Normal phase, you are the creationist here. You reject scientific studies based on your beliefs, which is exactly what creationists do.
You’re as stupid as Chief Pedant. All he has done in this thread is post non-scientific data, ignored or hand-waved away valid science and lied about my position in this thread. Neither he, nor anyone else, has presented any scientific evidence in this thread for the proposition that there are genetic markers for intelligence that vary along racial lines. We simply don’t know at this time, and that is the only proper scientific position to take.
We do have a good idea that human brain development can be impacted, sometimes very severely, by things such as exposure to chemicals (e.g., fetal alcohol syndrome, lead exposure), hormonal changes in the womb, pathogens and early socialization (e.g., feral children, early exposure to phonetic structures). We don’t know yet what the extent of impact is for each and every type exposure and we don’t know how each and every cognitive function may or may not be impacted. All we can say right now is that these factors cannot be blithely dismissed when discussing human cognitive ability. To dismiss them out of hand is not scientific.
Before you start accusing others of being un-scientific, you should try to acquire some basic knowledge about the topic at hand.
BrightnShiny, just curious–what do you think about anthropogenic global warming?
Can you be more specific?
This is nonsense. It’s a restatement by you in order to be able to pretend that those of us who consider genes the primary driver for the persistent and immutable group differences have some sort of blinders on.
While I disagree that the jury is still out on the degree to which genetics controls intelligence, it is impossible to do any sort of poll since an open admission of a belief that intelligences vary at a race cohort level is not only anathema in our society; it’s academic and career suicide. To pretend otherwise, as if the world of academia is free to debate this topic as readily as one might debate the moon’s mass, is disingenuous.
I’m uninterested in getting respect for my arguments. If I needed a pat on the back, I’d just jump on the egalitarian bandwagon and have everyone here laud me for my insights. This is the sort of nonsense posted here by that crowd:
“Doesn’t this whole thread prove the OP’s point? There’s no point arguing with a committed “i’m not a racist i’m just stating the uncomfortable facts” type; it’s like arguing with a conspiracy theorist or a creationist. Best to just shut off the computer. Or spit in their face, if you’re unlucky enough to be around them in person.”
Not a shred of evidence. Not a single cogent proposition on why so many populations, once exposed to opportunity, perform equally while those of sub-saharan ancestry do not. Just bullshit about who is a racist and who is not, as if name-calling were sufficient. Or perhaps strawmen, like pretending if we can’t identify a specific gene to regulate intelligence or define a race, phenotypic traits must not be genetic. Or grossly exaggerated stories like those around Steele’s research, which pretends that “stereotype threat” has been shown to actually make a difference in SAT scores (a concept I find particularly insulting to blacks).
In the end, almost everyone here goes home satisfied they’ve defended this nonsensical idea that all populations are equal, and that any differences must somehow be the result of horrid racists or bad luck. And Ricci v DeStefano will loom again a thousand times over.
I don’t see the relevance to the topic at hand.
Sure, it was post 114.
And right there, you prove my point that you do have some sort of blinders on.
Chief, you simply cannot plausibly make the case that the community of scientific researchers has arrived at any sort of consensus or reliable model for “the degree to which genetics controls intelligence”, at least not at the level of racial groups.
And for Og’s sake, Chief, you yourself ADMITTED that when kimera pointed it out just a few posts ago:
In other words, the jury IS still out on the degree to which genetics controls intelligence. I can’t see how you can continue to deny this and expect anybody at all to take you seriously.
Then all I can say is “Congratulations”. You’re succeeding magnificently.
Perhaps you would like to explain which of the following dataset is unscientific:
Wealthy blacks underscore poor whites.
Black children of highly educated parents underscore poverty-stricken white children.
Black students exposed to equivalent nurturing in college and post-graduate school never catch up to the norm.
There has never been a shred of evidence suggesting a correlation between some sort of vague chemical exposure and those results.
Gene prevalences do vary among racial lines; examples include genes for physical appearance, microcephalin haplotypes and neandertal admixtures.
No effort to normalize opportunity and nurturing has erased the black/white gap. While better nurturing has improved it, no one argues against nurturing playing a role in success. Good nurturing will improve my basketball skills; my genes set a ceiling that prevents me from playing in the NBA. The idea that, because nurturing improves my outcome then genes do not relate to that trait is incorrect.
In no societies and cultures anywhere in the world are the relative rankings of asians and blacks turned upside down with respect to academic achievements.
Now you may disagree about what conclusions to draw from this. That’s part of the debate. But simply calling me stupid and accusing me of lying is unlikely to bolster anything but your own self-esteem.
Pretending that these are “social” issues and not “scientific” ones is such an utter confusion I’m not even sure how to fix your understanding of what “science” is.
Indulge me.
We’ve already been through this repeatedly. You are attempting to use TSPED to draw conclusions about gene expression, which is not valid science. You ignore other factors which we know can impact cognitive development, and which cannot be ignored when attempting to discuss gene expression.
You did lie repeatedly repeatedly and it’s very clear for anyone who’s read this thread to see. Here, I’ll even quote one of the many times you lied:
I never made the claim that various population groups have “equal potential.” That is something you made up and it is a position you keep trying to falsely pin on me. When you decide to stop lying, I’ll stop calling you a liar.
Hysterical. If you can’t tell that determinations about gene structure cannot be drawn from TSPED, then it’s clear you don’t even understand basic scientific concepts.
I’ll indulge you when you explain the relevance.
Well, I guess we all have to cling to our little nitpicks, don’t we?
Saying the jury is still out on the degree to which genetics controls intelligence does not mean I think one of those degrees might be “zero.” But hey, since you haven’t got a single shred of evidence to show that any two groups–and most particularly, blacks versus other racial groups–have ever been able to perform anywhere near equivalently despite forty years of very targeted effort here in the US, I guess you gotta go with picking nits, huh? The paucity of black PhDs in the STEM sciences is just gonna remain one of those unsolved mysteries possibly related to low self esteem, huh?
At least I know what the opposition felt like when the tobacco lobby kept insisting every patient was an individual and there was no way you could control for every single variable that might be causing cancer–and therefore no way you could say with absolute certainty it was the smokes causing it.
OK. I’m interested in how people’s political views affect their perception of scientific topics. The three scientific topics I think are most interesting for this purpose are race/IQ studies, evolution, and anthropogenic global warming.
While it’s true that the black/white test score gap hasn’t been erased, it’s been significantly reduced, which seriously undermines the assumption that it’s based on immutable genetic differences. As Jencks and Phillips pointed out,
Of course, it wouldn’t be scientific to assume that just because the black/white test score gap has been significantly reduced, then it must be possible to entirely eliminate it.
However, it’s equally unscientific to assume that just because it hasn’t already been entirely eliminated, then there must be some part of it that is genetically immutable and impossible to entirely eliminate. And that is the unscientific fallacy that you fall into, over and over again.
But I’m not asking you to agree with my conclusions. I’m asking for any–any-studies which contradict the studies I cited and the points I made.
It would appear you got nuthin’ but a hope that my conclusions are wrong that the most obvious candidate explanation–genetically-based differences–is the right explanation. Now if you’ve got an obvious chemical in mind stunting development, and any sort of study showing how it affects one race and not another, by all means present it and let’s check it out.
“Nitpicks”? This is no nitpick, but rather the very core of the dispute here.
To recap: The science on the degree to which genetics controls intelligence is clearly not at all settled (certainly not at the level of racial-group trends), and therefore it’s impossible to draw from it reliable conclusions about how much certain measured differences in intelligence depend on genetic factors. In other words, the jury is still out on this issue.
Notwithstanding this, you persist in making categorical claims about how much certain measured differences in intelligence depend on genetic factors. You are stubbornly ignoring the uncertainty in the science in order to assert as facts speculations that are in harmony with your beliefs.
Pointing out the serious flaws in your position on this issue is not a “nitpick”.
I know that you don’t think that genetics has no effect on intelligence. I’m not arguing that you should think that genetics has no effect on intelligence. What I’m arguing is that you shouldn’t falsely assert that it is scientifically established how much effect genetics has on intelligence.
I see…so we should just keep holding out hope it’s going to be erased? Even when we can’t erase it by having the candidate students be children of highly educated parents competing against children of highly uneducated parents? And even when paupers can outcompete the privileged?
How long do you propose holding out hope?
(I might add, btw, that the gap rises and falls, but never goes away. It is not on some kind of continually narrowing slope. Like any other single data point, it’s not perfect, and is only one small part of the overall evidence. What is not present is any evidence at all contrary to the hypothesis that racial groups vary in their genes and in their average abilities.)
off to bed
You’ve been given references that contradict a great many of the points made. You have apparently chosen to ignore them.
At this stage I think you need to clearly need to state what points you would like to see contradicted, what evidence you have that those points are correct and what sort of evidence would count, in your mind, as a contradiction.
Until you are able to do that your opponents are clearly pissing into the wind.
As I noted above, there’s lots of evidence showing that their performance has moved much closer to equivalence than it used to be.
I don’t automatically assume that that means it will or can actually reach equivalence, but I think it’s very foolish to assume, as you seem hell-bent on doing, that it can’t reach equivalence.
Any two groups huh? No evidence that Germans and Swedes have ever been able to perform anywhere near equivalently? No evidence that Scots and Irish have ever been able to perform anywhere near equivalently?
That is, of course, utter bollocks. you are clearly making this up as you go.
I’m not versed in climate science so I can’t say either way. All I can say based on my current understanding is that the majority of climate scientists have come to the conclusion that AGC is real, but they are still refining and adjusting their models. This is why I don’t participate in AGC science threads because I don’t have anything useful to add on the science. I will occasionally participate in AGC threads related to legal or economic issues because I have a background in regulatory economics. Does that answer your question?