# Once again, a pitting of our local pseudo-scientific racialists **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 5, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184 "2013-01-05T19:21:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/41 "2013-01-06T02:02:11Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Like rich black children who went to private schools or disadvantaged black children adopted into white families? I am not sure how much more control you can achieve other than that. > > They always come out much lower intellectually as a group according to any test ever invented. It has never been otherwise in any place on earth as much as I, or you, wish otherwise. Let me know how many cites you want and you will have them. If you want to have this discussion, take it to the threads in GD or start your own. I and others have addressed your questions and “concerns” there. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/42 "2013-01-06T02:03:54Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Like rich black children who went to private schools or disadvantaged black children adopted into white families? [This post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15858017&postcount=168) (and the links within) address this question (and other related ones). ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/43 "2013-01-06T02:12:30Z")
There’s no such thing as ‘black’ people. That’s the racist’s game, draw rational people into their warped way of thinking and make the arguments about the non-existent races they claim to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/44 "2013-01-06T02:18:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Cite? > **[Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study)** > > The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study examined the IQ test scores of 130 black or interracial children adopted by advantaged white families. It has been a focus for controversy in the debate over race and intelligence. > The aim of the study was to determine the contribution of environmental and genetic factors to the average underperformance of black children on IQ tests as compared to white children. The initial study was published in 1976 by Sandra Scarr and Richard A. Weinberg. A follow-up ... > **[Race, Genes, Intelligence - Facts Are Facts](https://rense.com//general79/dut.htm)** > **[The Widening Racial Scoring Gap on the SAT College Admissions Test](http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html)** > > The > Journal of Blacks in Higher Education is dedicated to the conscientious > investigation of the status and prospects for African Americans in higher > education. > **[The Black-White Test Score Gap](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html)** > **[Rich, Black, Flunking | East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda](https://eastbayexpress.com/rich-black-flunking-1/)** > > Cal Professor John Ogbu thinks he knows why rich black kids are failing in school. Nobody wants to hear it. [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?_r=0) [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/06/new\_evidence\_that\_sat\_hurts\_bl.html](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/06/new_evidence_that_sat_hurts_bl.html) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/45 "2013-01-06T02:20:50Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > [Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study) > [@](#): > > **Interpretations** > > Scarr & Weinberg (1976) interpreted the results from age 7 suggesting that racial group differences in IQ are inconclusive because of confounding of the study. They noted however that the study indicated that cross-racial adoption had a positive effect on black adopted children. In support of this interpretation, they drew special attention to the finding that the average IQ of “socially classified” black children was greater than that of the U.S. white mean. The follow-up data were collected in 1986 and Weinberg et al. published their findings in 1992; they interpreted their results as still supporting the original conclusions. > > Both Levin (1994) and Lynn (1994) argued that the data clearly support a hereditarian alternative: that the mean IQ scores and school achievement of each group reflected their degree of African ancestry. For all measures, the children with two black parents scored lower than the children with one black and white parent, who in turn scored lower than the adopted children with two white parents. Both omitted discussion of Asian adoptees. > > Waldman, Weinberg, and Scarr (1994) responded to Levin (1994) and Lynn (1994).[7] They noted that the data taken of adoption placement effects can explain the observed differences; but that they cannot make that claim firmly because the pre-adoption factors confounded racial ancestry, preventing an unambiguous interpretation of the results. They also note that Asian data fit that hypothesis while being omitted by both Levin and Lynn. They argued that,“contrary to Levin’s and Lynn’s assertions, results from the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study provide little or no conclusive evidence for genetic influences underlying racial differences in intelligence and achievement,” and note that “We think that it is exceedingly implausible that these differences are either entirely genetically based or entirely environmentally based. The true causes of racial-group differences in IQ, or in any other characteristic, are likely to be too complex to be captured by locating them on a single hereditarianism-environmentalism dimension.”[7] On the question of Arthur Jensen (1998) examined these studies and reviewed the evidence that adoption does not affect children’s IQ scores after age 7.[clarification needed] > > In a 1998 article, Scarr wrote: “The test performance of the Black/Black adoptees [in the study] was not different from that of ordinary Black children reared by their own families in the same area of the country. My colleagues and I reported the data accurately and as fully as possible, and then tried to make the results palatable to environmentally committed colleagues. In retrospect, this was a mistake. The results of the transracial adoption study can be used to support either a genetic difference hypothesis or an environmental difference one (because the children have visible African ancestry). We should have been agnostic on the conclusions […].”[8] > > Loehlin (2000) reiterates the confounding problems of the study and notes that both genetic and environmental interpretations are possible. He further offers another possible explanation of the results, namely unequal prenatal factors: “[O]ne possibility lies in the prenatal environment provided by Black and White biological mothers. The Black-Black group, of course, all had Black mothers. In the Black-White group, virtually all of the birth mothers were White (66 of 68). Willerman and his colleagues found that in interracial couples it made a difference whether the mother was Black or White: The children obtained higher IQs if she was White. They suspected that this difference was due to postnatal environment, but it could, of course, have been in the prenatal one.”[9] Not exactly conclusive, to put it mildly. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/46 "2013-01-06T02:23:54Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > [http://rense.com/general79/dut.htm](http://rense.com/general79/dut.htm) Wherever this comes from, it ain’t peer-reviewed science; might as well be just another SDMB post. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/47 "2013-01-06T02:26:05Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If you want to have this discussion, take it to the threads in GD or start your own. I and others have addressed your questions and “concerns” there. Thanks for playing junior mod but I have to defend **Chief Pendant**. I read the same scientific articles he does and it comes academic studies rather than Fox news He is not a personal friend of mine and he is not a racist in the true sense. I believe he won that debate except the catcalling obscured it just like it is now. Nobody seems to have any good answers to the disparity other than name-calling and more burdens of proof. There are mountains of those and growing deeper all the time. We might as well get this over once and for all. Most people refused to answer my question about whether they thought that black Americans as a group are inferior intellectually than other groups. That’s telling. Do you think that is true or not and why do you think that is? It always works out this way. People call each other racists even though they know there is a problem and don’t give any good solutions. It doesn’t get anyone anywhere or do anyone any good. What is your blunt opinion and what are concrete improvements you want to make? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/48 "2013-01-06T02:26:44Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > [The Widening Racial Scoring Gap on the SAT College Admissions Test](http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html) > [@](#): > > Clearly, one of the main factors in explaining the SAT racial gap is that black students almost across the board are not being adequately schooled to perform well on the SAT and similar tests. Public schools in many neighborhoods with large black populations are underfunded, inadequately staffed, and ill equipped to provide the same quality of secondary education that is offered in predominantly white suburban school districts. > > Data from The College Board shows that 57 percent of white students who took the SAT were ranked in the top 20 percent of their high school classes. This compares to 37 percent of black test takers. Some 45 percent of white students who took the SAT report that their high school grade point average was in the A range. This compares to only 22 percent of black test takers. The mean high school grade point average for all white students who took the SAT was 3.37. For blacks the figures was 2.99. These figures alone explain a large portion of the racial scoring gap on the SAT. > > A major reason for the SAT racial gap appears to be the fact that black students who take the SAT have not followed the same academic track as white students. It is true that 97 percent of both blacks and whites who take the SAT have studied algebra in high school. But in higher level mathematics courses such as trigonometry and calculus, whites hold a large lead. In 2005, 47 percent of white SAT test takers had taken trigonometry in high school compared to 35 percent of black test takers. Some 28 percent of white test takers had taken calculus in high school. Only 14 percent of black students had taken calculus, one half as many as whites. Thirty-two percent of white SAT test takers had taken honors courses in mathematics compared to 19 percent of black SAT test takers. Seems to say rather the reverse of what you’re citing it for. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/49 "2013-01-06T02:28:08Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > [The Black-White Test Score Gap](http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html) > [@](#): > > The black-white test score gap does not appear to be an inevitable fact of nature. It is true that the gap shrinks only a little when black and white children attend the same schools. It is also true that the gap shrinks only a little when black and white families have the same amount of schooling, the same income, and the same wealth. But despite endless speculation, no one has found genetic evidence indicating that blacks have less innate intellectual ability than whites. Thus while it is clear that eliminating the test score gap would require enormous effort by both blacks and whites and would probably take more than one generation, we believe it can be done. > > This conviction rests mainly on three facts: > > ``` > --When black or mixed-race children are raised in white rather than black homes, their preadolescent test scores rise dramatically. Black adoptees' scores seem to fall in adolescence, but this is what we would expect if, as seems likely, their social and cultural environment comes to resemble that of other black adolescents and becomes less like that of the average white adolescent. > > --Even nonverbal IQ scores are sensitive to environmental change. Scores on nonverbal IQ tests have risen dramatically throughout the world since the 1930s. The average white scored higher on the Stanford-Binet in 1978 than 82 percent of whites who took the test in 1932. Such findings reinforce the implications of adoption studies: large environmental changes can have a large impact on test performance. > > --Black-white differences in academic achievement have also narrowed throughout the twentieth century. The best trend data come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been testing seventeen-year-olds since 1971 and has repeated many of the same items year after year. Figure 1-2 shows that the black-white reading gap narrowed from 1.25 standard deviations in 1971 to 0.69 standard deviations in 1996. The math gap fell from 1.33 to 0.89 standard deviations. When Min-Hsiung Huang and Robert Hauser analyzed vocabulary scores for adults born between 1909 and 1969, the black-white gap also narrowed by half. > > ``` Again, seems to say rather the reverse of what you’re citing it for. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/50 "2013-01-06T02:29:32Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > [Rich, Black, Flunking | East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda](http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/rich-black-flunking/Content?oid=1070459) > [@](#): > > Ogbu concluded that the average black student in Shaker Heights put little effort into schoolwork and was part of a peer culture that looked down on academic success as “acting white.” Although he noted that other factors also play a role, and doesn’t deny that there may be antiblack sentiment in the district, he concluded that discrimination alone could not explain the gap. > > “The black parents feel it is their role to move to Shaker Heights, pay the higher taxes so their kids could graduate from Shaker, and that’s where their role stops,” Ogbu says during an interview at his home in the Oakland hills. “They believe the school system should take care of the rest. They didn’t supervise their children that much. They didn’t make sure their children did their homework. That’s not how other ethnic groups think.” Once again. Culture, not genetics. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/51 "2013-01-06T02:30:49Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?_r=0) > [@](#): > > “There’s accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten,” said Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard. “They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have.” And again. “Racial,” here, does not mean “genetic.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/52 "2013-01-06T02:34:30Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Thanks for playing junior mod but I have to defend **Chief Pendant**. I read the same scientific articles he does and it comes academic studies rather than Fox news He is not a personal friend of mine and he is not a racist in the true sense. He attributes apparent (or invented) intellectual-performance differentials between “racial” groups to “racial” heredity. Fine, he’s not a racist, he’s a [racialist,](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Racialism) which is actually considerably worse. > [@](#): > > **Racialism** is sometimes considered synonymous with racism, but often refers to frightening racial ideologies rather than mere run-of-the-mill bigotry. While racial prejudice is irrational, racialism attempts to rationalise it into a coherent doctrine. Examples of racialist governments include Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. Examples of racialist pressure groups include the Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan. > > Some forms of racialism are based on flawed interpretations of Christianity, and others on pseudoscience and flawed interpretations of science (particularly evolutionary biology). Sometimes, the term scientific racism is used to describe the latter. Diagrams showing the skull shapes and measurements of various races were used in racialist justifications for slavery during the 19th century, and appeared again in Nazi propaganda. > > Most racialists believe in some sort of hierarchy of races, and since in most cases they are white supremacists, this usually puts the white, Caucasian, or “Aryan”[1] race firmly at the top. While all racialists are certainly racist, not all racists are necessarily racialist, although the more stupid ones may be an easy target for racialist propaganda. > > \ > > **Race and intelligence (or, craniology redux)** > > A handful of “researchers” including figures such as J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen have continued to argue that certain races are just inherently dumb. While they still like their skull and brain size measurements, their arguments hinge more on invoking genetic determinism as an explanation for racial and ethnic group differences in IQ scores. In addition to the fact that race is incredibly ill-defined itself, IQ has many of its own problems. While there is general agreement on IQ as a useful measure, there is no consensus on a number of related issues, such as how strongly it correlates to general intelligence, how many aspects of intelligence it can measure, what the implications are sociologically speaking, etc.[17] Another problem with using IQ in this manner (besides the obvious) is the Flynn Effect, a phenomenon discovered by the psychologist James Flynn in which there has been a global rise in average IQ scores. In many cases, ethnic minorities have made the most rapid gains.[18][19] > > Rushton, however, has put a new spin on the supposed racial hierarchy – according to him, it should be organized thusly: “Mongoloid” \> “Caucasoid” \> “Negroid.” This led anthropologist Jonathan Marks to remark: > > > [@](#): > > > > First we must admire the apparent cranial expansion of Asians over the last half-century, when [earlier] researchers consistently reported their having smaller brains than whites. Obviously this implies the possibility of a comparable expansion in blacks. More likely, it implies the possibility of scientists finding just what they expect when the social and political stakes are high.[20] . ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/53 "2013-01-06T02:39:44Z")
**BrainGlutton** , I never gave a specific cause to the phenomena, I only stated that there is one. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/54 "2013-01-06T02:44:36Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Thanks for playing junior mod but I have to defend **Chief Pendant**. He is not a friend of mine and he is not a racist in the true sense. I believe he won that debate except the catcalling obscured it just like it is now. And I don’t care if he’s a racist- but he’s totally wrong on the science. There is no evidence- and all he’s done is repeat over and over again evidence that the gap exists- a fact that _no one denies_. We know the gap exists. We know it exists in different economic and education levels. That’s not in dispute. But all CP and his allies have done is made a hypothesis- that genes are the best explanation for this gap. They’ve gone no farther- they have no evidence to support this hypothesis. Science is hard- and supporting this hypothesis would certainly be hard, but it’s in the realm of possibility. But until there’s actually evidence to support it, there’s no reason to believe it. > [@](#): > > We might as well get this over once and for all. Most people refused to answer my question about whether they thought that black Americans as a group are inferior intellectually than other groups. That’s telling. No, it’s not telling. I’ll go ahead and answer, though- I see no evidence that they are, as a group, inferior intellectually (whatever that means), so no, I don’t believe that they are. > [@](#): > > It always works out this way. People call each other racists even though they know there is a problem and don’t give any good solutions. It doesn’t get anyone anywhere or do anyone any good. What is your blunt opinion and what are concrete improvements you want to make? I’ve called people racialists, but I’ve called no one a racist. I generally think the researcher Frank Sweet has the right idea about why the gap exists- for the youngest children, there exists a parental attention and skill gap between black and white parents. For older children, there exists lowered teacher expectations for black students which leads to lower performance (and lower effectiveness of teaching). For adolescents, there exists an “oppositional culture” peer pressure that lowers academic performance and learning. The lowered teacher expectations is a bear of a problem, because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy- if teachers believe that the black students are dumber, then _the black students will perform worse_ whether or not they are actually dumber. Just the lowered expectations leads to different treatment of those students, whether it’s conscious or unconscious by the teacher. How to correct these is a huge question (and worthy of a new thread)- but I’ll take a stab at it- correct economic opportunity disparities, provide equal educational opportunities, and provide and media and cultural environment that truly shows black people in an equally positive light as all others. By many measures, the gap has shrunk over the last several decades. CP (and you, apparently) believe we’ve done all we can, and that the remaining gap is going to be with us no matter what. I think it’s awfully presumptuous just to assume that, after centuries of brutal repression, a few decades of ostensible “equal opportunity” is enough to truly equalize the playing field. Do you really believe it’s just a coincidence that the poorest and lowest-scoring large ethnic group in America just happens to be the one that was the most brutally treated over the past several centuries? It’s just blind “luck” that the “dumbest” American ethnic group is the one that is descended from the most brutally treated? Isn’t it possible that centuries of terrible treatment, physically, psychologically, and economically, might continue to have effects on our media, culture, and the physical, psychological, and economic well being of their descendants? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/55 "2013-01-06T02:46:37Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > **BrainGlutton** , I never gave a specific cause to the phenomena, I only stated that there is one. And every source you cite, save the one bullshit-rant, finds a non-genetic one. Learn from that. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/56 "2013-01-06T02:46:51Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > **BrainGlutton** , I never gave a specific cause to the phenomena, I only stated that there is one. So basically, you’re just restating what CP has said over and over again- that disparate outcomes exist. I’ll tell you what I told him (again and again)- I don’t deny that disparate outcomes exist. But a genetic explanation for these outcomes requires _genetic evidence_. Why believe something without evidence? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/57 "2013-01-06T02:47:04Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Thanks for playing junior mod but I have to defend **Chief Pendant**. I read the same scientific articles he does and it comes academic studies rather than Fox news He is not a personal friend of mine and he is not a racist in the true sense. Sorry, but after dealing so many times with him he is, if not a racist, a racialist; and as \*\*BrainGlutton \*\*points out, it is indeed worse that a racist. That you have not noticed only demonstrates that in reality you only look at the scientific articles only superficially, and as I encountered many, many times with climate change deniers, (Chief Pedant only reaches for the population issue as a panacea for that problem, everything has a misleading horse to ride on for him) he and other racialists will never acknowledge how misleading their “conclusions” are because the conclusions on the papers many times are not what they claim to be, just as \*\*BrainBlutton \*\*also showed here. Heck, in discussion in the past I have caught them ignoring specific clarifications from the authors of the papers themselves were they claiming that the reports were not useful to support racialist ideas or prejudicial solutions to use in society at large. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/58 "2013-01-06T02:51:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > He attributes apparent (or invented) intellectual-performance differentials between “racial” groups to “racial” heredity. Fine, he’s not a racist, he’s a [racialist,](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Racialism) which is actually considerably worse. No, you are attacking a smart person who is trying explain a very real problem in ways that aren’t completely proven but are developing more evidence for the theory every day. Like any theory, it could be overturned by new evidence but I don’t think he is arguing for exactly what people think he is. Again, read up on the recent developments in human origins. We are certainly not exactly equal human populations by any stretch of the imagination although we can interbreed and the individual differences are the most important ones. Spencer Wells himself could come to this board and be attacked as a racist even though he is the foremost expert in the science of human origins and population differences and he is anything but a racist. I have a much bigger problem with people that deny discrepancies exist at all or try to cover it up through thinly veiled political rhetoric. Just say what you really mean rather than name call and duck. Don’t deny problems exist at all while trying to come up with failed social programs to cover for them. It is much better just to acknowledge there is an huge issue and confront it head on. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/59 "2013-01-06T02:54:56Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > No, you are attacking a smart person who is trying explain a very real problem in ways that aren’t completely proven but are developing more evidence for the theory every day. Like any theory, it could be overturned by new evidence but I don’t think he is arguing for exactly what people think he is. Again, read up on the recent developments in human origins. We are certainly not exactly equal human populations by any stretch of the imagination although we can interbreed and the individual differences are the most important ones. Spencer Wells himself could come to this board and be attacked as a racist even though he is the foremost expert in the science of human origins and population differences and he is anything but a racist. > > I have a much bigger problem with people that deny discrepancies exist at all or try to cover it up through thinly veiled political rhetoric. Just say what you really mean rather than name call and duck. Don’t deny problems exist at all while trying to come up with failed social programs to cover for them. It is much better just to acknowledge there is an huge issue and confront it head on. You do not confront a problem with opinions that come from baseless conclusions or misleading interpretations of the evidence, in a nutshell: do not let the blind guide you. I do think that if others rather than Chief Pedant would deal with this it would be more interesting, but so far what you assumed to be great evidence is once again only demonstrating someone that is not very good at identifying the good evidence from the bad, just like the ones that are being pitted here. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184/60 "2013-01-06T02:57:31Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > No, you are attacking a smart person who is trying explain a very real problem in ways that aren’t completely proven but are developing more evidence for the theory every day. Like any theory, it could be overturned by new evidence but I don’t think he is arguing for exactly what people think he is. Again, read up on the recent developments in human origins. We are certainly not exactly equal human populations by any stretch of the imagination although we can interbreed and the individual differences are the most important ones. Spencer Wells himself could come to this board and be attacked as a racist even though he is the foremost expert in the science of human origins and population differences and he is anything but a racist. Wrong again. From [here](http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/jm-ledgard/exodus), Spencer Wells on the question (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > We are all Africans. We originated in Africa. That is proved by the continent’s rich genetic inheritance. Africans are more diverse than the rest of humanity put together, because they are drawn from the pool of humans who did not leave. As Wells points out, two Africans from the same village could be more divergent from each other than either is from a non-African. The question is whether this new understanding will reinforce prejudices against Africans, or help end them. > > As Africa’s population rises and parts of the continent collapse under economic and environmental pressures, eugenics may reappear. This would be revised eugenics, conceding the physical superiority of Africans in everything from penis size to sprinting, but holding that they are not selected for problem solving, having never benefited from the training ground of the Eurasian steppe (with its need for microliths, clothing and portable shelters). “To give them equality is to sink to their level, to protect and cherish them is to be swamped in their fecundity,” wrote the novelist H.G. Wells, a proponent of eugenics. > > **Rubbish, says Spencer Wells. There are no nasty genetic secrets out there about Africans, “certainly no differences in general intelligence”.** Whites’ superior attitudes towards blacks, he reckons, is based on a “general correlation between latitudes and economic development”. Even if National Geographic is suffocated by political correctness and an obsessive need for a tidy narrative, he is right. If Africa is stunted, it is through circumstance, not genetics. Just look at the Nile-Saharan Genetic markers on President Obama’s Y-chromosome. > Besides, evolutionary biologists point out that cold rewarded as much as it punished. With plentiful reindeer, fish in the rivers, nutritious roots and berries, more water, more wood and fewer diseases, the living may have been easier in the north. Hint- if you’re going to refer to a famous scientist, you should make sure _he doesn’t support the exact opposite of your position_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-again-a-pitting-of-our-local-pseudo-scientific-racialists/646184.md?page=4)