# Assuming that one racial group is on average smarter than another, so what? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 5, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266 "2011-09-05T14:14:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/41 "2011-09-06T13:16:27Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Test scores aside (and for most jobs, there is no test), how would one stop a company that doesn’t hire people from group X at all? You would have to demonstrate discrimination against one of those not getting hired. > [@](#): > > Historically, it is certain that many people have been discriminated against for no other reason than being a member of an identifiable group. There is no way they can prove individual discrimination, and in fact they are not being discriminated against as individuals. I don’t see how there can be discrimination against a group without there being discrimination against the individuals in that group. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/42 "2011-09-06T13:22:52Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > “Black people are never going to learn anyway” is not the same thing as “black people are less intelligent, in general and on average.” No, but many people will derive the former from the latter. See the Levin link **Chuck11** posted in the other thread for an exaxmple of this kind of thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/43 "2011-09-06T16:51:51Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Test scores aside (and for most jobs, there is no test), how would one stop a company that doesn’t hire people from group X at all? Historically, it is certain that many people have been discriminated against for no other reason than being a member of an identifiable group. There is no way they can prove individual discrimination, and in fact they are not being discriminated against as individuals. If the level of disparity is of such magnitude that it cannot be explained by reasonable differences in average ability, then that would consitutute evidence of discrimination. I’m with Brazil, Shodan et al in what the primary issue of assumption of different average abilities for different ethnic groups is . But I don’t think you have to do away with statistical analysis either. Whether different groups have different average abilities is debatable, but it’s obvious that there is no group of which all members are retarded, and any disparity that needs to rely on that assumption for an explanation has to be explained otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/44 "2011-09-06T17:27:12Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > “Black people are never going to learn anyway” is not the same thing as “black people are less intelligent, in general and on average.” Yes, you can say that, because you’re capable of reasoning and correctly interpreting statistical data. My uncle, on the other hand, HAS uttered the phrase “Affirmative action is stupid, because those n\*ers aren’t smart enough to be in college on their own and everyone knows it.” ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/45 "2011-09-07T02:16:37Z")
Policy folk have been trying to figure out why ‘black kids aren’t learning’ for the last four decades. In the 70s, it was determined they ‘didn’t know English and that’s why they can’t read’. (See: [Labov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Labov), who helped make the case for AAVE.) The idea that ‘black kids won’t learn anyway’ _is_ the driving force between many new education policy pushers. In some areas, it’s called _vouchers_, _school choice_, _reform_, _privatization_. Today…we just blame it on teachers. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/46 "2011-09-07T02:53:56Z")
If it was discovered that blacks are generally smarter than whites it would be common topic of conversation. White guys are the only noholdsbarred targets left in America today. Any data pointing to white smarts would be summarily dismissed as racist. Just a fact of being white in America though. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/47 "2011-09-07T02:54:18Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > There are plenty of (disgusting) policies you can justify with this. > > It’s all gross. What about blaming inequality on a more statistically successful group? Has that ever happened? Ashkenazi Jews would be expected to be overrepresented in cognitively demanding roles [based on IQ](http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-jewish-iq18-2009apr18,0,7978229.story). Perhaps you would prefer to attribute that to structural unfairness in favour of jews? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/48 "2011-09-07T04:02:48Z")
I wouldn’t say structural _unfairness_. But structure is a major part of it. If you look at educational institutions (schools, religious activities, family life), economic incentives and opportunities, and how educational activities are rewarded, you will likely find an explanation for how various communities approach education. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/49 "2011-09-07T04:36:40Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I wouldn’t say structural _unfairness_. But structure is a major part of it. If you look at educational institutions (schools, religious activities, family life), economic incentives and opportunities, and how educational activities are rewarded, you will likely find an explanation for how various communities approach education. The way incentives are structured you would think would favour some [communities](http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/10/affirmative-action-numbers.html): > [@](#): > > Translating the advantages into SAT scores, study author Thomas Espenshade, a Princeton sociologist, calculated that African-Americans who achieved 1150 scores on the two original SAT tests had the same chances of getting accepted to top private colleges in 1997 as whites who scored 1460s and Asians who scored perfect 1600s. > > Espenshade found that when comparing applicants with similar grades, scores, athletic qualifications, and family history for seven elite private colleges and universities: > > Whites were three times as likely to get fat envelopes as Asians. Hispanics were twice as likely to win admission as whites. African-Americans were at least five times as likely to be accepted as whites. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/50 "2011-09-07T04:48:07Z")
@ Even Swen, just another point on incentives, Bryan Caplan [comments](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/02/the_truth_hurts.html): > [@](#): > > But is it really true that the market fails to reward blacks for getting more education? Is it even true that the market rewards them less? I tested these claims using one of the world’s best labor data sets, the NLSY. The results directly contradict Tim’s self-fulfilling prophesy story. Blacks actually get a substantially larger return to education than non-blacks! The same goes for experience, though the result is not statistically significant. The real lesson of the data is that if you are young, gifted, and black, you should get a ton of education, because it has an exceptionally large pay-off. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/51 "2011-09-07T09:09:06Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > If it was discovered that blacks are generally smarter than whites it would be common topic of conversation. White guys are the only noholdsbarred targets left in America today. Any data pointing to white smarts would be summarily dismissed as racist. > > Just a fact of being white in America though. I thought it was Christians who were the last acceptable target in America. Or was it men? Or Republicans? Or fat people? Or maybe fat white Republican Christian men? I mean, that Rush Limbaugh - how persecuted is _that_ guy? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/52 "2011-09-07T09:58:17Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I thought it was Christians who were the last acceptable target in America. Or was it men? Or Republicans? Or fat people? Or maybe fat white Republican Christian men? Actually, it’s a guy named Bob in Manhattan. You haven’t heard of him because, well, would you go out in public if you were the last acceptable target in America? Of course not. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/53 "2011-09-07T10:01:01Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I thought it was Christians who were the last acceptable target in America. Or was it men? Or Republicans? Or fat people? Or maybe fat white Republican Christian men? > > I mean, that Rush Limbaugh - how persecuted is _that_ guy? None of those groups are sacralized like some [groups](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html), although I think there is growing sensitivity around fatness? > [@](#): > > “Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.” … > > **“If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.”** It’s easy for social scientists to observe this process in other communities, like the fundamentalist Christians who embrace “intelligent design” while rejecting Darwinism. But academics can be selective, too, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan found in 1965 when he warned about the rise of unmarried parenthood and welfare dependency among blacks — violating the taboo against criticizing victims of racism. > > “Moynihan was shunned by many of his colleagues at Harvard as racist,” Dr. Haidt said. “Open-minded inquiry into the problems of the black family was shut down for decades, precisely the decades in which it was most urgently needed. Only in the last few years have liberal sociologists begun to acknowledge that Moynihan was right all along.” ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/54 "2011-09-07T10:11:30Z")
Funny that you of all people should post that bolded section. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/55 "2011-09-07T10:26:05Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > If it was discovered that blacks are generally smarter than whites it would be common topic of conversation. White guys are the only noholdsbarred targets left in America today. Any data pointing to white smarts would be summarily dismissed as racist. > > Just a fact of being white in America though. Well there’s an asymmetry about the history and demographics of the US, hence an asymmetry about the way particular groups can be described. Whites still make up the majority of the US population, and there are a great many current and past white americans of great distinction. Nobody would take seriously the notion that “All white people are the same”. OTOH there are plenty of people that would think such things of minority groups. This is one reason why you can poke fun at white people in a way you cannot about minorities (not that I do this myself). Similar logic applies for men vs women. In the West at the moment I think that it’s much more tolerated being rude to/about men than women. But again, you could consider it a response to our history which for a long time has been the other way round. And no-one really takes things like “men are dumb” that seriously while the majority of, say, famous scientists, are men. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/56 "2011-09-08T05:24:40Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Funny that you of all people should post that bolded section. Why? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/57 "2011-09-08T05:48:00Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Why? Because it describes what you are doing of course, trying to distort science to support your racist beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/58 "2011-09-08T06:00:38Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it describes what you are doing of course, trying to distort science to support your racist beliefs. What have I distorted? The fact that you can’t debate what I’ve said in anything approaching a rational manner & then have the gall to say I’m distorting things is pitiful. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/59 "2011-09-08T06:02:13Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > What have I distorted? Pretty much everything, as far as I can tell. People are always looking into your own cites and pointing out how they don’t say what you say they do. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266/60 "2011-09-08T06:03:37Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Pretty much everything, as far as I can tell. People are always looking into your own cites and pointing out how they don’t say what you say they do. Can you elaborate? I know you don’t think much about your posts but please make an effort if you’re going to make accusations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assuming-that-one-racial-group-is-on-average-smarter-than-another-so-what/595266.md?page=2)