Blacks and crime in America

Great Debates
121

You’re the one proclaiming a creed of faith here, not the people disagreeing with you.

I have no problem with your happening to have a personal conviction that, e.g., blacks are innately dumber than whites. The problem arises when you allow your personal conviction to tempt you into misinterpreting or overstating the science.

For myself, I don’t have any personal conviction about underlying relationships between genetics and intelligence or behavior: I’m perfectly willing to wait and see what the arduous and complicated process of scientific discovery comes up with.

If you feel the need to continually bear witness to your faith in genetic basis of racial disparities rather than just maintaining an open mind until the evidence comes in, okay. But you’re the one exhibiting the traits of a Believer who resents any skepticism of what he regards as Truth.

122

However with humans the results will vary as there are blacks with high IQs and whites with low IQs. And a heck of a lot of overlap. So it’s a very different situation indeed.

Once again you pick an analogy that implies Group 1 stupid, Group 2 smart, because although you acknowledge that if anything we’re talking averages, in reality you prejudge people based on their skin colour.

123

That’s ridiculous. Comparing humans and watermelons is nothing like comparing different groups of humans. Humans are a single species that can interbreed- and every single group/race/ethnicty/etc. of humans has individuals whose intelligence runs the gamut from genius to disabled. If you’re saying that one group is genetically inclined towards higher or lower intelligence (or aggression), then yes, you do need genetic evidence to support it.

I like how you put the word discrimination in quotes- as if it doesn’t exist!

Predict anything you want. By many (not all) measures, these disparities have shrunk over time. You’re the one who, like the Creationists, has an explanation with no evidence. And you’re the one who, like the Creationists, thinks that all you need is to “tear down” one opposing explanation to prove yours.

More straw-man “Religion of Genetic Equality” crap. You’re the “true believer”- it’s clear that your thinking is not based on evidence (you have none), but faith. Perhaps due to personal experience (I’ve found that most “race-realists” have had bad personal experiences that led them to fear certain other races), or perhaps something else, but you believe that black people are genetically dumber and more violent, period. I guess those 19th century pseudo-scientists just happened to stumble across the truth, eh?

124

I can think of a third thing beyond nature or nurture: culture.

Oh, don’t say it’s part of nurture. It’s a little different. If you say I’m making up my own categories, I will retort that your categories were wrong in the first place.

Nurture, as it is typically used, refers to how an individual is raised. But culture inheres in the group as a whole. Culture is a very sticky thing, and its influence can last millennia.

Last time I checked, black people had the shit kicked out of them in Africa. They were brought as slaves to North and South America. Meanwhile, Africa itself was colonized. There just isn’t a black culture in the world that is free of this legacy of violence, oppression, exploitation, and degradation. All of this is bound to have a deleterious influence on cultures that can be labeled “black.”

So there simply is no test tube for seeing how black people would be doing outside of this history. You can control for socioeconomic achievement, yet still this negative legacy and its influence on culture remains.

And while we’re judging the genes of black people, perhaps we should be judging those of white people as well. I’m white, and I’m not proud of how white people have acted. It’s white people that enslaved black people. It’s white people that committed genocide in North and South America and displaced the native populations. It’s white people that took Australia from the natives there. It’s white people that colonized Africa and exploited the people there. It’s white people that colonized India. It’s white people that oppressed China and caused the Opium Wars. It’s white people that produced despots like Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin and gave the world such major conflicts as the French and Indian War, the Napoleonic Wars, and two World Wars that caused misery and destruction across the globe.

Do white people have a gene that causes them to be murderous, exploitative bastards? Perhaps we do. All in all, who has caused more destruction and misery in the world–white people or black people? The answer is obvious. My own race. White people. (Asians come in second with Genghis Khan, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Japanese participation in WWII. A distant second, but hey, they tried.)

So the “racial realists” can wring their hands about black violence, IQ, whatever, but, considering the historical context of white violence and oppression, isn’t it all a bit moot? Because the pointing finger is going to point right back at white people, and even more pointed questions about white genes will–or should–be asked.

Or we can all make a commitment to Love of Neighbor and move as a global culture toward that goal. I think that would be a more productive use of our time and energy as a species.

125

You already know from prior threads that I think “race” is a very crude and sloppy category, and that I think the more finely we define a given population, the more accurately we can ascribe characteristics unique to that particular population, rather than to a larger and cruder category to which the population “belongs.”
I was born and raised in the Indian subcontinent. I understand the diversity there. I don’t think it’s likely that all the various populations are some sort of cohesive whole, although for the most part they are closer to one another historically than, say, they are to a central african (and even in India and Pakistan, there are pockets of former slaves and so on that retain those genetic histories).

I realize you are forced to pretend I am oversimplifying to obscure, when I am simplifying because this a simple message board. But nevertheless, if do decide to group people against a standard SIRE group, where those SIRE groups generally reflect a given ancestral population, the group average will be different from a different ancestral population, and subgroups within that larger SIRE group will bask in the glow or become besmirched by their larger group average, even if their particular sub population average is higher or lower than the larger grouping, and even if their particular subpopulation is higher or lower than the average of the next SIRE group over.

Individual variation is so large that none of this means a given individual can be a priori evaluated by his group’s average. I get that, and I think the assumption here is that I don’t get that. It may well be that a given Ashkenazi Jew can’t add 2+2 and that a given Khoisan is a mathematical genius. It’s not the best bet for the average of those populations, though.

It’s also disingenuous of you (as usual) to pretend that I don’t think political and social overlays affect individual or average outcomes. Of course they do.

My position is simple: Genes are a major driver for outcomes. This is true for individuals, and where populations share different gene pools, we will see different average outcomes because one group does not have access to the other’s genes. Moreover, it’s more likely than not that those gene pools are not similarly beneficial because mother nature likes to drive evolution in the direction of successful reproduction, and different environmental circumstances over time drive divergence of key genes.

126

Are you fucking kidding me? No, I am not asking you that, I’m asking you the question I asked.

127

Considering that chimpanzees and dogs are separate species, whereas blacks and whites aren’t(and in fact there’s no universally agreed upon definition of who is “black” and who is “white”) your argument is exceptionally stupid.

You might as well say that you can’t train a truck to be a plane.

Perhaps you might help us out by giving your definition of a “black person” and your definition of a “white person”.

In the past, for example, people have used the term caucasian and white interchangeably as did the “race realists” of the early 20th Century before they were discredited and yet you’ve made it clear you don’t consider all caucasians to be white.

Can you explain your reasoning and give your definitions of a black person and a white person?

Thanks

128

For the sake of simplicityt, I have lumped everything that is not genes into nurture.
I’m not interested in distracting the discussion.

There are basically two things driving my phenotypic outcome: What my genetic blueprint is, and what happens to me after the blueprint is created.

My genetic blueprint creates a maximum potential for an outcome. Let’s take a simple example: height. My genes determine my maximum height. Change my nurture–everything else–and you will change my height, but it will still have a maximum potential. You could not get me to 7’ with the right nurturing.
A second example: the skillset for golf. My genes determine that maximum potential. Change my nurture–everything else–and I will reach that potential, or lesser, but not greater. Sadly, you will not have been able to nurture me into Tiger Woods (at least, I don’t think I could have been Tiger Woods). Without maximum nurturing we’ll never know. Or music, or math or high-jumping…you get the idea.

It’s true that black people had the shit kicked out of them in africa. Nature is not kind enough to create all populations equal. She is constantly experimenting to see what works. Perhaps in the next world, some other group will be the kickee. And it’s a popular explanation to take that past history (leaving aside for the moment why africans were the kickee and not the kicker) and blame current results on it. But it’s not that hard to correct for. You could, for instance, look at quantitative test scores for blacks versus asians and correct for parental education, socioeconomic circumstance, or any other variable to test the hypothesis that an ancestral population having the shit kicked out of them is a good explanation for a current disproportionate representation.

That you cannot perfectly adjust for nurture is the heart of this discussion, but when I use the term “nurture” (again, for simplicity), I am using it inclusive of culture and whatever else you want to throw in there that’s not a genetic blueprint.

129

I use the term “black” as the Self-Identified Race/Ethnic group, and ditto for “white.”
I think you are missing the point about the watermelon and the human, because you seem hung up on whether or not they are the same species.
The argument at hand is whether it’s an absolute to identify an exact gene set to decide if something is genetic or not. It isn’t, as long as you can control for nurture.

However if it makes you feel better, you could go look for any number of specific genes identified as having different prevalences by population groups, even by population groups as crudely defined as a SIRE group.

130

I hear this a lot- and when some of these corrected studies are done, the gap shrinks (but often is still there). But we don’t have methods yet to correct for some things- despair, media representation/role models, day-to-day treatment and interaction with the community, etc. So we certainly can’t say that these studies provide solid data with regards to genetics. As I’ve said, no sort of data actually provides any information about genetics except for actual genetic data.

131

It is when discussing as specific as intelligence or aggression between groups of humans. Or alternately, it’s essentially impossible to “control for nurture” (because there’s always some hypothetical explanation that can’t be controlled for, like an undetectable nanovirus), so the only data that can say anything about genetics is genetic data.

132

Then it seems to me you should know better than to try to account for the behavior of South Asian immigrants in general by appealing to characteristics associated with the Indian nation-state in particular, such as pacifist movements.

I think you’re oversimplifying partly because you don’t really know what you’re talking about, and partly because your commitment to your Belief forces you to use sloppy arguments and cut logical corners to make it look as though you have supporting evidence for it.

No, we understand that you get the significance of individual variation. What you persistently don’t get is that at present, there is no scientific assessment of the causes of group variation that can tell us how much is genetic and how much is due to other causes.

So you fudge the evidence to argue that there really is such an assessment, and when other people aren’t fooled by your fudging, you accuse them of opposing you for dogmatic reasons.

The problem with your position is simple: There is not yet sufficient scientific evidence to determine in what way and to what extent genes drive specific outcomes.

So when you try to argue that a particular observed outcome MUST be due to genetic differences—not just that it’s possible, or that the possibility should be studied, but that what you believe about it MUST be true—you are arguing without the support of science.

133

So then you think David Ortiz, a Dominican baseball player of overwhelming sub-saharran African descent is “non-black” because he doesn’t classify himself as “black” while the children of Thurgood Marshall, who are both blonde-haired and blue-eyed are “black” because they consider themselves black.

Respectfully, your view of who is and isn’t black doesn’t strike me as particularly scientific or rational.

That said, perhaps you can explain why you think two pasty-faced blondes with blue-eyes are “black” while a guy vastly darker than the overwhelming majority of African-Americans shouldn’t be called “black”.

134

Perhaps you can show me where I said this, since it’s only been a few posts since I said the opposite.
To date, despite massive intervention in the US educational system, the black-other gap stubbornly persists. Egalitarians grasp at finer and finer straws–see some of the ones just above (despair, media representation/role models, day-to-day treatment and interaction with the community, etc) that iiandyiiii is willing to clutch at. And the patterns are repeatable in addition to being resistant to all efforts to change them.

I’m not sure what “science” you want other than the enormous body of studies that have already been done showing these patterns, but I have never said an outcome MUST be due to genetic differences. I’ve only said that genes along with nurture drive outcomes and the residual difference when nurture is accounted for is genes. There is nothing unscientific about that position.

I realize you and I and others may disagree about how well nurturing has been normalized or how adequately it can be quantified, and as I’ve said many times, have at it if you want to live in a world that feels better because the Secret Disadvantageous Nurturing is about to be discovered Real Soon Now. In the meantime, we’ll see persistent outcome differences, so perhaps we can at least agree on that.

Now let me just truck on down to my nearby 7-11 where the (highly advantaged?) immigrant Gujaratis are running their store in the middle of a tough, mostly black neighborhood. A good example of cultural differences, I’m sure. As is the disproportionate representation of other asians on the MCATs I’m reviewing…it’s probably the exact opposite pattern in Stockholm, where the cultural histories don’t apply.

135

It’s not what I think; it’s how the studies are done–SIRE groups are, by definition, self-assigned, although they correlate surprisingly well with the predominant (geographic-based) ancestral populations. There are, of course, exceptions but we are talking about averages, not Suzanne Malveaux.

If you see a study that says “blacks” underperform “asians” by a huge margin on the Medical College Admission Test, the designation is self-assigned. Ms Malveaux can assign herself to “black” and it’s not likely anyone will challenge that. If her French and Spanish genes give her an advantage over other blacks in her SIRE group, well…tough. She’d still qualify for preferential treatment on admission to medical school based on her SIRE group. If Tiger Woods assigned himself to “asian” and applied to medical school, no one would cut him some slack that his European genes dragged him down. He’d still have a harder time getting into medical school because his SIRE group is over-represented.

136

And the patterns by many measures are getting smaller. How long, in your opinion, has “nurture” been normalized? Since Civil Rights? Since the 80s?

I clutch at nothing- besides offering alternatives that have as much (or far more) evidence than your (evidence-free) genetic explanation.

You desperately want to cast us as some sort of anti-science crusaders, when it’s just the opposite- we’re the ones who demand good science, you’re the one who has come to a conclusion without any evidence. Why wouldn’t a genetic explanation need actual genetic data to support it?

Like all good conspiracy believers, you’re convinced that we all either secretly agree with you, or are in on the conspiracy to keep the “truth about race” down, for fear of what it might cause.

But I think it’s something else. Like a lot of “race realists”, you recognize that in modern society this way of belief is thought of as repugnant by most. So to keep your sense of yourself as a good and intelligent person you’ve wrapped up so much of your intellectual identity in this system of belief that a mere lack of evidence couldn’t possibly tear you away from it. For to consider it rationally would mean you would have to consider the possibility that your fear and negative feelings about a certain race might actually be based on nothing but a coincidental meeting of bad experiences and human failings. And that would truly be tough to face.

137

Maybe. Thanks for the armchair psychoanalysis. :slight_smile:

And good luck watching those patterns shrink. Any day now it will be the Inuit’s turn for the NBA and when I look around NASA design teams or CERN the Khoisan will have taken over. We’ll have figured out how to normalize quantitative testing for law and medical programs so that all races have equal outcomes (for that one we’ll have to do something besides offer similar learning opportunity, because that’s already identical and the score differences are massive, even 8 or 12 years on after identical preparation).

And you’ll have your comeuppance.

138

Right, learning opportunities are identical for the Khoisan. Why didn’t I see that?

Yes, I’m so worried about actual science being done. Apparently you hadn’t noticed, but that’s what I’m asking for. You’re able to be confident about something before there’s any actual evidence for it. That’s the difference.

139

Heck, you said it right there in your recent recitation of your creed: “I predict with confidence that outcome differences will not go away.”

Clearly, you are convinced that you already know that these differences MUST be genetic in origin, and that anybody who has the effrontery to demand definitive scientific evidence before agreeing with you is doing so merely because they “want to live in a world that feels better”.

This is kind of like a Creationist triumphantly claiming that the principles of Intelligent Design must be true because biologists haven’t managed to reproduce abiogenesis in the laboratory and physicists haven’t come up with a model that fully explains the early universe.

“They’ve had year after year and grant after grant to work on these godless hypotheses, and they still haven’t managed to agree on what the whole truth is! When will they take off the blinders of their atheistic prejudices and acknowledge that these processes required the hand of Almighty God?”

The lesson for Creationists, Chief Pedant, and all other True Believers who find it difficult to maintain scientific objectivity in the face of their passionate commitment to their chosen beliefs is this:

Just because a very complicated problem has not yet been resolved in a scientifically definitive manner does not make it more likely that your own favorite scientifically unsupported hypothesis will turn out to be true.

In order to come honestly to the conclusion that you’re exhorting us all to reach, we’ll need not only studies that show patterns in group differences in behavior and intelligence but research showing conclusively that such differences are genetic in origin. Without such science, your belief about the genetic nature of such differences remains only a hypothesis.

140

On this we agree.
The fact that it’s my opinion the weight of the science so far leans heavily toward genes as the driver for group average differences does not mean I think it must be so, no matter how you try to paint my position.

In none of the threads anywhere that I can think of do you or other egalitarians present evidence for a nurturing explanation. You happily advance theories of why measured differences might be nurturing, and you readily demand “science” to back up those theories.

But where your theories have failed–where nurturing nornalization for putative disadvantages hasn’t panned out–you have nothing. Socioeconomic or parental education parity hasn’t equalized standardized test scores. Millions of dollars and thousands of programs poured into educational systems haven’t normalized outcomes even for the persons who are in them, much less the group average. Equal opportunity for inclusion in athletic endeavors has resulted in markedly disproportionate outcomes in comparison with the starting pool of wannabes. Gene prevalence analysis shows group differences. Physiologic parameters for all kinds of organ systems show group differences. Chemical analysis for laboratory results show group differences. Animal studies show that behavioral traits are heavily dependent upon genetic underpinnings. Entire populations are partly Neandertal–a population which wasn’t even considered homo sapiens–while more ancestral populations are not.

In short, there is not a single shred of credible evidence showing that groups are NOT different. Yet you persist in wanting the default hypothesis to be that groups are similar and it is up to the “scientist” to prove that nurturing is not the ONLY driver for these group differences.

Whether you recognize it or not, you belong to the Religion of Equality and your defense of your position is based on faith. You can have all the pretense you want that you are somehow the arbiter of what Science is. In truth, there isn’t a single study showing that population groups are the same genetically; not a single reason to suppose that multiple gene pools just happen to drive identical phenotypic outcomes; not a single study that shows actual outcomes are equal; and to boot, the broad patterns of outcomes are reproduced universally.

So there. Neener neener neener.