But in regard to the “race” issue, we are not looking at “Negroid” peoples or blacks in the context of marathon running. Not only is it improper to say that “blacks” have a propensity for running marathons, because the marathon winners are specifically Kenyan and do not include South Africans or Ghanans or Nigerians, it is improper to say that Kenyans are the best marathon runners, because all the winners have been of the Kalenjin group within Kenya, only 12% of the country’s 37 million people, or fewer than 4,500,000 people. It is ludicrous to talk about a “black” trait that is present in only 0**.**56% of the 800,000,000 black people in Africa, alone.
Talking about mararthon running as a “racial” trait–as though it applied to the nearly 800 million black Africans along with many tens of millions more of slave descendants in the Americas when it is expressed in a closed population of 4.5 million people is silly.
Regardless, I do not see what this has to do with your OP. It looked to me as though you were concerned about scientists attacking Watson on social ideological grounds, not whether Rushton’s silly ideas have merit. The whole discussion of race appears to be a hijack of your own thread.
Now as to whether, in a discussion of racial characteristics, it is appropriate to point out that the whole concept is so flawed as to be meaningless, I would say that pointing out that the whole discussion has no foundation would be pretty significant. If someone wants to discuss whether Saruman’s Uruk-Hai were fiercer orcs than the ones originating in Mordor, it is rude to interupt the discussion to exclaim, “Orcs are fictional!” However, that is because the people in the disacussion have agreed to accept the imagined (but published) creations of Professor Tolkien. When one wishes to discuss the differences between imagined races, it is quite relevant to poiint out that the scientific community overwhelmingly rejects the broad category of “race” into which humanity has been arbitrarily divided because there is no consistent agreed upon base such as in the tales of Tolkien. The last several posters have, I hope, provided you enough information to demonstrate that the word race (as applied to the entire world separated into three or four or five (internally heterogeneous) groups has no basis in reality in the way that population is grounded in reality. We can talk about the primacy of marathon running among the Kalenjin compared to the rest of the world, but a discussion of the primacy of blacks in marathons expands the group under discussion to meaningless absurdity.
For example: recently a hypothesis was put forth that the McCoys of the Hatfield/McCoy feud tend to suffer from a specific genetic predisposition to violence. If we looked at the hair-trigger temper and violence associated with that group in Kentucky and Tennessee, we could note that whites have a quicker hair trigger temper than blacks or Indians. We have a group to which we can point and even measure their violence. Doers the condition of one isolated population actually tell us anything significant about the much larger population from which they sprang?
I don’t see any way to avoid giving you a Warning for this. You really do lnow better.
Pull in your horns and just stick to the issues.
Kimstu, in the future, do a better job of indicating “generic you,” (but magellan01, the context was sufficiently clear and if you had a problem with his syntax, then you should have reported it, not responded to it).
Well, let me help you. Try taking my entire passage in context. And see the point I was making. Then compare it to what I was responding to. Then decide to warn both of us or neither.
See, that wasn’t hard, was it? Once you get over the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of fairness.
Yes, you’re right, what she said was clear. But I never claimed ambuguity was the problem. What I said was just clear, as well. I even added the reason for the flavor of the response.
And by the way, if I had any faith that you would deal with such transgressions when I do report them—or even when they appear in a thread you are actively participating in—maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to straighten things out on my own. Since there is NO such confidence, I will continue to come to my own defense.
The analogy is perfectly fine for the point I was making. In both cases the existence of what is being discussed is assumed to be real. And in both cases people can attempt to derail the points being discussed by arguing that which must be presupposed for meaningful, honest debate to be had. And in neither case is their a man holding a gun to your head ordering you to participate.
So, you admit that it’s not ALL populations biologists. So most agree with you. How nice. Does the phrase ad populum ring a bell?
You know, there is another option: to allow you and yours to slice things the way your political sensibilities dictate and move on. You know what would be a a more honest tack for you and yours? Simply come in and say “I don’t think this discussion makes sense because it presupposes the the term “race” is meaningful and I—and most scientists—don’t think that it is.”
Just look at all the typing you would have saved. Times three.
I did not open this thread to debate whether or not race exists. If you want to have that discussion, open a thread.
The question goes to whether or not his claim was based on fact or not. He claims that it was, i.e., test scores. So we have someone who has made a mark in the world as a scientist. Someone who looks at evidence and draws conclusions based on that evidence. That is all. I don’t think he is claiming expertise in any area. He is stating an opinion based on evidence, as any scientists would. Now, he may very well be wrong. And he’s made it easy to prove him so. Since he hinges his conclusion on the test data, all someone has to do is find fault with the data. If for instance, we looked at the scores and found that all scores were pretty equal, that would go to undermine his point. That doesn’t mean he is a racist, it means he may or may not be a racist. But that he was wrong about his claim.
I think a word or two is missing here. But I did say earlier that his statement about employed black did seem racist. I would like to see the context before I say so definitively, but it seems to be. Now you may very well look at that statement and feel justified in concluding that he is a racist. But the accusation was that he was a racist because of his claim about intelligence and test scores. Let me ask you this: if Watson had never opined on race at all, ever, then one day offered his claim about the intelligence of blacks and his reasoning for his claim (test scores), would that make him a racist?
He pointed to test scores, did he not? That was the basis for his claim.
Well, I have made no such claim. (If that is what you meant.) But IF it was true, would it be racist? This is the crux of the issue, I think.
I was using the skin idea because I thought it one that we’d all agree with, not because is was tautological. Substitute kinky hair for increased melanin levels.
I think you go to far here. Here is the quote from the article, which quotes him:
He did not specify “every” or “all”. Statements of this sort are understood to be general in nature. Do you really think that Watson, even if he is a racist, would believe that ALL blacks have inferior intellect? And to go further, inferior to ALL whites. That would be ridiculous, would it not?
As far as his statement about running countries, it needn’t be taken the way you took it. Statements like these are general in nature. The additional things one would have to believe to ascribe to your interpretation asks too much.
But that’s not what I did. The Kenyans were simply brought up to illustrate the point about sets and subsets. I did not use marathon prowess as a racial trait.
I’m trying to defend an attempted hijack. Whether or not race exists in any meaningful way needs to be assumed for any fair discussion of the OP.
Granted. I could see posting it once and moving on. But why woud an atheist continue to post in a thread that obvioulsy assumes the existence of God to explore a finer point? The only way it’s not bewildering is to ascribe less than desireable characteristics to those who do it.
It would depend on what is the purpose of deciding whether somebody is “racist.”
For example, in the context of employment, I would say that an organization is “racist” if, as a matter of policy, it gives an advantage or disadvantage to job applicants of a particular race.
In the context of deciding whether or not a scientist should be considered “racist,” it would depend on what the purpose was of making such a distinction.
Easily.
Why is you giving me an answer in anyway predicated on me giving an answer?
You promised perversion. I was hoping for so much more.
In any case, there is no such ting as general intelligence. There is no such thing as a definable race. Add two immeasurable parameters and you get whack science.
No . . . The OP is kinda all over the place, but I read it as covering both questions – whether Watson is a racist, and whether his statements have scientific support – as well as several others, such as how the scientific community should respond to this kind of situation.
Waitaminnit. IQ tests are definitely measuring something – something which is a stable psychological characteristic of an individual (if you take two different IQ tests* several years apart you will get roughly the same result) while varying from one individual to another. The controversy is over what exactly it does measure and how important it is.
I was posting as a poster. Your behavior does not break any rules; use whatever style you wish. I just figured it was a good idea to respond to your question directly rather than let the silly “where did I say that?” exchange go on for another dozen posts. It wastes bandwidth.
I have not objected to your posts; I have merely pointed out why others may choose to refrain from attempting to engage you.
Your lack of confidence is baseless and silly. It is also irrelevant.
I have never used my Moderator functions to suppress or harrass you, while allowing you to get away with minor infractions because I was the target of your ire. When you blatantly violate the rules attacking another poster, I am not going to cut you any such slack.
How would this address the issue of your OP? Regardless whether race is a valid biological construct, to the limited extent that Watson has been attacked by scientists, (as opposed to various political organizations), it has been in the context of his off-the-cuff claims for which he has provided no support, grounded by a general feeling in the scientific community that he is neither particularly reputable as a person nor particularly honest even in his own field.
Race may or may not exist as a valid biological construct and it may or may not be expressed in measured intelligence, but Watson was not condemned for putting together a paper that addressed those issues. He was condemned for being a crude old guy repeating discarded ideologies (without support) in a public forum.
In fact, it would appear that you and folks like you are exactly the reason that Watson was condemned. You know that he got a Nobel 45 years ago for a specific task and you think that his opinion on topics in which he has no expertise should be given a fair hearing based on his “reputation,” (which, in scientific circles is not that good anyway). Outside his bailiwick, his views are every bit as valuable as those of Barbra Streisand outside the theatre and if he is going to make pseudoscientific claims outside his area of expertise, then the people providing him a forum to talk about science have a right to say that he will not be permitted to use their forum for his soapbox.
Well, the best way to handle the whole issue would be for you to actually engage the discussion, laying out your thoughts and providing supporting citations.
This you routinely choose to not do, generally inserting little questions framed in such a way as to imply a particular belief, then ducking behind the fact that you have not explicitly made any point when someone infers your position. You could avoid the issue by simply being more honest and forthright in your actual participation.
Once a misunderstanding has occurred, of course, one way to handle it would be to look at your opponent’s post, examine what you have said, then restate your position in such a way as to address their apparently erroneous inferences. Simply posting “Where did I say that?” (repeatedly) is little more than the high school equivalent of the little kid that responds to every answer with “Why?”
(Of course, if you have chosen to not say anything, simply resorting to questions framed in a way to convey your ideas without actually expressing them, you would need to actually invest the energy to take a position and defend it, which might be more than you wish to do. *::: shrug ::: * )