number of distinct paternal and
maternal lineages, reflecting genetic variation established in the
Middle East at that time. In turn, this source diversity has been
maintained within Jewish communities, despite numerous migrations
during the Diaspora and long-term residence as isolated subpopulations
in numerous geographic locations outside of the Middle East.
-- M.F. Hammer, A.J. Redd, E.T. Wood, M.R. Bonner, H. Jarjanazi,
T. Karafet, S. Santachiara-Benerecetti, A. Oppenheim, M. A. Jobling,
T. Jenkins, H. Ostrer, and B. Bonné-Tamir
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/12/6769
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
smw
Bruce McGuffin wrote:
>
> Any way, my own personal observation is that a family can go from the
> sort of self-destructive anti-social behavior you were talking about
> (alcoholism or drug abuse, violence, little or no interest in
> education, economic irresponsiblity, lack of familial or social
> cohesion) to solidly middle class in one or at most two generations
> with just a little help.
And the other way within a month.
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>>Have you read that recent paper by Cochran and Harpending? They
>>>do in fact claim that Jews got smart by natural selection. (All
>>>the standard genetic explanations for Jewish intelligence posit
>>>one form or another of sexual selection, not natural selection.)
>>>
>>>I haven't read the paper, but your summary doesn't sound too far
>>>off: the Christians forced the Ashkenazim to be moneylenders,
>>>middle-men, etc. Those are professions where it especially pays
>>>to be smarter than other folks, so poverty killed off more of the
>>>children of dumb Jews than of the smart ones.
>>
>>What's left to fall under "culture" if legislation is out?
>
>
> Culture influenced the environment to which Ashkenazim supposedly
> adapted by natural selection. 'Kay?
Yeah, sure. So if I hit someone over the head with a baseball bat
because he cheered for Michigan State, the fact that his skull was by
nature ill-adapted to the encounter makes this a natural death.
> At the population level, genes influence culture and culture
> influences genes. It kind of, you know, dialectical.
Depends on your definition of the dialectic, I suppose. But yeah,
"somehow the one somehow influences the somehow other" works.
John W. Kennedy
>>
>>>But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
>>>diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
>>>groups?
>>
>>No.
>>
>>ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
>>http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
>
>
>
> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
>
> In context, "among" clearly means "between".
So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
--
John W. Kennedy
"Those in the seat of power oft forget their failings and seek only the
obeisance of others! Thus is bad government born! Hold in your heart
that you and the people are one, human beings all, and good government
shall arise of its own accord! Such is the path of virtue!"
-- Kazuo Koike. "Lone Wolf and Cub: Thirteen Strings" (tr. Dana Lewis)
Richard Harter
<jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>The Other wrote:
>> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>>Bruce McGuffin wrote:
>>>
>>>>But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
>>>>diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
>>>>groups?
>>>
>>>No.
>>>
>>>ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
>>>http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
>>
>>
>> I think you misread that article, Michael:
>>
>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
>> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
>>
>> In context, "among" clearly means "between".
>
>So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
What an odd question. Is it based upon a misunderstanding of English
or on one of logic?
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
I started out in life with nothing.
I still have most of it left.
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>>smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>The Other wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Have you read that recent paper by Cochran and Harpending? They
>>>>>do in fact claim that Jews got smart by natural selection. (All
>>>>>the standard genetic explanations for Jewish intelligence posit
>>>>>one form or another of sexual selection, not natural selection.)
>>>>>
>>>>>I haven't read the paper, but your summary doesn't sound too far
>>>>>off: the Christians forced the Ashkenazim to be moneylenders,
>>>>>middle-men, etc. Those are professions where it especially pays
>>>>>to be smarter than other folks, so poverty killed off more of the
>>>>>children of dumb Jews than of the smart ones.
>>>>
>>>>What's left to fall under "culture" if legislation is out?
>>>
>>>Culture influenced the environment to which Ashkenazim supposedly
>>>adapted by natural selection. 'Kay?
>>
>>Yeah, sure. So if I hit someone over the head with a baseball bat
>>because he cheered for Michigan State, the fact that his skull was
>>by nature ill-adapted to the encounter makes this a natural death.
>
>
> Oh, please. The term "natural selection" has been used for
> practically a century.
Precisely. And it hasn't meant "due to legislation." Because "nature"
came into conceptual being in a binary relation to "culture." Your
argument is just the endlessly extendable tautology sociobiology is
infamous for.
> If you don't like that term, you could use the
> older term "survival of the fittest".
Which is, in fact, far more precise, and has gone out of fashion mostly
in response to its abuse by Social Darwinists. They are, however, not
interchangeable, just as "natural selection" and "eugenics" are not
interchangeable.
> Or make up your own private
> term and have a blast. Like it or not, what Cochran et al. described
> is called "natural selection",
No, it's called "extermination," and the more responsible evolutionists
(which excludes almost by definition all socio-evolutionists) will make
that distinction gladly.
>>>At the population level, genes influence culture and culture
>>>influences genes. It kind of, you know, dialectical.
>>
>>Depends on your definition of the dialectic, I suppose. But yeah,
>>"somehow the one somehow influences the somehow other" works.
>
>
> That's exactly my point: that seems to be Lewontin's definition of
> "dialectic", more or less.
It strikes me as far closer to your take on the nature/culture
distinction. You're simply stuck with "selection" with no mechanism to
distinguish natural selection from selection by other means. Not that
"selection" wouldn't work -- the only disadvantage is that you lose all
the credibility a well-established scientific theory can lend you.
smw
The Other wrote:
> "John W. Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> writes:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I think you misread that article, Michael:
>>
>>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however
>>> defined, are small or trivial compared with those within
>>> populations.
>>>In context, "among" clearly means "between".
>>
>>So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
>
>
> No, I'm maintaining that 1) Michael, not a native English speaker,
> might have misunderstood the word "among"; 2) you're a pain in the
> ass; and 3) statisticians conventionally use the word "between"
> differently than your high school English teacher did.
>
> First Silke and now you. What's with all these clueless complaints
> all of a sudden about conventional scientific/statistical usage?
Nice try, but not even a sodden cigar ground into pieces under a
sociobiologist's heel.
John W. Kennedy
> On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 11:29:25 -0400, "John W. Kennedy"
> <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>>"Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Bruce McGuffin wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
>>>>>diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
>>>>>groups?
>>>>
>>>>No.
>>>>
>>>>ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
>>>>http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
>>>
>>>
>>>I think you misread that article, Michael:
>>>
>>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
>>> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
>>>
>>>In context, "among" clearly means "between".
>>
>>So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
>
>
> What an odd question. Is it based upon a misunderstanding of English
> or on one of logic?
Unfortunately, it is based on an /understanding/ of English.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Information is light. Information, in itself, about anything, is light."
-- Tom Stoppard. "Night and Day"
smw
John W. Kennedy wrote:
> Richard Harter wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 11:29:25 -0400, "John W. Kennedy"
>> <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> The Other wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Bruce McGuffin wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
>>>>>> diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
>>>>>> groups?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> No.
>>>>>
>>>>> ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
>>>>> http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think you misread that article, Michael:
>>>>
>>>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
>>>> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
>>>>
>>>> In context, "among" clearly means "between".
>>>
>>>
>>> So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
>>
>>
>>
>> What an odd question. Is it based upon a misunderstanding of English
>> or on one of logic?
>
>
> Unfortunately, it is based on an /understanding/ of English.
I'm not a native speaker, so could you help out? "Among School Children"
meant two of them?
Michael Zeleny
>>> I think you misread that article, Michael:
>>>
>>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however
>>> defined, are small or trivial compared with those within
>>> populations.
>>> In context, "among" clearly means "between".
>> So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
> No, I'm maintaining that 1) Michael, not a native English speaker,
Ouch.
> might have misunderstood the word "among"; 2) you're a pain in the
> ass; and 3) statisticians conventionally use the word "between"
> differently than your high school English teacher did.
>
> First Silke and now you. What's with all these clueless complaints
> all of a sudden about conventional scientific/statistical usage?
For once, I agree with Aaron on all counts.
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
Michael Zeleny
>>> Have you read that recent paper by Cochran and Harpending?
> Oops, I forgot the other co-author: Jason Hardy.
>>> They do in fact claim that Jews got smart by natural selection.
>>> (All the standard genetic explanations for Jewish intelligence
>>> posit one form or another of sexual selection, not natural
>>> selection.)
>>>
>>> I haven't read the paper, but your summary doesn't sound too far off:
>>> the Christians forced the Ashkenazim to be moneylenders, middle-men,
>>> etc. Those are professions where it especially pays to be smarter
>>> than other folks, so poverty killed off more of the children of dumb
>>> Jews than of the smart ones.
>> You are a wild card, Aaron. Do you also enjoy Kevin MacDonald?
>> http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/
> Yes. I haven't read his books, but I've read articles he's written
> and also some interesting exchanges he's had with his critics.
> Questions of scholarship quality and methodology aside,
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"
> I agree with
> some of his claims and disagree with others.
Jedem das seine. Rudyard Kipling is my preferred go to guy for just so
stories in support of the white man's burden. Check him out some time.
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm
>> So what is the party line on the evolutionary origins of fuckwits?
>> http://www.livejournal.com/users/larvatus/23766.html
> Philosophy bores me.
No doubt.
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
tejas
"Richard Harter" <c...@tiac.net> wrote in message
news:434004c5...@news.sbtc.net...
> On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 11:29:25 -0400, "John W. Kennedy"
> <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >The Other wrote:
> >> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Bruce McGuffin wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
> >>>>diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
> >>>>groups?
> >>>
> >>>No.
> >>>
> >>>ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
> >>>http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
> >>
> >>
> >> I think you misread that article, Michael:
> >>
> >> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
> >> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
> >>
> >> In context, "among" clearly means "between".
> >
> >So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
>
> What an odd question. Is it based upon a misunderstanding of English
> or on one of logic?
Wait till these guys start comparing their DNA from the mail-order cheek
swabs...
Ted.
ObBook: THE GENTLEMAN FROM FINLAND by Robert M. Goldstein
Travel on the Trans-Siberian in 1987
Richard Harter
<jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>Richard Harter wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 11:29:25 -0400, "John W. Kennedy"
>> <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The Other wrote:
>>>
>>>>"Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Bruce McGuffin wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
>>>>>>diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
>>>>>>groups?
>>>>>
>>>>>No.
>>>>>
>>>>>ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
>>>>>http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I think you misread that article, Michael:
>>>>
>>>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
>>>> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
>>>>
>>>>In context, "among" clearly means "between".
>>>
>>>So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
>>
>>
>> What an odd question. Is it based upon a misunderstanding of English
>> or on one of logic?
>
>Unfortunately, it is based on an /understanding/ of English.
Point taken. It an understanding, your understanding in fact, such as
it is.
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Oh, please. The term "natural selection" has been used for
>>>practically a century.
>>
>>Precisely. And it hasn't meant "due to legislation." Because
>>"nature" came into conceptual being in a binary relation to
>>"culture."
>
>
> (sigh)
>
>
>>Your argument is just the endlessly extendable tautology
>>sociobiology is infamous for.
>
>
> Why do you attribute their argument to me? I haven't even read the
> whole paper! Even from the abstract (see below), it's obvious that
> their argument is not an "endlessly extendable tautology".
>
>
>>>Or make up your own private term and have a blast. Like it or
>>>not, what Cochran et al. described is called "natural selection",
>>
>>No, it's called "extermination," and the more responsible
>>evolutionists (which excludes almost by definition all
>>socio-evolutionists) will make that distinction gladly.
>
>
> So at least now you're no longer arguing with me, you're arguing with
> respected population geneticists, including one anthropologist
> (Harpending) who's a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Like
> it or not, "natural selection" is conventionally used even for
> man-made environments. Did you check out the example of NATURAL
> SELECTION that moths underwent as a result of industrial pollution?
Why oh why did they ever come up with the term "artificial selection" if
"natural selection" so admireable covered every act of intentional
decimation.
In any case: "'The only controversy among geneticists is how polite to
be about this study,' said Montgomery Slatkin, a mathematician at the
University of California, Berkeley. Slatkin has written papers tracing
the genetic history of sphingolipid disorders, a cluster of four common
diseases. 'I don't know anyone who thinks it's true.'"
It seems then, that I'm not exactly "arguing with
respected population geneticists," does it. I'm also not sure when
anthropology became a subfield of "population genetics."
...
>
>>>>>At the population level, genes influence culture and culture
>>>>>influences genes. It kind of, you know, dialectical.
>>>>
>>>>Depends on your definition of the dialectic, I suppose. But yeah,
>>>>"somehow the one somehow influences the somehow other" works.
>>>
>>>That's exactly my point: that seems to be Lewontin's definition of
>>>"dialectic", more or less.
>>
>>It strikes me as far closer to your take on the nature/culture
>>distinction. You're simply stuck with "selection" with no mechanism
>>to distinguish natural selection from selection by other means. Not
>>that "selection" wouldn't work -- the only disadvantage is that you
>>lose all the credibility a well-established scientific theory can
>>lend you.
>
>
> "My" argument for a genetic influence on the racial disparity in
> criminality does not even imply selection of any kind, natural or
> otherwise -- only some sort of genetic evolution (although natural
> selection is the most likely candidate).
Evolution or lack thereof? Is your theory that ecological (or sexual?)
selection favors criminality (or lower IQ) in Africans or
African-Americans? Or that conditions that favored higher IQ (etc.) in
other populations were absent? Rather not, I'd think. But who knows --
sociobiology has produced far more bizarre theories over the last decades.
Bruce McGuffin
> Bruce McGuffin <mcgu...@edinburgh.ll.mit.edu> writes:
>
> > The implication I've taken from your previous statements: blacks
> > EVERYWHERE riot, whites EVERYWHERE usually don't riot, east asians
> > EVERYWHERE hardly ever riot, is that this is not a cultural but a
> > genetic trait.
>
> Here's what I actually wrote (emphasis added):
>
> None of this is enough to establish a substantial genetic cause of
> the racial differences in crime rates, but I think it does make
> the GENES-PLUS-ENVIRONMENT hypothesis more likely, given the
> little we know, than the 100%-environment hypothesis.
>
> But apparently I need to repeat this: the factoid about Nigerian
> immigrants doing well in school is a possible challenge not to the
> hereditarian position, but to the position that intelligence (as
> measured by IQ) is a major cause of variation in academic performance.
> Nothing to do with genes there at all.
>
> > After all, culture changes much faster than genes,
>
> Are you sure?
Yeah. I'm pretty sure about that.
> Which cultural traits?
Language: one of my granparents spoke Swedish as a first langauge.
Another spoke Czech. I don't know any Czech, and maybe two sentences
of Swedish. I suspect this is true for most residents of South Omaha
(Czech) and Western Minnesota (Swedish) descended from recent
non-english speakers. I don't think there is a stronger cultural trait
than language.
Moral Values: my parents, and their parents before them viewed getting
out of bed early in the morning as a virtue. Sleeping late is
lazy, only slightly less immoral then dishonesty. I, my siblings
and most of my peers look forward to sleeping in on weekends when we
can. None of us think it has any moral significance at all.
Food: My parents will not eat strongly spiced food. They find it
unpleasant. Likewise my grandparents when they were alive. I love
all kinds of spicy food. So do most of my friends. Right now the high
fashion cuisine around here is Indian. Not as spicy as in India,
but nothing the older generation wants to eat.
I could go on like this ad nausium.
> If you believe in a
> 100%-culture explanation, then you're arguing against yourself here.
> To fit the epidemiological data (INTERPOL, etc.), you'd probably want
> to posit some cultural traits which have persisted over centuries,
> since when blacks were in Africa, Asians were in Asia, etc.
>
Sure, on average cultural traits change slowly. Genetic traits change
even more slowly. Both can change more rapidly when new stress is
introduced, but then culture is still faster.
(snip)
> > Any way, my own personal observation is that a family can go from the
> > sort of self-destructive anti-social behavior you were talking about
> > (alcoholism or drug abuse, violence, little or no interest in
> > education, economic irresponsiblity, lack of familial or social
> > cohesion) to solidly middle class in one or at most two generations
> > with just a little help. Encouragement from high school teachers, and
> > maybe a college scholership, for example.
> >
> > That suggests the issues (when discussing a large group of people,
> > not just a few individuals) are more cultural and economic than
> > genetic,
>
> Um, no, it doesn't suggest that.
Sure it does. When group behavior changes dramatically in two
generations without significant out-breeding (i.e., no one in my
example married above their birth class without first achieving the
required class mobility) the change in behavior is clearly cultural.
> But I think what you said right here
> is probably true: on a worldwide scale, culture may be a better
> explanation of the variation (over time and space) in crime rates than
> genes, to the extent that their influence can even be separated
> conceptually. I just believe, given the little evidence available,
> that genes do explain some of that worldwide variation, and also a
> quite substantial part of the within-country variation at any given
> time for multi-racial countries.
How much? By some are you talking about 1% of variation, or 50%?
>
> > and that in the right circumstances culture can change pretty fast.
>
> You don't get it. If you want to explain everything by culture, then
> your problem (among others) is to explain the *stability* of the
> epidemiological pattern across time and across cultures, not the
> instability.
First you have to convince me that your Interpol data makes sense and
really shows the traits you claim across time and cultures.
Bruce
Bruce McGuffin
Hereditary genetic diseases are, of course, the mutations that turn
out not to be beneficial. Most will die out, or at least remain
rare. This conversation is about the mutations that are beneficial,
and so become widespread in a population. The ability of adults to digest
milk is a good example.
>
> In summary, the combined results suggest that a major portion of
> NRY biallelic diversity present in most of the contemporary Jewish
> communities surveyed here traces to a common Middle Eastern source
> population several thousand years ago.
Your favorite source, Cavalli-Sforza (or maybe it was Bryan Sykes, but
the end result is the same) says Tay-Sachs is a European disease,
found in a higher concentration among Ashkenazim and French Canadians,
but present throughout European populations, and rarer in the Middle
East.
> The implication is that this
> source population included a large number of distinct paternal and
> maternal lineages, reflecting genetic variation established in the
> Middle East at that time. In turn, this source diversity has been
> maintained within Jewish communities, despite numerous migrations
> during the Diaspora and long-term residence as isolated subpopulations
> in numerous geographic locations outside of the Middle East.
Cavalli-Sforza also says Ashkenazim are about half European (slightly
more Mid-Eastern), with more Europeans in the female line of descent
(that is via mitochondrial DNA analysis) and more Middle Easterners in
the paternal line (x-chromosome analysis).
John W. Kennedy
"Between" always refers to two things in correct English. A is between B
and C. (The "tw" in "between" is the same "tw" in "two", or in "twain".)
--
John W. Kennedy
"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne
of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts"
-- J. Michael Straczynski. "Babylon 5", "Ceremonies of Light and Dark"
John W. Kennedy
It is the understanding of anyone with an adult knowledge of the English
language. (God knows that's uncommon, nowadays.)
--
John W. Kennedy
"...if you had to fall in love with someone who was evil, I can see why
it was her."
-- "Alias"
Richard Harter
<jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
As it happens, it is not. It is merely a misapplication of pedantry.
Michael Zeleny
>John W. Kennedy wrote:
>> Richard Harter wrote:
>>>> The Other wrote:
>>>>> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>> Bruce McGuffin wrote:
>>>>>>> But hey, don't geneticists also say there is far more genetic
>>>>>>> diversity within any socially defined racial group than between
>>>>>>> groups?
>>>>>> No.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ObPopulationGeneticist: Cavalli-Sforza
>>>>>> http://www.balzan.it/Premiati.aspx?Codice=0000000306&cod=0000000317
>>>>> I think you misread that article, Michael:
>>>>>
>>>>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
>>>>> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
>>>>>
>>>>> In context, "among" clearly means "between".
It bears repeating that I misread just about everything heretofore.
>>>> So you are maintaining that there are only two races?
>>> What an odd question. Is it based upon a misunderstanding of English
>>> or on one of logic?
>> Unfortunately, it is based on an /understanding/ of English.
> I'm not a native speaker, so could you help out? "Among School Children"
> meant two of them?
Be that as it may, he surely means that "between a rock and a hard
place" implies that there exists only one of each.
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
smw
Michael Zeleny wrote:
> smw wrote:
...
>>>>>> Genetic differences among populations or races, however defined,
>>>>>> are small or trivial compared with those within populations.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>In context, "among" clearly means "between".
>
> ...
>
>>I'm not a native speaker, so could you help out? "Among School Children"
>>meant two of them?
>
>
> Be that as it may, he surely means that "between a rock and a hard
> place" implies that there exists only one of each.
Yeah, I too got his point after he explained it. I had foolishly thought
his comment was relevant to the original quote. And that after years on
rab... my bad.
John W. Kennedy
Translation: "I'm a slob and proud of it."
--
John W. Kennedy
"Never try to take over the international economy based on a radical
feminist agenda if you're not sure your leader isn't a transvestite."
-- David Misch: "She-Spies", "While You Were Out"
Richard Harter
<jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
I see that your translations are also incompetent.
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>> In any case: "'The only controversy among geneticists is how
>> polite to be about this study,' said Montgomery Slatkin, a
>> mathematician at the University of California,
>> Berkeley. Slatkin has written papers tracing the genetic
>> history of sphingolipid disorders, a cluster of four common
>> diseases. 'I don't know anyone who thinks it's true.'"
>>
>> It seems then, that I'm not exactly "arguing with
>> respected population geneticists," does it.
>
>
> Sure you are, and, pace Slatkin, they're arguing with each other.
> I've read more positive responses to the paper from scientists, but
> let's assume for the sake of argument that the paper is garbage, an
> "endlessly extendable tautology" or whatever you called it. The fact
> is that respected, even highly respected scientists sometimes publish
> garbage; Bruce just cited a classic example of that from Richard
> Lewontin.
Absolutely. What clinched it for me, though, was the authors'
observation that the higher Ashk. IQ must have happened during the
middle ages because before then, no IQ difference between Ashk. and
other Jews had been observed.
> The issue, remember, is just your frivolous objection to a certain use
> of the term "natural selection". As far as I can tell, you object to
> the use of that term to describe the adaptation of gypsy moths to
> effects of industrial pollution on trees because industrial pollution
> isn't natural.
Let's say if I spray a cockroach and he dies, I don't call him naturally
unselected.
>
>
>>I'm also not sure when anthropology became a subfield of "population
>>genetics."
>
>
> OK, you've now proven me wrong on one thing: I hadn't thought your
> objections could get any more trivial.
It's not trivial -- you like to play the expert game. If you pull out an
anthropologist as an expert on population genetics, it's worth pointing
out.
I'll play along one last time.
> From Harpending's faculty home page:
>
> I am an anthropologist interested in preindustrial populations,
> the history of modern humans, and the evolution of human social
> life. My recent work is about genetic diversity within and between
> human populations. ...
>
> I don't see any reason to continue "discussing" this paper which
> neither of us has read,
Actually, I have read it. I can't judge the illness stuff, obviously,
but the social argument is ludicrous.
> and which I have no opinion on anyway. I'm
> not really interested in evolution or sociobiology or evolutionary
> psychology per se, and I don't have general opinions on them.
That's odd -- all your arguments are based on evolutionary psychology.
Gotta run.
lariadc
smw wrote:
> Bruce McGuffin wrote:
> >
> > Any way, my own personal observation is that a family can go from the
> > sort of self-destructive anti-social behavior you were talking about
> > (alcoholism or drug abuse, violence, little or no interest in
> > education, economic irresponsiblity, lack of familial or social
> > cohesion) to solidly middle class in one or at most two generations
> > with just a little help.
>
There have been some good programs in the Chicago area
recently, and the crime rate has gone down quite a bit.
I'm not sure if the two correlate, but they could.
In any case, I don't see any signs of regression.
C.
smw
lariadc wrote:
I might have been misunderstood -- I simply meant to point out that
social decline can be extremely rapid, and if not caused by mental
illness, is invariably the result of external factors, social, economic,
emotional.
Kater Moggin
> Any way, my own personal observation is that a family can go from the
> sort of self-destructive anti-social behavior you were talking about
> (alcoholism or drug abuse, violence, little or no interest in
> education, economic irresponsiblity, lack of familial or social
> cohesion) to solidly middle class in one or at most two generations
> with just a little help.
No alchoholism in the middle class? No violence, no drugs
and no irresponsibility? No fall-apart families, nobody
shrugs at education? ObLuisBunuel: _The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie_.
-- Moggin
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>I might have been misunderstood -- I simply meant to point out that
>>social decline can be extremely rapid, and if not caused by mental
>>illness, is invariably the result of external factors, social,
>>economic, emotional.
>
>
> Actually, no. Lots of studies, by Weinrich and others I can't think
> of off-hand, show that (among whites) the child's personality (IQ and
> other traits) predicts the socio-economic class to which he'll later
> belong as an adult;
I'm talking of rapid decline from middle-class to bum. In other words,
the prediction would have been "both."
> his parents' socio-economic class hardly predicts
> that at all, once genetic influences have been accounted for.
Really! They found the class gene? Post!
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>
>>>smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>>
>>>>I might have been misunderstood -- I simply meant to point out
>>>>that social decline can be extremely rapid, and if not caused by
>>>>mental illness, is invariably the result of external factors,
>>>>social, economic, emotional.
>>>
>>>Actually, no. Lots of studies, by Weinrich and others I can't think
>>>of off-hand, show that (among whites) the child's personality (IQ and
>>>other traits) predicts the socio-economic class to which he'll later
>>>belong as an adult;
>>
>>I'm talking of rapid decline from middle-class to bum. In other
>>words, the prediction would have been "both."
>
>
> Yeah, I forgot that in the context of your previous post, you really
> meant within a month, not within a generation. Never mind.
>
>
>>>his parents' socio-economic class hardly predicts that at all,
>>>once genetic influences have been accounted for.
>
>
> That's by late adulthood, I should clarify. I don't remember the
> correlation, but it's low.
>
>
>>Really! They found the class gene? Post!
>
>
> That's the most ignorant comment you've posted in a long, long time.
You wish. You can only "control" for genetic predisposition to class
membership if you know the genes in question. And since the estimates of
heritability vary even for IQ, probably the best researched potential
element here (I say potential because I know quite a few exquisitely
stupid middle classers), from 40-80%, the promise of any such "control"
is bullshit pure and simple, and it's stupefying that a guy as smart as
you would allow himself to ignore that fact.
You realize that you are arguing that a really, really stupid trust
fund baby with a few million bucks in an arrangement his smarter mommy
set up to be well-controlled is staying in the middle class because of
his genes, right?
Richard Harter
>
>
>The Other wrote:
>
>> So at least now you're no longer arguing with me, you're arguing with
>> respected population geneticists, including one anthropologist
>> (Harpending) who's a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Like
>> it or not, "natural selection" is conventionally used even for
>> man-made environments. Did you check out the example of NATURAL
>> SELECTION that moths underwent as a result of industrial pollution?
>
>Why oh why did they ever come up with the term "artificial selection" if
>"natural selection" so admireable covered every act of intentional
>decimation.
Ahem, if I may intrude into this excessively edifying exchange, the
terms "natural selection" and "artificial selection" date back to
Darwin (1859) and have been standard ever since. At the time the only
notion of selection extant was "artificial selection", i.e., the
selective breeding of various species of plants and animals with the
intent of establishing various desired traits. Darwin established
that the same sort of selective breeding occurs in nature, absent
intent and conscious control. Instead the selection is a matter of
individual success in surviving and reproducing. Darwin coined (or at
least popularized) the term "natural selection" to refer to this
natural sort of selection. It is a curiously complex compound of
chance, individual suitability for surviving, and individual success
in reproducing. Darwin's point was that this natural selection was at
least as powerful (and indeed more powerful given enough time) as the
familiar artificial selection in altering the nature of species.
Decimation is a part of life. Predators decimate their prey. Grazing
animals decimate the plantlife that they graze upon. Intended
decimation is another matter, since our species reserves to ourselves
the presumption of intent. However the presence of intent is not
enough to establish artificial selection. Thus we regularly attempt
to decimate, indeed exterminate, disease causing bacteria in our
bodies. An effect of our attempts is that varieties that successfully
resist our attempted extermination survive and flourish.
This is not artificial selection; we do not control which individual
bacteria live and which die, nor do we specify what traits they must
have in order to thrive. Likewise the decimation of insects that feed
on our crops is not artificial selection even though the end result is
a hardier sort of insect that is immune to our poisons.
Similarly, unfortunately for your sensibilities, genetic change in
human populations that have been decimated by their fellows is also
natural selection.
smw
Richard Harter wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 13:40:03 GMT, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>
>
>>>So at least now you're no longer arguing with me, you're arguing with
>>>respected population geneticists, including one anthropologist
>>>(Harpending) who's a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Like
>>>it or not, "natural selection" is conventionally used even for
>>>man-made environments. Did you check out the example of NATURAL
>>>SELECTION that moths underwent as a result of industrial pollution?
>>
>>Why oh why did they ever come up with the term "artificial selection" if
>>"natural selection" so admireable covered every act of intentional
>>decimation.
>
>
> Ahem, if I may intrude into this excessively edifying exchange, the
> terms "natural selection" and "artificial selection" date back to
> Darwin (1859)
ach
> and have been standard ever since. At the time the only
> notion of selection extant was "artificial selection", i.e., the
> selective breeding of various species of plants and animals with the
> intent of establishing various desired traits. Darwin established
> that the same sort of selective breeding occurs in nature, absent
> intent and conscious control.
Quite. Which makes it, ahem, not quite the same sort. Hence the two words.
[snip of implied analogy Jews:bacteria]
Richard Harter
This is a quite contemptible misrepresentation. Have you no shame?
smw
Richard Harter wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:37:34 GMT, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Richard Harter wrote:
>>
smw>>>>
>>>>Why oh why did they ever come up with the term "artificial selection" if
>>>>"natural selection" so admireable covered every act of intentional
>>>>decimation.
>>>
>>>
>>>Ahem, if I may intrude into this excessively edifying exchange, the
>>>terms "natural selection" and "artificial selection" date back to
>>>Darwin (1859)
>>
>>ach
>>
>>>and have been standard ever since. At the time the only
>>>notion of selection extant was "artificial selection", i.e., the
>>>selective breeding of various species of plants and animals with the
>>>intent of establishing various desired traits. Darwin established
>>>that the same sort of selective breeding occurs in nature, absent
>>>intent and conscious control.
>>
>>Quite. Which makes it, ahem, not quite the same sort. Hence the two words.
>>
>>[snip of implied analogy Jews:bacteria]
>
>
> This is a quite contemptible misrepresentation. Have you no shame?
It is? What was the relevance of your contribution quoted below if not
to establish an analogy between what Aaron called "natural selection" in
the wake of antisemitic legislation and what you call "natural
selection" in decimation of bacteria or insects? Analogy is not
identity, needless to say.
here's what you wrote:
> Intended
> decimation is another matter, since our species reserves to ourselves
> the presumption of intent. However the presence of intent is not
> enough to establish artificial selection. Thus we regularly attempt
> to decimate, indeed exterminate, disease causing bacteria in our
> bodies. An effect of our attempts is that varieties that successfully
> resist our attempted extermination survive and flourish.
>
> This is not artificial selection; we do not control which individual
> bacteria live and which die, nor do we specify what traits they must
> have in order to thrive.
So, again, this was meant to be without relevance to the use of the term
"natural selection" in the express context of antisemitic legislation
that, so the thesis, directly led to the decimation of medieval Jews? If
it was not meant as an analogy but still meant to be relevant, what is
the nature of the relevance?
Richard Harter
Since I didn't mention Aaron's theories, whatever they might be, nor
did I mention Jews at all, your jumping to conclusions was both
misplaced and premature. Beyond that, the move from analogy between
two instances of natural selection to an analogy between Jews and
bacteria is not only illegitimate, it is nasty.
Be that as it may, the populations of Jews, bacteria, Homo sapiens
sapiens, rice plants, frogs, salmon, fungi, and indeed all forms of
life, large and small, simple and complex, intelligent and mindless,
all are subject to natural selection.
>
>here's what you wrote:
>
>> Intended
>> decimation is another matter, since our species reserves to ourselves
>> the presumption of intent. However the presence of intent is not
>> enough to establish artificial selection. Thus we regularly attempt
>> to decimate, indeed exterminate, disease causing bacteria in our
>> bodies. An effect of our attempts is that varieties that successfully
>> resist our attempted extermination survive and flourish.
>>
>> This is not artificial selection; we do not control which individual
>> bacteria live and which die, nor do we specify what traits they must
>> have in order to thrive.
>
>So, again, this was meant to be without relevance to the use of the term
>"natural selection" in the express context of antisemitic legislation
>that, so the thesis, directly led to the decimation of medieval Jews?
My, what an admirably confused and incoherent sentence. I suspect
that the answer is no, but, given the baroque nature of the sentence,
I shan't guarantee it.
In any event, you asked a question and I answered it. That is the
context. I added the discussion about decimation to clarify the
meaning of "intent" in the description of artificial selection. I
suspected, perhaps wrongly, that you were assuming that any action by
humans that had evolutionary consequences was artificial selection.
That is not the case.
>If
>it was not meant as an analogy but still meant to be relevant, what is
>the nature of the relevance?
The relevance is that you appear to be confused about what is meant by
natural selection; your confusion compromises your discussion with
Aaron.
smw
Okay, so you're pleading irrelevance. Point taken.
>
> Be that as it may, the populations of Jews, bacteria, Homo sapiens
> sapiens, rice plants, frogs, salmon, fungi, and indeed all forms of
> life, large and small, simple and complex, intelligent and mindless,
> all are subject to natural selection.
So why protest?
Richard Harter
>
>
>Richard Harter wrote:
>
>
>Okay, so you're pleading irrelevance. Point taken.
Thank you.
>>
>> Be that as it may, the populations of Jews, bacteria, Homo sapiens
>> sapiens, rice plants, frogs, salmon, fungi, and indeed all forms of
>> life, large and small, simple and complex, intelligent and mindless,
>> all are subject to natural selection.
>
>So why protest?
It's clarification rather than protest.
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>>smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>>
>>>>Really! They found the class gene? Post!
>>>
>>>That's the most ignorant comment you've posted in a long, long
>>>time.
>>
>>You wish. You can only "control" for genetic predisposition to class
>>membership if you know the genes in question.
>
>
> *That's* the most ignorant comment you've posted in a long, long time.
In that case, it should be oh so easy to refute. And don't tell me they
came up with the required two thousand monozygotic twins separated at
birth, okay?
smw
The Other wrote:
> Richard, you should have used a more sensitive analogy, like Silke did
> when she explained in this thread, "Let's say if I spray a cockroach
> and he dies, I don't call him naturally unselected".
>
> When you do use Silke's Jews:cockroaches analogy, be sure not to think
> of that scene from the 1937 German movie _The Eternal Jew_, with the
> cockroaches swarming over the walls.
Ironically, it seems I got my point across exactly and it still went
over your head. Do we need to spell out the next analogy? Biologism is
to x as y is to .... ? have fun
Michael Zeleny
> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>> The Other wrote:
>>> "Michael Zeleny" <larv...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> You are a wild card, Aaron. Do you also enjoy Kevin MacDonald?
>>> Yes. I haven't read his books, but I've read articles he's written
>>> and also some interesting exchanges he's had with his critics.
>>> Questions of scholarship quality and methodology aside,
>> "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"
>>> I agree with some of his claims and disagree with others.
>> Jedem das seine. Rudyard Kipling is my preferred go to guy for just
>> so stories in support of the white man's burden. Check him out some
>> time.
> Have you read any of MacDonald's work on Jews other than his first
> book? Mostly it's twentieth-century history and analysis of group
> strategy, without that natural selection stuff.
So you like philosophy, after all; provided that it answers your need
for "analysis of group strategy". Since your position would have us
playing a game of pure coordination, perhaps you could favor me with
instructions for collecting my paltry payoff.
Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>
>>>smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>>>
>>
>>>>The Other wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>>>>
>>>>>>Really! They found the class gene? Post!
>>>>>
>>>>>That's the most ignorant comment you've posted in a long, long
>>>>>time.
>>>>
>>>>You wish. You can only "control" for genetic predisposition to class
>>>>membership if you know the genes in question.
>>>
>>>*That's* the most ignorant comment you've posted in a long, long
>>>time.
>>
>>In that case, it should be oh so easy to refute.
>
>
> So easy that you've already refuted it yourself! If heritability of
> something like IQ can be meaningfully estimated, as you imply it can,
> that says you can account for genetic influence without having any
> idea which genes are involved or how they actually work.
What I said that _even_ with IQ, the relationship of which to class
isn't as obvious as you seem to think, the _estimates_ vary so widely
that you can't come up with meaningful statistics. And IQ would only be
one of many factors to begin with. So, no, it's all yours to argue. Have
at it.
> Same with
> any other quantity; there's nothing special about IQ.
Which other quantity relating to class? where are the studies, and how
good are they? are they similar to "gee, between 20 and 80 percent, e.g.
a lot or a little, but a bit"?
> You compute all
> the mean squares and fit the model parameters to them, and that gives
> you a partition into genetic effect, shared environment effect, and
> unshared environment effect.
Lach.
> When you're estimating those two
> environmental effects, you're accounting for (controlling for) genetic
> effect. (Parents' SES is part of the shared environment.)
>
>
>>And don't tell me they came up with the required two thousand
>>monozygotic twins separated at birth, okay?
>
>
> Are you implicitly admitting now that one *could* control for genetic
> effect, provided one has enough separated twins? You said above that
> you can't do that unless you "know the genes in question". I'm just
> trying to follow your internal logic.
I'm saying that yeah, if you actually had a few thousand twins separated
at birth, and they'd be separated into significantly different
environments, you could probably make some good case for genetics. Too
bad you don't.
> All those twins separated at birth would be nice (where'd you get the
> 2000 number?),
spontaneous calibration, of course. How many subjects do you need, you
think, for a meaningful longitudinal study on class, seeing all the
arbitrary shit that happens to folks?
> but I think most twin studies in fact compare MZ and DZ
> twins raised together, and from there estimate genetic and
> environmental effects as I described above.
Perhaps they do, but it won't get them much, right? Seeing that with MZs
raised together, you can't tell environment and genes apart (esp since
twins appear to be their own mutual environment to some enormous
degree), and DZs don't get you much further, seeing that people marry
close in status and class anyway these days.
The obvious question of
> the effect of different parental treatment for MZ vs. DZ twins has
> been answered to most people's satisfaction; I can elaborate on that
> if you want.
The obvious question is "so what"?
>
> Remember that you don't need twins at all, though. Adoption studies
> are just fine, too.
Okay, so you have the required 2000 adopted kids, and you have both
their parents' data available? where's the study? come on, these are
easy questions, according to you, and the studies are great, leaving no
doubt at all, according to you. All the genetic factors that account for
class membership neatly lined up, their heritability rigorously
established within a few percentage points, math in tip-top shape, no
statistician laughing his head off anywhere. Let's see them already.
smw
The Other wrote:
> smw <sm...@ameritech.net> writes:
>
>
>>What I said that _even_ with IQ, the relationship of which to class
>>isn't as obvious as you seem to think, the _estimates_ vary so
>>widely that you can't come up with meaningful statistics.
>
>
> If you're saying they're too imprecise to be useful, then I disagree.
> They're precise enough to distinguish among low, moderate, and high.
> That's enough to do science -- make falsifiable predictions, etc.
No, it's not. At least we don't call it science here on this campus.
You
> agree that the heritability of IQ is significantly greater than zero,
> don't you? That's a meaningful statement.
Evidence that it's greater than zero and great enough to matter looks
good right now, yeah. I don't consider that about as meaningful a
statement as "the sun will shine again."
>>And IQ would only be one of many factors to begin with.
> But the fact that IQ is related to SES is totally irrelevant.
Come again? You're arguing for a genetic base of class membership. You
have to define the factors that contribute to it, and you have to
establish that they are genetic, and to what degree. Everything else is
just smoke.
>>The Other wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Same with any other quantity; there's nothing special about IQ.
>
>
>>Which other quantity relating to class?
>
>
> *No* other quantity relating to class. The point is that you've
> accepted that heritability can be estimated (very imprecisely) for
> *something*; it's irrelevant whether it's IQ or attitude towards
> nudist camps, the statistical procedure is exactly the same.
Anything can be estimated. For an estimate to be an estimate, it's
indeed irrelevant what it's estimating. For a meaningful estimate that
grounds a theory about class membership, it's quite relevant.
>
>
>>where are the studies, and how good are they? are they similar to
>>"gee, between 20 and 80 percent, e.g. a lot or a little, but a bit"?
>
>
> I already told you: I don't remember anything more than what I've said
> already. Sorry. If you want proof that such a study exists, I can't
> help you. That's not what you've been saying, though. You've been
> saying that it's impossible to account for genetic effects on SES
> without understanding "the genes in question". That, I'm trying to
> explain to you, is obviously wrong.
No, that's obviously correct, because otherwise, you merely have a
correlation, you're not even close to even plausibly speculating on
causation.
>>>You compute all the mean squares and fit the model parameters to
>>>them, and that gives you a partition into genetic effect, shared
>>>environment effect, and unshared environment effect.
>>
>>Lach.
>
>
> Huh? I just explained how you account (control) for genetic effects
> without knowing anything about the genes themselves. That was your
> question, right?
Look, we're debating your assertion that studies have shown that class
membership is hereditary. Now we're at the point where we don't even
have a study, and you've retreated to the position that some kind of
heritability can be estimated very imprecisely in some stuff that may or
may not relate to class. I think that's funny. But as you know, I'm
easily amused.
>
>
>>>All those twins separated at birth would be nice (where'd you get
>>>the 2000 number?),
>>
>>spontaneous calibration, of course. How many subjects do you need,
>>you think, for a meaningful longitudinal study on class, seeing all
>>the arbitrary shit that happens to folks?
>
>
> I don't know, but I'm sure it's a lot fewer than 2000. The most
> famous twin study, the Minnesota study of twins reared apart, used
> fewer than 200 pairs of twins.
And oddly enough, it hasn't old us anything about genetics and class
membership.
> I don't know what this "arbitrary shit that happens to folks" is
> supposed to have to do with it. Statistics was *invented* to deal
> with arbitrary shit.
Yeah. But if you have, say, five subjects, arbitrary shit may have
happened to all of them. And the more the arbitrary shit that happens to
people is likely to affect whatever it is you're looking at, the more
subjects you need to come up with something resembling meaning.
> Unless you're studying *how* environment causes
> variations in SES, you measure the quantity in question, whether it's
> IQ or some index of SES, and that's it. If you're just calculating
> correlations or heritability, you don't care how it got that way,
> except to statistically distinguish between genes and shared and
> unshared environment.
Sigh. And how do you delimit "environment" when it comes to class
membership, a lifetime event that can only be studied longitudinally and
ideally over several generations?
>
>
>>>but I think most twin studies in fact compare MZ and DZ twins
>>>raised together, and from there estimate genetic and environmental
>>>effects as I described above.
>>
>>Perhaps they do, but it won't get them much, right? Seeing that
>>with MZs raised together, you can't tell environment and genes apart
>>(esp since twins appear to be their own mutual environment to some
>>enormous degree), and DZs don't get you much further, seeing that
>>people marry close in status and class anyway these days.
>
>
> DZs are essential for this kind of study: without adoption, you can't
> statistically separate genetic and environmental effects unless you
> have different degrees of kinship. You need both MZs and DZs.
True for some stuff. Meaningless for things like class membership.
> Assortative mating is a source of error, but I think estimates from
> adoption studies like the Minnesota study confirm the estimates from
> studies of twins reared *together*, within the low level of precision
> overall. Also, I've read somewhere (don't remember where) that newer
> experimental designs for twin studies account for assortative mating.
> I have no idea how.
We have already established that there is no Minnesota twin study about
genetics and class membership, so we don't care about this.
>
> [...]
>
>
>>[sarcastically] All the genetic factors that account for class
>>membership neatly lined up...
>
>
> No, that's what I keep trying to get you to understand! Come on,
> you're not stupid. One doesn't "line up" genetic factors in any way
> whatsoever, not even figuratively speaking, whether one is studying IQ
> or SES or anything else.
One does, however, when it comes to things like genetic diseases. And
one tries, if one is a scientist, when it comes to anything else for
which genetic claims are made. If one succeeds, such claims are taken
seriously. That's what I'm trying to get you to understand.