# Another Africa thread hijacked **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 1, 2011, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767 "2011-04-01T13:04:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/301 "2011-04-03T03:37:28Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > **tomndebb** , I’m not understanding your definition of “racist”. The word is not inherently an insult. If I say, “Bull Connor was a racist government official”, am I using the word in a disparaging way, or in a way that is historically accurate? If a guy calls me a nigger and I call him a racist, are we both in the wrong? And why should we view"racist" as a special no-no word, but continue to use “sexist”, “nationalist”, or “homophobic” with impunity. It makes no sense. Your position has a lot of holes in it. Your statement regarding Bull Connor is both disparaging and historically accurate. So? That does not remove the fact that it is an insult. Directed toward another poster in Great Debates it would be prohibited on the grounds that it is an insult. In the same way, accusing another poster of being a sexist or a homophobe would be prohibited as insults in GD. Calling someone a nationalist in GD would not be considered an insult as that is a term they might choose to use to describe themselves. Note, the prohibition only refers to comments directed against other posters. You are free, in GD, to identify William Pierce or J. Philippe Rushton as racists to your heart’s content. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/302 "2011-04-03T03:40:41Z")
I can certainly understand a metaphor in which calls to divide people into meaningless “races” is portrayed by a braying donkey. ---
**Author:** ![random6x7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@random6x7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random6x7)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/303 "2011-04-03T03:50:37Z")
The reason that looking automatically at genes to explain human behavioral variation is because we know for a fact that humans are incredibly plastic, in behavior and development and brain organization. I have no doubt that there are, for instance, differences between men and women. However, genes are over-used as an explanation. First, every society is not like ours. There are ones where women are considered the competent, unemotional ones, and societies where men primp and gossip all day. There is a group where women hunt wild boars with babies strapped to their backs, and have a better hunting success rate than the men. Who’s to say that our society is not the exception? After all, modern, intensive-agriculturalist societies are very recent for us as a species, while the Agta (the lady hunter group) live in the same way that humans evolved living. Secondly, studies show that differences we’ve chalked up to genetics could be better explained by culture. For instance, playing video games increases hand-eye coordination. When comparing girls to boys after a set time of playing games, the boys still did better in spatial relatioinship tasks, but the girls had improved more than the boys from pre-playing to post-playing. That tells us that a larger chunk of women’s lesser spatial abilities might just be due to the sort of things we grow up doing. Even today, gaming is considered a predominantly male activity, even though there are numerous female gamers. We don’t know where spatial ability or athletic ability (another place where women’s performance is increasing faster than men’s) will finally even out. I’m betting that, at least for athletics, women will end up a bit lower than men in most things, since most athletic events are geared towards men’s strengths, not women’s. However, we don’t yet know how far apart we’ll end up being, or if that gap will even exist. It’s easier to show this with gender, because, while that, too, is a cultural construct, most if not all societies recognize the two categories “man” and “woman”, and any other genders are considerably more rare. Race, however, is completely a social construct and the definitions of race are not even all the same right now. It’s harder to do cross-cultural comparison because of that, but it does exist. Hey, in those articles I keep talking about, even. Consider this, please. Your citations so far have been popular works that are demonstrable flawed and have not been peer-reviewed. I’ve been citing the AJPA, the premiere journal for biological anthropology. I can’t remember the other cites (sorry, other people), but it’s pretty clear who has science on their side. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/304 "2011-04-03T04:33:41Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Your statement regarding Bull Connor is both disparaging and historically accurate. So? That does not remove the fact that it is an insult. > > Directed toward another poster in Great Debates it would be prohibited on the grounds that it is an insult. In the same way, accusing another poster of being a sexist or a homophobe would be prohibited as insults in GD. Calling someone a nationalist in GD would not be considered an insult as that is a term they might choose to use to describe themselves. > Note, the prohibition only refers to comments directed against other posters. You are free, in GD, to identify William Pierce or J. Philippe Rushton as racists to your heart’s content. I don’t agree. First of all, it is a fact that Bull Connor was a racist. He believed in the superiority of white people. He acted on this principle. So it is a historical fact that the guy was a racist. A fact. Now, I can call him an asswipe too. That is an insult, but it isn’t a fact. It is an opinion. There is no way I can prove that he was asswipe. And no historian worth his or her salt would ever refer to him this way, in any scholarly work. But they would use “racist”, just as they would use “racist” to describe the organizations known as the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis, or the Skinheads. Because “racist” is not always an insult. If someone subscribes to racist beliefs, they are a racist. Now we may argue whether someone’s beliefs rises to the level of racism (rather than xenophobia or nationalism), but if we decide that those beliefs are indeed racist, then why is it such a great sin to call that person a “racist”? Because white people cringe when they hear that word? That’s not a good reason. Secondly, you say that people self-identify as “nationalist”. Well, some people–such as our resident **Pedant** –self-identify as “racist”. Are they being self-deprecatory, or are they being honest? People use “liberal” and “conservative” as slurs, as you well know. But if you say you identify with left-wing issues, that you vote Democrat or Green 100% of the time, and you’re co-habiting with a same-sex person, the two of you are planning on adopting a bunch of multiracial, transgendered teenagers and raising them to be hardcore atheist environmentalists, would I be insulting you if I referred to you as a staunch liberal? Doesn’t it depend on the context of my words whether my use of the term is insulting or not? Of course it does. Why shouldn’t “racist” be treated in a similar way? FWIW, I don’t like calling people racists. I can count on one hand the number of Dopers I’ve called racist my whole time here. But from my point of view, if someone is saying I have a strong likelihood of being inferior to them simply because of my race, and they are completely free to say this without getting a mod warning (I’m assuming this is the case…correct me if I’m wrong), then it is unfair that I cannot call that person a racist when that is EXACTLY what they are. You’re giving the racist and the word “racist” way too much power by automatically putting the word in the insult category. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/305 "2011-04-03T05:10:24Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > However, I have noticed that nowadays practically every geneticist has disavowed genetic determinism. Has any geneticist ever embraced genetic determinism? What is now being slowly acknowledged, is that new genetic findings are showing group genetic diversity. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/full/461726a.html](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/full/461726a.html) > [@](#): > > Recent “sweeps” of the genome across human populations show that hundreds of genes have been changing during the last 5-10 millennia in response to local selection pressures. (See papers by Benjamin Voight, Scott Williamson, and Bruce Lahn). No new mental modules can be created from scratch in a few millennia, but slight tweaks to existing mechanisms can happen quickly, and small genetic changes can have big behavioral effects, as with those Russian foxes. We must therefore begin looking beyond the Pleistocene and turn our attention to the Holocene era as well – the last 10,000 years. This was the period after the spread of agriculture during which the pace of genetic change sped up in response to the enormous increase in the variety of ways that humans earned their living, formed larger coalitions, fought wars, and competed for resources and mates. > > The protective “wall” is about to come crashing down, and all sorts of uncomfortable claims are going to pour in. Skin color has no moral significance, but traits that led to Darwinian success in one of the many new niches and occupations of Holocene life — traits such as collectivism, clannishness, aggressiveness, docility, or the ability to delay gratification — are often seen as virtues or vices. Virtues are acquired slowly, by practice within a cultural context, but the discovery that there might be ethnically-linked genetic variations in the ease with which people can acquire specific virtues is — and this is my prediction — going to be a “game changing” scientific event. (By “ethnic” I mean any group of people who believe they share common descent, actually do share common descent, and that descent involved at least 500 years of a sustained selection pressure, such as sheep herding, rice farming, exposure to malaria, or a caste-based social order, which favored some heritable behavioral predispositions and not others.) > > I believe that the “Bell Curve” wars of the 1990s, over race differences in intelligence, will seem genteel and short-lived compared to the coming arguments over ethnic differences in moralized traits. I predict that this “war” will break out between 2012 and 2017. [http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09\_4.html#haidt](http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_4.html#haidt) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/306 "2011-04-03T05:16:29Z")
I can see your point **monstro** , however I have to mention that I do believe that racism is an extreme form of ignorance. And in this case, this form of ignorance is based on crackpot ideas and conspiracy theories. I can see that they would attempt to hide and use the board rules to their advantage, but seeing how they spectacularly tripped on themselves on the hijacked tread, they got warnings for attempting to once again turn a thread into a propaganda forum for their already discredited ignorance. But here is the interesting thing, I was also ignorant on the actual state of affairs in the sciences regarding this subject, so I searched; and really, if I can find the debunking information it is really shameful that the crackpots can’t. The information showed that the crackpots indeed had not even a consensus to support their say so’s, and it was even more damming that in the recent _Nature_ point counter-point the side that was in favor of continuing to investigate this issue left clear that most of the research that prejudiced people twisted to use for their reprehensible “solutions” was discredited already. (And what is worse is that the linked piece was from the side \*\*supporting \*\* scientists to continue to investigate the differences of intelligence in societies, the piece with the most damming points against continuing to investigate this was not available for linking, but one can make an educated guess that it was devastating enough.) While I wish I could call a racist just that, the point of this message board would be avoided, one has to confront the bogus information that is being used by the loonies first. The Racism of the opponent doesn’t even need to be mentioned, their ignorance being exposed is the key. And this is because IMHO racists and people that resort to prejudice are first of all crackpots. Specially when they claim that science supports their conclusions and solutions. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/307 "2011-04-03T05:23:36Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Has any geneticist ever embraced genetic determinism? What is now being slowly acknowledged, is that new genetic findings are showing group genetic diversity. > > [Let's celebrate human genetic diversity | Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/full/461726a.html) > > [http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09\_4.html#haidt](http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_4.html#haidt) Diversity is not Determinism, I could not find determinism in the cites you brought here, and in the quote it is clear that they are indeed foreshadowing that the racists will attempt: to twist this for their purposes once again. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/308 "2011-04-03T05:23:59Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I don’t agree. Make your pitch in an ATMB thread. Until I see some overwhelming support for removing the word “racist” from the category of insult, it stays there. My basic criterion for insults is whether the use of the word will start a fight, disrupting Great Debates threads. However you want to spin the usage, I do not see its use failing to be disruptive. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/309 "2011-04-03T05:25:44Z")
> [@random6x7](#): > > Okay, you know what? I’m going to come out and say it. If you are still defending The Bell Curve and similar works, you are racist. Why? Because I’ve already clearly outlined a couple of the major reasons why professional biological anthropologists (and sometimes argument from authority is perfectly valid, y’all) do not consider race categories as adequate descriptions of human genetic variation, and yet those have been ignored in favor of “I feel like it means this” arguments. It has also been mentioned numerous times that a) intelligence is much more complicated than one gene b) intelligence and IQ tests are not necessarily related and c) IQ tests are culture-bound (is that test linked above serious? If it is, I don’t think I’d do very well today, considering it’s based on cultural knowledge from early last century). 1. Is Christopher Chabris a racist? [http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1998a.html](http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1998a.html) 2. The fact you’re talking about one gene for intelligence suggests you haven’t read anything on the topic. Research by the likes of Robert Plomin suggests there are likely to be hundreds, possibly thousands of genes of small effect involved. 3. Population geneticists find readily identifiable clusters of points, corresponding to traditional continental ethnic groups: Europeans, Africans, Asians, Native Americans, etc. (See, for example, Risch et al., Am. J. Hum. Genet. 76:268–275, 2005. This clustering is a natural consequence of geographical isolation, inheritance and natural selection operating over the last 50k years since humans left Africa. 4. Two groups that form distinct clusters are likely to exhibit different frequency distributions over various genes, leading to statistical group differences. You seem very confident that such differences haven’t arisen. You’d need to rule out the following though: a) intelligence is partially heritable b) there is plenty of extant genetic variation, probably due to a large number of genes of individually small effect — no additional mutations are required c) selection can act if reproductive rates are impacted by these genes (i.e., by intelligence) d) simple estimates suggest that 50,000 _could have_ been enough time to produce .5 SD (genetic) group differences The simplest model would be that time since development of agriculture varies between groups, and this variation leads to different levels of selection for traits which might be useful for agriculturalists. There is some data on this here. > **[Recent evolution in humans](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/12/recent-natural-selection-in-humans.html)** > > Did evolution stop once modern humans emerged in Africa? Or, to the contrary, did it speed up? This question is addressed in the forthcoming... ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/310 "2011-04-03T05:31:25Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > 1. Is Christopher Chabris a racist? [http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1998a.html](http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1998a.html) Don’t know, but his article is barely mentioned or cited. Stephen Jay Gould continues to be cited by the thousands. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/311 "2011-04-03T05:39:05Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Don’t know, but his article is barely mentioned or cited. > > Stephen Jay Gould continues to be cited by the thousands. Stephen Jay Gould on the Bell Curve or psychometrics generally is not well regarded. On other topics, yes. On psychometrics - no. I could go on about this in detail, particularly the number of studies Gould omitted in his 1981 (and more glaringly despite MRI developments) in his 1996 version. You don’t have to believe me either. Start with this review from Nature at the time. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/mismeasr.htm](http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/mismeasr.htm) Harvard’s Bernhard Davis also provides a good summary. > **[Neo-Lysenkoism, IQ, and the press](https://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/neo-lysenkoism-iq-and-the-press)** > > STEPHEN JAY GOULD, a professor of geology at Harvard, has become one of the best known American scientists. His many essays on natural history are entertaining and highly readable, and his attack on the “establishment” version of Darwinia... ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/312 "2011-04-03T05:41:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Make your pitch in an ATMB thread. > > Until I see some overwhelming support for removing the word “racist” from the category of insult, it stays there. > My basic criterion for insults is whether the use of the word will start a fight, disrupting Great Debates threads. However you want to spin the usage, I do not see its use failing to be disruptive. If you choose any random dictionary from off the shelf, I doubt you’ll find “insult” or “disparaging” in any definition of the word “racist”. The absence of those words would be overwhelming support, I would think. But what do I know? I’m not a moderator. And my point is that it will always be disruptive when people treat a word that can be and is often used in an objective manner as being somehow different from other political terminology used to describe people, institutions, and policies. It’s coddling the stupid, to restrict its usage. Only someone who is stupid would espouse racist beliefs but then take offense at being called a racist. But I guess their sensibilities are somehow more precious than those who they offend with their garbage nonsense. I’ve said my piece and I’ll drop it for now. But I just wanted to put it out there that it is an irrational rule. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/313 "2011-04-03T05:46:53Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Stephen Jay Gould on the Bell Curve or psychometrics generally is not well regarded. On other topics, yes. On psychometrics - no. I could go on about this in detail, particularly the number of studies Gould omitted in his 1981 (and more glaringly despite MRI developments) in his 1996 version. > > You don’t have to believe me either. Start with this review from Nature at the time. > [http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/mismeasr.htm](http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/mismeasr.htm) > > Harvard’s Bernhard Davis also provides a good summary. > [Neo-Lysenkoism, IQ, and the press | National Affairs](http://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/neo-lysenkoism-iq-and-the-press) > **[Stephen Jay Gould](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#cite_note-70)** > > Stephen Jay Gould (/ɡuːld/ GOOLD; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In 1996, Gould was hired as the Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University, after which > [@](#): > > In 1981 The Mismeasure of Man won the National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction. It was voted as the 17th greatest science book of all time by Discover magazine vol. 27 (8 Dec. 2006); 9th best skeptic book by The Skeptics Society (Frank Diller, “Scientists’ Nightstand” American Scientist); and ranked 24th place for the best non-fiction book by the Modern Library. That it is a controversial book, there is no doubt about that, that it was eventually more accepted than the Bell Curve, that is what I see now. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/314 "2011-04-03T08:16:09Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > [Stephen Jay Gould - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#cite_note-70) > That it is a controversial book, there is no doubt about that, that it was eventually more accepted than the Bell Curve, that is what I see now. Not true (have you actually read either book?). As Steven Pinker comments in the New York Times: > [@](#): > > To study something scientifically, you first have to measure it, and psychologists have developed tests for many mental traits\*\*. And contrary to popular opinion, the tests work pretty well: they give a similar measurement of a person every time they are administered, and they statistically predict life outcomes like school and job performance, psychiatric diagnoses and marital stability.\*\* Tests for intelligence might ask people to recite a string of digits backward, define a word like “predicament,” identify what an egg and a seed have in common or assemble four triangles into a square. Personality tests ask people to agree or disagree with statements like “Often I cross the street in order not to meet someone I know,” “I often was in trouble in school,” “Before I do something I try to consider how my friends will react to it” and “People say insulting and vulgar things about me.” People’s answers to a large set of these questions tend to vary in five major ways: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness (as opposed to antagonism) and neuroticism. The scores can then be compared with those of relatives who vary in relatedness and family backgrounds. > > The most prominent finding of behavioral genetics has been summarized by the psychologist Eric Turkheimer: “The nature-nurture debate is over. . . . All human behavioral traits are heritable.” By this he meant that a substantial fraction of the variation among individuals within a culture can be linked to variation in their genes. Whether you measure intelligence or personality, religiosity or political orientation, television watching or cigarette smoking, the outcome is the same. Identical twins (who share all their genes) are more similar than fraternal twins (who share half their genes that vary among people). Biological siblings (who share half those genes too) are more similar than adopted siblings (who share no more genes than do strangers). And identical twins separated at birth and raised in different adoptive homes (who share their genes but not their environments) are uncannily similar. [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=2](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=2) Also, economists are finding that national IQ predicts total national productivity, national economic performance, national savings rate, etc. [http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde\_issue\_1-2009\_03\_rindermann\_et\_al.pdf](http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/315 "2011-04-03T08:44:54Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Not true (have you actually read either book?). As Steven Pinker comments in the New York Times: > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=2](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=2) > > Also, economists are finding that national IQ predicts total national productivity, national economic performance, national savings rate, etc. > > [http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde\_issue\_1-2009\_03\_rindermann\_et\_al.pdf](http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf) :rolleyes: I already acknowledged that there are differences in IQ, what it is clear to me is that there is less support for what crackpots recommend that we should do about that. Of course, I have to guess now that you are not smart enough to follow what others are telling you. Must be the genes. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/316 "2011-04-03T09:08:24Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > :rolleyes: > > I already acknowledged that there are differences in IQ, what it is clear to me is that there is less support for what crackpots recommend that we should do about that. Well, if you acknowledge that and that iq is statistically predictive in a number of areas (like those Pinker mentions above) then it seems we are in agreement. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/317 "2011-04-03T09:08:25Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > :rolleyes: > > I already acknowledged that there are differences in IQ, what it is clear to me is that there is less support for what crackpots recommend that we should do about that. > > Of course, I have to guess now that you are not smart enough to follow what others are telling you. Must be the genes. 😛 Your shallow sarcasm indicates bad things about your intelligence and is unworthy of a serious discussion. Because we cannot bridge the gap in average intelligence between the races we should end expensive programs like No Child Left Behind. We should also end affirmative action. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/318 "2011-04-03T09:21:37Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I can see your point **monstro** , however I have to mention that I do believe that racism is an extreme form of ignorance… > > The Racism of the opponent doesn’t even need to be mentioned, their ignorance being exposed is the key. And this is because IMHO racists and people that resort to prejudice are first of all crackpots. Specially when they claim that science supports their conclusions and solutions. No one can possibly accuse Charles Murray, Arthur Jensen, and J. Philippe Rushton of being ignorant, but they are often accused of being racists. Those who claim that science does not support their conclusions need to explain why blacks tend to perform poorly on all the mental aptitude tests however they are designed, and why they tend to perform poorly in school and in jobs requiring superior intelligence. They need to explain why these facts about blacks are true everywhere, and always have been. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/319 "2011-04-03T09:33:52Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Your shallow sarcasm indicates bad things about your intelligence and is unworthy of a serious discussion. We already established that you do not want to check what Nature and others report. Tough for you. > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Because we cannot bridge the gap in average intelligence between the races we should end expensive programs like No Child Left Behind. We should also end affirmative action. As the Hoover Institution is a conservative group, I would think that it would support your fringe ideas. Alas. One feature of a crackpot is to think that their solutions would be followed just because of the reasons that they have. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2011, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/320 "2011-04-03T09:35:31Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Well, if you acknowledge that and that iq is statistically predictive in a number of areas (like those Pinker mentions above) then it seems we are in agreement. Good, because what it follows after that (the solutions proposed and most of the conclusions that I have seen you make) are the pits. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767.md?page=17)