It boggles the mind that someone can think the statement “blacks are less intelligent” is a non-racist statement if it’s said by a scientist. If David Duke pays a black scientist to say “black people are inherently less intelligent than white people”, it’s just as racist as if Duke says it. And it’s just as racist as if the black scientist said it without being paid or prompted by Duke.
It doesn’t matter who says “black people are less intelligent than white people”… this is always a racist statement, no matter who says it, and no matter why they say it.
A discussion cannot be truly objective if there is a subtle, opinionated *steering *of the debate towards one preconceived notion/conclusion.
A hidden philosophical force or tug, if you will.
Saying something is racist implies it’s false, in common usage, but it’s really just a descriptor for statements and ideas that state that one race is superior or inferior to another, as the statement “black people are less intelligent than white people” does for the characteristic of intelligence.
Were there legitimate direct scientific evidence for some racist statement, like, say, a geneset was found that was more prevalent among Jews that increased tendencies towards greed, than the definition and common usage of “racist” and “racism” would likely change to accommodate this.
Something that can be said only by having a gross ignorance of history. The preconceived notion was that some people were inferior than others just by their looks.
Interesting to notice that those posters also moonlight as climate change deniers or used immigration in an attempt at making a wedge between the proponents of carbon emission controls and those in favor of immigrants.
In general, the scientific community is not opposed to the idea that “races” have biological clusterings for genes (due to the long history of human migration patterns). The scientific community is inclined to minimize those differences, and reassure, for obvious reasons, that no genes have directly been identified which are shown to be responsible for intelligence differences.
Apparently, you wish to call a “racist” someone who thinks its a reasonable inference to make that such genes exist, since the pattern is so persistent and the alternate explanations so lame. That’s certainly you choice, although such a label has no bearing on the science of the topic.
These sorts of carefully wordsmithed position papers are unlikely to change.
The “no empirical evidence” for genes is a nice and gentle way of saying that the exact genes and interactions are not identified. iiandyiiii likes this approach, because it lets you get by with saying “the gap pattern is basically unexplained.”
The problem is that the long-assumed explanation has been opportunity and SES, because when we normalize those for other races, large gaps disappear. The residual gap for whites and asians given equal privilege and opportunity to develop a skillset is almost certainly genetic; it’s just not very controversial to raise it because it’s fairly small and fairly trivial.
But the glaring dilemma with the white-asian/black pattern is that even when you skew learning opportunity for an academic skillset way toward favoring a black cohort, you don’t reverse the pattern. That makes genes a very likely explanation, and generally speaking various position statements are going to wordsmith around that with the hide-behind being that specific genes are not yet identified.
Alien parasites is about what the non-genetic side is down to. When you normalize SES for whites and asians, you get a fairly small residual pattern with, for example, asians typically outscoring whites in math skillsets. But when you normalize SES for whites and blacks, the black score gaps for any quantified skillsets are woefully short.
Part of the non-SES, alternate-to-genes-explanation, dilemma is that it needs to be specific for blacks and only blacks. Alien parasites that affect only blacks, for example…
By “egalitarians” I mean those who think all races are approximately equal in potential for various skillsets such as those required for various sporting activities, intelligence tests, academic performance and the like–assuming there has been equal opportunity for nurturing for the skillset.
No one in this thread is an egalitarian? I was thinking all of those calling me “racist” were opposed to the idea that any given race is better suited than another for an average better performance for a given skillset.
What “economics and wealth” bring are the opportunity to maximally nurture for skillsets perceived as ones of value.
If you want to argue that wealthy and educated black parents just happen to not value education for their underperforming children, have at it. To my mind that is tantamount to saying they are either too stupid or lazy to maximize the opportunity to nurture their childrens’ education. Those children are woefully underperforming their equally privileged white and asian peers–so woefully that their scores are barely on par with poverty-stricken and undereducated whites and asians.
This is “zero evidence” that gene differences are at play? This is good evidence that some totally mysterious non-genetic explanation is at play which we are all just too dumb too uncover? And that mysterious explanation applies only to blacks?
Since we’re opening big cans of worms left and right, we might as well open another one and address the age-old issue of why the overwhelming majority of people who play positions in the NFL requiring great speed and agility (wide receiver, cornerback, safety, etc.) are African-American.
We have no evidence that alien brain parasites affect neurobiology. We know genes do.
We have no evidence that abp’s cluster by race. We know genes do.
Can you elaborate more on your theory it might be abp’s that explain why wealthy and educated black families have children who barely score on par with poverty-stricken and uneducated white families’ children?
You’ve got exactly two debating tricks up your sleeve:
“The experts say…”
“Strawman!”
This one above is a strawman, not to mention incorrect. But it does make me laugh out loud, along with your witless hope that ACC can somehow have relevance in a debate about genes.
I know your heart is in the right place, but you really are as dumb as molasses when it comes to any actual independent thinking.
You think it’s unlikely that there might be pathogens that affect one race more strongly than another, and that compromise intelligence? I don’t think it’s implausible at all.
Speaking of parasites, what do you think of that paper from a few years ago (ah, 2011 apparently) on national and state IQ scores by the notorious Randy Thornhill? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
Parasitic infection is a much better predictor of IQ than race. For example, if you compare US states by IQ and try to identify predictive factors, race is only marginally significant after you account for infectious disease prevalence. You are aware of the Thornhill study, right? Randy Thornhill is hardly a politically correct ideologue, to put it mildly.
As for why rich black students score lower than poor white students, I think it’s fairly plausible there might be hereditary, epigenetic effects of disease stress a few generations ago.
If we want to look at data suggesting genetic differences instead of nurturing influences, it seems to me the best data takes cohorts where the supposedly poorly-nurtured cohort actually has obvious nurturing advantages. This is why I find the academic skillset gap in the US academic world so persuasive. I am aware of various explanations for national IQ differences, including things like nutrition and disease. Every outcome is dependent on a combination of nurturing and nature, and I tend to focus on cohorts which have been normalized for nurture as it makes any residual difference much more likely to be genetic.
Lots and lots of nurturing explanations for the observed outcome pattern among races have been advanced; most notorious perhaps is Jared Diamond’s work. By comparing scores of rich American blacks with rich (and poor) American whites/asians, I can avoid getting dragged into some argument around his contorted explanation for the worldwide difference in cargo.
On the chance this is not a whoosh, I’ll just gently say you are getting all conflusterated.
Wealthy and educated black families have children who, as a cohort, woefully underscore their SES peers. They underscore those SES peers so woefully that their scores are barely on par with poverty-stricken and undereducated whites.
Parasites are not a secret scourge of wealthy and educated black families.
It may be better to avoid various statistical wordsmithing tricks such as which factor X predicts which IQ outcome. That an individual has Down syndrome better predicts his IQ than if he is a particular race has no bearing on whether average performance outcome differences among races is due to average gene pool differences.