# SDMB Bigoted Asshole Omnibus Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 29, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489 "2012-05-29T22:59:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 110
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2181 "2012-06-19T18:30:52Z")
Somehow NDD can "tell the truth’ whilst simultaneously ignoring actual facts… ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2182 "2012-06-19T18:48:33Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Poor Orientals have lower crime rates than blacks. Poor Oriental children perform better in school than blacks. When the Chinese were developing one of the greatest civilizations in existence the ancestors of American blacks were stone age savages eating each other. Cannibalism is still a problem with African blacks. > **[Category:American cannibals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_cannibals)** > > This category has only the following subcategory. > The following 26 pages are in this category, out of 26 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. NDD, you’re foaming at the mouth. Seriously. Stop. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2183 "2012-06-19T18:59:30Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > …the ancestors of American blacks were stone age savages eating each other. There’s no evidence that cannibalism was any more common in prehistoric Africa vice the rest of the world’s prehistory. But this is some really hateful language, NDD, whether you realize it or not. It reveals a lot about you… and it may be the most revealing thing you’ve posted. I feel sorry for you; all the hate you have inside cannot feel very good. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2184 "2012-06-19T19:21:16Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > There’s no evidence that cannibalism was any more common in prehistoric Africa vice the rest of the world’s prehistory. > > But this is some really hateful language, NDD, whether you realize it or not. It reveals a lot about you… and it may be the most revealing thing you’ve posted. I feel sorry for you; all the hate you have inside cannot feel very good. I have been againts the calls for banning, and for censure, but I must say that this is indeed hate speech. It is desperation as we have seen refutation fundamental of all his ideas, no concept for race makes sense genetically. I say do not ban this but it must not pass without comment. It is not inconvenient facts it is a blood libel of the same nature as that againts the Jews in the Middle Age. ---
**Author:** ![Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2185 "2012-06-19T19:23:43Z")
Hi again. > [@brazil84](#): > > > [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > > Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t disappear; I’m still reading the thread periodically. It’s just that I was working on a really long response, and when it was about 3/4 of the way done, I realized I was just rehashing everything I (and everyone else in the thread) have already said, and that there was no point, so I scrapped it. > > I’m a bit skeptical, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re… skeptical? Of what? That I was writing a long, tedious, overwrought, and ultimately pointless response? Then you’re clearly not familiar with my work. Hyperverbosity ad absurdium is my metier, baby. Please, allow me to demonstrate… > [@brazil84](#): > > Besides which, there was more for you to say. See below. Oh, perhaps you were skeptical that I had nothing new to say. No, that was true. I didn’t say anything in that post that I hadn’t already said (and that hadn’t already been said sooner and better by others). Now, I \*did \*technically say _more_, and used some different words than I did before, but that’s not at all the same thing as presenting an entirely new and/or different argument, which I didn’t do. If you’re confused about the difference between presenting an argument and just saying more words, well… that explains a lot. > [@brazil84](#): > > Seems to me you should either back up or retract the following assertion: > > > [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > > We can find some gene patterns that are found almost exclusively in small sub-groups of black people, but the majority of black people do not have those gene patterns. We can also find gene patterns that are found in the vast majority of black people, but are also found in many, many other populations. > > What are these gene patterns? What sub-groups are you referring to? You know, if I were the kind of person to get all excited about discussions on the internets, I might be a little frustrated by the fact that not only did you clearly not read my cites, which thoroughly answer your questions, you even edited them out of your response to me. But to be fair, there’s a lot of material even in just those two cites. So, since you’re not a geneticist any more than I am, I’ll just point out some statements that seem relevant to me, and you can make of them what you will. _“We can find some gene patterns that are found almost exclusively in small sub-groups of black people, but the majority of black people do not have those gene patterns.”_ - I would consider [Haplogroup L5](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_L5_%28mtDNA%29) to be an example of this: > [@](#): > > It is a small African haplogroup from East Africa. The highest frequency is in Mbuti Pygmies at 15%. It is present in relatively small frequencies in Tanzania (Sandawe and others), Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nubia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Of course, this presumes that you’d consider [Mbuti Pygmies](https://www.google.com/search?q=mbuti+pygmies&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=C4bgT4XjNKrZ0QGqo5j6DQ&sqi=2&ved=0CE4QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=869) to be “black people”. _“We can also find gene patterns that are found in the vast majority of black people, but are also found in many, many other populations.”_ - I think [Macro-haplogroup L](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro-haplogroup_L_%28mtDNA%29) fits the bill: > [@](#): > > L in its broadest definition is really a paragroup containing all of modern humanity, and all human mitochondrial DNA from around the world are subclades of haplogroup L. I hope that answers your question. > [@brazil84](#): > > > [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > > that the group “black people” does not correspond to any single genetic grouping or collection of groupings. > > To make that assertion, you need a precise definition of “grouping” which can be applied to other matters besides race. Are you able to do so? Are you even able to define what you mean by “grouping”? If not, then you have no idea what you are talking about. No, _I_ know exactly what I’m talking about, but clearly, you don’t. And it seems the problem is pretty basic. You don’t know what a “group” is. Simply put, it’s one or more of something. However, please note that a “group” of one is generally not considered a group. Also, while the members of a group can be unrelated, typically, calling something a “group” indicates that the members all have something in common. So in a “group of children”, all the members of the group are children. In a “group of trees”, all the members of the group are trees. In a “study group”, all the members of the group are in the group for the purpose of studying something. In a “genetic group”, all the members of the group have some gene or gene pattern in common. So, when I talk about “people who have some gene or gene pattern in common”, I’m talking about a “genetic group”, and vice versa. Perhaps if you read my posts again with this new understanding, they’ll make more sense to you. > [@brazil84](#): > > I understand what it means to assert that some black people are more closely related to some white people than those same black people are related to some other group of black people. > > I also understand what it means to assert that the group known as “black people” contains individuals which are not closely related at all. Oh, good! If you understand these two things, then everything else should be clear. But… > [@brazil84](#): > > What I don’t understand is why I should care about this. And why it somehow invalidates generalizations on the basis of race. > > After all, the same thing can be said about many ethnic groups. For example, there are surely many Han Chinese who are more closely related to Vietnamese people then they are to some other Han Chinese. Similarly, there are surely many pairs of Han Chinese who are not closely related. To be sure the distance between those two unrelated Han Chinese is probably a lot less than the difference between two unrelated blacks. But that means the difference is one of degree. Oh. I see. You _don’t_ understand those two things. It’s okay; it may come more easily to me because I’m a programmer (though not at all a geneticist, as you might have thought), and I’ve done a lot of work with Boolean logic and binary trees and so forth. So let me try to explain a couple of things: First of all, here’s a little more about my basic understanding of genetics. (I’ll make explicit my ongoing assumption that if anyone sees an error in what I’m saying, they’ll take they time to educate me, with my thanks.) Imagine, if you will, a tree, with many branches. You can choose any leaf on the tree, and follow up the stem to a twig, and back along progressively bigger branches until you get to the trunk. So you can look at any two leaves and see how closely “related” they are. Some will sprout from the very same twig, while others are on completely separate branches that only meet at the trunk. The more recent the split that divides them, the more closely related they are. And at any branching point you choose, you can draw an imaginary line, and declare that all of the smaller branches that split off from this point onward, and all of the branches that split from those branches, and so on, all the way out to the leaves, will be in one “group”, and what that group has is common is that it all comes from this single branch, or in other words, is all related at that degree of closeness. Genetics works the same way. If two people (leaves) have some gene or gene pattern in common, that means that they _must_ share a common ancestor (branch) somewhere in the past. And conversely, if two people have a common ancestor somewhere in the past, they will have some gene or gene pattern in common. It is impossible for people to share a gene or gene pattern in common if they do not have a common ancestor at some point. Ethnic groups are different. What their members have in common is generally things like physical appearance, clothing, language, cuisine, place of origin, and social customs. Obviously, people can have all these things in common and yet not share a common ancestor that is at all recent. And conversely, people can share a relatively recent common ancestor, and still not have any of those things in common. Sometimes, though, ethnic groups can track fairly closely with genetic groups. Perhaps they are socially insular and insist on marrying within the ethnic group. Or perhaps the only way to be part of the ethnic group is if one’s biological mother was also a member. If something like this is the case, it’s possible that most members of the ethnic group can trace back to a single common ancestor, as indicated by some common gene or gene pattern, and most people not in that ethnic group will not share that ancestor, as indicated by the absence of that gene pattern. “Han people” are an ethnic group, but it also happens that the majority of the people who consider themselves to be in the Han ethnic group are descended from a certain common (prehistoric) ancestor (which we can tell by the presence of a [particular gene pattern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_O3_%28Y-DNA%29)). In other words, at some point, someone in China looked around and said, “Okay, we’re Han.” And it just so happened that there hadn’t been a ton of people migrating to the area over the last few epochs, so almost everyone they included in “we” was descended from a common ancestor. From then on, they didn’t tend to call anyone who wasn’t blood-related “Han”. So now, you see that particular genetic pattern in > [@](#): > > up to over 80% in certain regional subgroups of the [Han ethnicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese#DNA_analysis). However, there were probably a few descendents of that ancestor who had wandered off long before anyone got around to calling themselves “Han”. And there were also quite a few descendents who, for whatever reason, didn’t call themselves “Han”. So now, although most Hans do have the gene pattern, there are large numbers of non-Han (Chinese and otherwise) who [also have it](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_O3_%28Y-DNA%29#Distribution). In fact, > [@](#): > > It should be noted that Haplogroup O3\* Y-chromosomes, which are not defined by any identified downstream markers, **are actually more common among certain non-Han Chinese populations** than among Han Chinese ones [Emphasis mine] So if we know someone is Han, there’s a good chance that they are in this genetic group (that is, they share this genetic pattern). But if all we know is that they are in this genetic group, it’s not a safe guess that they are Han. Or to put it another way, if we drew a circle around ethnic Hans, and another circle around people with Haplogroup O3, the Han circle would be a smaller circle almost entirely inside the genetic group circle. There’d be little portion of the Han circle poking out of the genetic group circle - that’s the people who call themselves “Han”, but don’t have the gene pattern. Then, there’d also be a larger space outside the Han circle, but still inside the genetic group circle - that’s the non-Hans who have the gene pattern. And just as a reminder: those people who are in the Han circle but outside the genetic group circle are, by definition, not as closely related to the other people in the Han circle as the the people within the genetic circle (Han or not) are related to each other. So, just as you say, there may be a Han person who is more closely related to a Vietnamese person than to another Han person. So, what kind of generalizations can we draw about these two groups, ethnic Han and Haplogroup O3? Well, we can say that, in general, people who call themselves “Han” will be fairly likely to have this gene. And therefore, if there’s some attribute directly associated with this gene, like a lovely singing voice, then we can also reasonably say that, in general people who call themselves “Han” will be fairly likely to have a lovely singing voice. Now, here’s the question: if we see that, on average, people who call themselves “Han” are far more likely to have a lovely singing voice than people who don’t call themselves “Han”, would it be reasonable to assume that this disparity is primarily due to the prevalence of the Haplogroup O3 gene pattern among people who call themselves “Han”? No. Why not? Because if the gene pattern is responsible for having a lovely singing voice, then we would expect to see an \*equal \*(or greater) likelihood of having a lovely singing voice in _non_-Han people who nevertheless also have this pattern, and a _lesser_ likelihood of having a lovely singing voice in Han people who do _not_ have this pattern. This is “why [relative closeness/distance of relatedness among racial groups] somehow invalidates generalizations on the basis of race”. There cannot be genetically-based similarities unless there are genetic similarities. And the degree of genetic similarity is dependent on the closeness of relatedness. If part of a racial group is more closely related genetically to part of another race than it is to other members in the group, then we cannot attribute some genetically-based similarity to that racial group without also including the more closely related members of the other race. > [@brazil84](#): > > I understand your example. See below. > > > [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > > Following that logic, then, _even if_ genes were the \*only \*determining factor in intelligence, it’s equally statistically possible for “white people” to be, on average, more intelligent than “black people”, and yet \*also \*the case that “white people” are a minority among intelligent people, that intelligent people are a minority among “white people”, and that a “white person” is less likely to be intelligent than a “black person”. > > Probably yes, but assuming it’s true, it doesn’t change the fact that – in your examples-- the intelligence gap (or the height gap), the gap is primarily genetic in origin and efforts to close the gap by changing peoples’ environment will be ineffective. Huh. You know what _would_ be effective in “closing the gap”, at least in the height example? Completely ignoring the race groupings. Because again, while _height_ is genetic in origin, the _gap_ is entirely a statistical fluke. If you were to consider the population as a whole, you’d find that there’s a group of people who are Exceptionally Tall, and another group who’s not, and you’d never be able to work your way backward from those groups to the randomly designated racial groups, because they have _no relation_ to the height of the individuals in those groups. Now there’s no “height gap”! Done! So what do you think? Maybe we could just ignore the categories of “black people”, “white people”, and so on, and consider the population as a whole. We’ll just group by “intelligent people”, “slightly less intelligent people”, and so on. Yes! Good! And if we do that, and we \*still \*see that there are more white people in the smarter groups, and more black people in the dumber groups, what does that indicate? That intelligence is linked to race somehow? Yes! I think you’ve got it! _And_ do we then have reason to assume that the linkage is genetic in origin? No. No, no, no. And why not? Class? “Because we haven’t demonstrated any link between race and genetics.” Correct. > [@brazil84](#): > > No. The point is that the Pure Environmentalists (as I defined them) are wrong. And the people who assert that the gaps are primarily genetic in origin are right. > > Do you dispute this? I really would like to know. Yes, I dispute this. Once more, with feeling: in my example, the Pure Environmentalists (that is, the strawmen you invented), are indeed wrong. But the people who assert that the gaps are primarily genetic in origin are also wrong. The _gap_ is based on nothing more than random chance. It’s almost tautological, in fact: Race 1 has the greatest average height, and \*all \*that allows us to say about the members of Race 1, individually or in general, is that they are members of the race with the greatest average height. The gap has nothing to do with genetics. If I had made height totally dependent on nutrition in my example, and all the numbers were the same, then you could hardly claim the gap was genetic in origin. It just happens that the gap is in an attribute that is genetic. And here’s the thing: that attribute is genetic because _I made it a given_ in the premise of my example. In the real world, however, while I believe most people agree that genetics has some role in determining intelligence (depending on how we define it, and no, I’m not going back down that road again), I’m pretty sure exactly no one claims it’s 100% genetically determined, and questions of how large that role may be, and whether (and if so, to what degree) the genetic influence can be impacted or nullified entirely by other factors are hotly disputed. So even if you could reasonably call the “height gap” primarily genetic, you cannot, by that same logic, say the same about the “intelligence gap”. That is, the “gap” is only as genetic as the attribute in question. > [@brazil84](#): > > Assuming that’s all true, it does not necessarily follow that the intelligence gap between blacks and whites is not substantially genetic in origin. Agreed? (If you like, I can give you an example to show how this might be so.) Yes. Fine. It does not necessarily follow that the intelligence gap between blacks and whites is not substantially genetic in origin. It’s _possible_ that, even though “black people” are not a genetic group, even so, by some crazy coincidence, _all_ the branches of the [tree](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7290/fig_tab/nature08976_F3.html) leading to groups that you’d call “black people” just happened to develop some genetic mutation, right after splitting off from everyone else, that makes them dumber than non-“black people” groups, _and_ whenever a non-“black people” group separated from a “black people” group, they lost the mutation. Somehow. Maybe aliens did it. Or, we could say God. Whatever. It’s roughly equally possible that if we were to take your genetic code, convert it to binary, parse that into hexadecimal, and then translate _that_ into ASCII, it would spell out the full lyrics to “Baby Got Back”. In Farsi. Tell you what. Let’s try it like this: if you think that “black people” have lower intelligence due to their genes - and it’s possible - then presumably, there’s some gene, or group of genes, or various groups of genes, that correlate with lower intelligence. And presumably, we’d find at least one of these genes in almost all “black people”, and we wouldn’t find any of them almost anywhere else. If you think this gene (or genes) exist, then you should be able to provide some evidence. We’ll wait here. Oh, and a tip? Starting with the presumption that there _are_ genetic similarities that correspond to racial groups doesn’t count as evidence. > [@brazil84](#): > > I’ve asked you some simple, reasonable questions. If you ignore them, I will assume it’s because you don’t have good answers. See, this is your problem. You start with a flawed premise (that your questions are “reasonable”, that “black people” means something genetically), and you draw a faulty conclusion (that I’m not responding because I don’t have good answers, that racial gaps in intelligence must be genetic) that ignores all evidence to the contrary (the fact that I’ve been exhaustively responsive thus far, the fact that any genetic group that contains all “black people” necessarily contains just about everyone else in the world). Instead, if you \*really \*looked at _all_ the evidence (the fact that you’re apparently unaware that you have nothing to say that contradicts anything I have to say, the fact that you jump to conclusions, the fact that you’re unable or unwilling to string together a clear, cogent argument and engage in a reasoned discussion), then you might understand the true reason I won’t be responding anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2186 "2012-06-19T19:31:40Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Many academics who are familiar with the state of knowledge are afraid to go on the record. Talking publicly can dry up research funding for senior professors and can cost assistant professors their jobs. Assertion of a conspiracy to suppress the truth is a standard “take a drink” trigger. (Of course, I mean a drink of water or milk or Yoo-Hoo or something similarly innocuous. Alcohol poisoning is no laughing matter.) ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2187 "2012-06-19T19:32:25Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > I started watching it. It is too long, too boring, and too full of liberal platitudes. [blah blah blah _snip_] But liberals are the smarter of the two political platforms. I have facts on my side. So, obviously there must be a genetic basis for the fact I’m smarter than you, therefore superior, which enables me to dismiss all your arguments out of hand, if I so choose. And I do. I’m also 100% caucasian, so I’m smart[sup]2[/sup]. Who owns you? I’d like to buy you from your masters and put you to work cleaning my toilets and weeding my yard. Also, have you been castrated? We’ll need to be sure you’re castrated as I have a teenage daughter. We can’t trust your kind around the women-folk. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2188 "2012-06-19T19:36:38Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Your silly little tree is difficult to read For an encore, do you spout nonsense about chemistry, in the course of which you declare the periodic table “difficult to read”? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2189 "2012-06-19T19:40:57Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > Holy shit, this is still happening. I had hoped it was all a dream. **NDD** is still engaged in the battle of wits, threatening to bite his foe’s knees off. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2190 "2012-06-19T19:42:39Z")
Returning from my self-imposed thread exile just long enough to say bravo, **HoD**. (And farewell again.) ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2191 "2012-06-19T19:43:03Z")
First, Dorkness, that was beautiful, clear, logical writing. Kudos for the effort. While the probability that Brazil or NDD will get any enlightenment from it approaches zero, I am learning from the responses to their assertions, so this thread has been educational for me. Secondly, Cymk, while you may not be able to trust NDD, I am sure you can fully trust your daughter…😛 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2192 "2012-06-19T19:51:57Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > For an encore, do you spout nonsense about chemistry, in the course of which you declare the periodic table “difficult to read”? I missed that. Did he?! BWAHHAHAHAAHHAHAAHA! ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2193 "2012-06-19T19:53:00Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Returning from my self-imposed thread exile just long enough to say bravo, **HoD**. > > (And farewell again.) Couldn’t agree more. **Heart of Dorkness,** excellent post. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2194 "2012-06-19T19:55:18Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > First, Dorkness, that was beautiful, clear, logical writing. Kudos for the effort. While the probability that Brazil or NDD will get any enlightenment from it approaches zero, I am learning from the responses to their assertions, so this thread has been educational for me. > Secondly, Cymk, while you may not be able to trust NDD, I am sure you can fully trust your daughter…😛 Oh, I fully trust my daughter, as she’s clearly inherited not only my intellect, but my irresistible good looks. Needless to say, going scorched-earth on his genitalia is the only way to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2195 "2012-06-19T20:11:08Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > I started watching it. It is too long, too boring, and too full of liberal platitudes. The sanctimonious tone of voice of the man giving the talk was irritating. If you understand what he said, present the basic argument in a precis that fits on one computer screen. If you can’t do that, you don’t understand it yourself. It’s a 20-minute crash course in population genetics. However, here’s the interesting thing. Most of what he said? Other people have brought it up in this thread. You ignored them. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2196 "2012-06-19T20:12:45Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What experiences have you had with black people that have had the most impact on your way of thinking? Were you assaulted? Was someone close to you the victim of a crime? It’s obvious that it’s not any scientific evidence that has led you to your conclusions (since you ignore the vastly greater amounts of data that contradict many of your claims, and that you have zero data for most of the rest), so I bet it was personal experience. He’s seen all of the Tyler Perry _Madea_ films. He’s a victim, really. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2197 "2012-06-19T20:24:24Z")
I could take any stance from flat-earth to unicorns still exist and use the exact same “logic”, “fact” cherry-picking, and ignoring of any presented scientific evidence to doggedly defend my stance to nth degree as **NDD** and **b84** have both applied here and elsewhere. It’s really not that hard to employ, actually, as it’s what people who lack critical thinking do. And if anyone mocks you, you only need to remain calm and cool-headed then accuse your opponents with ad hominems of all degrees, or put them on your “ignore” list, so you can weasel your way out of having to defend your illogic and lack of intelligence from being exposed, when your obtuse strawmen arguments start to fail. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2198 "2012-06-19T20:35:22Z")
"when your obtuse strawmen arguments start to fail. " Assuming you are even capable of \*discerning \*their failure… ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2199 "2012-06-19T20:35:42Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Once again: Caucasians and Orientals perform and behave better on the average than **all the other races**. This is an extremely odd statement coming from someone who claims there are only three races. If I didn’t no better I’d say you’re conceding your claim to there being three races is bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489/2200 "2012-06-19T22:46:25Z")
> [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Hi again. > You’re… skeptical? Of what? That I was writing a long, tedious, overwrought, and ultimately pointless response? No, that you ever seriously intended to respond to my post. Until I pointed out that you had disappeared. > [@](#): > > I hope that answers your question. > [@](#): > > You don’t know what a “group” is. Simply put, it’s one or more of something. However, please note that a “group” of one is generally not considered a group. Also, while the members of a group can be unrelated, typically, calling something a “group” indicates that the members all have something in common. So in a “group of children”, all the members of the group are children. In a “group of trees”, all the members of the group are trees. In a “study group”, all the members of the group are in the group for the purpose of studying something. In a “genetic group”, all the members of the group have some gene or gene pattern in common. So, when I talk about “people who have some gene or gene pattern in common”, I’m talking about a “genetic group”, and vice versa. Perhaps if you read my posts again with this new understanding, they’ll make more sense to you. Not really. To be sure, you have precisely defined what is meant by a “genetic group,” but under your definition, blacks clearly qualify as a “genetic group.” To illustrate this, consider my Race 1, which is defined as {People born on Ceylon; People born in China between 1950 and 1970; People who self identify as “Puerto Rican”} Since everyone in Race 1 is a human being, they surely all have genes in common. Similarly, any subset of human beings is a “genetic group” under your definition. > [@](#): > > So, what kind of generalizations can we draw about these two groups, ethnic Han and Haplogroup O3? Well, we can say that, in general, people who call themselves “Han” will be fairly likely to have this gene. And therefore, if there’s some attribute directly associated with this gene, like a lovely singing voice, then we can also reasonably say that, in general people who call themselves “Han” will be fairly likely to have a lovely singing voice. > > Now, here’s the question: if we see that, on average, people who call themselves “Han” are far more likely to have a lovely singing voice than people who don’t call themselves “Han”, would it be reasonable to assume that this disparity is primarily due to the prevalence of the Haplogroup O3 gene pattern among people who call themselves “Han”? > > No. > > Why not? Because if the gene pattern is responsible for having a lovely singing voice, then we would expect to see an \*equal \*(or greater) likelihood of having a lovely singing voice in _non_-Han people who nevertheless also have this pattern, and a _lesser_ likelihood of having a lovely singing voice in Han people who do _not_ have this pattern. That may be so, but so what? What exactly is your point with this analogy? > [@](#): > > You know what would be effective in “closing the gap”, at least in the height example? Completely ignoring the race groupings. Because again, while height is genetic in origin, the gap is entirely a statistical fluke. If you were to consider the population as a whole, you’d find that there’s a group of people who are Exceptionally Tall, and another group who’s not, and you’d never be able to work your way backward from those groups to the randomly designated racial groups, because they have no relation to the height of the individuals in those groups. Now there’s no “height gap”! Done! That may be so, but again, so what? It does not undermine my point in the slightest. Besides which, are you aware that there are people out there (with political power) who obsess over disparate racial outcomes and insist that it must be due to discrimination? Seriously, are you aware of them? > [@](#): > > And do we then have reason to assume that the linkage is genetic in origin? No. No, no, no. And why not? Class? “Because we haven’t demonstrated any link between race and genetics.” Correct. Well would you say that in my Race 1, Race 2, Race 3 example, there is no link between race and genetics? > [@](#): > > Once more, with feeling: in my example, the Pure Environmentalists (that is, the strawmen you invented), It’s not a strawman at all. Why do you think people in this very thread talk about economic embargos on Haiti? Why do you think they assert that blacks underperform because of American culture? Seriously, why? > [@](#): > > ut the people who assert that the gaps are primarily genetic in origin are also wrong. The gap is based on nothing more than random chance. Well do you agree that in my example, if everyone had the same genes for height, then there would be no difference in average height between Race 1 and Race 2? > [@](#): > > So even if you could reasonably call the “height gap” primarily genetic, you cannot, by that same logic, say the same about the “intelligence gap”. Agreed, but that’s not the point. The point is that even if you have 2 or 3 arbitrary groups, like my Race 1, a gap between or among those groups might still be primarily genetic in origin. > [@](#): > > Yes. Fine. It does not necessarily follow that the intelligence gap between blacks and whites is not substantially genetic in origin. Exactly. > [@](#): > > It’s possible that, even though “black people” are not a genetic group By your definition, they clearly are a “genetic group.” > [@](#): > > ust happened to develop some genetic mutation, right after splitting off from everyone else, that makes them dumber than non-“black people” groups, and whenever a non-“black people” group separated from a “black people” group, they lost the mutation. Somehow. Maybe aliens did it. Or, we could say God. Whatever. It wouldn’t take that that much of a coincidence. For example, suppose that by coincidence, a few genes for intelligence popped up in Europe and Asia (they had to pop up somewhere), and spread through Europe and Asia but did not make it into Sub-Saharan Africa because there was a big desert in the way at the time. > [@](#): > > And presumably, we’d find at least one of these genes in almost all “black people”, and we wouldn’t find any of them almost anywhere else. If you think this gene (or genes) exist, then you should be able to provide some evidenc I think it’s pretty likely that (1) genes will be found which are related to higher intelligence; and (2) most of those genes will be found to be a lot more common in whites and Orientals than in blacks. > [@](#): > > You start with a flawed premise (that your questions are “reasonable”, Please quote the question which you think is unreasonable. > [@](#): > > that you jump to conclusions, the fact that you’re unable or unwilling to string together a clear, cogent argument and engage in a reasoned discussion) Well perhaps the problem is that you have a mote in your own eye. For example, you started using a new phrase – “determining factor” – and yet you won’t define it for me or give examples. Similarly, I asked you the following question which you ignored: > [@](#): > > But they do dispute that genetics plays a significant role in the gap between groups. Agreed? Why won’t you concede this point? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489.md?page=109) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-bigoted-asshole-omnibus-thread/623489.md?page=111)