Don’t be so hard on yourself. Unless you’re Jewish or Asian, and then WTF we expected better of you!
If anything, it’s a matter of language, not genetics…which IMHO would have had at least some scientific ground and contributed to the conversation.
Hi, I’m JoyAnn. 
Their racism is in their baseless theory for why the observation can be made and for their excellent ability to avoid entertaining any other conclusion. I think you probably already knew that though, you silly little turd.
They are scientific racists and they should be called scientific racists because they follow the exact same pattern of behavior ascribed to those who are historically labeled scientific racists. The only difference is that neither of the Ch-douches actually practices any form of science.
Do I need to go back and re-read that thread? I saw some silly ignorance and poor understanding of science (and history) but it’s incredibly easy to be racist. Man appears to be ethnocentric by nature.
Also, if I ever get around to taking over the planet (muahahahah), I’m going to institute mandatory anthropology classes. Seriously, how can you have a discussion about people and their innate qualities without discussing culture? Surely I am not the only one who sees where there may be ever so slight cultural reasons why a kid in a country where it’s hard to get a decent education might score lower than a kid who grows up somewhere there’s near-universal education and access to books and computers (until library funding gets cut again, of course). Or why kids in two different income brackets might have different learning outcomes.
Sorry, lurk-y anthropology major here. This whole discussion is one of my big, huge pet-peeves. Sad part? My biological anthropology professor felt the need to spend a large chunk of our course going over this racial shit because enough people still think it’s important on a biological level. I’m in a master’s program!
So instead you prefer every GD thread about Africa get hijacked bigoted trash?
That’s a good debate system to you?
Face it being able to call the bigots out would help end those hijacks.
Good to see you here random6x7, can you tell us if my impression is correct and the consensus among serious researchers is that most if not all of this “scientific” racial stuff is crap?
Thanks, GIGObuster! My subfield’s archaeology, so I could be off, but the impression that I got from my professor and my friends in biological anthropology, as well as from our readings, is that, yeah, it’s bunk. There are a lot of reasons that race is not an adequate description of human variation, and none of them rely on white guilt. The problem is that biological anthropology in the US was built on racial theory, and it’s like a freakin’ zombie. Damn theory won’t stay dead, even though we’ve been moving away from this since around the 1940’s or ‘50’s. There are still a few biological anthropologists who accept race theory, but they are not common. In fact, I think the reason we spent so much time on this in our class was because the professor emeritus for bio anth is one of the pro-race dudes, but even he isn’t all Bell Curve-lovin’.
We read parts of Brace’s “Race” Is a Four-Letter Word for class. It’s pretty good. He’s awfully gossipy, so it’s a more fun read, and it gives a nice history of racial theory. I recommend it if anyone’s interested in why we’re still talking about this.
Do you get paid every time you post this link/mention this book or something?
CMC fnord!
I urge everyone to take a look at that site, the embedded links will open your eyes to the serious scholarship contained in the book! :dubious:
(The link on this page certainly changed my mind, “There can be only one!”)
During the Civil Rights movement people started to lie about racial differences. Those differences persist, however.
When IQ testing began there was a fifteen point gap between average white and black scores. There still is a fifteen point gap.
As **tomndebb **and **random6x7 **reported, it is clear who has been lying. Your points are not only controversial, but based on lies and losing ground in academia.
In the popular media maybe, but not amongst researchers if you ask them privately. Mark Snyderman & Stanley Rothman surveyed 661 members from the Behavior Genetics Association, American Educational Research Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, American Psychological Association, American Sociological Association & Cognitive Science Society. Only 15% considered group or population differences in intelligence to be attributable solely to environmental factors, while 45% considered it was a “product of genetic and environmental variation”. In other words, 3 times as many researchers held the view of Jensen compared to the Leon Kamin view.
Obviously you could say that anything above the individual level is not an adequate description. However, races or continental populations obviously exist, from a forensic anthropology perspective, medical or a population genetics perspective:
Both these people participate in the Pit. All you’d have to do is link a post in the thread: “I’m ignoring your arguments. See this Pit thread for why.” And then actually do it. Or you can just say that all of their post are racist, without condemning them as an individual.
We all know that NDD has admitted to trolling. There’s nothing to refute–he’s just trying to get us riled up.
It’s interesting to note that any consideration of genetically-based differences among human populations becomes an inflammatory “hijack” in the minds of folks taught the they must maintain a core belief that Mother Nature has designed a system where there is no gene prevalence difference among these human populations.
People believe this egalitarianism despite the fact that it is fundamentally a Creationist position, consistent only with a recent descent over a limited number of generations from a single tiny group.
They believe it despite the fact that every other animal group shows remarkable variation with species sub-populations.
They believe it despite multiple studies showing prevalence differences for any number of genes which vary among SIRE groups.
They believe it despite reasonably well-worked out science showing dispersal of the human populations out of our African ancestry.
They believe it despite a complete inability on the part of any group anywhere to eliminate differences by accounting for nurturing variables.
They believe it despite quanitative testing which produces consistent results. Their approach here is to attack any quantitative test, be it formal IQ testing or standardized academic testing, repeating a completely unsupported mantra that such tests are somehow biased. It makes no difference that it would be impossible to create bias on an Medical School entrance test for quantitative sciences. It’s an article of faith that if a differential outcome is consistently observed among test takers with the same opportunity but from different groups, that alone is sufficient to prove the test must be flawed.
They believe it despite the evidence in the world around them. If standardized testing ranks one group differently from another, and it has real-life correlation, we would expect to see evidence of that in the everyday world. If Asians outscore blacks in STEM testing, we’d expect to look at Asian countries and find some evidence of that. Consider the example of the Koreas. Here are two countries with reasonably similar populations living under two diametrically opposed economic systems, one of which has rendered its population wretchedly destitute and yet the raw intellect of North Korea has enabled them to develop modern rocketry and nuclear science. On the other hand, when we look at sub-saharan African countries (beyond imported expertise) we find no pockets of intellectual achievement in the STEM fields. Neither do we find individuals from those groups achieving STEM success elsewhere equivalent to emigrants from Asian countries.
The strawmen arguments set up against the idea of “racism” comfort egalitarians. If, instead of simply attacking “racists” they actually had evidence, that’s what they should present. Instead of attacking IQ and SAT tests as biased, show the results of tests corrected for bias. Unfortunately, as the Ricci case (and more recently, the case of Dayton police exams) shows, the differential results by SIRE groups is universal and so far immutable. That we wish it were different does not change reality. It’s a fuzzy warm feeling that the Mbuit are going to have their place in the NBA some day, and that Hitler’s Aryans will return to sprinting glory, but it won’t happen. We can have the straight dope or we can have the spun dope. There may be good reason to argue that only the spun dope should be allowed to see the light of day here because we do not want the truth or because it is too uncomfortable for society to talk about it. If so, the next debate should be around a name change for the SDMB.
I’m betting the “Blacks are sooo stupid” crowd. would totally get pwned by black Dopers on this board at any and everything. Anyone who believes that The Bell Curve even merits a glance at the dust jacket already has questionable intelligence.
If anyone is interested, yesterday I watched “Wonders of the African World” by Henry Louis Gates on youtube yesterday. Not only does he do a good job of dispelling the “They are so dumb” myth, but the show is just entertaining to watch and you get to see what a goofy nerd the guy is.
I doubt the racists, self-described or not, will actually follow my advice, especially since I’m an inferior negro. But I just thought I’d throw it out there for those who might be interested.
Agriculture began 10,000 years ago in the Near East. Civilization began there 5,000 years ago. Guns, Germs, and Steel explains why this happened. There just happened to be edible plants and animals there that were easy to domesticate. Wild wheat, barley, chick peas, figs, dates, olives, and grapes grew there and probably still do. Wild sheep, goats, donkeys, and cattle lived there and probably still do.
Horses were not domesticated until later, but they could be domesticated. In the New World American Indians hunted horses to extinction, so they were not available for domestication. In Africa zebras cannot be domesticated.
Civilization requires agriculture. Because agriculture began in the Near East, civilization began there 5,000 years later. Indeed, the Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations began in order to make better agricultural use of the Nile River, and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
What the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel overlooks, or refuses to acknowledge is that once agriculture and civilization begin, they have different population pressures than a hunter gatherer existence. Farmers need to be able to plan ahead. They need to be able to be able to defer gratification. They need to be able to endure long periods of monotony. They need to be able to get along with people they do not like.
Most of these skills require greater intelligence. Civilization places even more population pressure on superior intelligence. Men with the intelligence to become successful merchants, government officials, artists, artisans, and so on live better lives than manual laborers, and have more children who survive and reproduce. In a civilized nation those with criminal tendencies are gradually removed from the breeding population by the criminal justice system.
In the Far East agriculture began independently one or two thousands of years later than in the Near East. The earliest Chinese civilization began about four thousand years ago. For about two thousand years, ending only in the late nineteenth century, the Imperial Exam system placed a higher premium on superior intelligence in China than anywhere else in the world. Boys who could pass the exams entered the scholar gentry. They were given high incomes, and expected to have several wives and many children. Although boys born into the scholar gentry had an advantage in preparing for the exams, many sons of peasants won the highest honors.
Agriculture did not begin in the New World until five thousand years ago. The earliest civilizations began about three thousand years ago. Agriculture did not reach what is now the northern part of the United States until one thousand years ago.
Agriculture may have begun in sub Saharan Africa five thousand years ago. It did not begin to spread until two and a half thousand years ago. Large numbers of blacks did not begin to live in cities until the the twentieth century. Urban areas dominated by blacks are not known for civilized behavior.
The longer a population group has practiced agriculture and urban living, the lower its crime rate is likely to be, and the higher its average intelligence.
One can see this by looking at the following charts.
Most of this is explained in The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution.
Chief Pedant,
This is so well thought out and well written, that I went to the internet to see if you copied and pasted most of it. Congratulations! You wrote it yourself.
When IQ testing began there was a fifteen point gap between the average Italian or Irishman’s IQ scores and the average scores of people who were, at the time, culturally agreed upon as being “white”. Jews also tested as, in fact, lower in IQ than white people.
Guess whether or not those “gaps” still exist.