Because it fits the definition and common usage for “racist”, as it should.
Leaving that aside for a second, that’s not what I asked you. In the scenario I put forth with one scientist talking to another about an established FACT of nature, why does “racial” fall short for you?
It’s not me, it’s my understanding of language. It fits the definition of racist, so it’s a racist claim. I don’t even really know what the word “racial” means, except perhaps “having to do with race”, so it might fit too. But it definitely fits “racist”, as I understand it.
This is a work of art. 
I understand that. Again, it’s not what I asked.
What? You’ve invested so much time in these threads and you don’t know what “racial” means? But evidently you do, because you supplied at perfectly fine definition. So, why is it that racial, a perfectly good word, is inadequate to describe the scenario I presented?
I’d appreciate a an answer to that specific question, if you could try again. But I’ll also go at it a different way. Keeping with the hypothetical the two scientists and 100% certainty about the science, take a look at the statements below:
A) Blacks tend to have more melanin than White people.
B) Whites tend to have have straighter hair than Black people.
C) Whites tend to have a genetic advantage over Black people when it comes to intelligence.
If I’ve understood you so far, I think you’d say that C is, and only C is, a racist statement. The reason is that it goes to intelligence, which can go to dehumanize a group of people. Is that correct?
I know these discussions can be trying, but I do appreciate you helping you see what you see.
I think it all comes down to perceptions. I work in a restaurant, and how you present yourself makes a difference.
I think you’re classified on your race, your appearance, how you speak and act.
It also depends on where you live.
I forgot Age is also a consideration.
Bolding mine.
OK, you and I have been down this track before, but we’ll play it out again.
First problem: science can’t even define what intelligence is, much less measure it in any objective manner. That is not true of the amount of melanin in a tissue or the deviance of a hair fibre from a straight line. We can define those things and measure them just fine.
Stating as part of your hypothetical that we need to accept a “100% certainty about the science” is begging the question. You might just as well state hypothesise that your scientist had discovered that Blacks don’t have souls, or that they are natural thieves, and then demand that the listener accept a “100% certainty about the science”. It’s just as ludicrous to talk about 100% science concerning intelligence as it is to talk about 100% science concerning the soul or innateness of criminality.
Second problem: The first two hypotheses are legitimate within your classification scheme. The third is not.
We define a race by physical characteristics such as skin colour or hair type. As such it is perfectly legitimate to ask what the relative values of those characteristics are
We do not, and nobody ever had, defined a race based upon intelligence. As such anybody asking such a question should not be asking what the relative value of that characteristic is between races, they should be asking whether it varies. An assumption that it varies is a hasty deduction and totally invalid.
And if we are to ask if a trait varies, we need to ask what we mean by that trait, and how it should be measured. Which brings us back to point one above.
If the statement had been that Whites perform better on IQ tests, that would be fine, because it’s already well established what an IQ test, and that groups with different linguistic, economic and cultural backgrounds should perform differently. But that’s a world away from a statement about intelligence.
What you have done is equivalent to asking what the relative preference for watermelon is between Blacks and Whites. Not whether such a difference exists, or if it could be measured if it did exist. You are asking what the difference is.
And that is why the statement is racist. It’s because it is an inherently unscientific statement to make. It’s a blanket statement about something that is undefinable and unmeasurable based on an unsupported a priori assumption that a variation between groups exists.
And that, my friend, is why the claim is racist. You have stepped outside the field of science.
It all works out very nicely when you have personally defined Black people (quite non-scientifically, quite unrelated to population groups) as “Those people with more melanin and kinky hair”, doesn’t it ?
Well, and then we run into the issue of, say, the president of the united states. His father was a native of Kenya (as negro as one can get), his mother was from Kansas, about as white-bread as one can get (Irish, IIRC). So, if whites were “more intelligent” than blacks, WETM, would one have to assume that he must fall somewhere in between?
I have a blond-haired, hazel-eyed friend of Scottish heritage who had her genetic history traced through that Nat. Geo. (?) project: she describes the path of thousands of years of ancestry and proudly proclaims that she is a Black Jew. And, as far as I know, this sort of “miscegenation” continues apace. To suggest that there are non-superficial genetic traits unique to any given apparent race is specious at best.
So the hypothetical that puts forth race as a basis of intelligence falls short both on the nebulous concept of intelligence and the dubious concept of race. Its underlying premises are simply untenable, it does not deserve any other response than that it is a flawed hypothetical.
I don’t get it. Maybe it’s racial too, but it’s definitely racist. Are you trying to get me to say it’s not racist? It is, because it fits the definition. Racial is inadequate to describe that scenario, because it’s also a racist claim in that scenario.
C is a racist statement.
Guessed you missed the part about the being from a more advanced planet coming down and gifting us with this insight. This was part of my hypothetical.
You’re just refusing to entertain the hypothetical. NO problem. If you don’t want to, you needn’t type so much. Just don’t entertain it. But you can’t say that MY hypothetical doesn’t get around the problems you claim. It does. The was the point of it. Sheeze.
:rolleyes: It’s really “entertaining” the lengths some will go to to not entertain a hypothetical.
No, your hypothetical doesn’t get around the problem. It is simply begging the question. Since the ability of science (human, alien or divine) to define or measure human intelligence is even *more *contentious than the claim that such intelligence will vary between races, you can’t validly use an assumption of that ability to support the difference.
That’s what begging the question is.
It’s no different to stating the hypothetical “Alien superscience proved that anyone who suggests an IQ difference between races is a member of the Nazi Party. Are you a member of the Nazi Party”.
Pointing out that this is a lousy debating technique hinging on a logical fallacy is not “refusing to entertain the hypothetical”. The hypothetical was entertained, and it was found to be logically flawed.
Now, if you insist that people can’t respond to your hypothetical in that manner, and have to respond with one of the options that you provide. Well, that’s a false dilemma, and equally invalid in a debate.
You can’t get away with the use of logical fallacies by caging them as part of a hypothetical. A logical fallacy is still a fallacy no matter how it is presented. Pointing that out is not “refusing to entertain the hypothetical”.
Restate your hypothetical in a manner that is not logically flawed, and you will get a response that doesn’t simply point put the flaws.
Hypothetically.
Thanks again, No, I’m not trying to “get you” to say anything. I’m really trying to understand why we come to this with such different realities and assumptions.
Okay, so you say it’s “racist”, and that “racial” isn’t a good enough descriptor because the claim is for you, indeed, racist. I guess what I’m not getting is WHY racial is insufficient. You seem to now grant that the word “racial” is appropriate (even if another word may be better). I know it speaks to intelligence, but you agreed earlier that nature can’t be racist in itself,. But if someone, a scientist—in fact, let’s say he is a Black scientist with super-duper liberal credentials—merely shares what nature has revealed to be fact, that the statement is necessarily racist. Maybe I’ll stop there for a second to make sure I’m not putting words in your mouth.
You hold that statement C is a racist one. But is it necessarily racist?
No^2. It is not a fallacy to imagine that there are super intelligent being somewhere in the universe. Nor to imagine they magically (for us) visit us and share their super knowledge, answering for us all unknowns, including where Jimmy Hoffa is, who shot Kennedy, if pi really ever ends or repeats, and who on the planet has a worse voice than Kanye West.
It’s like you’re asking why I have to call elephants grey- why can’t I just call them large? Well, they might be large, but they’re definitely grey. The scenario you describe is definitely a racist claim.
Nature is not people. Only people, or claims by people, or structures made up of people, can be racist. So nature can’t be racist, any more than it can be contemplative, gracious, solicitous, gallant, or any other of the myriad of adjectives that only describe people/claims/groups. The claim is racist, regardless of who says it, and regardless of why he/she says it, using the present definition and usage of the word “racist”.
Yes.
Yes, it is, it is a classic example of Begging the Question.
You are trying to argue that it’s not racist to say that Black people are stupid, provided that it’s true. Which might even be a valid argument
And to demonstrate this, you have introduced a hypothetical where we are forced to assume that it is true that Black people are stupid, because a wizard did it.
That’s a classic example of begging the question.
The statement is racist because its truth value is unknown at best. Nobody can define race, nobody can measure race, nobody can define intelligence. Nobody can measure intelligence. So any statement that a “race” is of lower “intelligence” must be untrue.
It’s not logically valid to proceed from a point where the statement is known to be true, to try to reach a conclusion about whether it is true.
You can easily demonstrate that this is a logical fallacy by simply pointing out that it can demonstrate the truth of anything. Even things that we all agree are untrue.
“If god came down and gave us positive proof that magellan01 is a child molester, would magellen01 be a child molester?”
It doesn’t matter what point you are trying to make, the introduction of an omnipotent entity that forces us to *accept *an answer always *produces *that answer. That’s begging the question.
The difference between such hypotheticals and hypotheticals concerning Jimmy Hoffa is or who shot Kennedy, is that it is already undisputed in the real world that Kennedy was shot by someone, and Jimmy Hoffa is somewhere. As such hypotheticals can be enlightening.
But you are trying to argue that if God himself told us that Oswald shot Kennedy, would he be convicted. Well of course he would be convicted, God just told the jury he was guilty. Your argument is no different. It’s assuming the outcome in the hypothetical to force the conclusion
Okay. So you would be correct in describing the animal as grey. And you would be correct in describing the animal as large. And using that same logic and what you said earlier, it would be correct to describe the statement as racist. And it would also be correct to describe the statement as racial. I guess I don’t get why you insist on characterizing every possible statement you can as racist, and not some of them racial. Using your analogy about the elephant, they’re both equally correct.
The problem I have with characterizing the hypothetical scientist’s statement as “racist” is that the word has very real, very strong connotations that go to slavery, lynchings, treating people as chattel, etc. It is understood to apply to people that hold one group to be less than human. I don’t see our scientist exhibiting any of those sentiments. And there are two problems I see with that. One is that you label the scientist (or the statement) as something that is vile, when it is not. Or at least, may not be. That is why I asked for your clarification that the statement was necessarily racist. I can certainly craft a scenario in which I’d agree that the statement is racist, but to insist that it is 100% of the time condemns the statement, and indirectly the person who made it as contemptible. I find that both illogical and unfair.
The other problem I have is that if we start to use the word so broadly theta it will lose it’s power. Words like racist should (when mentioning Black people) be reserved for usage that is tightly tied to slavery, Jim Crow, etc. When you use it to describe a conversation that two hypothetical Black liberal scientists might be having while discussing facts of nature, that’s not very helpful, and misleading.