It’s kind of like the Mormon beliefs before the 70s – they really, truly believed that black people were marked as inferior by God. This was a sincere belief, based on (from their point-of-view) the strongest evidence possible.
It was still an incredibly racist belief. It doesn’t matter why one makes a racist claim. The motivation doesn’t matter. A claim can be looked at in a vacuum – just the text – and we can determine whether the claim is racist or not. No bias, no subjectivity – just the words used tell us if a claim is racist or not.
While I want to agree with parts of this, the totality makes no sense. You’re saying that it would be okay to study the relationship between Race X, Y and Z and intelligence, but if the findings show that Race Y is more intelligent than Race Z, haring those findings and stating so is racist.
You’re equating beliefs with scientific findings. I’d agree that the former is the stuff of racism (racist), the latter, as long as the studies are good science, merely racial.
It’s not a problem at all. People just need to be careful before they make claims. It’s a very good and very positive thing if scientists are worried that certain claims might be considered racist. That means they’ll be extra-careful, as they should, about topics with a history like this one.
This means that they’ll actually have to come up with a good definition of intelligence. It means that they’ll actually have to come up with a good way to measure intelligence. It means that they’d actually have to find all or nearly all of the genes that are tied to intelligence. It means that they’d have to show that races are actually distinct genetic populations, which has been mostly debunked.
Keeping all that in mind, it’s really not hard for a good scientist to do good science and not make racist claims.
Who gets to decide if the studies are good science? So far, no good scientists and no good science has led to a reasonable conclusion that one race is inherently less intelligent than another. Since we already know you agree with me on this, why are you so anxious to defend these bad scientists who are doing bad science and making racist claims?
This does not change the fact that, according to your post I commented on, it would be racist to merely reveal valid scientific findings. That’s nuts.
Is it also racist to for an anatomy book to point out that Asians lack epicanthic folds of the eye? Or that the skin of Whites has less melanin than other races?
What valid scientific findings? There are no valid scientific findings that would justify racist claims. Maybe there are some fantasy scientific findings, but I’m not particularly worried about those right now.
Obviously not. Don’t you remember? Racism has always been about certain groups being considered either less intelligent or less inherently moral than others, not about superficial traits.
Invididuals can vary. That’s why I commented about the groups as a whole.
“Playing in the NBA is correlated with being tall” = true. “Muggsy Bogues is tall” = false. (More below.)
Someone else already addressed the first of these - the very article you link to said it was originally 71% and the point of the article was that the gap was narrowing over time.
As for the second, you may have misread my words. I said “supported BO over HRC”. I was referring to the Democratic primaries in 2008.
In any event, whether these are correct or not is not the point here. The point is that I think they’re true and also think there’s a possibility that they could offend people. Conversely if I myself was an African-American and thought the exact opposite WRT these issues, I might avoid mentioning them to white people. No sense in getting people riled up. IRL, of course. This board is another matter IMO. That’s what we’re here for …
I might not discuss certain topics around certain people for a variety of reasons, but never race – I’ve never thought ‘this guy is black, so I better not talk about topic X’ – it’s always been ‘I don’t know this person very well, so I better not talk about sensitive topic X’ or ‘I know this person is very defensive about politics, so I better not talk about politics with him’.
It’s the principle. Also, what you want to do reduces your argument to a mere ad hominem. The people are “racist”. These are “bad people”. They may very well be. Just like the guy who waits on you at Starbucks may be those things. But if the science is unconvincing, or the study flawed, we can just throw away the findings. No need to impute motive to anyone to have the findings be thrown away. i think that puts you/(us) on solider ground, as we are not arguing from emotion. Personally, if this was really studied well I think the findings would reveal no difference between the races when it comes to intelligence. There are real, measurable physical differences, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there are mental ones as well. But it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there are zero mental differences either.
I think it is perfectly possible that a scientist who was coding a study about race and intelligence might be racist. But he might not be. Hell, if I were a Black scientist with a lot of time on my hands I might choose to look into it in the hopes of finding definitive proof that there is no difference, or that Blacks are, in fact, more intelligent. If only to dispel ugly stereotypes that hurt both individuals an society.
Do you mean in the beginning more blacks supported HRC than Obama? Or do you mean black support for BO was not markedly higher than white support? I can belive the first - she was the overwhelming favorite in the early polls - but not the second.
In any event, it’s not the point I was discussing. In the later primaries, once both were serious candidates, BO swamped her. From the WP
My point is that no one wins those kind of majorities against the established favorite.
But again, that’s just my opinion. You feel that 85% of blacks just felt that BO would make a better president than HRC on non-racial grounds that’s fine too. My opinion is otherwise, as above, and this is an example something I would not bring up with black people IRL.
I’m not calling anyone racist. I’m calling claims racist.
I said “bad scientists” (as in “bad at doing science”), not “bad people”.
I’m not arguing from emotion. I’m not imputing any motives. But in addition to ‘throwing away the findings’ from bad science, it’s also reasonable (and even good and positive) to call out claims that are racist. Racist claims should absolutely be called out. If a poor scientist does poor science, and than says “black people are less intelligent” – why on earth should I refrain from calling this claim “racist”??
Again again again – I’m describing claims as racist, not people. No emotion, no motives, just calling balls and strikes.
You said “black people supported BO over HRC”. This was not true at the beginning of the primaries.
I can’t make a claim about the motives and minds of millions of people that I’ve never spoken too.
Why not?
I hope I’m not. But racists rarely actually know if they’re racist, so I can’t know for certain. I can only try not to be racist, and try not to say or do racist things. If I had a belief about black people that I was afraid to share with black people, I would be awfully afraid that this is a racist belief.
Please reread the exchange. Based on what you wrote, it would be racist to merely reveal valid scientific findings. Period. Whatever they might be and whenever they might be presented.
But I’m glad you agree that it would not necessarily be racist to simply do the study.
That should have nothing to do with science. What you describe point to man’s biases and emotions. There’s no room for that in science—good science. When done correctly it merely reveals the truth of nature.
What valid scientific findings? Are you talking about some hypothetical (e.g. “fantasy”) scientific findings? I’m saying every time, in the present and in the past, that someone has said “black people are inherently genetically less intelligent”, this was based on poor science, poor evidence, and was a racist claim. Every single time. Can you identify a single time, just one, in which someone has said “black people are inherently genetically less intelligent” (or some variation) and it was a reasonable conclusion based on “valid scientific findings”? If not, then why is it wrong to call these claims “racist”?
I’ve agreed with this many, many times before.
And so far there’s no “truth of nature”, no good science, and no good evidence – no good reason at all – to make the claim “black people are inherently genetically less intelligent”. It’s a racist claim, full stop.
Exactly. If someday a gene is found that’s related to intelligence and race then there will be some scientific evidence on which to form conclusions. But no such gene has been found and no such evidence exists. So the people who are theorizing about such a gene are starting from their belief that black people are inherently less intelligent and then guessing there’s scientific evidence somewhere out there to support their belief. That’s not science - it’s racist pseudoscience.
