Currently on my Kindle is “A troublesome inheritance,” a book written by the New York Times former senior science writer. It explores questions of race genetics, ability etc. It draws heavily from research by numerous contemporary scientists, exploring the impacts of genetics as it is expressed in various populations. “Population groups” sometimes referring to groups that have nothing to do with race, but sometimes everything.
I am not persuaded of everything in the book, but I am utterly convinced that it is a live issue … these are not scientists from the 1930s he is citing, they ate people currently working in the field. Anyone saying “there’s no such thing” or “the debate is over” – which is what a lot of the responses to Chief Pedant amount to – is straight up ignorant. There are strong arguments against his views, and other people have made them in other threads; you and Andy ain’t doing it.
I have worked in education for most of my career and without checking I would say there is no subject in the field studied more than the question of achievement gaps, especially black/white. There are thousands upon thousands of studies devoted to explaining it, with no clear answer yet. It’s also a live issue. Anyone waving a single study in the air as if it’s all settled is straight up ignorant.
And the point I came in here to make was that insisting on linking support for AA and race-based preferences to the idea that there can’t possibly be a genetic component to intelligence or any other ingredient to success, leaves you in a poor position to defend those preferences if at some point in the future the science proves you wrong.
Of course if you’re the kind of person that believes with religious fervor that science will always bear them out and there’s no possibility of refuation by future research, well then I guess it’s not an issue.
Whatever. Y’all have fun.
Do you want a lengthy explanation of “simple” ? I simply ask and people answer. The various ways in which they do reveals much to the careful observer. It’s as simple as Huck Finn’s declaration about race and perception: “allright then; I’ll go to hell”. Probably the greatest, or the most important line in American Literature. Yea, I watched Ken Burns’ documentary on Mark Twain, but i already knew much of Twain’s bio. An American literary and social genious. Can’t wait for part two.
But it persists because of the same reason that an stubborn and persistent gap persists between the academic achievements of kids from educated, wealthy black families and those of much less privileged whites and asians:
No one can advance a credible explanation other than an average genetic difference, and no one has a response to that stark fact other than shrieking “racist.”
Look through the last hundreds of posts to try and find even a single non-genetic explanation for the observed skillset difference.
When the standard pap of SES as an explanation is removed, what is left is the ad hominem of “Nazi racist,” or the even more ridiculous non-explanation of “centuries of oppression,” as if there is some kind of Lamarckian physical change in the brain of a privileged young man such that superior nurturing opportunity for that brain does not overcome the pattern.
Like saying I can’t possibly be nurtured into the NBA because my grandpa and his forbears spent their life in chains…my personal genes couldn’t possibly be the explanation for my maximum basketball skillset.
All the pro-egalitarians need to close this thread permanently, and to close the idea that races differ for outcomes because genesets among those races cluster for disparate frequencies, is a reasonable explanation. Unfortunately, none exists, and the general pattern of outcomes is stubbornly resistant to every effort to erase it.
And some of us are just not that impressed that a schoolyard child shouting “racist racist racist cretin” is an actual substantive point.
I like the way you complain that everyone is calling you names, while calling them “egalitarians”, a term which applies to precisely no one in this thread. Maybe you should move out of that glass house before throwing stones?
And as to your rubbish that no explanation other than genetics exists…there are plenty of explanations. Some of which I have personally given to you, but which you have somehow managed to forget.
Oh, that’s why it persists. I thought it was because four or five bigots won’t shut the fuck up about it and keep droning on and on about their “science” year after year.
What do you mean by “no genetic basis”? If you mean “proof”, you are correct. But there is evidence. Now it might turn out that the evidence can and will be explained away by other evidence that shows that nurturing elements do, in fact, account for the difference in test scores. But there is ample evidence of attempts to control for nurture factors that have failed to explain the differences to say that claiming there is no “evidence” means someone just has eyes eyes glued shut with his fingers in his ears chanting, la la la, there can be no difference in intelligence between races, la la la.
Of course, there’s always the old standby, “B-b-but there’s not such thing as races”. :rolleyes:
I’d put you in that category. As, if I recall correctly, you hold that any hypothesis or statement that suggests that Blacks may be intellectually inferior to another race is necessarily racist.
Even accepting that, it does not PROVE that genes do not have anything to do with test score gaps, does it. And there IS evidence on the other side that suggests that genes may be the/a determining factor.
You’re making me snicker here. You want to take a piece of evidence from your side and use it as PROOF, while ignoring all the evidence that points to something you don’t want top be true. Come on, man. You gotta see that you’re doing that. Do you not?
Be reasonable about the Negroes Iz Dumb theory, iiandyiii. You wouldn’t want to fall short of magellan01’s rigorous standards for shit he’ll advocate to annoy liberals.
The way you write this makes it clear where a good portion of your failure to understand comes from. There really is no such thing as a black race. Really. It’s not just something we say when we’re arguing with racists on message boards, it’s a actual scientific fact supported by actual scientific papers. It’s certainly an inconvenient fact if you want to claim that blacks are genetically inferior to whites, but that’s just one of the many inconveniences you have to suffer through when you’re factually wrong about things.
That’s the level of analysis I’ve come to expect from you. But no real need for you to keep posting, when I see your name in a thread I just assume that you’ll be vying for ElvisL1ves for dumbest post. I’m rarely disappointed.
I never said it was proof. You’re inferring a lot of wrong things about my positions, for some reason. But, so far, it’s the only study that says anything directly about genes.
There are no studies from the other side that directly point to genes – only studies that point away from certain, specific “nurture” causes like socio-economic status. Pointing away from SES as the entire cause is not evidence for genes as a cause, any more than it’s evidence for alien parasites as a cause.
How dare you point out that I have a life that doesn’t allow me to spend as much time as you on these boards! Heaven’s knows how much more of the rank stupidity of posters like you and Elvis I’d like to subject myself to.
