They’re not. Go look up what “criminology” is.
I am sure his skeleton would combine Caucasian and Negro features. I am equally certain that any forensic anthropologist would have an easy time identifying the skeleton of his father as a Negro.
OK, let us call it “forensic anthropology” then.
Are you (now) at least aware that those are totally different, completely unrelated fields?
Based on a limited sample size – i.e. this thread – I have come to the conclusion that racists on average have an IQ 20 points lower than the general population (p<0.01).
Mockery is good.
Go away, racist slimeball. I hope the next black person unfortunate enough to cross your path farts in your Cheerios.
Well, from this:
I got the impression that what you wanted was the freedom to label other posters as “racist” based on what they post.
My point is that, while many posters display racism or other forms of bigotry in what they post, it does not impove the quality of debate to label them as racists or bigots, even if it happens to be true - as the result is to deflect the subject of debate immediately into a shit-slinging match - as few willingly adopt those labels for themselves.
Translated from Latin to English, “Ad Hominem” means “against the man” or “against the person.”
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of “argument” has the following form:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A’s claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
This still doesn’t make any sense - even assuming that “average intelligence” can be adopted in such a radically accellerated manner.
Take Britian, for example. It was ruled by a reasonably barbaric group prior to the Claudian invasion (or at least, one lacking cities, etc.). As a Roman province, Britian quickly acquired urbanism, writing, paved roads, etc. - in short, Roman civilization … but when the empire fell, it was reduced to barbarism once again by waves of Saxon invaders.
Do you mean to say that the actual biological average intelligence of Britian increased radically - and just as radically decreased again - over four centuries of Roman imperialism?
If this can be true - why can’t it be true in Africa, over a couple of centuries of European imperialism?
My problem is that it’s just not fun. I don’t care how racist you are, but don’t ruin everyone’s fun by turning every thread about Africa into the same exact thing, over and over and over again. We all know your position. Say it once in a thread if you must. But please leave some room for people to discuss the things that they came into the thread to discuss. Your opinion is just one of many. Let it stand on it’s own, don’t aggressively force it on everyone.
It makes me sad, because Africa is quite obviously one of my favorite subject and I love what I can learn on these boards. Unfortunately, it’s become a bit of a forbidden topic and I don’t even really want to venture into Africa threads because I already know the story that’s going to play out.
It certainly can be true of Africa. An argument in The 10,000 Tear Explosion is that racial differences in intelligence are fairly recent, and that the human species is genetically flexible.
According to current theories based mainly on DNA, but also on archaeology modern humans evolved in Africa over 100,000 years ago. Primitive humans existed outside of Africa. They evolved into the Neanderthals. Evolution outside of Africa happened slower, because the human population was less. A large gene pool evolves faster than a small gene pool, because there is more scope for beneficial mutations.
Anyway, about 60,000 years ago 100 to 200 of these modern humans left Africa in a single migration. Everyone who is not a Negro is descended from them. For a long time their descendants evolved slower than the humans who remained in Africa, because there were fewer of them. It was only with the development of agriculture and civilization that the speed of evolution increased, because these lead to higher population densities and different population pressures.
It is fairly well known that Negroes have quite a bit more genetic diversity than humans who are not Negroes. Consequently, they would evolve faster in response to a new environment. What is likely, however, is that the races will merge together in a few centuries. Then and only then will it be true that racial differences do not exist.
The civilizations of Africa are fascinating to me exactly because they are so little known by me. Every time I read about them, I learn new things.
I know I can talk about it a lot, but I do try to make posts that truly contribute to our little community of knowledge. I try to share what I find fascinating ancient city of Timbuktu, the fabled Kanam origins of the modern and influencial Hausa empire, the ancient horror of the tsetse belt, the sheer human diversity of the Sahel with it’s mysterious nomads and ancient kingdoms, the tragic destruction of so much of the hope of decolonization, and the successes that happen every day-- often unreported-- across the continent. I really do encourage anyone who doesn’t enjoy my posts to “ignore” me.
Hmmm…maybe I should take some of my own advice regarding that feature.
This isn’t responsive to the criticism. I’m saying assume for the moment all that stuff is true and that changes in intelligence can evolve really quickly and are evidenced by/linked to increases in relative wealth.
The problem with this theory is that in some places, realtive wealth fluctuates wildly. Britian goes from iron-age barbarism to urban province of Rome and back again over a short few hundred years … does that mean its population evolved to be smarter, then stupider, in that time?
It surely makes more sense to see relative wealth as the product of historical contingencies (such as being linked to an orderly and powerful empire vs. being ravaged by barbarians) rather than inherent intelligence.
Examples abound - take China in the middle of the last century, torn between war-lords, an incompetent nationalist gov’t, murderous Chinese communists, and invading Japanese - the population terribly poverty-stricken and miserable; very much 'third world". Did they suddenly all evolve into smarter beings this century - or rather, did their circumstances change?
Muslim?
Heh, check out the response I got from Lust4Life in the main thread when I tried to talk about that stuff. 
There you have it - the university of Timbuktu, the Aksumite Empire … all as real as Atlantis and UFOs. :smack:
Obviously this was due entirely to genetics. Italians, with their fabled skill at government and social stability, contributed their genetic admixture (close caption for New Deal Democrat: that’s code for ‘come’) to the British population, thus imbuing them with that natural Italian skill for functional systems of authority.
Then a bunch of Germans came in and diluted the gene pool with typical German inefficiency and incapability, leading to Britain’s return to barbarism.
My favorite part of the theory is where the Chinese get really, really, really dumb for about a hundred years and then suddenly get their ability to run a society back.
Well yes but you see this is entirely genetic because national success is invariably linked to genetics so um it’s something about how um the One Child Policy lead to a greater number of males and um thus the Economic Growth gene is on the Y-chromosome and um, so that’s incontrovertible evidence that GDP correlates to DNA.
As a corollary, Chinese dudes are smart but Chinese ladies are, quite obviously, totally dumb.
I’m not going to indulge the rest of this discussion, but the statement above is incorrect. This is not the current understanding of the mechanisms of evolution.
As I commented in earlier threads, the very concept of human races has been distorted beyond all meaning in your assertions.
Your representation of modern biology, and that of those who seemingly support your position, leaves much to be desired.
Speaking for me, I don’t mind being called a “racist.” I don’t really know what that means. Calling someone a name weakens any factual counter-argument, in my opinion, you Wishful Egalitarians, you.
Is being called a “racist” like being called “sexist” if you point out that, on average, women are not as good at basketball as men? If so, I’m OK with that. I’m here for the Straight Dope, not the Politically Correct, and I simply call the facts as I see them. It does get tedious to go over the same facts again and again.
I think it’s fair for the OP to complain that a given thread has been hijacked by those obsessed with racial differences. That’s an opinion that I think belongs to the thread starter. However if the question at hand has a possible explanation of race-based differences, perhaps the best way to handle it would be to ask a given poster to just butt out. If they don’t butt out, that’s the time to label them an asshole.