Watson (of Watson & Crick) commits thoughtcrime
Occidental
capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution
should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal
powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be
enough to make it so."
========================================================
Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than
Westerners
Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social
policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as
ours - whereas all the testing says not really"
By Cahal Milmo
Published: 17 October 2007
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an
extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were
less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of
reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of
DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research
institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead
of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues
including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race
and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies
towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that
black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing"
suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating
differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to
the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's
remarks " in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was
"inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our
social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the
same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". He said there
was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people
who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which
he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the
intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their
evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to
reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity
will not be enough to make it so."
The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell
Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles
Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed
the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was
heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading
scientists who described it as a work of " scientific racism".
Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise
his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science.
Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science
Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last
night on the history of scientific racism.
Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his
views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the
Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "It is sad
to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless,
unscientific and extremely offensive comments. I am sure the
scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's
personal prejudices.
"These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still
exists at the highest professional levels."
The American scientist earned a place in the history of great
scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the
University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed part of the
team which discovered the structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel
Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New
Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.
But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring
Harbour Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in
research into cancer and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted
controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race.
The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the
scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man,
and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he
veers from the script."
In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the
right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be
homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical"
choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link
between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black
people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening
and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured.
He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying:
"People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think
it would great."
The Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could
not be contacted to comment on his remarks.
Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University
and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in
Science, said: " This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said
similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into
this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would
know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially
and politically."
Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at
in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust,
a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of
such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism
in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be
looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
Perplexed in Peoria
"Occidental" <Occid...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:1192631637.8...@t8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
[snip sampling of outraged responses by the usual spokespersons]
Occidental, I suspect from your title and posting history that you wish
to align yourself with Watson and to deplore the 'political correctness'
of his critics. But I have to agree with the critics here that Watson
has 'stepped over a line' and said some really stupid things.
Lets examine what he is quoted as saying line by line:
> "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the
> intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their
> evolution should prove to have evolved identically. "
True enough so far.
> "Our wanting to
> reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity
> will not be enough to make it so."
Also true enough. But Watson is attacking a straw-man here. Very
few thoughtful people think that all human individuals have equal
powers of reason. The point of controversy is regarding whether
all human ethnic groups have equal average 'powers of reason'.
> Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was
> "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our
> social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the
> same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". ...
I really doubt that there has been or could be any testing that could
validly compare 'their intelligence' to 'ours'. How *would* you
compare, for example, the average national IQ of Sweden and
Senegal among adults? I'll grant that the Swedes are probably
better educated, but that is a difference of level-of-development
at the societal level, especially educational infrastructure, rather
than necessarily a difference in native intelligence.
As a thought experiment, consider the results you might have gotten
comparing white vs oriental residents of California a hundred years
ago, vs today, using some attempt at an unbiased test.
> He said there was a natural desire that all human beings
> should be equal but "people
> who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
And in this comment Watson steps clearly over the line of both
scientific reason and political correctness. People 'have to deal
with' employees selected from a pool by some process. The
process of selecting a sample can have as much effect on the
results as can differences in the pool you are sampling from.
An incredibly stupid comment by Watson. If it gets him called
a 'racist', it serves him right.
Incidentally, way back in the 1984 edition of Watson's textbook
"Molecular Biology of the Gene', Watson provided an exposition
of the 'Out of Africa' hypothesis which clearly showed that
(1) he understood neither the hypothesis nor the evidence for
it and (2) that he seemed to think that the 'primitiveness' of
African genes was something that exists in individuals of African
ancestry (as a population mean) rather than being something
that reflects the variety of African genetics (a population variance
which says nothing at all about individuals).
Occidental
wrote:
> [snip sampling of outraged responses by the usual spokespersons]
>
> Occidental, I suspect from your title and posting history that you wish
> to align yourself with Watson and to deplore the 'political correctness'
> of his critics. But I have to agree with the critics here that Watson
> has 'stepped over a line' and said some really stupid things.
>
> Lets examine what he is quoted as saying line by line:
>
> > "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the
> > intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their
> > evolution should prove to have evolved identically. "
>
> True enough so far.
...but more important than you appear to realize: if we cannot make
the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we? Yet we
do, don't we?
The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
basis of social policy - unless you take the position that we should
embrace it anyway, true or false, because of the social division that
would otherwise result.
> > "Our wanting to
> > reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity
> > will not be enough to make it so."
>
> Also true enough. But Watson is attacking a straw-man here. Very
> few thoughtful people think that all human individuals have equal
> powers of reason. The point of controversy is regarding whether
> all human ethnic groups have equal average 'powers of reason'.
Such an obvious point, I'm sure that's what Watson would have said had
he elaborated. (Actually, thoughtful people believe all sorts of
bullshit about the distribution of human powers of reason. Almost no
one gets it right, in my experience.)
> > Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was
> > "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our
> > social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the
> > same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". ...
>
> I really doubt that there has been or could be any testing that could
> validly compare 'their intelligence' to 'ours'. How *would* you
> compare, for example, the average national IQ of Sweden and
> Senegal among adults? I'll grant that the Swedes are probably
> better educated, but that is a difference of level-of-development
> at the societal level, especially educational infrastructure, rather
> than necessarily a difference in native intelligence.
You could look at Sweden, then at Senegal or Swaziland, or Tanzania,
or Kenya or.. or the latest mess created by black ineptitude,
Zimbabwe. ("The pressing question for Africa is whether it can recover
not from imperialism but from independence." Mark Steyn).
All the testing evidence in Africa points to an average IQ of 70, even
among university students:
QUOTE
But can that African 70 average IQ be real? It is indeed extremely
low, the lowest found in any comparable area. This has caused many to
dismiss the finding. I know that the figure is not a fluke, however,
because for the last six years I have collected African IQ data on
hundreds of students at the prestigious University of the
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The average IQ for these
African students turns out to be 84. Assuming they score 15 points
above the general average, as university students of any group
typically do, then an average African IQ of 70 is implied-exactly what
the direct measurements show.
END QUOTE
Phillipe Rushton, "Solving The African IQ Conundrum"
(Other researchers have got more-or-less the same results, but I can't
find the ref right now)
Yes, I find 70 hard to believe as well. But all the attendant evidence
supports it: it is a fact that no sub-Saharan African country remotely
approaches the development of the countries of Europe or the Far East;
that there is effectively no such thing as African science or
technology and never has been; and that SS Africa is the world center
of HIV, an entirely preventable disease.
And here in the US, among the descendents of Africans, with access to
a first-world education, testing definitely says "not really", and has
been saying it for 50 years.
> As a thought experiment, consider the results you might have gotten
> comparing white vs oriental residents of California a hundred years
> ago, vs today, using some attempt at an unbiased test.
That's the wonderful thing about thought experiments, they always give
the results your heart craves.
> > He said there was a natural desire that all human beings
> > should be equal but "people
> > who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
>
> And in this comment Watson steps clearly over the line of both
> scientific reason and political correctness.
> People 'have to deal
> with' employees selected from a pool by some process. The
> process of selecting a sample can have as much effect on the
> results as can differences in the pool you are sampling from.
> An incredibly stupid comment by Watson. If it gets him called
> a 'racist', it serves him right.
This looks like a corroborative piece of anecdotal evidence rather
than something intended to stand up to scientific scrutiny.
> Incidentally, way back in the 1984 edition of Watson's textbook
> "Molecular Biology of the Gene', Watson provided an exposition
> of the 'Out of Africa' hypothesis which clearly showed that
> (1) he understood neither the hypothesis nor the evidence for
> it and (2) that he seemed to think that the 'primitiveness' of
> African genes was something that exists in individuals of African
> ancestry (as a population mean) rather than being something
> that reflects the variety of African genetics (a population variance
> which says nothing at all about individuals).
In 84 it was possible to believe that. All that would be necessary for
it to be true is that a gene variant that had some effect that could
be regarded as "primitive" was unique to African populations (or do
you mean he said *all* genes are primitive?). Do you know if he is
still saying it in the latest edition?
There Is No Spoon
Do you have a source for this that can be examined online?
Occidental
wrote:
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3067222.ece
(but you could have found it by googling a phrase from the text - eg
try googling:
It amounts to fuelling bigotry
and you get the ref right away)
Dysdiadochokinesia
> On Oct 17, 12:54 pm, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
>> [snip sampling of outraged responses by the usual spokespersons]
>>
>> Occidental, I suspect from your title and posting history that you wish
>> to align yourself with Watson and to deplore the 'political correctness'
>> of his critics. But I have to agree with the critics here that Watson
>> has 'stepped over a line' and said some really stupid things.
>>
>> Lets examine what he is quoted as saying line by line:
>>
>> > "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the
>> > intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their
>> > evolution should prove to have evolved identically. "
>>
>> True enough so far.
>
> ...but more important than you appear to realize: if we cannot make
> the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
> in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
> educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever. The critical thing is that
individuals are treated fairly under the law. Any sorts of race-based
kludges that are 'exceptions' to that merely seek to correct previous
injustices that were based on race, certainly not 'aggregate intellectual
capacity'.
> Yet we
> do, don't we?
Definitely not.
>
> The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> basis of social policy
The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that fairness
demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
> - unless you take the position that we should
> embrace it anyway, true or false, because of the social division that
> would otherwise result.
Why should the application of the law depend on how intelligent the racial
group someone is a member of is, assuming we could accurately measure such a
thing?
>
>> > "Our wanting to
>> > reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity
>> > will not be enough to make it so."
>>
>> Also true enough. But Watson is attacking a straw-man here. Very
>> few thoughtful people think that all human individuals have equal
>> powers of reason. The point of controversy is regarding whether
>> all human ethnic groups have equal average 'powers of reason'.
>
> Such an obvious point, I'm sure that's what Watson would have said had
> he elaborated. (Actually, thoughtful people believe all sorts of
> bullshit about the distribution of human powers of reason. Almost no
> one gets it right, in my experience.)
But regardless of the thoughts on such matters, they are irrelevent in the
context of law or social policy. There is really no justification for
unequal treatment based on the scores someone's relatives have on an
intelligence test.
>
>> > Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was
>> > "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our
>> > social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the
>> > same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". ...
>>
>> I really doubt that there has been or could be any testing that could
>> validly compare 'their intelligence' to 'ours'. How *would* you
>> compare, for example, the average national IQ of Sweden and
>> Senegal among adults? I'll grant that the Swedes are probably
>> better educated, but that is a difference of level-of-development
>> at the societal level, especially educational infrastructure, rather
>> than necessarily a difference in native intelligence.
>
> You could look at Sweden, then at Senegal or Swaziland, or Tanzania,
> or Kenya or.. or the latest mess created by black ineptitude,
> Zimbabwe. ("The pressing question for Africa is whether it can recover
> not from imperialism but from independence." Mark Steyn).
>
> All the testing evidence in Africa points to an average IQ of 70, even
> among university students:
Totally irrelevent, since individual variation swamps this 'average' out
anyway. Even if it didn't.... what difference would it make?
>
> QUOTE
> But can that African 70 average IQ be real? It is indeed extremely
> low, the lowest found in any comparable area. This has caused many to
> dismiss the finding. I know that the figure is not a fluke, however,
> because for the last six years I have collected African IQ data on
> hundreds of students at the prestigious University of the
> Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The average IQ for these
> African students turns out to be 84. Assuming they score 15 points
> above the general average, as university students of any group
> typically do, then an average African IQ of 70 is implied-exactly what
> the direct measurements show.
> END QUOTE
> Phillipe Rushton, "Solving The African IQ Conundrum"
> (Other researchers have got more-or-less the same results, but I can't
> find the ref right now)
>
> Yes, I find 70 hard to believe as well. But all the attendant evidence
> supports it: it is a fact that no sub-Saharan African country remotely
> approaches the development of the countries of Europe or the Far East;
> that there is effectively no such thing as African science or
> technology and never has been; and that SS Africa is the world center
> of HIV, an entirely preventable disease.
>
> And here in the US, among the descendents of Africans, with access to
> a first-world education, testing definitely says "not really", and has
> been saying it for 50 years.
>
Even if true.... so what?
>
>> As a thought experiment, consider the results you might have gotten
>> comparing white vs oriental residents of California a hundred years
>> ago, vs today, using some attempt at an unbiased test.
>
> That's the wonderful thing about thought experiments, they always give
> the results your heart craves.
>
>> > He said there was a natural desire that all human beings
>> > should be equal but "people
>> > who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
>>
>> And in this comment Watson steps clearly over the line of both
>> scientific reason and political correctness.
>
>> People 'have to deal
>> with' employees selected from a pool by some process. The
>> process of selecting a sample can have as much effect on the
>> results as can differences in the pool you are sampling from.
>> An incredibly stupid comment by Watson. If it gets him called
>> a 'racist', it serves him right.
>
> This looks like a corroborative piece of anecdotal evidence rather
> than something intended to stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Not really, no.
Occidental
wrote:
> "Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> > if we cannot make
> > the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
> > in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
> > educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>
> This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
> intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
The question is - should we?
> The critical thing is that
> individuals are treated fairly under the law. Any sorts of race-based
> kludges that are 'exceptions' to that
Why is exceptions in quotes?
> merely seek to correct previous
> injustices that were based on race, certainly not 'aggregate intellectual
> capacity'.
But this is not what happens at all. Racial preferences are racial
discrimination, pure and simple; no attempt is made to determine
whether the underperformance of "preferred" minorities (i.e. in the
US, blacks and Hispanics) is an artifact of past injustice.
>
> > Yet we
> > do, don't we?
>
> Definitely not.
>
> > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> > basis of social policy
>
> The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that fairness
> demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
about) de facto equality.
In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
nando_r...@yahoo.com
to explore how people behave freely, besides exploring how people
behave controlled by genes or environment. Crick's knowledge about
gene behaviour is at level 100, and his knowledge about free behaviour
is at level 1, the imbalance, that is the problem.
regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu
Dysdiadochokinesia
> On Oct 17, 6:27 pm, "Dysdiadochokinesia" <squishybrains...@nomail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> "Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> > if we cannot make
>> > the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
>> > in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
>> > educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>>
>> This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
>> intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>
> The question is - should we?
Why is that a question to you? What policies do you propose?
>
>> The critical thing is that
>> individuals are treated fairly under the law. Any sorts of race-based
>> kludges that are 'exceptions' to that
>
> Why is exceptions in quotes?
Why do you think?
>
>> merely seek to correct previous
>> injustices that were based on race, certainly not 'aggregate intellectual
>> capacity'.
>
> But this is not what happens at all.
Yes, it is.
> Racial preferences are racial
> discrimination, pure and simple; no attempt is made to determine
> whether the underperformance of "preferred" minorities (i.e. in the
> US, blacks and Hispanics) is an artifact of past injustice.
>
Incorrect.
>>
>> > Yet we
>> > do, don't we?
>>
>> Definitely not.
>>
>> > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
>> > basis of social policy
>>
>> The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that
>> fairness
>> demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>
> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
> about) de facto equality.
You do not appear to be talking about de facto equality at all.
> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
Incorrect again.
Vend
> On Oct 17, 6:27 pm, "Dysdiadochokinesia" <squishybrains...@nomail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > "Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> > > if we cannot make
> > > the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
> > > in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
> > > educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>
> > This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
> > intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>
> The question is - should we?
Should we prevent women from joining the army?
On average, a woman is less proficient as a soldier and less willing
to become one.
Should policies that affect individuals be based on group averages?
> > The critical thing is that
> > individuals are treated fairly under the law. Any sorts of race-based
> > kludges that are 'exceptions' to that
>
> Why is exceptions in quotes?
>
> > merely seek to correct previous
> > injustices that were based on race, certainly not 'aggregate intellectual
> > capacity'.
>
> But this is not what happens at all. Racial preferences are racial
> discrimination, pure and simple; no attempt is made to determine
> whether the underperformance of "preferred" minorities (i.e. in the
> US, blacks and Hispanics) is an artifact of past injustice.
I agree with you on this one.
> > > Yet we
> > > do, don't we?
>
> > Definitely not.
>
> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> > > basis of social policy
>
> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that fairness
> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>
> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
> about) de facto equality.
Egalitarianism in this context is not a claim that there are not
differences between humans.
Egalitarianism is the principle that people should be given equal
opportunities.
> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
Agreed.
Robert Carnegie
Occidental wrote:
> "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual
> capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution
> should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal
> powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be
> enough to make it so."
Begs the question of whether human "races" underwent significant
"evolution" (in biological terms) while geographically separated. On
the genetic clock, our migration from Africa is quite recent. For
that matter, once humans had migrated into a environment other than
that which fostered intelligence, the trait is more likely to be lost
than gained. It's also possible that migrants were driven out for
being dumb. This was repeated when Europe sent its surplus
unemployed, criminals, sociopaths, and religious nuts to find their
manifest destiny in America.
On the other hand, I hope it's uncontroversial to say that nearly all
chimpanzees will perform more poorly than a substantial majority of
modern humans (say above age ten) in most tasks requiring abtract
thought.
> "All our social policies are based on the
> fact that their intelligence is the same as
> ours"
It is the same as "ours". Unfortunately so, if you're thinking
altruistically. We cannot donate cranial tissue to the Third World
because it's a scarce resource here, too.
> Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise
> his latest book, Avoid Boring People:
Uh. Yeah. You could consider not pissing them off, too. But then,
when you're old and cranky, why should you care?
*Hemidactylus*
strides have been made to right the wrongs of the past, but given the
number of "Imus moments" in recent pop culture history, we may still
have a long way to go yet.
After strangulating a people historically for centuries with your
boot, is not fair to say they are summarily incapable of breathing.
Give them a fair chance to catch their breath at least.
Dysdiadochokinesia
"Vend" <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote in message
news:1192663294.7...@k35g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
Why? It's absurd. The issue has been studied at great length and there are
many valid reasons to believe that equal opportunity does not exist at
present, due to both historical disadvantage and current discrimination. I
don't know where you people get the idea that "no attempt" has been made to
quantify these effects. Nor do I understand how they are described as
"underperformance".
>> > > Yet we
>> > > do, don't we?
>>
>> > Definitely not.
>>
>> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
>> > > basis of social policy
>>
>> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that
>> > fairness
>> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>>
>> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
>> about) de facto equality.
>
> Egalitarianism in this context is not a claim that there are not
> differences between humans.
> Egalitarianism is the principle that people should be given equal
> opportunities.
>
>> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
>
> Agreed.
One also wonders how you can agree with this, since AA, flawed as it may be,
is precisely the attempt to equalize treatment.
AC
Well, you see, scientists don't tend to concern themselves with the mindless
ramblings of net-kooks.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
AC
Occidental <Occid...@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Oct 17, 6:27 pm, "Dysdiadochokinesia" <squishybrains...@nomail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> "Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> > if we cannot make
>> > the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
>> > in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
>> > educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>>
>> This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
>> intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>
> The question is - should we?
First you would have to actually demonstrate that intellectual capacity is
somehow differentiated. The evidence is pretty clear that there is no such
difference, that modern human populations are incredibly closely related and
that the differences that we perceive as "racial" are really quite small.
What has become evident from study is that the perceived intellectual
failings of groups is almost inevitably due to economic factors, and it is
that that people, at least in the West, have been trying to address rather
than furthering Victorian stereotypes.
<snip>
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Robert Carnegie
"The Science Museum has cancelled a talk it was due to host by a
geneticist, after he claimed black people were less intelligent than
white people." ... "A spokesman for the Science Museum said: 'We
know that eminent scientists can sometimes say things that cause
controversy and the Science Museum does not shy away from debating
controversial topics. However, we feel Dr Watson has gone beyond the
point of acceptable debate and we are as a result cancelling his
talk.'"
John Harshman
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:56:49 -0700,
> Occidental <Occid...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>On Oct 17, 6:27 pm, "Dysdiadochokinesia" <squishybrains...@nomail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>>
>>>>if we cannot make
>>>>the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
>>>>in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
>>>>educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>>>
>>>This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
>>>intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>>
>>The question is - should we?
>
>
> First you would have to actually demonstrate that intellectual capacity is
> somehow differentiated. The evidence is pretty clear that there is no such
> difference, that modern human populations are incredibly closely related and
> that the differences that we perceive as "racial" are really quite small.
Notably, the average genetic difference between unrelated people is
about 0.1%. Something like 80% of this difference can be found within
single villages, leaving just 20% of 0.1% to account for
between-population differences. And by far the majority of this
diversity is found in populations *within* Africa. All the rest of the
world is less genetically diverse, being only a small sample of African
genetic variation. And human genetic variation is unusually low as
species go.
This is what makes the claim silliest, the idea that there is such a
thing as "African" genetically. Yoruba are more different from Hausa or
Mandinka than any of them is from Europeans.
Another important problem is that human populations have not generally
been isolated from gene flow. Even America and Asia have been exchanging
genes since people got here.
> What has become evident from study is that the perceived intellectual
> failings of groups is almost inevitably due to economic factors, and it is
> that that people, at least in the West, have been trying to address rather
> than furthering Victorian stereotypes.
I was wondering if these various African IQ tests were administered in
the subjects' native languages, by native speakers. This seems fairly
unlikely to me. Which leads me to wonder how well most readers of this
would do on an IQ test administered in Xhosa.
wf3h
<nando_rontel...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The solution to the scientific racism problem is to force scientists
the essence of islamist fascism: force
> to explore how people behave freely, besides exploring how people
> behave controlled by genes or environment. Crick's knowledge about
> gene behaviour is at level 100, and his knowledge about free behaviour
> is at level 1, the imbalance, that is the problem.
>
islamism is death. nando proves it with every post. and islam forces
'infidels' to pay taxes for merely being free.
that's creationism...
Vend
> wrote:
>
> > "Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> > > if we cannot make
> > > the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
> > > in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
> > > educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>
> > This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
> > intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>
> The question is - should we?
Should we prevent women from joining the army?
On average, a woman is less proficient as a soldier and less willing
to become one.
Should policies that affect individuals be based on group averages?
> > The critical thing is that
> > individuals are treated fairly under the law. Any sorts of race-based
> > kludges that are 'exceptions' to that
>
> Why is exceptions in quotes?
>
> > merely seek to correct previous
> > injustices that were based on race, certainly not 'aggregate intellectual
> > capacity'.
>
> But this is not what happens at all. Racial preferences are racial
> discrimination, pure and simple; no attempt is made to determine
> whether the underperformance of "preferred" minorities (i.e. in the
> US, blacks and Hispanics) is an artifact of past injustice.
I agree with you on this one.
> > > Yet we
> > > do, don't we?
>
> > Definitely not.
>
> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> > > basis of social policy
>
> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that fairness
> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>
> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
> about) de facto equality.
Egalitarianism in this context is not a claim that there are not
differences between humans.
Egalitarianism is the principle that people should be given equal
opportunities.
> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
Agreed.
*Hemidactylus*
readjusted so that people who were historically held down by the boot
on the throat of Jim Crow segregation, where the "uppity" were
ceremoniously hung from trees as a chilling example of their place in
society, will have a chance to get a step up on the world and provide
a better (more enriched) environment for their kids and so on. Without
affirmative action minority groups, especially African Americans,
would be in many cases were he good ole boy networ still thrives
excluded from decent jobs where they can afford to provide for their
children and grandchildren and give them a leg up in the world, thus
breaking the cycle of poverty and degradation that stems from
America's overtly racist past. There are stiil covert racist folkways
that tend towards the outgrouping of blacks, obviously, or we wouldn't
be having this discussion.
And I think it ironic, given the present xenophobic tendency of
disparaging immigrants (apart from the few survivors of the first
Americans who we commercialize as sports team mascots we are all
recent immigrants...many living in former Spanish possessions whining
about Hispanic culture) that many of us bend over backwards to treat
the descendants of *forced* immigrants from Africa like crap.
I think I'm going to be sick.
Robert Carnegie
Occidental wrote:
> "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual
> capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution
> should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal
> powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be
> enough to make it so."
Begs the question of whether human "races" underwent significant
"evolution" (in biological terms) while geographically separated. On
the genetic clock, our migration from Africa is quite recent. For
that matter, once humans had migrated into a environment other than
that which fostered intelligence, the trait is more likely to be lost
than gained. It's also possible that migrants were driven out for
being dumb. This was repeated when Europe sent its surplus
unemployed, criminals, sociopaths, and religious nuts to find their
manifest destiny in America.
On the other hand, I hope it's uncontroversial to say that nearly all
chimpanzees will perform more poorly than a substantial majority of
modern humans (say above age ten) in most tasks requiring abtract
thought.
> "All our social policies are based on the
> fact that their intelligence is the same as
> ours"
It is the same as "ours". Unfortunately so, if you're thinking
altruistically. We cannot donate cranial tissue to the Third World
because it's a scarce resource here, too.
> Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise
> his latest book, Avoid Boring People:
Uh. Yeah. You could consider not pissing them off, too. But then,
The Enigmatic One
>social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the
>same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". He said there
>was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people
>who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
Hmmm.
Looks like g
Vend
wrote:
Therefore, efforts should be taken to provide equal opportunities.
Preferring a less qualified worker or student to a more qualified one
because of his or her skin color is not equal opportunity. It's trying
to counter racism with more racism.
> I
> don't know where you people get the idea that "no attempt" has been made to
> quantify these effects. Nor do I understand how they are described as
> "underperformance".
Performance differences between ethnic groups exist and can be
measured. It's more difficult to measure how much those differences
are genetic or environmental.
Anyway, I think that in no case those differences, whatever the cause,
should be used to justify policies of discrimination, both against and
in favour of individual belonging to those 'underperforming' groups.
> >> > > Yet we
> >> > > do, don't we?
>
> >> > Definitely not.
>
> >> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> >> > > basis of social policy
>
> >> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that
> >> > fairness
> >> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>
> >> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
> >> about) de facto equality.
>
> > Egalitarianism in this context is not a claim that there are not
> > differences between humans.
> > Egalitarianism is the principle that people should be given equal
> > opportunities.
>
> >> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
>
> > Agreed.
>
> One also wonders how you can agree with this, since AA, flawed as it may be,
> is precisely the attempt to equalize treatment.
Because it doesn't work and it's unfair and immoral.
Vend
wrote:
But humans are also a small sample of ape genetic variation. Yet
humans are more intelligent than any other living ape.
> This is what makes the claim silliest, the idea that there is such a
> thing as "African" genetically. Yoruba are more different from Hausa or
> Mandinka than any of them is from Europeans.
Ok.
> Another important problem is that human populations have not generally
> been isolated from gene flow. Even America and Asia have been exchanging
> genes since people got here.
Ok.
But it's undeniable that average genetic differences exist between
geograhic and ethnic groups, and those differences significatively
affect some phenotypical traits.
Swedes are, on average, taller than Japanese.
African-Americans are, on average, darker than European-Americans.
Etc.
Group averages differ for many observable traits, although for some
traits group differences are smaller than individual differences.
So, why should we expect no differences in intellectual performance?
> > What has become evident from study is that the perceived intellectual
> > failings of groups is almost inevitably due to economic factors, and it is
> > that that people, at least in the West, have been trying to address rather
> > than furthering Victorian stereotypes.
>
> I was wondering if these various African IQ tests were administered in
> the subjects' native languages, by native speakers. This seems fairly
> unlikely to me. Which leads me to wonder how well most readers of this
> would do on an IQ test administered in Xhosa.
I haven't seen many IQ tests, but aren't they written in a simplified
subset of the language?
Dysdiadochokinesia
I'm glad you agree.
> Preferring a less qualified worker or student to a more qualified one
Part of the problem is with the measurements of "more qualified", as I'm
sure you're aware.
> because of his or her skin color is not equal opportunity.
Really? Propose a better system.
> It's trying
> to counter racism with more racism.
This is meaningless, empty rhetoric indeed.
>
>> I
>> don't know where you people get the idea that "no attempt" has been made
>> to
>> quantify these effects. Nor do I understand how they are described as
>> "underperformance".
>
> Performance differences between ethnic groups exist and can be
> measured.
Usually by tools that are affected by ethnicity, native language, etc....
> It's more difficult to measure how much those differences
> are genetic or environmental.
>
> Anyway, I think that in no case those differences, whatever the cause,
> should be used to justify policies of discrimination, both against and
> in favour of individual belonging to those 'underperforming' groups.
Please, feel free to devise a better way to correct for the known problems
then. The internet is your canvas.
>
>> >> > > Yet we
>> >> > > do, don't we?
>>
>> >> > Definitely not.
>>
>> >> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
>> >> > > basis of social policy
>>
>> >> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that
>> >> > fairness
>> >> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>>
>> >> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
>> >> about) de facto equality.
>>
>> > Egalitarianism in this context is not a claim that there are not
>> > differences between humans.
>> > Egalitarianism is the principle that people should be given equal
>> > opportunities.
>>
>> >> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
>>
>> > Agreed.
>>
>> One also wonders how you can agree with this, since AA, flawed as it may
>> be,
>> is precisely the attempt to equalize treatment.
>
> Because it doesn't work and it's unfair and immoral.
It works somewhat (better than doing nothing); it's much more fair than
doing nothing, and not doing anything would be immoral.
Esa Riihonen
8<
> I was wondering if these various African IQ tests were administered in
> the subjects' native languages, by native speakers. This seems fairly
> unlikely to me. Which leads me to wonder how well most readers of this
> would do on an IQ test administered in Xhosa.
There was a story I read from somewhere (a newspaper article perhaps)
several years ago. I have not been able to locate the source of it, so I
can't comment on the correctedness of the report or how garbled it has
become in my fuzzy brain during all these years. Perhaps someone on the
group can identify the probable origin of the story and whether it has any
validity at all.
As far as I recall it went something like this:
There had been a study researching the conceptual thinking capabilities
of different peoples (perhaps in 1930's or 50's for all I remember). The
method was to ask the people to arrange some common tools in categories.
The idea was that you would place say, forks and pitchforks etc. in one
category, spoons and spades in another, and so on. This would then reveal
the ability for conceptual thinking. Especially one tribe (in Africa?)
stood out as lacking the ability, they would place tools together
according to the use, those used for cooking were together, those for
raising crops in another, ...
Later (in 1980's?), someone wanted to check the result. She (for some
reason I think this researcher was female) remade the study with the tribe
- and with a similar outcome. She (perhaps not being too happy with the
result) then proceeded with a new question 'how would a _child_ arrange
these objects?' And then she got the 'conceptual' categorization.
Cheers,
EsaR
--
Esa Riihonen (and it is Mr. Riihonen for anyone who cares)
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the
process of putting them in. - Edsger Dijkstra
Ron O
> "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual
> capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution
> should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal
> powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be
> enough to make it so."
>
>
Watson probably hasn't thought through the issue very well.
The fact is that there is a genetic component to intelligence.
Depending on how you define it, doesn't much matter as long as the
phenotypes actually exist. There is no doubt that the distribution of
genetic variation will differ between populations, but there also
isn't much doubt that the overlap in the distributions will be
significant.
Claiming that Black Africa can't come up to Western political
standards is not the smartest thing Watson has ever done. Just
imagine (and you don't have to think really hard) how many black
Africans have more on the ball than the current president of the
United States. Culture, education and even simply nutrition have a
lot to do with the "intelligence" of a population. Basing your claims
of "waste of time" trying to aid such nations on a presumed difference
in the genetic distribution of intelligence is pretty stupid.
Ron Okimoto
Perplexed in Peoria
"Esa Riihonen" <e...@riihonen.net.INVALID> wrote in message news:pan.2007.10.18...@riihonen.net.INVALID...
Thanks. A wonderful anecdote. I would also be interested in a link to
a true source. The story almost seems too good to be true.
Will in New Haven
> wrote:
>
> > "Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> > > if we cannot make
> > > the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
> > > in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
> > > educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>
> > This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
> > intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>
> The question is - should we?
No. We shouldn't. There isn't any reason to. When you are hiring, you
are hiring a person, not all her relatives. When you are rendering a
court decision, you are deciding the fate of an individual, not his
ancestors. When you are educating, you are educating some_ONE_ not a
race or a class.
>
> > The critical thing is that
> > individuals are treated fairly under the law. Any sorts of race-based
> > kludges that are 'exceptions' to that
>
> Why is exceptions in quotes?
Almost certainly because the writer doesn't really think that they
are exceptions. I hate that use of quotation marks but the meaning is
pretty clear.
Will in New Haven
--
> > merely seek to correct previous
> > injustices that were based on race, certainly not 'aggregate intellectual
> > capacity'.
>
> But this is not what happens at all. Racial preferences are racial
> discrimination, pure and simple; no attempt is made to determine
> whether the underperformance of "preferred" minorities (i.e. in the
> US, blacks and Hispanics) is an artifact of past injustice.
Yawn. It doesn't matter.
>
>
>
> > > Yet we
> > > do, don't we?
>
> > Definitely not.
>
> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> > > basis of social policy
>
> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that fairness
> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>
> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
> about) de facto equality.
> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
It isn'
Robert Carnegie
> Robert Carnegie wrote:
> > On the other hand, I hope it's uncontroversial to say that nearly all
> > chimpanzees will perform more poorly than a substantial majority of
> > modern humans (say above age ten) in most tasks requiring abtract
> > thought.
>
>
> Do we even *know* what chimps are really capable of, mentally?
I think "we" do, in fact. As far as I recall, they have been shown to
del!velop mentally within the range of human infants receiving
equivalent environmental stimulation, then they hit a metaphorical
wall and stop. Almost all of our own species go further.
The difference is more profound with earthworms. Should I have gone
with earthworms? Darwin did some funky work with earthworms that I
don't know about in detail.
Richard Harter
wrote:
>Ok.
>But it's undeniable that average genetic differences exist between
>geograhic and ethnic groups, and those differences significatively
>affect some phenotypical traits.
>Swedes are, on average, taller than Japanese.
>African-Americans are, on average, darker than European-Americans.
>Etc.
One trouble with all of this is that these observable differences
aren't necessarily genetic. Height is a notorious example.
Americans of Japanese descent have the same height as other
Americans, the change clearly being due to changes in diet and
life style.
The truly curious thing is that the change does not happen in one
generation. That is, grandmama and grandpapa come from Japan and
are short. Mama and papa are taller than their parents but not
so tall as the average American. In the third generation the
differences vary. I don't know whether the delays in the change
are due to epigenetic effects or are due to changes in life style
across the generations.
Now it is true that variation in height in heritable. That is,
if your parents were taller than average in your population then
you are likely to be taller than average. However we cannot
generalize from that to say that if population A is taller on
average than population B then the difference is heritable - the
differences might be due to differences in diet or life style.
Then again, they might not be. The basis for the shortness of
pygmys is genetic. The fundamental issue is that the expression
of traits in individuals is a complex interaction of genetic
factors, epigenetic factors, environmental factors, and cultural
factors.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die
Occidental
wrote:
> "Esa Riihonen" <e...@riihonen.net.INVALID> wrote in messagenews:pan.2007.10.18...@riihonen.net.INVALID...
In an earlier post I cited what might be referred to as Principle 1
for the race/nature-nurture/IQ debate:
1. Thoughtful people believe all sorts of bullshit about the
distribution of human powers of reason; almost no one gets it right.
Based on the above exchange, we might add Principle 2:
2. Thoughtful people believe all sorts of bullshit about the nature of
IQ, mostly making it up out of what they think IQ *should* be, and
never, absolutely never, consulting the relevant psychometric
literature.
Vend
> On Oct 17, 6:27 pm, "Dysdiadochokinesia" <squishybrains...@nomail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > "Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> > > if we cannot make
> > > the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
> > > in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
> > > educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>
> > This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
> > intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>
> The question is - should we?
Should we prevent women from joining the army?
On average, a woman is less proficient as a soldier and less willing
to become one.
Should policies that affect individuals be based on group averages?
> > The critical thing is that
> > individuals are treated fairly under the law. Any sorts of race-based
> > kludges that are 'exceptions' to that
>
> Why is exceptions in quotes?
>
> > merely seek to correct previous
> > injustices that were based on race, certainly not 'aggregate intellectual
> > capacity'.
>
> But this is not what happens at all. Racial preferences are racial
> discrimination, pure and simple; no attempt is made to determine
> whether the underperformance of "preferred" minorities (i.e. in the
> US, blacks and Hispanics) is an artifact of past injustice.
I agree with you on this one.
> > > Yet we
> > > do, don't we?
>
> > Definitely not.
>
> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> > > basis of social policy
>
> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that fairness
> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>
> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
> about) de facto equality.
Egalitarianism in this context is not a claim that there are not
differences between humans.
Egalitarianism is the principle that people should be given equal
opportunities.
> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
Agreed.
Vend
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:24:53 -0700, Vend <ven...@virgilio.it>
> wrote:
>
> >Ok.
> >But it's undeniable that average genetic differences exist between
> >geograhic and ethnic groups, and those differences significatively
> >affect some phenotypical traits.
> >Swedes are, on average, taller than Japanese.
> >African-Americans are, on average, darker than European-Americans.
> >Etc.
>
> One trouble with all of this is that these observable differences
> aren't necessarily genetic. Height is a notorious example.
> Americans of Japanese descent have the same height as other
> Americans, the change clearly being due to changes in diet and
> life style.
>
> The truly curious thing is that the change does not happen in one
> generation. That is, grandmama and grandpapa come from Japan and
> are short. Mama and papa are taller than their parents but not
> so tall as the average American. In the third generation the
> differences vary. I don't know whether the delays in the change
> are due to epigenetic effects or are due to changes in life style
> across the generations.
Are you counting people of mixed heritage?
Anyway, I don't deny that many traits are influenced by environmental
factors.
> Now it is true that variation in height in heritable. That is,
> if your parents were taller than average in your population then
> you are likely to be taller than average. However we cannot
> generalize from that to say that if population A is taller on
> average than population B then the difference is heritable - the
> differences might be due to differences in diet or life style.
True.
In fact, you need twin studies or genome studies to say so.
> Then again, they might not be. The basis for the shortness of
> pygmys is genetic. The fundamental issue is that the expression
> of traits in individuals is a complex interaction of genetic
> factors, epigenetic factors, environmental factors, and cultural
> factors.
>
> Richard Harter, c...@tiac.nethttp://home.tiac.net/~cri,http://www.varinoma.com
Vend
That's context-dependent.
For college admission it may be based on high school grades, test
results, etc.
For work it may be based on educational level, past work experiences,
etc.
> > because of his or her skin color is not equal opportunity.
>
> Really? Propose a better system.
Ignore skin color and give financial, educational and social support
to those who really need it.
> > It's trying
> > to counter racism with more racism.
>
> This is meaningless, empty rhetoric indeed.
Wrong.
Racism means discrimination based on belonging to a ethnic group,
largely defined by social convention.
Affermative Action is exactly that.
> >> I
> >> don't know where you people get the idea that "no attempt" has been made
> >> to
> >> quantify these effects. Nor do I understand how they are described as
> >> "underperformance".
>
> > Performance differences between ethnic groups exist and can be
> > measured.
>
> Usually by tools that are affected by ethnicity, native language, etc....
Ok.
> > It's more difficult to measure how much those differences
> > are genetic or environmental.
>
> > Anyway, I think that in no case those differences, whatever the cause,
> > should be used to justify policies of discrimination, both against and
> > in favour of individual belonging to those 'underperforming' groups.
>
> Please, feel free to devise a better way to correct for the known problems
> then. The internet is your canvas.
See above.
> >> >> > > Yet we
> >> >> > > do, don't we?
>
> >> >> > Definitely not.
>
> >> >> > > The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> >> >> > > basis of social policy
>
> >> >> > The case for egalitarianism *is* well proven. It is the fact that
> >> >> > fairness
> >> >> > demands equal treatment to the extent that it is possible.
>
> >> >> But this is de jure equality, not (what Watson, PinP and I are talking
> >> >> about) de facto equality.
>
> >> > Egalitarianism in this context is not a claim that there are not
> >> > differences between humans.
> >> > Egalitarianism is the principle that people should be given equal
> >> > opportunities.
>
> >> >> In any case, Affirmative Action is not equal treatment, by definition.
>
> >> > Agreed.
>
> >> One also wonders how you can agree with this, since AA, flawed as it may
> >> be,
> >> is precisely the attempt to equalize treatment.
>
> > Because it doesn't work and it's unfair and immoral.
>
> It works somewhat (better than doing nothing); it's much more fair than
> doing nothing, and not doing anything would be immoral.
It increases racial hatred because it's unfair.
The members of a society who are most likely to lend towards racist
attitudes are the most uneducated and poor members of the ethnic
majority (e.g. "White Trash").
They are exactly those who are most damaged by Affirmative Action
programs.
Do you think that their racism will be reduced by those programs? I
don't think so.
Jeffrey Turner
>
>
> You could look at Sweden, then at Senegal or Swaziland, or Tanzania,
> or Kenya or.. or the latest mess created by black ineptitude,
> Zimbabwe.
How about the latest mess created by white ineptitude, Iraq?
Bush is white AND American, I guess we know who the world's true
idiots are.
--Jeff
--
Jesus Saves - and takes half damage.
Vend
wrote:
> "Esa Riihonen" <e...@riihonen.net.INVALID> wrote in messagenews:pan.2007.10.18...@riihonen.net.INVALID...
I don't understand the relevance of this story.
Tool classification is clearly dependent on their usage, principle of
action and history (which is reflected in their names). All of those
are culture and education dependent.
This test looks like asking a non-programmer to arrange computer
programs.
Desertphile
<Occid...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at
> in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust,
> a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of
> such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism
> in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be
> looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
The question is, is Dr. Watson correct or incorrect: not if he
violated any "racial hatred laws."
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why aren't resurrections from the dead noteworthy?" -- Jim Rutz
Esa Riihonen
I think you raise a valid point. However this might be just my memory
mixing up the things. Perhaps these two categorizations were
provided in the article as different examples of conceptualization,
and the one the tribe used was something different - something that I
have totally forgotten. The basic problem being of course that I know next
to nothing about psychology or the methods used in the field.
Cheers,
Esa
tgde...@earthlink.net
I guess my IQ is not quite high enough, because I am completely
stumped by that statement. Are you saying that when whites were
treated better than blacks during the Jim Crow era, there was less
racial hatred? The beatings and the lynchings were just those same
good-ol white trash boys having themselves some fun? You really need
to explain this.
-tg
Richard Harter
wrote:
>On 18 Ott, 16:50, c...@tiac.net (Richard Harter) wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:24:53 -0700, Vend <ven...@virgilio.it>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Ok.
>> >But it's undeniable that average genetic differences exist between
>> >geograhic and ethnic groups, and those differences significatively
>> >affect some phenotypical traits.
>> >Swedes are, on average, taller than Japanese.
>> >African-Americans are, on average, darker than European-Americans.
>> >Etc.
>>
>> One trouble with all of this is that these observable differences
>> aren't necessarily genetic. Height is a notorious example.
>> Americans of Japanese descent have the same height as other
>> Americans, the change clearly being due to changes in diet and
>> life style.
>>
>> The truly curious thing is that the change does not happen in one
>> generation. That is, grandmama and grandpapa come from Japan and
>> are short. Mama and papa are taller than their parents but not
>> so tall as the average American. In the third generation the
>> differences vary. I don't know whether the delays in the change
>> are due to epigenetic effects or are due to changes in life style
>> across the generations.
>
>Are you counting people of mixed heritage?
No.
>Anyway, I don't deny that many traits are influenced by environmental
>factors.
>
>> Now it is true that variation in height in heritable. That is,
>> if your parents were taller than average in your population then
>> you are likely to be taller than average. However we cannot
>> generalize from that to say that if population A is taller on
>> average than population B then the difference is heritable - the
>> differences might be due to differences in diet or life style.
>
>True.
>In fact, you need twin studies or genome studies to say so.
Even those are not necessarily adequate. As the sage said,
biology is messy.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
raven1
<Occid...@comcast.net> wrote:
>...but more important than you appear to realize: if we cannot make
>the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
>in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
>educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we? Yet we
>do, don't we?
Do we?
---
"Faith may not move mountains, but you should see what it does to skyscrapers..."
AC
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> Occidental wrote:
>> "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual
>> capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution
>> should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal
>> powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be
>> enough to make it so."
>
> "evolution" (in biological terms) while geographically separated.
It also begs the question of whether "race" as Watson seems to think it even
exists as such. Those studying humans, or really any species, think in
terms of populations, not in terms of the oversimplified and in many cases
completely incorrect categories that modern racists have essentially
inherited from their Victorian counterparts (who at least had the partial
excuse of not knowing any better).
As John Harshman has pointed out, and as someone like Watson ought to know
(unless he has truly been out of the loop for a helluva long time), there is
no "negro" race, no "black" man. Africa has the highest number of
genetically diverse populations of human beings of any landmass out there,
and even those are very closely related, but relatively more diverse than
what is found outside of Africa. As well, as John points out, genes have
been travelling back forth during this whole time, and it doesn't take much
for populations to remain very closely related, all it takes is neighboring
populations interbreeding (and, in what is something of a cliche now,
there's one thing that humans do, and that's have sex).
There's nothing "evolutionarily" invalid about saying that some populations
of any given species might be, on some scale, more or less intelligent than
others, it's just that that's not how it has worked out for humans, because
we are all so closely related, and many of those alleged differences were
due in large part to economic and social conditions (poor diets can effect
intellectual capabilities), so unless Watson is some sort of Lamarckian,
these sure aren't genetic in nature.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
AC
Ron O <roki...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> Claiming that Black Africa can't come up to Western political
> standards is not the smartest thing Watson has ever done. Just
> imagine (and you don't have to think really hard) how many black
> Africans have more on the ball than the current president of the
> United States. Culture, education and even simply nutrition have a
> lot to do with the "intelligence" of a population. Basing your claims
> of "waste of time" trying to aid such nations on a presumed difference
> in the genetic distribution of intelligence is pretty stupid.
This is nothing more than a new version of the old Victorian idea that all
those savages in any given part of the world need the White Man, being
intellectually superior and all, to keep them at peace. It was a reasonably
questionable idea 150 years ago, and since then has come to be seen as
ludicrous. One does not need to look very far into our past to see savage
wars, rampant corruption, plagues that killed substantial numbers of people.
Last time I checked, the last big, incredibly lethal war ended a mere 62
years ago, and the last major pandemic was about 80 years ago.
Of course, there's also the ignoring of the fact that a lot of Africa's
current problems are directly due to colonization and to the protectionist
agricultural policies that other parts of the world use which ultimately
have such an ill effect on so many African economies.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
AC
Desertphile <deser...@nospam.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:33:57 -0700, Occidental
><Occid...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at
>> in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust,
>> a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of
>> such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism
>> in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be
>> looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
>
> The question is, is Dr. Watson correct or incorrect: not if he
> violated any "racial hatred laws."
From a purely emperical standard, he is wrong. The data I'm assuming he's
using was old-style IQ tests which were notoriously Euro-centric.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Vend
I'm saying that state enforced or approved racial discrimination
policies increase racial hatred.
This applies both to the Jim Crow era and the Affirmative Action era.
AC
Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
>
> I'm saying that state enforced or approved racial discrimination
> policies increase racial hatred.
> This applies both to the Jim Crow era and the Affirmative Action era.
So what would your solution be? I mean, if a population, due to centuries
of what amounts to social and economic abuse, is now to be integrated, how
do you propose to do that?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
tgde...@earthlink.net
> Vend wrote:
>
> (with regard to affirmative action, positive discrimination or
> whatchamacallit)
>
> > Therefore, efforts should be taken to provide equal opportunities.
>
>
> > Preferring a less qualified worker or student to a more qualified one
> > to counter racism with more racism.
>
> defined as a preference for a candidate with a certain background, ONLY
> when qualifications and suitability for the job are the same?
Quite right. However, people have a perverse kind of reasoning on this
issue. In particular, they attribute all negative outcomes to the
policy. If there are 9 white applicants and one black applicant for a
single slot, each white applicant will blame their non-acceptance on
the affirmative action policy. They ignore the fact that only one
white applicant has actually been disadvantaged. They don't recognize
that the number of black applicants qualified for any job is limited.
-tg
Vend
Promote integration, punish discrimination and help individuals based
on their needs, not their heritage.
If you implement race-blind policies, hopefully people will also
become race-blind after some time.
If you implement racial discriminatory policies instead, you reinforce
the belif that racial differences matter by giving legal dignity to
the social construct you should be trying to eliminate.
Vend
> Vend wrote:
>
> (with regard to affirmative action, positive discrimination or
> whatchamacallit)
>
> > Therefore, efforts should be taken to provide equal opportunities.
>
> Certainly.
>
> > Preferring a less qualified worker or student to a more qualified one
> > because of his or her skin color is not equal opportunity. It's trying
> > to counter racism with more racism.
>
> Yes. Isn't this why "positive discrimination", as a policy, generally is
> defined as a preference for a candidate with a certain background, ONLY
> when qualifications and suitability for the job are the same?
There is no such thing as "positive discrimination".
When you discriminate in favour somebody, you discriminate against
somebody else.
If two people have exactly the same qualifications, in fairnes you
should choose randomly.
But I think that in practice it almost never happens that two people
have exactly the same qualifications. The only practical way to
implement those policies is to give members of the preferred race a
bonus.
Vend
But if they don't have access to their relative scores (which may
exist only in the mind of the person in charge of hiring), they can
all presume that they were the one who was disadvantaged.
That's why I say that those policies promote racial hatred.
> They don't recognize
> that the number of black applicants qualified for any job is limited.
Your logic could be turned on itself to claim that it's acceptable to
ban blacks from running for presidency since there would be few if any
of them doing that anyway, thus the discrimination would not affect
the majority of black people.
Max
> On Oct 17, 12:54 pm, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
> > [snip sampling of outraged responses by the usual spokespersons]
>
> > Occidental, I suspect from your title and posting history that you wish
> > to align yourself with Watson and to deplore the 'political correctness'
> > of his critics. But I have to agree with the critics here that Watson
> > has 'stepped over a line' and said some really stupid things.
>
> > Lets examine what he is quoted as saying line by line:
>
> > > "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the
> > > intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their
> > > evolution should prove to have evolved identically. "
>
>
> ...but more important than you appear to realize: if we cannot make
> the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
> in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
> do, don't we?
>
So if there is no evidence either way we should assume a difference in
favor of our own race? Call me silly, but I'd rather choose a
candidate according to their actual qualifications. And I have no
problems with requiring employers to be colorblind as well. Even if
there were a trend, it would be a poor way of decision making given
natural variance.
> The case for egalitarianism should be proven before we make it the
> basis of social policy - unless you take the position that we should
> embrace it anyway, true or false, because of the social division that
> would otherwise result.
>
Not merely out of fear of social division, but because it is foolish,
inefficient and unfair. Even more so if there is no evidence of
superiority (present true evidence weighs against such theories). If
you want to apply a Darwinian approach to hiring and admissions, it
must still be done on an individual basis.
> > > "Our wanting to
> > > reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity
> > > will not be enough to make it so."
>
> > Also true enough. But Watson is attacking a straw-man here. Very
> > few thoughtful people think that all human individuals have equal
> > powers of reason. The point of controversy is regarding whether
> > all human ethnic groups have equal average 'powers of reason'.
>
> Such an obvious point, I'm sure that's what Watson would have said had
> he elaborated. (Actually, thoughtful people believe all sorts of
> bullshit about the distribution of human powers of reason. Almost no
> one gets it right, in my experience.)
>
Nice of you to give Dr. Watson the benefit of a doubt. But he'd have
to go through some strange contortions to get his quotes to fit into
such a reasonable interpretation.
> > > Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was
> > > "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our
> > > social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the
> > > same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". ...
>
> > I really doubt that there has been or could be any testing that could
> > validly compare 'their intelligence' to 'ours'. How *would* you
> > compare, for example, the average national IQ of Sweden and
> > Senegal among adults? I'll grant that the Swedes are probably
> > better educated, but that is a difference of level-of-development
> > at the societal level, especially educational infrastructure, rather
> > than necessarily a difference in native intelligence.
>
> You could look at Sweden, then at Senegal or Swaziland, or Tanzania,
> or Kenya or.. or the latest mess created by black ineptitude,
> Zimbabwe. ("The pressing question for Africa is whether it can recover
> not from imperialism but from independence." Mark Steyn).
>
> All the testing evidence in Africa points to an average IQ of 70, even
> among university students:
>
Actually, the quote you use indicates an IQ of 84 for university
students. Even presuming this is a fair quote taken in context and
that the researcher has done fair and unbiased studies, this doesn't
prove anything. For a difference in IQ scores to mean much of anything
requires that the compared populations have nearly identical
environments in terms of educational opportunities, cultural attitude
towards education and even nutrition. None of these factors hold true
in this case.
In those few studies that were able to rule out such methods, the
differences which so many seem to think undeniable just melted away.
> QUOTE
> But can that African 70 average IQ be real? It is indeed extremely
> low, the lowest found in any comparable area. This has caused many to
> dismiss the finding. I know that the figure is not a fluke, however,
> because for the last six years I have collected African IQ data on
> hundreds of students at the prestigious University of the
> Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The average IQ for these
> African students turns out to be 84. Assuming they score 15 points
> above the general average, as university students of any group
> typically do, then an average African IQ of 70 is implied-exactly what
> the direct measurements show.
> END QUOTE
> Phillipe Rushton, "Solving The African IQ Conundrum"
> (Other researchers have got more-or-less the same results, but I can't
> find the ref right now)
>
> Yes, I find 70 hard to believe as well. But all the attendant evidence
> supports it: it is a fact that no sub-Saharan African country remotely
> approaches the development of the countries of Europe or the Far East;
> that there is effectively no such thing as African science or
> technology and never has been; and that SS Africa is the world center
> of HIV, an entirely preventable disease.
>
> And here in the US, among the descendents of Africans, with access to
> a first-world education, testing definitely says "not really", and has
> been saying it for 50 years.
>
Again, environmental differences abound. And the difference in IQ has
been shrinking. Far more rapidly for any arguments of interbreeding to
apply.
> > As a thought experiment, consider the results you might have gotten
> > comparing white vs oriental residents of California a hundred years
> > ago, vs today, using some attempt at an unbiased test.
>
> That's the wonderful thing about thought experiments, they always give
> the results your heart craves.
>
Tell that to the physicists. Better yet, don't make it a thought
experiment. Look it up.
> > > He said there was a natural desire that all human beings
> > > should be equal but "people
> > > who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
>
> > And in this comment Watson steps clearly over the line of both
> > scientific reason and political correctness.
> > People 'have to deal
> > with' employees selected from a pool by some process. The
> > process of selecting a sample can have as much effect on the
> > results as can differences in the pool you are sampling from.
> > An incredibly stupid comment by Watson. If it gets him called
> > a 'racist', it serves him right.
>
> This looks like a corroborative piece of anecdotal evidence rather
> than something intended to stand up to scientific scrutiny.
>
> > Incidentally, way back in the 1984 edition of Watson's textbook
> > "Molecular Biology of the Gene', Watson provided an exposition
> > of the 'Out of Africa' hypothesis which clearly showed that
> > (1) he understood neither the hypothesis nor the evidence for
> > it and (2) that he seemed to think that the 'primitiveness' of
> > African genes was something that exists in individuals of African
> > ancestry (as a population mean) rather than being something
> > that reflects the variety of African genetics (a population variance
> > which says nothing at all about individuals).
>
> In 84 it was possible to believe that. All that would be necessary for
> it to be true is that a gene variant that had some effect that could
> be regarded as "primitive" was unique to African populations (or do
> you mean he said *all* genes are primitive?). Do you know if he is
> still saying it in the latest edition?
AC
How would you go about promoting immigration? How would you go about
proving that an organization is still practicing some form of
discrimination?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Vend
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:25:50 -0700,
>
>
>
> Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
> > On 19 Ott, 00:02, AC <mightymartia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:26:37 -0700,
>
> >> Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
>
> >> > I'm saying that state enforced or approved racial discrimination
> >> > policies increase racial hatred.
> >> > This applies both to the Jim Crow era and the Affirmative Action era.
>
> >> So what would your solution be? I mean, if a population, due to centuries
> >> of what amounts to social and economic abuse, is now to be integrated, how
> >> do you propose to do that?
>
> > Promote integration, punish discrimination and help individuals based
> > on their needs, not their heritage.
> > If you implement race-blind policies, hopefully people will also
> > become race-blind after some time.
> > If you implement racial discriminatory policies instead, you reinforce
> > the belif that racial differences matter by giving legal dignity to
> > the social construct you should be trying to eliminate.
>
> How would you go about promoting immigration?
I don't know. It depends on many factors.
> How would you go about
> proving that an organization is still practicing some form of
> discrimination?
You can recognize and ban the most obvious manifestations, like
forcing black people to sit in the back seats of the buses.
Other forms of discrimination could be impossible to detect or to
prove.
There is basically nothing you can do about it directly. Affirmative
Action or not, if someone wants to discriminate against members of
some group, no law will prevent it.
The only thing you can do is to try to organize the society so that
racial discrimination is inefficient and educate people to be race-
blind.
> --
> Aaron Clausen
> mightymartia...@gmail.com
tgde...@earthlink.net
Speaking of perverse reasoning......
Whether intentionally or not, you are misconstruing my statement.
If there are 10 applicants for a particular slot, all equally
qualified by objective tests, and they all *know* that they are
equally qualified, then each applicant has a 1/10 chance of being
selected. But if one of the applicants is selected because she is
'black', the others will forget that they only had a 1/10 chance of
being selected anyway. This is not a problem of the policy, but of the
lack of education about simple mathematics. Your argument seems to be
that we must indulge the ignorance of white people at the expense of
black people. (BTW, I've had to explain this to black people, who
should be aware of it if anyone is. The lack of math sense is at least
one area of true equality.)
What they (and you) ignore is that there are other jobs to be had, and
that blacks are identical in qualification to those white candidates
in proportion to the two populations *at best*. If there are 9 jobs
or college slots at that level, then the person that the black
candidate is displacing is the least qualified---perhaps not by test
scores, but by some subjective measure like personal grooming that
turns off the selection group. So now we have one bias set against
another. If there were no black people, perhaps the poorly groomed
candidate would lose out to someone with a lower IQ. Where would your
outrage be then?
-tg
AC
The overthrow of the Jim Crow laws and desegregation laws and rulings were
ostensibly *the* legal methods by which segregation was to be ended, and
while they did have a positive effect, in some areas resegregation has
actually been occurring, at least as far as schools go. As well, whether
you believe it or not, many African-Americans still insist that they are
discriminated against in everything from getting loans to their treatment by
police and the judiciary.
You're right that you can't legislate people to like each other, but if
you're trying to take a traditionally economically depressed part of society
and get them to the same level, I'm just curious as to how you would do
this.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Vend
I think that 10% chance vs 0% chance is a difference significant
enough to be outraged.
Even if the difference was smaller, would you partecipate to a lottery
that you know to be rigged?
Moreover, you are ignoring two points:
1) The policy incentivates blacks and disincentivates whites to apply,
therefore it self-excalates it unfairness (the higher the black/whites
applicants ratio, the less whites are incentivated to apply, thus the
larger the ratio becomes)
2) It's highly unlikely that there will be a large number of
applicants with exactly the same qualfications. It can only
practically happen if you count them based only on strictly numerical
tests and there are a large number of applicants. In practice the
racial preference policies will be implemented by artificially
increasing the relative qualification scores of those of the preferred
group.
> This is not a problem of the policy, but of the
> lack of education about simple mathematics. Your argument seems to be
> that we must indulge the ignorance of white people at the expense of
> black people. (BTW, I've had to explain this to black people, who
> should be aware of it if anyone is. The lack of math sense is at least
> one area of true equality.)
I don't think it's a problem of ignorance.
> What they (and you) ignore is that there are other jobs to be had, and
> that blacks are identical in qualification to those white candidates
> in proportion to the two populations *at best*. If there are 9 jobs
> or college slots at that level, then the person that the black
> candidate is displacing is the least qualified
If the black candidate is more qualified than the white he or she
displaces, then no discriminatory policy was needed to produce the
outcome.
If the black is less qualified, then you have created inefficiency and
unfairness.
Please note that with the discriminatory policy in place, you get the
racial hatred even if the black candidate is more qualified, since the
whites will reasonably doubt that.
>---perhaps not by test
> scores, but by some subjective measure like personal grooming that
> turns off the selection group. So now we have one bias set against
> another. If there were no black people, perhaps the poorly groomed
> candidate would lose out to someone with a lower IQ. Where would your
> outrage be then?
>
You can't reasonably remove all biases, but this is no excuse to
introduce those you can avoid.
Vend
How?
> As well, whether
> you believe it or not, many African-Americans still insist that they are
> discriminated against in everything from getting loans to their treatment by
> police and the judiciary.
Probably some claims are true and some are exagerations or
fabrications.
Anyway, American Jim Crow regulations were in place in some forms
until 40 or so years ago, if I remeber correctly. Many people of that
time are still alive.
I think it takes at least two generations for people to lose their
racist mentality.
> You're right that you can't legislate people to like each other, but if
> you're trying to take a traditionally economically depressed part of society
> and get them to the same level, I'm just curious as to how you would do
> this.
I don't think that the goal should be getting to the same level a
traditional economical depressed part of the society.
I think that a more appropriate goal could be trying to improve the
social level of *individuals* who, traditionally or not, come from a
depressed situation.
How much it is appropriate to do so depends on where you lie in the
spectrum that has laissez-faire Capitalism at one end and Marxism at
the other end (simply speaking).
But, no matter on where you lie in that spectrum, I think that there
is no reason to implement social policies differentially based on
membership to socially constructed races.
Mark Isaak
> I haven't seen many IQ tests, but aren't they written in a simplified
> subset of the language?
I don't know about "written in," but most test vocabulary directly. And
the vocabulary section best correlates with overall score. There are a
few IQ tests which use no language at all, except for a little bit of
fairly straightforward instructions.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Vend
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:24:53 -0700, Vend wrote:
> > I haven't seen many IQ tests, but aren't they written in a simplified
> > subset of the language?
>
> I don't know about "written in," but most test vocabulary directly. And
> the vocabulary section best correlates with overall score. There are a
> few IQ tests which use no language at all, except for a little bit of
> fairly straightforward instructions.
Thanks.
*Hemidactylus*
of the applicants wear blindfolds so they can't see what each
applicant looks like so their prejudicial tendencies might play no
role in their decision making? Race need not have reality for the
concept of race to have negative effects on outgroups. Affirmative
action is at least a necessary means of forcing cultural change (ie-
integration) to be in effect until a time when racial prejudice has
dwindled to nil.
Seems to me tht people who complain the most about affirmative action
are the closeted bigots that given a choice would exclude minorities
from the workplace. Those with resentments may already harbor
prejudicial attitudes to begin with. If forced to behave in a more
equitable manner, eventually the attitudes might follow suit, perhaps
over the course of generations.
But human tendencies the way they are, even in an integrated
environment, people of different backgrounds might tend towards others
in their cultural group, so integration may have a lag effect before
people of different backgrounds are comfortable enough to fraternize
and whatnot.
I was among the first generation to go to school in a post-integration
South. I experenced the subtle tensions first hand, but having parents
from the North was ill-prepared to conceptualize what these tensions
were until much later. Even in high school there was a bit of a gulf.
Some of us crossed over in our friendships and acquaintances, but
there was a palpable tendency to stay within one's own sphere of
cultural comfort. I recall a mixed couple at the time (mid 80's). That
was still a bit of a rarity then. Nowadays there's quite a few mixed
couples out there, so that's at least one index that times have
changed.
*Hemidactylus*
yes. It is in the mind of the beholder. But it's this very social
construction that causes the beholders with the power to do so to hold
down those they perceive as belonging to said socially constructed
group. In order to combat this tendency, one must implement a policy
that protects individuals who would potentially be discriminated
against by the people in power from said discrimination, though said
disrimination is based on flawed categorization.
AC
Because these populations are still economically behind the norm, and in
effect, wealthier white families are moving out. The effect is an economic
segregation.
>
>> As well, whether
>> you believe it or not, many African-Americans still insist that they are
>> discriminated against in everything from getting loans to their treatment by
>> police and the judiciary.
>
> Probably some claims are true and some are exagerations or
> fabrications.
> Anyway, American Jim Crow regulations were in place in some forms
> until 40 or so years ago, if I remeber correctly. Many people of that
> time are still alive.
> I think it takes at least two generations for people to lose their
> racist mentality.
So you're response is "Don't worry, maybe all the white bigots will be gone
in a couple of generations"?
>
>> You're right that you can't legislate people to like each other, but if
>> you're trying to take a traditionally economically depressed part of society
>> and get them to the same level, I'm just curious as to how you would do
>> this.
>
> I don't think that the goal should be getting to the same level a
> traditional economical depressed part of the society.
And why not? That was certainly a pretty substantial goal in Great Britain
after the middle of the 19th century.
>
> I think that a more appropriate goal could be trying to improve the
> social level of *individuals* who, traditionally or not, come from a
> depressed situation.
> How much it is appropriate to do so depends on where you lie in the
> spectrum that has laissez-faire Capitalism at one end and Marxism at
> the other end (simply speaking).
> But, no matter on where you lie in that spectrum, I think that there
> is no reason to implement social policies differentially based on
> membership to socially constructed races.
You're really short an answers, and that's fine. It strikes me that others
who don't like these sorts of programs aren't exactly heavy on real
solutions.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Vend
> >> The overthrow of the Jim Crow laws and desegregation laws and rulings were
> >> ostensibly *the* legal methods by which segregation was to be ended, and
> >> while they did have a positive effect, in some areas resegregation has
> >> actually been occurring, at least as far as schools go.
>
> > How?
>
> Because these populations are still economically behind the norm, and in
> effect, wealthier white families are moving out. The effect is an economic
> segregation.
Thus it's not a racial segregation, but an economic one and it just
happens that blacks are on average poorer and get more of it.
So why don't address it on an economical basis rather than a racial
one?
Or does a poor black have more right to live in a good neighboorhood
than a poor white?
> >> As well, whether
> >> you believe it or not, many African-Americans still insist that they are
> >> discriminated against in everything from getting loans to their treatment by
> >> police and the judiciary.
>
> > Probably some claims are true and some are exagerations or
> > fabrications.
> > Anyway, American Jim Crow regulations were in place in some forms
> > until 40 or so years ago, if I remeber correctly. Many people of that
> > time are still alive.
> > I think it takes at least two generations for people to lose their
> > racist mentality.
>
> So you're response is "Don't worry, maybe all the white bigots will be gone
> in a couple of generations"?
No. My response is that it takes *at least* two generations.
It could takes more or it could never happen depending on the social
environment.
> >> You're right that you can't legislate people to like each other, but if
> >> you're trying to take a traditionally economically depressed part of society
> >> and get them to the same level, I'm just curious as to how you would do
> >> this.
>
> > I don't think that the goal should be getting to the same level a
> > traditional economical depressed part of the society.
>
> And why not?
Because i think that's better to address problems of individual people
on an individual basis rather than according to their membership to a
social constructed group.
> That was certainly a pretty substantial goal in Great Britain
> after the middle of the 19th century.
Who cares?
> > I think that a more appropriate goal could be trying to improve the
> > social level of *individuals* who, traditionally or not, come from a
> > depressed situation.
> > How much it is appropriate to do so depends on where you lie in the
> > spectrum that has laissez-faire Capitalism at one end and Marxism at
> > the other end (simply speaking).
> > But, no matter on where you lie in that spectrum, I think that there
> > is no reason to implement social policies differentially based on
> > membership to socially constructed races.
>
> You're really short an answers, and that's fine. It strikes me that others
> who don't like these sorts of programs aren't exactly heavy on real
> solutions.
Sorry if I don't think that there is a magical silver buller solution.
> --
> Aaron Clausen
> mightymartia...@gmail.com
Vend
Ok.
> In order to combat this tendency, one must implement a policy
> that protects individuals who would potentially be discriminated
> against by the people in power from said discrimination, though said
> disrimination is based on flawed categorization.
Ok, but it depends on what do you mean by 'protect'.
*Hemidactylus*
> Occidental wrote:
>
> > You could look at Sweden, then at Senegal or Swaziland, or Tanzania,
> > or Kenya or.. or the latest mess created by black ineptitude,
> > Zimbabwe.
>
>
> Bush is white AND American, I guess we know who the world's true
> idiots are.
>
Well his stubborn refusal to listen to others sometimes has its
upside. His recent behavior concering honoring of the Dalai Lama
regardless of what the tainted dog food ingrediant and lead paint
child toy slinging Chinese say is at least worth some positive
regard.
We've managed to piss off the Chinese (regarding the Dalai Lama) and
the Turks (regarding the Armenian genocide) within roughly the same
week. I call that progress.
This while Putin courts Iranian Holocaust denier nuclear nutcase guy.
John Wilkins
board has repudiated his views. However, nobody has made the *obvious*
argument: this proves that genetics is racist and it is therefore
false...
Occidental <Occid...@comcast.net> wrote:
> "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual
> capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution
> should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal
> powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be
> enough to make it so."
>
> ========================================================
>
> Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than
> Westerners
> Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social
> policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as
> ours - whereas all the testing says not really"
> By Cahal Milmo
> Published: 17 October 2007
>
...
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
Mujin
news:1192725737.1...@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
> On 18 Ott, 16:21, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
>> "Esa Riihonen" <e...@riihonen.net.INVALID> wrote in
>> messagenews:pan.2007.10.18...@riihonen.net.INVALID...
>> > On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:19:50 +0000, John Harshman wrote:
>>
>> > 8<
>>
>> >> I was wondering if these various African IQ tests were
>> >> administered in the subjects' native languages, by native
>> >> speakers. This seems fairly unlikely to me. Which leads me to
>> >> wonder how well most readers of this would do on an IQ test
>> >> administered in Xhosa.
>>
>> > There was a story I read from somewhere (a newspaper article
>> > perhaps) several years ago. I have not been able to locate the
>> > source of it, so I can't comment on the correctedness of the report
>> > or how garbled it has become in my fuzzy brain during all these
>> > years. Perhaps someone on the group can identify the probable
>> > origin of the story and whether it has any validity at all.
>>
>> > As far as I recall it went something like this:
>>
>> > There had been a study researching the conceptual thinking
>> > capabilities of different peoples (perhaps in 1930's or 50's for
>> > all I remember). The method was to ask the people to arrange some
>> > common tools in categories. The idea was that you would place say,
>> > forks and pitchforks etc. in one category, spoons and spades in
>> > another, and so on. This would then reveal the ability for
>> > conceptual thinking. Especially one tribe (in Africa?) stood out as
>> > lacking the ability, they would place tools together according to
>> > the use, those used for cooking were together, those for raising
>> > crops in another, ...
>>
>> > Later (in 1980's?), someone wanted to check the result. She (for
>> > some reason I think this researcher was female) remade the study
>> > with the tribe - and with a similar outcome. She (perhaps not being
>> > too happy with the result) then proceeded with a new question 'how
>> > would a _child_ arrange these objects?' And then she got the
>> > 'conceptual' categorization.
>>
>> Thanks. A wonderful anecdote. I would also be interested in a link
>> to a true source. The story almost seems too good to be true.
>
> I don't understand the relevance of this story.
> Tool classification is clearly dependent on their usage, principle of
> action and history (which is reflected in their names). All of those
> are culture and education dependent.
The point of the story (which I think is apocryphal) is that the original
testers thought that the "only" logical way to sort the tools was obvious,
and that whether or not one was able to sort them that way was a reasonable
way to measure intelligence. That the people tested didn't sort them the
way the testers believed was the only reasonable way led them to conclude
that the tribe's members were unusually stupid. The second attempt to use
the same test led to the realization that while the testers' sorting method
was good, other logical methods of sorting were possible and the poor
performance of the tribespeople on their test had more to do with their
disagreement as to what constituted a *useful* sorting system than with the
intelligence of the subjects.
The point seems obvious to us, but go back the right number of decades and
you can find all sorts of cases where people "knew" there was a single
right way to do things, and naturally we were the only ones who did it that
way.
>
> This test looks like asking a non-programmer to arrange computer
> programs.
>
Vend
> On Oct 18, 6:25 pm, Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
>
> > On 19 Ott, 00:02, AC <mightymartia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:26:37 -0700,
>
> > > Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
>
> > > > I'm saying that state enforced or approved racial discrimination
> > > > policies increase racial hatred.
> > > > This applies both to the Jim Crow era and the Affirmative Action era.
>
> > > So what would your solution be? I mean, if a population, due to centuries
> > > of what amounts to social and economic abuse, is now to be integrated, how
> > > do you propose to do that?
>
> > Promote integration, punish discrimination and help individuals based
> > on their needs, not their heritage.
> > If you implement race-blind policies, hopefully people will also
> > become race-blind after some time.
> > If you implement racial discriminatory policies instead, you reinforce
> > the belif that racial differences matter by giving legal dignity to
> > the social construct you should be trying to eliminate.
>
> What's a "race-blind" policy? Do the people conducting the interview
> of the applicants wear blindfolds so they can't see what each
> applicant looks like so their prejudicial tendencies might play no
> role in their decision making? Race need not have reality for the
> concept of race to have negative effects on outgroups.
You can't avoid people from discriminating people that they see.
But you can ban asking 'race' on application forms, for instance.
> Affirmative
> action is at least a necessary means of forcing cultural change (ie-
> integration) to be in effect until a time when racial prejudice has
> dwindled to nil.
Affermative action is unable to counter the racism guy that hires you.
If he doesn't want you to get the job you won't get it. Even in the
most extreme forms of racial preferences, like quotas, the guy that is
forced to hire you will use you as a 'token' without giving you the
opportunity to do anything.
And it will not reduce racial prejudice, on the contrary I think it
will increase it.
Some people will think that it's ok to discriminate against blacks
because they are given a compensation anyway.
> Seems to me tht people who complain the most about affirmative action
> are the closeted bigots that given a choice would exclude minorities
> from the workplace. Those with resentments may already harbor
> prejudicial attitudes to begin with.
Obviously racists complain about it, but who cares?
If something it's wrong, the fact that "people we don't like" say that
it's wrong doesn't make it any less wrong.
> If forced to behave in a more
> equitable manner, eventually the attitudes might follow suit, perhaps
> over the course of generations.
You can't really force them to behave in an equitable manner, they
will minimally comply with the rules and find some loophole to
discriminate.
And Affermative action gives them lots of excuses to do so.
> But human tendencies the way they are, even in an integrated
> environment, people of different backgrounds might tend towards others
> in their cultural group, so integration may have a lag effect before
> people of different backgrounds are comfortable enough to fraternize
> and whatnot.
>
> I was among the first generation to go to school in a post-integration
> South. I experenced the subtle tensions first hand, but having parents
> from the North was ill-prepared to conceptualize what these tensions
> were until much later. Even in high school there was a bit of a gulf.
> Some of us crossed over in our friendships and acquaintances, but
> there was a palpable tendency to stay within one's own sphere of
> cultural comfort. I recall a mixed couple at the time (mid 80's). That
> was still a bit of a rarity then. Nowadays there's quite a few mixed
> couples out there, so that's at least one index that times have
> changed.
There is no need to make all the cultural differences go away.
The point is making people to treat each other with respect and
fairness.
John Harshman
> On 18 Ott, 03:19, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
>>AC wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:56:49 -0700,
>>>Occidental <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>>>On Oct 17, 6:27 pm, "Dysdiadochokinesia" <squishybrains...@nomail.com>
>>>>wrote:
>>
>>>>>"Occidental" <Occiden...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>
>>>>>>if we cannot make
>>>>>>the a priori assumption of identical aggregate intellectual capacity
>>>>>>in the different groups in US society, then we have no business basing
>>>>>>educational and employment policy on that assumption, have we?
>>
>>>>>This is just silly. We don't make any policy based on the 'aggregate
>>>>>intellectual capacity' of any groups whatsoever.
>>
>>>>The question is - should we?
>>
>>>First you would have to actually demonstrate that intellectual capacity is
>>>somehow differentiated. The evidence is pretty clear that there is no such
>>>difference, that modern human populations are incredibly closely related and
>>>that the differences that we perceive as "racial" are really quite small.
>>
>>Notably, the average genetic difference between unrelated people is
>>about 0.1%. Something like 80% of this difference can be found within
>>single villages, leaving just 20% of 0.1% to account for
>>between-population differences. And by far the majority of this
>>diversity is found in populations *within* Africa. All the rest of the
>>world is less genetically diverse, being only a small sample of African
>>genetic variation. And human genetic variation is unusually low as
>>species go.
>
>
> But humans are also a small sample of ape genetic variation. Yet
> humans are more intelligent than any other living ape.
That would be nice if indeed African genetic variation did not encompass
European variation. Whatever is found in Europe is also found in Africa,
though the reverse is not true.
>>This is what makes the claim silliest, the idea that there is such a
>>thing as "African" genetically. Yoruba are more different from Hausa or
>>Mandinka than any of them is from Europeans.
>
>
> Ok.
>
>
>>Another important problem is that human populations have not generally
>>been isolated from gene flow. Even America and Asia have been exchanging
>>genes since people got here.
>
>
> Ok.
> But it's undeniable that average genetic differences exist between
> geograhic and ethnic groups, and those differences significatively
> affect some phenotypical traits.
> Swedes are, on average, taller than Japanese.
> African-Americans are, on average, darker than European-Americans.
> Etc.
>
> Group averages differ for many observable traits, although for some
> traits group differences are smaller than individual differences.
> So, why should we expect no differences in intellectual performance?
The question is why we should expect differences. The differences
between populations are in a small number of traits compared to the
differences within populations. The fact that we happen to notice and
fixate on some of these few population differences inflates their
perceived importance. So if you were considering intelligence and
looking among all traits, rather than just the few we think about when
noticing "race", to find a model for its variation, you would most often
come to the conclusion that variation is not distributed by "race".
And what race? There is no "African" race. There is, like I said, a host
of African populations that differ from each other more than they differ
from Europeans. You may not notice this because they all tend to share
one major characteristic: they are all much darker than you presumably
are. One simple and convergent trait shared by tropical people worldwide.
>>>What has become evident from study is that the perceived intellectual
>>>failings of groups is almost inevitably due to economic factors, and it is
>>>that that people, at least in the West, have been trying to address rather
>>>than furthering Victorian stereotypes.
>>
>>I was wondering if these various African IQ tests were administered in
>>the subjects' native languages, by native speakers. This seems fairly
>>unlikely to me. Which leads me to wonder how well most readers of this
>>would do on an IQ test administered in Xhosa.
>
>
> I haven't seen many IQ tests, but aren't they written in a simplified
> subset of the language?
>
What language? Would you do well on a test written in a simplified
subset of Xhosa?
Dysdiadochokinesia
There is an excellent reason to do that, which is that those socially
constructed races form the basis of the past and current injustices that
have produced the inequality.
Dysdiadochokinesia
> On 19 Ott, 04:47, AC <mightymartia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> The overthrow of the Jim Crow laws and desegregation laws and rulings
>> >> were
>> >> ostensibly *the* legal methods by which segregation was to be ended,
>> >> and
>> >> while they did have a positive effect, in some areas resegregation has
>> >> actually been occurring, at least as far as schools go.
>>
>> > How?
>>
>> Because these populations are still economically behind the norm, and in
>> effect, wealthier white families are moving out. The effect is an
>> economic
>> segregation.
>
> Thus it's not a racial segregation, but an economic one and it just
> happens that blacks are on average poorer and get more of it.
You think that "just so happens?"
> So why don't address it on an economical basis rather than a racial
> one?
Because the economic problem is caused by the racial issue, of course.
AC
Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
> On 19 Ott, 04:47, AC <mightymartia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> The overthrow of the Jim Crow laws and desegregation laws and rulings were
>> >> ostensibly *the* legal methods by which segregation was to be ended, and
>> >> while they did have a positive effect, in some areas resegregation has
>> >> actually been occurring, at least as far as schools go.
>>
>> > How?
>>
>> Because these populations are still economically behind the norm, and in
>> effect, wealthier white families are moving out. The effect is an economic
>> segregation.
>
> Thus it's not a racial segregation, but an economic one and it just
> happens that blacks are on average poorer and get more of it.
> So why don't address it on an economical basis rather than a racial
> one?
Because, oddly enough, it matches up pretty well with perceived racial
distinctions.
>
> Or does a poor black have more right to live in a good neighboorhood
> than a poor white?
Was this supposed to be a response?
>
>> >> As well, whether
>> >> you believe it or not, many African-Americans still insist that they are
>> >> discriminated against in everything from getting loans to their treatment by
>> >> police and the judiciary.
>>
>> > Probably some claims are true and some are exagerations or
>> > fabrications.
>> > Anyway, American Jim Crow regulations were in place in some forms
>> > until 40 or so years ago, if I remeber correctly. Many people of that
>> > time are still alive.
>> > I think it takes at least two generations for people to lose their
>> > racist mentality.
>>
>> So you're response is "Don't worry, maybe all the white bigots will be gone
>> in a couple of generations"?
>
> No. My response is that it takes *at least* two generations.
> It could takes more or it could never happen depending on the social
> environment.
So what steps do we take to modify the social environment?
>
>> >> You're right that you can't legislate people to like each other, but if
>> >> you're trying to take a traditionally economically depressed part of society
>> >> and get them to the same level, I'm just curious as to how you would do
>> >> this.
>>
>> > I don't think that the goal should be getting to the same level a
>> > traditional economical depressed part of the society.
>>
>> And why not?
>
> Because i think that's better to address problems of individual people
> on an individual basis rather than according to their membership to a
> social constructed group.
>
>> That was certainly a pretty substantial goal in Great Britain
>> after the middle of the 19th century.
>
> Who cares?
Was this supposed to be an intelligble response? I give you a historical
example, and this is what I get in return. YOu know better than to try to
foist that sort of silliness on to me.
>
>> > I think that a more appropriate goal could be trying to improve the
>> > social level of *individuals* who, traditionally or not, come from a
>> > depressed situation.
>> > How much it is appropriate to do so depends on where you lie in the
>> > spectrum that has laissez-faire Capitalism at one end and Marxism at
>> > the other end (simply speaking).
>> > But, no matter on where you lie in that spectrum, I think that there
>> > is no reason to implement social policies differentially based on
>> > membership to socially constructed races.
>>
>> You're really short an answers, and that's fine. It strikes me that others
>> who don't like these sorts of programs aren't exactly heavy on real
>> solutions.
>
> Sorry if I don't think that there is a magical silver buller solution.
And neither does anybody else. The goal is to try to turn the ship around,
not to fuck with white people.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
AC
Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
>
> You can't really force them to behave in an equitable manner, they
> will minimally comply with the rules and find some loophole to
> discriminate.
People do that with all sorts of regulations.
>
> And Affermative action gives them lots of excuses to do so.
Could you provide some examples?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Robert Carnegie
accused as a troll or Loki - hailed this as further evidence of the
racist basis of Darwinism, that this leading Darwinist Watson showed
his true colours on race.
I think it's usually feminists who argue against the genetic theory
per se?
Robert Carnegie
> board has repudiated his views. However, nobody has made the *obvious*
> argument: this proves that genetics is racist and it is therefore
> false...
Oh, and I'll see yer Cold Spring Harbor and raise ya the Bristol
Festival of Ideas, which I can't swear I heard of before.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7052416.stm
(I take it that's the major slave-trade port, Bristol.)
Vend
wrote:
> > But humans are also a small sample of ape genetic variation. Yet
> > humans are more intelligent than any other living ape.
>
> That would be nice if indeed African genetic variation did not encompass
> European variation. Whatever is found in Europe is also found in Africa,
> though the reverse is not true.
You know about genetics more than me, but I find this difficult to
belive.
Can you find people with blue eyes in Sub-Saharian Africa (excluding
albinos and descendents of recent European immigrants)? I guess there
must be some, but probably the trait is so rare that it can be said to
be absent.
"Race" is a socially constructed class based on few very visible
physical traits, like skin color and facial features, plus cultural
traits, like native language and clothing style.
Is it possible that other not directly visible traits correlate with
"race"?
I think I heard that this is the case for various traits like blood
types and genetic predisposition to diseases.
> And what race? There is no "African" race. There is, like I said, a host
> of African populations that differ from each other more than they differ
> from Europeans. You may not notice this because they all tend to share
> one major characteristic: they are all much darker than you presumably
> are. One simple and convergent trait shared by tropical people worldwide.
I know that. For instance, I have trouble distinghuishing between
Japanese and Koreans, while I can usually distinghuish between Northen
and Southern Europeans. Several Japanese and Korean people I know can
distinghuish each others but have trouble distinghuishing Europeans.
> >>>What has become evident from study is that the perceived intellectual
> >>>failings of groups is almost inevitably due to economic factors, and it is
> >>>that that people, at least in the West, have been trying to address rather
> >>>than furthering Victorian stereotypes.
>
> >>I was wondering if these various African IQ tests were administered in
> >>the subjects' native languages, by native speakers. This seems fairly
> >>unlikely to me. Which leads me to wonder how well most readers of this
> >>would do on an IQ test administered in Xhosa.
>
> > I haven't seen many IQ tests, but aren't they written in a simplified
> > subset of the language?
>
> What language? Would you do well on a test written in a simplified
> subset of Xhosa?
Obviously I would be able to take a test only in a language I
understand.
But if the language is keept simple, I might do well even if the test
is in a language I'm not very proficient in.
Vend
wrote:
> "Vend" <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote in message
>
> news:1192765742.2...@y27g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > On 19 Ott, 04:47, AC <mightymartia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> The overthrow of the Jim Crow laws and desegregation laws and rulings
> >> >> were
> >> >> ostensibly *the* legal methods by which segregation was to be ended,
> >> >> and
> >> >> while they did have a positive effect, in some areas resegregation has
> >> >> actually been occurring, at least as far as schools go.
>
> >> > How?
>
> >> Because these populations are still economically behind the norm, and in
> >> effect, wealthier white families are moving out. The effect is an
> >> economic
> >> segregation.
>
> > Thus it's not a racial segregation, but an economic one and it just
> > happens that blacks are on average poorer and get more of it.
>
> You think that "just so happens?"
Racial discrimination caused blacks to be poorer than the average, but
if you want to help the poor, why restrict to blacks?
> > So why don't address it on an economical basis rather than a racial
> > one?
>
> Because the economic problem is caused by the racial issue, of course.
But it would be easier, more fair and more efficient to address it
directly rather than indirectly through racial issues, that correlate
imperfectly with it.
Vend
> > Thus it's not a racial segregation, but an economic one and it just
> > happens that blacks are on average poorer and get more of it.
> > So why don't address it on an economical basis rather than a racial
> > one?
>
> Because, oddly enough, it matches up pretty well with perceived racial
> distinctions.
But it doesn't mach exactly, and it is more efficient and very much
more fair to address the problem on an economic basis.
> > Or does a poor black have more right to live in a good neighboorhood
> > than a poor white?
>
> Was this supposed to be a response?
Yes.
> > No. My response is that it takes *at least* two generations.
> > It could takes more or it could never happen depending on the social
> > environment.
>
> So what steps do we take to modify the social environment?
Already said in previous posts.
> >> >> You're right that you can't legislate people to like each other, but if
> >> >> you're trying to take a traditionally economically depressed part of society
> >> >> and get them to the same level, I'm just curious as to how you would do
> >> >> this.
>
> >> > I don't think that the goal should be getting to the same level a
> >> > traditional economical depressed part of the society.
>
> >> And why not?
>
> > Because i think that's better to address problems of individual people
> > on an individual basis rather than according to their membership to a
> > social constructed group.
>
> >> That was certainly a pretty substantial goal in Great Britain
> >> after the middle of the 19th century.
>
> > Who cares?
>
> Was this supposed to be an intelligble response? I give you a historical
> example, and this is what I get in return. YOu know better than to try to
> foist that sort of silliness on to me.
You gave an historical example of a country that was extremely racist
at that time. Why should it be copied?
> >> > I think that a more appropriate goal could be trying to improve the
> >> > social level of *individuals* who, traditionally or not, come from a
> >> > depressed situation.
> >> > How much it is appropriate to do so depends on where you lie in the
> >> > spectrum that has laissez-faire Capitalism at one end and Marxism at
> >> > the other end (simply speaking).
> >> > But, no matter on where you lie in that spectrum, I think that there
> >> > is no reason to implement social policies differentially based on
> >> > membership to socially constructed races.
>
> >> You're really short an answers, and that's fine. It strikes me that others
> >> who don't like these sorts of programs aren't exactly heavy on real
> >> solutions.
>
> > Sorry if I don't think that there is a magical silver buller solution.
>
> And neither does anybody else. The goal is to try to turn the ship around,
> not to fuck with white people.
Turning the ship towards the cliff is worse than keeping it drifting
away.
> --
> Aaron Clausen
> mightymartia...@gmail.com
Vend
Already did.
Walter Bushell
Occidental <Occid...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than
> Westerners
> Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social
> policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as
> ours - whereas all the testing says not really"
> By Cahal Milmo
> Published: 17 October 2007
Given the number of well to do Americans bilked out of tens if not
thousands of dollars by Nigerians that thesis is hard to support.
AC
Vend <ven...@virgilio.it> wrote:
> On 19 Ott, 07:06, AC <mightymartia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Thus it's not a racial segregation, but an economic one and it just
>> > happens that blacks are on average poorer and get more of it.
>> > So why don't address it on an economical basis rather than a racial
>> > one?
>>
>> Because, oddly enough, it matches up pretty well with perceived racial
>> distinctions.
>
> But it doesn't mach exactly, and it is more efficient and very much
> more fair to address the problem on an economic basis.
We're talking about a group disproportionately in lower economic
circumstances, and how does this help them?
>
>> > Or does a poor black have more right to live in a good neighboorhood
>> > than a poor white?
>>
>> Was this supposed to be a response?
>
> Yes.
To what exactly?
>
>> > No. My response is that it takes *at least* two generations.
>> > It could takes more or it could never happen depending on the social
>> > environment.
>>
>> So what steps do we take to modify the social environment?
>
> Already said in previous posts.
Really? I saw some of the typical vague statements, but no concrete steps.
>
>> >> >> You're right that you can't legislate people to like each other, but if
>> >> >> you're trying to take a traditionally economically depressed part of society
>> >> >> and get them to the same level, I'm just curious as to how you would do
>> >> >> this.
>>
>> >> > I don't think that the goal should be getting to the same level a
>> >> > traditional economical depressed part of the society.
>>
>> >> And why not?
>>
>> > Because i think that's better to address problems of individual people
>> > on an individual basis rather than according to their membership to a
>> > social constructed group.
>>
>> >> That was certainly a pretty substantial goal in Great Britain
>> >> after the middle of the 19th century.
>>
>> > Who cares?
>>
>> Was this supposed to be an intelligble response? I give you a historical
>> example, and this is what I get in return. YOu know better than to try to
>> foist that sort of silliness on to me.
>
> You gave an historical example of a country that was extremely racist
> at that time. Why should it be copied?
Do you even follow what I'm talking about here? England was a highly
stratified society with very poor people in it, and the Victorians, knowing
that this was causing severe social problems, tried to fix things. Some of
their solutions didn't work, but in the end, it did cause upward mobility.
What exactly does racism have to do with that?
>
>> >> > I think that a more appropriate goal could be trying to improve the
>> >> > social level of *individuals* who, traditionally or not, come from a
>> >> > depressed situation.
>> >> > How much it is appropriate to do so depends on where you lie in the
>> >> > spectrum that has laissez-faire Capitalism at one end and Marxism at
>> >> > the other end (simply speaking).
>> >> > But, no matter on where you lie in that spectrum, I think that there
>> >> > is no reason to implement social policies differentially based on
>> >> > membership to socially constructed races.
>>
>> >> You're really short an answers, and that's fine. It strikes me that others
>> >> who don't like these sorts of programs aren't exactly heavy on real
>> >> solutions.
>>
>> > Sorry if I don't think that there is a magical silver buller solution.
>>
>> And neither does anybody else. The goal is to try to turn the ship around,
>> not to fuck with white people.
>
> Turning the ship towards the cliff is worse than keeping it drifting
> away.
I have yet to see any vast numbers of white people being disenfranchised
here. If you've got some statistics, then by all means provide them.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Walter Bushell
Esa Riihonen <e...@riihonen.net.INVALID> wrote:
> Especially one tribe (in Africa?)
> stood out as lacking the ability, they would place tools together
> according to the use, those used for cooking were together, those for
> raising crops in another, ...
I might do that. Of course, I dropped out of school with only a Master's
in Mathematics so my abstract reasoning ability might be questioned.
Walter Bushell
Jeffrey Turner <jtu...@localnet.com> wrote:
> Occidental wrote:
> >
> >
> > You could look at Sweden, then at Senegal or Swaziland, or Tanzania,
> > or Kenya or.. or the latest mess created by black ineptitude,
> > Zimbabwe.
>
> How about the latest mess created by white ineptitude, Iraq?
>
> Bush is white AND American, I guess we know who the world's true
> idiots are.
>
> --Jeff
And I would take a Wild Assumed Guess that most of the people taken in
by the Nigerian scams are "white".
Robert Carnegie
Depends. Do more white people have e-mail?
Incidentally, how much of that stuff really comes from anywhere near
Nigeria? I presume they had a subsidised postal system at one point.
But I also believe it's what used to be called "The Spanish
Prisoner". I've had e-mails describing the cash stashed in a central
American location...
pinkh...@yahoo.com
> On 18 Oct 2007 00:29:28 -0700,
>
> Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> > Occidental wrote:
> >> "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual
> >> capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution
> >> should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal
> >> powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be
> >> enough to make it so."
>
> > "evolution" (in biological terms) while geographically separated.
>
> It also begs the question of whether "race" asWatsonseems to think it even
> exists as such. Those studying humans, or really any species, think in
> terms of populations, not in terms of the oversimplified and in many cases
> completely incorrect categories that modern racists have essentially
> inherited from their Victorian counterparts (who at least had the partial
> excuse of not knowing any better).
>
> As John Harshman has pointed out, and as someone likeWatsonought to know
> (unless he has truly been out of the loop for a helluva long time), there is
> no "negro" race, no "black" man. Africa has the highest number of
> genetically diverse populations of human beings of any landmass out there,
> and even those are very closely related, but relatively more diverse than
> what is found outside of Africa. As well, as John points out, genes have
> been travelling back forth during this whole time, and it doesn't take much
> for populations to remain very closely related, all it takes is neighboring
> populations interbreeding (and, in what is something of a cliche now,
> there's one thing that humans do, and that's have sex).
>
> There's nothing "evolutionarily" invalid about saying that some populations
> of any given species might be, on some scale, more or less intelligent than
> others, it's just that that's not how it has worked out for humans, because
> we are all so closely related, and many of those alleged differences were
> due in large part to economic and social conditions (poor diets can effect
> intellectual capabilities), so unlessWatsonis some sort of Lamarckian,
> these sure aren't genetic in nature.
>
> --
> Aaron Clausen
> mightymartia...@gmail.com
Hmmmm. Problem is that humans and lorikeets can both be "divided"
into races. Why? Because "race" - with or without the quotes - is a
step towards speciation. It would be Victorian to think otherwise.
It seems odd that people who probable aren't qualified to make
his(Watson) tea should talk about his unscientific behaviour.
Will in New Haven
>
> - Show quoted text -
It is very odd, however, that Watson seems to be ignoring the
scientific evidence about races. The genetic markers and the divisions
of humanity into which the markers group us do NOT map to the races
that people usually discuss. Within Africa there is more genetic
variation than in the rest of the world combined. There is race but it
isn't the race that people think they see. The total genetic distance
within the human species, and the amount of time that has passed since
the first two significant migrations out of Africa, mean that these
steps toward speciation, while real, have been very tiny. I am not
qualified to make Watson's tea on a great many subjects but my
information is correct on this, even though it is not based on any
original research of mine.
Will in New Haven
AC
pinkh...@yahoo.com <pinkh...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hmmmm. Problem is that humans and lorikeets can both be "divided"
> into races. Why? Because "race" - with or without the quotes - is a
> step towards speciation. It would be Victorian to think otherwise.
> It seems odd that people who probable aren't qualified to make
> his(Watson) tea should talk about his unscientific behaviour.
Why should race be any more a step towards speciation than blue eyes or a
hitchhiker's thumb?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
pinkh...@yahoo.com
> Why should race be any more a step towards speciation than blue eyes or a
> hitchhiker's thumb?
>
> --
> Aaron Clausen
You are fixated on the notion, it seems to me, that humans are an
exception to the evolutionary rules. This is something that Darwin
(and Wallace etc) had to put up with from the Victorian clergy. I
don't know why blue eyes, or a hitchhikers thumb or a scarlet
lorrikeet or a rainbow coloured lorrikeet are the way they are. Race
in animalia appears to be a step towards speciation whether you or I
like it or not. If you think humans are different, please say why and
offer proof. You are saying that humans ARE different from the rest
of the animal kingdom, aren't you?
Cheers
Will in New Haven
Well, I'm not. However, _human breeding populations are not isolated_
or even nearly isolated. The number of generations since the first
migration across southern Asia to Australia, let alone the second one
into the Middle East, has not been enough to produce any great
progress toward speciation. We are one species and we don't choose our
mates by asking for genetic markers. Mostly, males look for big tits
and females look for money.
Will in New Haven
--
"I think I'll find a pair of eyes tonight, to fall into
and maybe strike a deal
Your body for my soul, fair swap
`cause cheap is how I feel" Micheal Timmins "Cause Cheap is How I
Feel"
Cowboy Junkies
AC
pinkh...@yahoo.com <pinkh...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Why should race be any more a step towards speciation than blue eyes or a
>> hitchhiker's thumb?
>>
>> --
>> Aaron Clausen
>> mightymartia...@gmail.com
>
> You are fixated on the notion, it seems to me, that humans are an
> exception to the evolutionary rules.
That's nonsense.
> This is something that Darwin
> (and Wallace etc) had to put up with from the Victorian clergy. I
> don't know why blue eyes, or a hitchhikers thumb or a scarlet
> lorrikeet or a rainbow coloured lorrikeet are the way they are. Race
> in animalia appears to be a step towards speciation whether you or I
> like it or not. If you think humans are different, please say why and
> offer proof. You are saying that humans ARE different from the rest
> of the animal kingdom, aren't you?
You're mixing two different terms here. Normally, race isn't even used to
describe various related populations. As to humans, those physical features
which common "wisdom" calls race are not, in fact, reasonable genetic
demarcations of human populations. For instance, the common Victorian view
was that all sub-Saharan Africans were a "race", which has since been
demonstrated to be a lot of rot, and that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest
amount of genetic diversity, and could be said to have several "races".
Frankly, I think the word "race" has so much baggage attached to it that
it's worthless.
Since you've created a strawman of what I'm saying, what proof could I
offer? It's my job to defend my opinions, not to defend your cariacatures
of my opinions.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
AC
Will in New Haven <bill....@taylorandfrancis.com> wrote:
> On Oct 24, 8:38 pm, pinkharr...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> > Why should race be any more a step towards speciation than blue eyes or a
>> > hitchhiker's thumb?
>>
>> > --
>> > Aaron Clausen
>> > mightymartia...@gmail.com
>>
>> You are fixated on the notion, it seems to me, that humans are an
>> exception to the evolutionary rules. This is something that Darwin
>> (and Wallace etc) had to put up with from the Victorian clergy. I
>> don't know why blue eyes, or a hitchhikers thumb or a scarlet
>> lorrikeet or a rainbow coloured lorrikeet are the way they are. Race
>> in animalia appears to be a step towards speciation whether you or I
>> like it or not. If you think humans are different, please say why and
>> offer proof. You are saying that humans ARE different from the rest
>> of the animal kingdom, aren't you
>
> Well, I'm not. However, _human breeding populations are not isolated_
> or even nearly isolated. The number of generations since the first
> migration across southern Asia to Australia, let alone the second one
> into the Middle East, has not been enough to produce any great
> progress toward speciation. We are one species and we don't choose our
> mates by asking for genetic markers. Mostly, males look for big tits
> and females look for money.
Indeed, it has long been the observations that sailors will copulate with
any woman they across. Populations encountering each other will do one of
two things, or usually both, and that's try to kill each other and try to
have sex with each other.
As I have said previously, there's nothing, theoretically, to say that
Watson's observation might not be right (in theory). Evolution certainly
could have produced various human populations with differing intellectual
capabilities. Imagine if Flores Man still survived. He (or she) would be
pretty damned smart, but would likely not have the cognitive capacity of H.
sapiens.
What happened in humans is that our closest Hominid relations all croaked
(maybe Neandertals were helped into oblivion), and what was left was a
rather homogenous group of H. sapiens populations, all remarkably closely
related, and there hasn't yet been sufficient time or genetic isolation for
anything approaching a speciation event. The longest isolation I know of
was the Tasmanian Aboriginals, who were cut off from Australia by rising sea
levels about 10,000 years ago. Even Native Americans were exposed to Old
World genes by the circumpolar migrations of the Inuit around 6000 years
ago.
I simply cannot see how, from a genetic standpoint, anyone can argue that
the "races" as they are commonly perceived are indications of some future
speciation event. Those sets of morphological feature we call "races" are
really nothing more than local variation, and I've heard it said that any
feature you can find anywhere else in the world can be found in Africa.
Nothing in what I have said should be construed as a claim that humans are
somehow immune from evolution, and I have no idea how the poster we're
replying to ever got that from what I wrote.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Inez
> On 19 Ott, 06:27, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
> > > But humans are also a small sample of ape genetic variation. Yet
> > > humans are more intelligent than any other living ape.
>
> > That would be nice if indeed African genetic variation did not encompass
> > European variation. Whatever is found in Europe is also found in Africa,
> > though the reverse is not true.
>
> You know about genetics more than me, but I find this difficult to
> belive.
> Can you find people with blue eyes in Sub-Saharian Africa (excluding
> albinos and descendents of recent European immigrants)? I guess there
> must be some, but probably the trait is so rare that it can be said to
> be absent.
>
layer of brown over the blue or else there isn't. I don't know where
green eyes come from.
Vend
According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color
and R. Norman: http://groups.google.com/group/sci.bio.evolution/msg/b7a0619c4484e609
All irieses (excluding in the most severe types of albinism, which may
result in pink eyes) have a dark inner layer (epithelium) pigmented by
eumelanin.
The outer layer (stroma) is pigmented by different amounts of
eumelanin and indoles (the unpolymerized subunits of eumelanin).
Eumelanin is dark brown, indoles particles cause Rayleigh scattering
due to their small size, producing a sky-like blue color (in fact, the
sky color is also caused by Rayleigh scattering).
Different amounts of those pigments result in different visible
colors: gray (little of any pigment), blue (little eumelanin and more
indoles), green (eumelanin and indoles) and brown (mostly eumelanin).
Other rarer colors result from non-uniform coloration or other kinds
of pigments.
(I hope I said it right).
pinkh...@yahoo.com
> Frankly, I think the word "race" has so much baggage attached to it that
> it's worthless.
Again you seem to make an exception of humans.
>
> Since you've created a strawman of what I'm saying, what proof could I
> offer? It's my job to defend my opinions, not to defend your cariacatures
> of my opinions.
Well, presumably, you believe the opposite of Watson i.e. any
differences between groupings of humans is probably due to
environmental factors. As you seem to expect good evidence from
Watson et al then why shouldn't you offer convincing proof for your
own opinion? Mind you, you don't actually say that but you seem
hostile to one side of the argument to make the environmental argument
plausible from your perspective.
>
> --
> Aaron Clausen
> mightymartia...@gmail.com
Ernest Major
pinkh...@yahoo.com writes
is divided into biological races. The truth of this premise is far from
self-evidently true. (I am of the opinion that it is false.)
--
alias Ernest Major