What I’m saying is that you only accuse one side of this “debate” of having bad motives. You are seemingly able to read the minds of one side and the other side is just a cipher for you. Then you chide the “dishonest” side for their dishonesty, at the same time claiming you have taken no position. Judging one side as honest and the other as dishonest IS a position. Following one side down the rabbit hole of intention while ignoring the intentions of the other side (which intentions are widely perceived as racist as hell) IS a position.
I get that you are some sort of defender of weak arguments and idiots on this board and that Chief Pedant has been placed, by virtue of needing your help, in the same bucket as the guy with the weird fetish for playacting the anal rape of children with cardboard, but your inability to see your own biases is really stark.
Actually, it’s the Feds who are obsessed with self-identification groups, in service of protecting reporting interests. If you don’t know who self-identifies where, you can’t decide who is being discriminated against.
From the third link:
**“The revised standards will have five minimum categories for data on race: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White. There will be two categories for data on ethnicity: “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino.””
"1. The racial and ethnic categories set forth in the standards should not be interpreted as being primarily biological or genetic in reference. Race and ethnicity may be thought of in terms of social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry.
“…do not tell an individual who he or she is, or specify how an individual should classify himself or herself.”
What he means by egalitarian is: he believes the notion that some groups might be more intelligent than others offends your sense of fairness and justice, and this is in part what drives your positions WRT this issue. I think he is likely correct about this.
I don’t recall the “no genetic variation” argument. (I know CP has repeatedly invoked other genetic variations as examples of how intelligence might also be so, but I don’t recall him insisting that you disputed this.)
I don’t think that’s what he means by “egalitarian”. From my recollection, he thinks that those opposed to his argument believe that nature magically keeps every ethnic group equal in all ways, genetically speaking, or some such, and for some reason calls this “egalitarian”. He also (foolishly) compares us to Creationists.
He did in post #479, insisting that I “hope that mother nature has somehow exempted all functionally signficant genes from being maldistributed among human populations”.
You consistently defend one side making arguments on this issue, attacking claimed errors of the other side, and without attacking the same sorts of claimed errors that are made by the side you seem to have chosen to defend.
And it’s your theory that the appearance of race groups which part of the apartheid history is unrelated to gene clustering?
So…groups such as races cluster by appearance but it’s incorrect that the genes driving appearance types do not themselves cluster?
Say what?
Exactly how confused are you on what the concept of gene clustering means? It means that given gene variants–including ones coding for appearance types–appear more frequently within one group than another…
It’s the “either” that clinches it. You’re pretty sure that white people are inherently genetically smarter than black people, but we don’t know the genes responsible (and with this in mind, it’s a very foolish conclusion to reach). And you’re sure that humans are inherently genetically smarter than cockroaches, but you’re “not sure we know which genes are responsible for that, either”. And thus you said that whatever non-genetic reasons show us that cockroaches are dumber than people also show us that black people are dumber than white people. Otherwise, why bring up the comparison at all?
Oh I don’t think you did it on purpose. And I don’t think that, deep within your psyche, you believe black people are comparable to cockroaches.
But I think you truly believe that black people’s (as a group) inferior intelligence, on average, is pretty self-evident to all, just as cockroaches’ inferior intelligence is self-evident to all.
Because otherwise, I don’t see how the comparison is at all relevant to the discussion.
You may know nothing about the genes for intelligence, but I’ve given you a Princeton review article on it.
We are learning a greatt deal about the genes for intelligence, and among other things we know that variations in specific genes can create intelligence differences. For example, here is a study showing how single nucleotide polymorphisms can affect gray matter thickness, in turn associated with intelligence. What we are learning is all pointing us toward, and not away from, the notion that the function of our brains is governed by our genes just the way the rest of our physiology is. “Genetic factors have a significant contribution in defining brain structure and cognition. In particular, cortical thickness is heritable, with the strongest genetic influences (heritability range, 0.50–0.90) showing region- and age-specific variations1 that seem to follow patterns of brain maturation from childhood to early adulthood. Cortical thickness also closely correlates with intellectual ability in normally developing children and adolescents.2,3 Yet, little is known about the genetic factors accounting for interindividual differences in both of these traits.”
Want more? There’s plenty to be had…
*“We estimate that 40% of the variation in crystallized-type intelligence and 51% of the variation in fluid-type intelligence between individuals is accounted for by linkage disequilibrium between genotyped common SNP markers and unknown causal variants. These estimates provide lower bounds for the narrow-sense heritability of the traits.”
*
(underlining for emphasis by CP)
More irrelevant sideshow. I’ve never claimed that genes don’t have anything to do with intelligence.
Perhaps rather than “nothing”, perhaps I should say “virtually nothing”, with regards to what we know about the genes for high and low intelligence, but this doesn’t support your conclusion about black people’s intelligence at all. It’s just sidestepping. Your quote from the link even highlights how little we know: “Yet, little is known about the genetic factors accounting for interindividual differences in both of these traits”.
So…
We don’t know which genes, precisely, cause intelligence differences among human populations, including the race groupings of black and white.
From this, iiandyiii asserts that there is zero evidence the difference is genetic.
We don’t know, either, which genes, precisely, cause intelligence differences between human populations and cockroaches.
From this, CP derives a conclusion that the idea that we have to know an exact gene to draw a conclusion that genes drive differences in organisms is wrong.
But iiandyiii derives a conclusion that the Pedant has (inadvertently, based on iiandyiiii’s excellent insight into motivations of others) compared blacks to cockroaches.
You, sir, are not worthy of being called a cockroach. You are a cockroach reject. A boob of a cockroach. You are a disgrace to cockroaches everywhwere. You do not rise to being called a dullard. Twits out-think you even when they are busy pleasuring themselves. Calling you an ignorant, slobbering, stinkpile of ad hominem, low-blowing, tangent-grasping, inept, inconsequential, desperate and confused nincompoop would elevate your status by an order of magnitude.
A quote which I included on purpose, since I do not distort.
The direction in which we are headed in research is toward finding out the extent to which genes–and not just environment–drive the ability to think.
And then you’ll be left with babbling like a cockroach about how that STILL doesn’t show the difference in intelligence among any population is still likely to be substantially driven by genes.
Your fingernail grasp on the cliff which overlooks the chasm yawning below is slipping…slipping. It must be terrifying to hold so tightly to a position of “zero genetic evidence” when every single study about genes and intelligence reaffirms the primacy of genes in driving intelligence.
Let it go, Luuuuuke. Let it go. Drop into that chasm and accept the truth that mother nature forgot to wire us all the same.
Obviously. We have no data whatsoever on the prevalence of the genes responsible for high and low intelligence (of which we know virtually nothing) in various groups of humans.
Which is nonsense, especially the “differences in organisms” part. Black people and white people aren’t ‘different organisms’ – we’re all humans. We’re all in the same species. The only way a comparison with cockroaches might be useful at all in this case is to compare two different ‘races’ of cockroach within the same species. And in that case, to determine conclusively which ‘race’ of cockroach is inherently genetically more intelligent, we would need to know the genes responsible for intelligence in cockroaches.
This has nothing to do with motivation, because you weren’t motivated to do it. It was inadvertent – that is, against what you intended (or were ‘motivated’ to do). You did it anyway, inadvertently. And I’m not deriving a conclusion, I’m stating a fact – you inadvertently compared black people to cockroaches in one particular characteristic – how their intelligence compares to (white) people.
So you recognize you have no evidence for your assertion about black people’s genes? All you’ve got is “just you wait… they call me crazy now, but just you wait…”?
It’s laughable.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
You just can’t get over your own distortions. You just can’t get it through your thick, thick skull that I don’t dispute that intelligence is or may be largely driven by genes. You just can’t understand that this has nothing to do with whether black people might be dumber.
It doesn’t matter if genes drive intelligence. Whether this is so or not, it says absolutely nothing about the genes of black people. Nothing whatsoever! Zero genetic evidence for your claims about black people.
This is not about genes and intelligence, it’s about your claims about black people.
I know, CP, that you really, really want this to be about the “primacy of genes in driving intelligence”, or any topic at all except your claims about the genetics of black people’s intelligence. But that’s what it’s about – it’s about what you claim regarding black people’s genes for intelligence.
You’ve made claims about the genetics of black people – specifically, about the genes for high and low intelligence in black people as a group. These claims have no supporting evidence. I’m not arguing with claims about the “primacy of genes in driving intelligence”, or any other assertion you’re making in this thread, except for your claims about the the genes for intelligence among black people.
So own it. Just say it – even though you have no data on which genes for high or low intelligence black people are more or less likely to have, you believe that black people, on average, have inferior genes for intelligence. Say this one sentence. I dare you.
There have definitely been many people in these exchanges who have insisted that “nature has somehow exempted all functionally signficant genes from being maldistributed among human populations”. That’s why these disputes about possible differences in intelligence have so frequently involved disputes about whether other apparent differences - e.g. athletics - might also be genetic. Though I don’t specifically recall your position about those matters.
That said, there is also a difference between “believe” and “hope”.
As previous, I don’t agree that the errors have been of the same magnitude and frequency by the two sides.
I’ve been consistent in expressing my skepticism with CP’s conclusions, for reasons given, but having said that there’s no much more to say. The over-the-top arguments have been from the other direction.
[That said, I’ll allow that there is also a smidgeon of truth in what jsgoddess has been saying as well. Not that I would pick a position based on a need to defend the minority. But I’m not going to bother saying things that many other people are already saying anyway. The positions that very few are defending are what interest me. So for example, if in a given discussion I agree with 60% of what the majority are saying and 40% of what the minority are saying, I’ll tend to focus on the 40%, rather than just join a massive crowd saying the other 60%. But I say what I think.]
I’ve never argued with the notion that some difference in particular might be based on genes. There are lots of gaps in our knowledge of the causes of various outcome discrepancies. I’ve argued with conclusions that certain differences, with no genetic evidence whatsoever, are based on genes – these conclusions are not based on good science, they are wildly premature at best, and in many cases, these conclusions are racist.
He also misrepresented my position in post #533, again in a way that he’s done over and over again.
You don’t think that making claims about the genetics of black people for intelligence, considering that we have pretty much no data whatsoever on the genes for intelligence in black people, is an error of high magnitude? It certainly has a high frequency!
It’s not over the top to say that black people are inherently genetically less intelligent than other races, considering that (again) we have pretty much no data whatsoever on the genes for intelligence in black people?
What exactly are you defending, with regards to what CP is saying? He distorts my position (either deliberately or ignorantly), consistently sidesteps with irrelevant information about the “primacy of genes for intelligence” (or other unrelated assertions), and makes racist claims about black people’s genes that are unsupported by any actual genetic data!