I’m curious: What would prove the existence of race for you?
Which part of this do you disagree with:
By CP:
*"OK. What iiandyiiii holds is that adult american blacks are inferior to american whites for intelligence as measured by the IQ tests we use to quantify intelligence. Markedly inferior, with an average adult black intelligence score of 85.
There isn’t a way to spin this, other than to simply deny that iiandyiiii considers blacks inferior to whites and asians for intelligence. But he does. He has to accept this data because it underpins his nurturing argument. iiandyiiii wants to accuse the Pedant of calling blacks inferior because of their inferior performance on academic tests, but he doesn’t want himself to be accused of calling blacks inferior because of their inferior intelligence. For some reason, he thinks that if your inferior intelligence is due to nurturing and not nature, that’s not “inferior.” Why yes, iiandyiiii; yes it is. If my mom feeds me bacon, my coaches expect me to fail because I’m too fat to train, and I give up running because I accept an oppositional culture that says I’ll never be an athlete, I am still inferior if I can’t run as fast. I just have a different reason.
iiandyiiii does not think blacks have inferior genes for either academic skillsets or IQ tests, on average. The Pedant does. I believe gene prevalences differ by population, and that at least with respect for the skillset that drives outcomes for academic exams, white and asian population have a greater prevalence of genes coding for superior performance on that skillset.
But for differences in intelligence–intelligence; not just mastery of academic content–iiandyiiii takes the position that adult blacks in america are markedly inferior in intelligence. A full standard deviation inferior; and going back 40 or 50 years, even more inferior. "*
iiandyiiii has been adamant in supporting Flynn. Flynn’s data uses an IQ estimate of 85 for adult blacks in the US. By any measure this is markedly inferior to the average IQ of 100 for whites.
I have made it very clear here and elsewhere that there is no inferiority of any human being over another in terms of intrinsic value, or worth as a moral agent.
Yet iiandyiiii insists on ascribing to me a position that I consider blacks “inferior” because I hold that their lesser academic outcomes are secondary to genetic differences. On the other hand, he wants the label of “inferior” not to be used if he thinks their lesser intelligence is due to environmental factors. This is a double standard for use of the term. And iiandyiiii is using it to apply to me only because he wants its rhetorical impact.
Just to be clear about Flynn’s research. Flynn thinks that adult blacks really are less intelligent. He is not sure exactly what IQ tests measure, but it’s not as if he thinks they have no relation to cognitive function. In other words, he thinks that there is some environmental/stimulus influence that affects brain development such that adult US blacks have a full standard deviation less on an IQ score.
I agree it’s best to avoid the term “inferior” but I do not accept that you should criticize me for applying the term to iiandyiiii’s position, given the what I said in quotes above. Let me know where you think I am being disingenuous or distorting the issue.
I am waiting for your comments on thestudy by JBHE that looked at black-white differences in army schools. Recall that the JBHE had high hopes for this study because they considered it a nearly perfect venue with “a very high degree of educational, economic and social compatibility.” Recall that the JBHE is very anxious to set aside the “abhorrent” thesis of The Bell Curve.
“No such luck” was their conclusion after finding that even in this near-laboratory environment for equality of nurturing factors, the black white gap stubbornly persisted.
It’s time for you to stop pretending that only “pseudoscience” from biased authors supports a view that differences in outcomes are environmental.
Differences in sickle cell genes are not a “marker for race” and a pretense that hereditarians think they are is a silly strawman.
They are a good example of populations carrying different gene prevalences because of differing migration and isolation patterns, and evolution driving gene selections.
No, I didn’t ascribe this position to you until you admitted that you thought black people were inferior. Through most of this thread, you didn’t say this- but just in the last few dozen posts, you slipped up and admitted it. Your words.
Nope, I do not believe any group has “lesser intelligence”- I believe that there is a test-score gap. You are the one that thinks IQ test scores are magical indicators of intelligence, not me. And citing Flynn does not mean that I agree with every single thing he’s said.
LOL- yet you used the word inferior to describe your own position on black people’s genes for intelligence.
So sorry for pointing out that you slipped up. Your words. I did not ascribe anything to you until you said it yourself.
Piffle, looking around I see that the Army is just looking to improve those environmental factors as that are the most likely things that will work in shrinking that gap as it did shrink a lot.
And even in the intro you linked to they acknowledge that **“clearly environment is a *major *factor in racial SAT scoring differences”
**
So, more bullshit from you.
And I’m not pretending, you need to produce a big fat cite to show that most scientists agree with your already demonstrated bullshit points. Again, even the skeptical sites agree that your heroes are or were just pushing pseudoscience.
So please proceed, Mr. Chief, it is not my problem but a pleasure to show to all what silly arguments you bring to the plate.
I take it you are now going to argue that IQ tests are unrelated to intelligence. I’m not really interested in trying to dissuade you of that notion. It’s not worth my time.
No test is perfect to measure every cognitive skillset. But IQ tests are a pretty good proxy for intelligence and huge differences in IQ do reflect an ability to function in the world.
If I have a guy with a pretty good IQ and a lousy education, I can teach him how to do a high-cognition job I want to hire him for. If he has a low IQ, no amount of education will help him do that job.
Assertion of an average IQ score for blacks of 79 in 1972, and 85 now is an assertion of “inferiority in intelligence.” While there are other proxies for intelligence, there is no more accurate proxy than IQ scores. While Flynn–from whom I am quoting these numbers–believes that there are various kinds of intelligence (a point with which I agree), he accepts that IQ tests are legitimate measures of intelligence. That is, Flynn and those who support him, accept that the average intelligence of adult blacks in the US is substantially inferior to that of whites and asians.
Those “Heraditarians” are the scientists and experts that already check all this before hand, and academics already accepted these conclusions, your “inevitable victory” point was also a silly one.
Once you start admixing reasonably isolated source populations, you can get all sorts of phenotypic outcomes. But it’s a silly game suitable only for children to pretend that ambiguity of isolated admixed examples somehow lays waste to a claim that there are average genetic prevalence differences among populations–even at the SIRE group level.
PS: You also forgot to mention Michael Jackson’s kids, and the interview with him explaining how any group can have any color of children.
I’ve made no claims about the relative intelligence of different groups. I cited Flynn’s data once, to show an example of a test-score gap that has shrunk- you dismissed it casually, because the notion that the gap has shrunk doesn’t jive with your pre-conceived notions. Like Tim Wise, I believe “Intelligence is a vague and culturally contingent concept with no clear meaning that we can easily test, and those tests we have developed for the purpose (such as IQ batteries) are inherently biased and flawed”. Flynn may disagree, which is ok with me.
Your massive failure in interpreting my beliefs gives me little confidence that you have much of an idea about what Flynn and “those who support him” actually accept.
Again, so sorry that I pointed out that you admitted you thought black people are inferior. You probably had been holding that in for quite a while.
Better link:
It’s considered bad form around here to attribute views to another poster which that poster did not express. I know you’re passionate, but passion does not excuse breaking the rules. If your argument is threatened by routine observations about America’s population, then it wasn’t much of an argument to begin with.
Actually, phenotype has decoupled from genotype throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The correlation only holds here in the States because we’ve erected massive legal and cultural barriers to intermarriage. We’re the only country in the Americas that has done that. We’re the odd ones out.
Did you read the study?
Are you able to quote any of the relevant findings?
The army isn’t looking for anything, and the JBHE used the army schools because they were confident going in that this was an excellent example of normalized educational, social and economic nurturing influences.
Their study still showed a gap.
Their conclusion was typical. The gap is a “puzzle.” Environment must be a factor. Gotta be. Gotta be.
But what their data showed is that it is not a sufficient explanation to explain black white gaps.
It’s a matter of faith for egalitarians that the black white score difference is envrironmental because it’s a matter of faith that there cannot be genetic factors. The data–not even data in a study by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, with a venue chosen by them for normalizing nurture–do not show that normalizing environment normalizes these gaps.
Oh well. I guess if race doesn’t exist, it follows that racism doesn’t exist either.
If God doesn’t exist does that mean religion doesn’t exist? Just because racial bullshit (like phrenology, Hamitic theory, HBD, etc) is fraudulent doesn’t mean that the bigoted ideas and actions of these frauds aren’t harmful. Human pieces of shit like the Klan, Nazis, Taliban, etc don’t have to be ideologically correct to be harmful.
As I recall, you hold a position that the adult black IQ in 2002 was a full standard deviation below whites. But of course, in your rhetorical two-step world, it would be unreasonable to extrapolate from that that you think “blacks are inferior.” No sirree; they just have low intelligence scores. We only get to use inflammatory rhetoric for racists and the like.
Your fancy dancing continues, and I am not impressed. It will have to get even fancier to dig yourself out of your hole.
Let’s start with James Flynn. What Flynn thinks is that the average adult black cognitive ability in several key areas of intelligence is substantially below whites and asians. A full standard deviation below. For Flynn, this is a real, structural difference, driven by environmental influences on the developing brain. It’s essentially a feedback loop between environment and brain development such that IQ gaps at a young age are magnified, and by adulthood the gap is currently about 15 points. For Flynn, all intelligence has been rising for at least 50 years, as a result of a general environmental change, and black intelligence has been rising faster since black environment has been improving faster. Currently Flynn believes this gap is real, and that the black-white gap has closed by about 6 points out of the 21 point gap in 1972. We are all improving for whatever intelligence skillset IQs measure; blacks are rising faster and have caught up about 30% of the gap difference in the last 40 years.
We can discuss separately how good this hypothesis is, and whether or not it correlates with other data, such as the ability to perform on academic exams that test for learned content (it does not, as I’ve shown you above).
But, using Flynn to support a case for environmental factors as the reason for black white outcome gaps necessarily means you support his data for intelligence tests, and it necessarily means that you accept those intelligence tests reflect something real with respect to cognitive function. That’s the whole point of any gap closure. It’s silly to use Flynn’s analysis of closing a gap and then turn around and say those particular tests (IQs) are meaningless for intelligence.
Either a substantive gap for intelligence is closing, or IQ gaps don’t measure anything substantive, in which case none of Flynn’s analysis is worth a patooie.
Here’s the trap you are in that you are trying to dance your way out of:
You want to accuse me of “finally admitting” that “blacks are inferior” when the context I used that pejorative term is in a very specific context of the ability to perform on an academic exam.
AND YOU THINK EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Neither of us think the academic exam gap is not real. In addition, you think adult black intelligence as measured by IQ tests is about a standard deviation lower than whites. I haven’t taken a position on the absolute size of this gap, although I agree it exists.
You don’t seem to go quite as crazy if I say whites are inferior to blacks for the average ability to perform certain athletic skillsets.
Worse, with respect to adult intelligence, one of your own key data points supporting a nurturing viewpoint uses Flynn’s IQ analysis that supports an adult black IQ of 85. How is that not an inferior IQ?
It is beyond disingenuous–it’s hypocritical–to try and apply a rhetorical use of “blacks are inferior” to an opponent’s position and try to prevent the term from being applied to yourself for exactly the same concept. For this reason I typically ignore fights about who is a racist, who thinks who is inferior, and who has ulterior motives. They are all inflammatory rhetorical fights unrelated to the data.
Here’s the data:
- Flynn’s IQ analysis shows a 15 point IQ spread for adult blacks as of 2002, improved from a spread of 21 in 1972. 85 is a markedly inferior score to 100.
- Academic scores show persistent gaps for all of that time, unrelated to SES. These scores show markedly inferior performance by blacks.
The root cause is under debate. Is it inferior genes? Inferior environment?
What is not under debate is which group is “inferior” for these outcomes, and it’s a silly rhetorical tool for you to suddenly pretend that a use of the adjective “inferior” suddenly exposes someone’s true colors. This approach will bite you in the ass, not to mention distract any substantive debate.
No, it’s a matter of no genetic evidence for the genetic explanation. No evidence at all that favors the genetic explanation over “environment” explanations.
How could they- they have not normalized environment. No study has normalized environment, not even close.
Boy, I really touched a nerve here. I think you’ve made real progress, CP- you finally admitted that you think black people are inferior.
I hold a position that the test scores for IQ tests had about a 1 SD gap in 2002, and a bit more than 1 SD in 1972. This gap size is quite similar to the size of other test-score gaps. The IQ test scores of black people in 1995 are very close to the scores of white people in 1945.
Again, you’re the one who thinks IQ tests are good indicators of intelligence, not me. No, I do not believe black people are inferior in the vague and poorly defined human quality known as intelligence. I also don’t think white people in 1995 were smarter than white people in 1945. More knowledgeable? Sure. But more intelligent? No, I don’t think so.
Forgive me for my gleeful dancing; I’m just so please I helped you advance in honesty and as a person, in finally admitting that you think black people are inferior. Just ignore the fancy dancing man in the corner. Helping people just makes me feel like dancing.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t share your obsession with Flynn and this tiny, tiny portion of the topic. I know it exposed something in you that you may have been holding in a long, long time, but perhaps you can accept it and learn to grow from it as a person. If it bothers you so much that the gap may be closing, we can move on from Flynn to another tiny, tiny portion of the topic.
LOL- I want to accuse you of admitting something that you admitted. Yes, guilty as charged- I did point out that you said you think black people are inferior.
No I don’t. Wrong again, Albert.
Wrong again, what a surprise. No, I don’t believe “adult black intelligence” is necessarily on average accurately measured by these IQ tests.
My own “key data points”. LOL. Yes, the test score gap exists. No, I don’t believe black people are dumber.
I only pointed it out when you said it. If you don’t believe black people are inferior or have inferior intelligence, then why did you say it?
Don’t worry about my ass, I wear very thick jeans.
Of course the laws will need to be changed too. If race doesn’t exist, we can’t have a law about discrimination based on race.
Please explain that one.
Race exists, but not as a biological concept- race exists as a cultural concept. Race is far, far more about culture then ancestry.