I can understand the difference between different verb tenses just fine.
Thing is that I can also understand the difference between an initial post and subsequent post-criticism attempts to weasel out of a predicament by claiming to have been misunderstood.
And speaking of misunderstandings …
In your eagerness to save face you appear to have misunderstood what Inbred was saying. 
At this point you’re reduced to repeated insistence that you understand things you don’t understand, despite many attempts to explain it to you in different ways. I cannot do hand puppets over the Internet, so I’m out of new ways to explain it to you. Your coda, in which you hilariously try to tell me I don’t understand something based on yet another misunderstanding of what I wrote, wraps it up nicely.
Bring something substantive if you want any further conversation.
That won’t be necessary because I have no need for any further conversation with you. I was just explaining to Inbred the context of my remarks, which he had missed.
AS for your remarks, such as they are, they speak for themselves. No need for anything further.
Are “superficial characteristics” the ones unrelated to neurophysiology, and “racist” ones all the ones related to neurophysiology?
For example, would you consider it non-racist to research whether a non-neurophysiologic difference between SIRE groups (such as an average difference in sprinting power) is related to difference in average gene pools?
I have the general sense that sensitivities about research into SIRE-group gene frequency differences roughly parallel the following:
Any isolated marker gene (or even clusters of genes used for the purpose of ancestry categorizations): OK. Not racist. Let’s discover our geographic ancestry!
Any gene related to a “superficial” characteristic such as skin color: OK
Any gene related to physiology (ACTN3 variants, e.g.): Ummmm…let’s make sure we understand “races” aren’t biologically bounded…
Any gene related to neurophysiology: Whoa…is the ethics committee aware of this? That’s awfully close to supporting racism…
IOW, what makes something potentially “racist” has more to do with whether or not the characteristic is something we care about. We seem to care the most about whether or not our brains function similarly. It’s not whether or not SIRE groups have biological differences driving different characteristics.
Suppose several white customers walk into a shop, and they buy the following:
Blue robes, a pointy blue hat and mask, and a magic wand
Red robes, a pointy red hat and mask, and a staff
Green robes, a pointy green hat and mask, and a broomstick
White robes, a pointy white hat and mask, and a cross
Now, I’m a lot more likely to think the last guy is getting ready for a Klan meeting than the rest of 'em. It doesn’t mean I think everyone who buys those items is heading for Loyal White Knight club. But I’m certainly going to be more suspicious of them than the others.
Why is the suspicion surrounding “SIRE-group gene frequency” as it relates to intelligence any different?
I’m saying superficial characteristics are those other than intelligence, morality, and related concepts.
My definition has far more to do with the history of racism- that is, which kinds of claims were most closely connected to oppression, brutality, and violence.
Is it racist to do research which attempts to measure putative genetic differences that drive intelligence outcomes among SIRE groups?
Should we simply make an a priori assumption that there are no genetically-driven neurophysiologic differences among SIRE categories and place that out there as fiat?
We make that assumption for the same reason we make the assumption that psychokinetics are frauds or deluded fools: centuries of experience with similar claims.
Folks are welcome to try to prove otherwise, but the default assumption will be that anyone trying to prove otherwise is a racist fraud or a racist delusional fool, given our culture’s centuries of experience with such claims.
Doing research, with good science, is not racist and never is. Making racist claims is racist. Pretty simple. If one doesn’t want to be called racist, then one should avoid making racist claims.
I think this is exactly right, and it’s interesting to see the tensions unfold as genes can now be defined and measured.
We can now unravel the history of human migration. We can trace gene flow. We can prove that evolution does not exempt any gene from changing.
For the first time in all our history, we can quantify whether or not gene pools are different among human groups. So far, the evidence is overwhelming that gene frequencies vary by SIRE groups. It becomes an act of faith that the variant genes are nonetheless identically equivalent in function, particularly if they are highly penetrated into a given group.
The dirty history of racist ideology is not, a priori, a guarantee that mother nature is an egalitarian for “non-superficial” characteristics even as she creates markedly different “superficial” characteristics.
So I ask again, since at issue is “What is racism?”
Is it racist to do research which attempts to measure putative genetic differences that drive intelligence outcomes among SIRE groups?
Should we simply make an a priori assumption that there are no genetically-driven neurophysiologic differences among SIRE categories and place that out there as fiat?
First, you’re begging the question. Second, why is it off limits to assume that the degree to which different races have outwardly notable physical characteristics (height, skin color, hair texture, eye shape, facial features, etc.), there might also be some characteristics not as evident? I see no reason to think that there might be differences among the races that we can’t see on the outside. Why do you think the default position should be there are none? Based on the evidence we can see on the outside, there are differences. By what logic do you assume that those differing characteristics stop there. Why MUST brains be identical?
I’m not arguing that there necessarily are differences, just questioning why you feel so comfortable with your default position.
Races are social constructs created based on outward physical differences. Those outward physical differences are a major part of why we group genetically disparate groups within a single race. There’s no reason to suspect that there’d be additional similarities beyond the ones that lead to our social groupings.
Some genes, perhaps. Not many, certainly, compared to all the genes in the human genetic code.
No, but so far there’s zero evidence of different propensity for the genes responsible for human intelligence or moral behavior between various groups. This may be because we still don’t know which genes are responsible for human intelligence or moral behavior, of course, but the fact remains.
Which is not being claimed here, Mr. King of the Hay People.
No. Good and ethical research, with good and ethical science, is not racist. Making racist claims is racist. I think you’re trying to whine about how the poor researchers like Rushton and Lynn get called racist because of their research… I’m not even calling them racists. But their research on the subject has been some profoundly bad science, and if they make racist claims, I have no problem with calling those claims racist.
n/m
And to follow up on this, with the psychokinesis argument: at this point, there’s just no particular evidence that makes this line of inquiry look very interesting, any more than there’s evidence that makes pursuing the idea of PK look very interesting.
Psi-fans, of course, jump on every new advance in physics to justify their wacky theories. Woah, brain waves–we’re controlling objects with brain waves! Oooh, quantum theory–we’re manipulating quantum states with our psyche! Ooh, string theory–everything’s interconnected, maaaaan! Proving them wrong is a whack-a-mole game, since they’re not actually interested in pursuing science, but rather are looking for something, anything, that will confirm their preconceived notions. That ain’t science.
Racists do the same thing. Every new scientific advancement for the last two hundred years they’ve jumped on as though someone’s shouting, “There’s white supremacy in them thar hills!” They go digging around, not because they’re pursuing genuine scientific inquiry, but because they’re desperately looking for something, anything, that will confirm their preconceived notions. Once the latest thing doesn’t work out, they’re guaranteed to move on to the next scientific advancement and try to use it to prove what they know is truthy. That’s not science.
There’s a key difference. The PK folks are just wacky, but they’re basically harmless. The racists? Not so much.
Well yeah; actually there is…
iiandyiiii’s “superficial characteristics” refer to appearance differences (among other genetically-driven superficial characteristics).
These appearance differences result from genes which arose in groups post the L3/M-N split (using mtDNA markers) around the point in time that humans left africa (say; 75 kya, give or take). What became various Eurasian populations developed new genes which gave those populations–on average–different appearances from african groups, and different from one another just the way groups inside of africa differ from one another in a clinal fashion.
Should africans and out-of-africans be two races? Should there be 10 races inside africa and 5 outside of it? Should there be a thousand races? No races?..
Who cares? Race is a social construct and one might even argue that it’s a linguistic construct. But…
IF we create groupings the way we do–by allowing self-assignment to a (crappily defined and softly-biologically-bounded) category of Race/Ethnicity, we end up with groups for which the average gene frequency differs, and differs consistently. We will always find an average difference for genes governing melanin if we measure a large enough self-identified group of “blacks” and “whites.” It isn’t a matter of “grouping genetically,” but rather the reverse. Group by self-identification, and average genetic differences emerge for the reason I described above: Humans who migrated out of africa had very limited backflow of their genes into african populations. Therefore new genes which arose in africa and new genes which arose post-africa largely remained within their geographically isolated descendant populations.
The reason the traditional “races” look different is that their average gene pool is different.
An egalitarian (one who believes all human groupings are about the same for all but “superficial characteristics”) relies on faith that evolution has driven genes for superficial things but has not driven genes for non-superficial characteristics.
Arguing that races don’t define well genetically completely misses the point. The change of only a single gene might make a tremendous difference for a given characteristic. So you could have one grouping with a huge amount of variation (a hundred “races,” say), and another grouping with almost no variation. If the second group has just one critical gene not available to the other hundred races, then the second group might be substantially advantaged for that characteristic.
The same grouping division derived from the “superficial characteristics” underpinning SIRE groups also divides human populations roughly at the point of exit from africa, and this separates average gene pools at that point in time. The whole reason SIRE blacks and whites look different–on average–is that they have–on average–different underlying gene pools driven by migration and evolution. It’s a matter of faith by egalitarians that the only genes affected have been “superficial” ones, because it’s a matter of fact that the average gene pools are different. So different that the average appearance is not even the same.
I do not agree that everyone who seeks to figure out if average gene pool differences among SIRE groups drive average outcome differences is a “racist” with some sort of evil or selfish intent.
For reasons discussed elsewhere in other threads, the problem is at the root of how to handle social policy and race-based AA (which I firmly support).
Bad science leads to bad social policy.
For this reason I am asking iiandyiiii if research into the topic is a priori “racist” by his definition.
Holy crap… how many times do I have to answer the same frickin’ question? No, research of any kind, provided it’s done ethically and with good science, is not racist. Making racist claims is racist.
OK; thanks.
What I suspect will happen in practice is that your aversion to “racist” beliefs will cause you to find nothing ethical in any effort to quantify genetically driven differences for non-superficial outcomes between SIRE groups.
This is essentially what has already happened in academia. Despite lip service given to the idea that all populations are fundamentally equal in potential, the truth is that almost anyone who delves into the topic begins to realize that isn’t likely to be scientifically correct. If it were thought likely that all SIRE groups have equivalent genes, we couldn’t fund research fast enough to prove the point and get on with society, and get rid of the racists fast enough.
Instead, we start using terms like “ethical” and “good science” and erect all sorts of barriers, qualifications, informed consent and so on.
The truth is, we’re worried sick in academia that the racists are going to be genetically correct: real and substantial differences among SIRE groups are driven by average gene differences. If we weren’t worried about that, it would be drop dead simple to prove otherwise. But so far, gene studies aren’t suggesting we are a homogenous pool of equivalent genes.
And so we just start applying “ethical” constraints in an effort to kill research, along with a general painting of this sort of paper as “bad science.”
I pretty much thought the latter and you did a much better job than me explaining why with your psychokinesis analogy. I lost energy to continue reading once I saw how Holy Grail-like his arguments were.
The thread did make me go look up whether there was any genetic data on the height of pygmy groups, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
If it doesn’t distract the OP too much, I’m curious what you found, since I often use the grouping of Tall and Short to explain the concept of gene prevalence differences among self-defined groups. “Pygmy” is a good example. Self-identification with “pygmy” would put you in a group the average height outcome for which results from a different average gene pool.
We would be unable (I think) to define “pygmy” genetically. We’re not sure about all the genes that determine height: which exact ones they are; how they respond to nurturing influences; what the variants and the phenotypic result is for each variant. Nor can we account absolutely for every possible nurturing variable.
We are, nevertheless, positive that if we took a large enough group of people and let them self-assign to Tall and Short, the gene pool differences would account for a substantial amount of the average difference. Sure; some would be stunted by malnutrition or whatever. Some short guys would claim to be tall. Some would be in a gray zone in between and just arbitrarily choose. No one would be able to even put an absolute definition on the catergory. But–on average–the Tall and Short gene pools would contain different genes driving height.
In other words, we can’t define a pygmy “race” (though haplogroups pervasively found within Mbuti, say, might be a proxy), but we can say with confidence that even if a concept of a pygmy race is useless, we can look at short and tall people and make a plausible conclusion that genes drive the difference, on average.
We don’t have to define any grouping genetically to determine that average gene pools drive a difference for outcome. It’s really important, in my mind, to understand that we don’t have to first define a group genetically and only then make a useful distinction for gene differences in the groupings. For Tall and Short, maybe the ONLY difference is in those genes, with no other a priori genetically-driven groupings. Instead, if we want to claim genes drive a given average difference, we should have a plausible explanation why the average gene pools might be different. For Tall and Short this explanation would be based on an observation that nurturing alone does not make an individual Tall. For “races” that are self-identified, such a plausible explanation for genetic pool differences exists based on historic migration patterns and human evolution. Therefore it becomes a matter of faith that nature has toyed only with genes for superficial characteristics.
For this reason, the application of the term “racist” is always confusing to me when the issue is science. Nature doesn’t give a crap about racism, so science cannot afford to either if it’s just looking for accuracy in describing nature.
I am often accused of “racist” views as if the application of the term carried a scientific weight, and as if a proposition (or, more commonly, the propositioner) can be painted as “racist” then the discussion has been concluded in favor of those applying the “racist” label successfully. But of course such a label has no scientific weight at all. In many cases it is little more than a hollow and uninformed recreational gotcha.