I picture a dimly-lit basement apartment filled with cardboard cutouts of the “audience members” enthralled by his arguments. The Rupert Pupkin of formal debate.
History can tell us very little about heredity, or whether apparent mental abilities of this group or that are shaped by heredity or by environment; those are all scientific questions, including the question of whether the apparent mental abilities are really there at all (“IQ” measures something, in the sense that you can take two well-constructed IQ tests five years apart and get similar scores; but nobody is really sure what it measures, or whether there really is such thing as a g or general-intelligence factor in the human mind/brain).
Oh my dear lord. Here, let me settle this for everyone. Asians are the smartest and smoothest and have the smallest dicks. Africans are the dumbest but fastest and are hung like horses. Europeans are the craftiest and best at taking things over and have average size penises. Jews are the greediest and shrewdest and are secretive about their penis sizes. South Americans are the most arrogant and beautiful and also have big dicks. Australians talk funny and so do their cocks.
You’re welcome.
Tune in tomorrow for more “Cocks Around the World”!
Longitude?
“Said Rabbi Yohanan, ‘Rabbi Ishmael the son of Yose’s member was like a wineskin of nine kav [approximately five gallons]; Rabbi El’azar the son of Rabbi Shim’on’s member was like a wineskin of seven kav.’ Rav Pappa said, ‘Rabbi Yohanan’s member was like a wineskin of three kav.’ And there are those who say: like a wineskin of five kav. Rav Pappa himself had a member which was like the baskets of Hipparenum.”
– Babylonian Talmud
The problem with statements of this sort is that something can be genetic-based without being meaningful genetically.
Consider an example in which - for purely social reasons - the dogs in Neighborhood A are 90% German Shepards and 10% Pekinese, while the dogs in Neighborhood B are 90% Pekinese and 10% German Shepards. You measure the average size of dogs in Neighborhood A versus Neighborhood B, and you find the former are significantly bigger, on average. Are “Neighborhood A Dogs” and “Neighborhood B Dogs” meaningful genetic groupings? Of course not. But does that fact imply that the difference in average size is not genetic?
No genetic scientist studying would ever waste his or her time studying Neighborhood A dogs as a genetic grouping and if you tried to talk about this they would think you’re silly, and rightfully so. But suppose that’s not the issue. Suppose someone is trying to claim that the fact that dogs in Neighborhood B are smaller on average is evidence that dogs in that neighborhood are not being adequately fed. Then the fact that there is a difference in genetic distribution becomes relevant.
Similarly here, I think there might be a disconnect between what’s meaningful genetically to a genetic scientist and what’s meaningful genetically to a social or medical scientist. Because while the correlation between skin color and genes is very loose, that doesn’t imply that a random guy with a given skin color is not more/less likely to be carrying a given gene.
[FTR, I’m not claiming that the evidence shows that intelligence is corollated to race or skin color or anything else, and tend to be skeptical of all such claims. My point here is that arguments such as you’ve given here are generally very misleading.]
Horse latitudes.
I think the majority of the criticism of the “racialists”, against their “disparate outcomes are due to genetics” argument, is one of lack of evidence. That is, we’re not saying (or at least I’m not saying) that it’s impossible for there to be some difference in genetic tendencies toward high intelligence for different populations, but rather we’re saying that there’s no evidence for this explanation. And there isn’t. All they have is the disparate outcomes themselves- which we’re not denying exist. Their explanation has not gone past the “hypothesis” step of the scientific method.
I don’t have a problem with what you’re saying is the “majority of the criticism” (although I do think as far as society at large, if not these threads, the mere possibility that there might be genetic tendencies etc. is treated as if it were definitively known to be false versus merely a possibility of unknown likelihood).
But I was not commenting about the majority of the criticism. I was commenting about the specific post that I quoted and others like it, which incorrectly imbue the meaninglessness of classic racial (or current ethnic) groups with the connotation that there can be no genetic differences, on average, between these groups.
Yep, that’s what I get out of this one as well - a good place to note all the fucking racists on the board…and to try to remember not to take anything they say seriously.
Brain Glutton said this "“IQ” measures something, in the sense that you can take two well-constructed IQ tests five years apart and get similar scores; but nobody is really sure what it measures, or whether there really is such thing as a g or general-intelligence factor in the human mind/brain). " and that was my general impression of the science up to this point.
I read 80% of these two recent threads, and it seems odd that the issue of what Intelligence is or Mind/Brain/Consciousness is etc…seemed to get left behind. How can we compare things without an agreement on what they are?
Of course thats in all those other GD threads.:rolleyes:
I did like the “seven axes of intelligence” typo though…
Some of mine are rusty…:smack:
I’m bookmarking this one.
It’s not a typo. “Axes” is the plural of “axis”.
And the fact that they have such a long history of lying and distorting the facts. They don’t just have no evidence; they regularly come up with false evidence.
I see nothing indicating that all the disparities between races might not be attributable to cultural factors. That certainly is one option. The other option is that culture cannot account ofr all the disparities and that something non-cultural, i.e., genetic, plays a role. Based on your comment I’ve quoted, your position doesn’t really contradict that. Correct?
But here’s what IO don’t get: why the burning desire to take the non-cultural explanations off the table completely. I mean, they MAY be playing an actual role. And there is some evidence for this. Evidence, mind you, not proof, two things that often get conflated on these boards.
Evidence A: there are different groups of people that fall into what we sometimes call race (the word really isn’t important. Use “populations” if you prefer. (And later we can look at how populations may sync with race.) The existence of genes that dictate—or correlate very strongly with—height, hair cold, hair type, cranial size and shape, eye shape, nose shape is incontrovertible. So it shouldn’t be the most surprising and amazing thing in the history of the universe if there is a genetic makeup that gives one group an intellectual edge.
Evidence B: Test scores. As has been supplied in every thread on this subject, even when background is taken into account blacks generally do not score as well as whites and Asians. As I said earlier, there may be a purely cultural explanation for this. I’d even say that if the disparity can not be attributed 100% to cultural, the vast majority of it can. Yet, this IS a piece of evidence that suggests that genes are playing a role in mental ability.
Yes, I’m not eliminating any possibility.
I’m not taking it off the table- I’m saying there’s no evidence.
This is not evidence that any populations have a genetic tendency towards high intelligence than any other. There is evidence that populations have some differences in their genetics- but that says nothing about intelligence.
You’re not getting it. Disparate outcomes exist- in test scores, crime stats, economic stats, etc. The existence of these disparate outcomes (which no one denies) in itself is not evidence of any particular explanation. Yes the disparate outcomes exist. The “racialists” make the hypothesis that the best explanation for these disparate outcomes is different genetics. But it’s just a hypothesis. The disparate outcomes themselves is the problem they’re trying to solve- it’s not evidence for any explanation.
And there is no evidence for this hypothesis. Maybe there will be someday, but until there is, there’s no reason to believe it.
Here’s a comparable hypothesis/explanation situation: let’s say there are several different populations of parrots in a jungle- let’s say purple parrots, orange parrots, and green parrots. There is some overlap in their territories and they occasionally interbreed, but for the most part stay separate. Over time, the territory and population of the green parrots grow at the expense of the other two. As soon as this change is discovered, a group of biologists are arguing about how to explain it-
Biologist A says “the Green parrots have a genetic tendency to lay more eggs, so they have more offspring and spread faster”.
Biologist B says “no, the Green parrots are harder for predators to see in the jungle, so they don’t get eaten as often, so they live long enough to have more offspring and spread faster”.
Biologist C says “no, the poachers like the Orange and the Purple feathers more, so they don’t kill as many of the Green parrots”.
Biologist D says “no, it’s a combination of all these things”.
And obviously there could be several more explanations. But there’s no evidence for any of them, at least not yet- but they all should be testable. All of those Biologists made a hypothesis- but they have no evidence yet.
So in this example, obviously the different colors of parrots are akin different “races”, the growing population and territory is akin to higher test scores and other disparate outcomes, and any of the explanations (let’s say the genetics-for-more-eggs one) is akin to the genetic-tendency-to-high-intelligence-difference explanation.
There is, as we’ve noted, lots of evidence for various cultural and environmental factors- kids in two parent homes test higher and earn more, adopted black kids of white parents test higher, young 1st generation immigrant black and white children have the same scores (though they diverge later), etc. But there’s no evidence, none, for the genetic explanation. It would certainly be a tough job- one must find the genes responsible, and then analyze various populations for relative likelihood of having these genes (alternately some have suggested eliminating all other possible explanations, but considering the incredible diversity in human society, I think finding the genes would be a lot easier). It hasn’t been done yet. So there’s no reason at all to support this explanation- it’s just a hypothesis.
I agree; the “race is not meaningful genetically” argument is just a red herring. But it’s also wrong in another way, which is that categories with arbitrary and/or fuzzy boundaries are used all the time without any problem both in and out of science.
However your point is the more important one.