The “While I agree with your points” in post #652.
It doesn’t so much refute the idea as offer up a less clean example. And no one has argued that culture doesn’t play a role. You’re site about Jamaica simply supports that. But you’re still left having to conjure up some explanation as to why the fastest sprinters in the world are black. To insist that that there is nothing genetic about speed that correlates with a black african heritage puts you in direct opposition to reality.
Sorry, I meant CP here, not iiandyiiii, damn double posting…
Here’s the quote I cited in that post:
Tell me, specifically, what you are puzzled that I might agree with. What conflicts with the clear position I’ve stated clearly numerous times and you say you “accept”?
Don’t see what’s cleaner.
Because Blacks are the superior race, duh…
West African heritage, and specifically a West African Bantu heritage.
Yet somehow one that doesn’t make it down to the Bantu Africans of West African origin who populate Southern Africa…
And somehow doesn’t get diluted by the admixture in Jamaicans, because they sure as shit outperform any actual West Africans.
So bugger-all to do with race, basically.
That there’s been anything close to a “reasonable accomodation” for nurture, that the evidence for genetics is “powerful”, and that such an explanation doesn’t require the genetic mechanism.
While I might quibble with “powerful”, I don’t see how that contradicts the position I’ve put for consistently. You’ll have to explain that.
It’s the “reasonable accommodation for nurture” most of all – I don’t understand how, if there’s been a “reasonable accommodation for nurture” (which I believe is an utterly ridiculous assertion), in addition to accepting his other points (which I also deny), that anyone would still not accept his conclusion.
I think his assumptions are wrong and even ridiculous, but if they are accepted, then his logic is sound, it seems to me.
This is an interesting debate, but it’s also rather puzzling in some ways.
Presumably, the basic premise of this whole issue is the principle of regression towards the mean. That’s what’s confusing about it; because one side is arguing as if the RTM principle means that the intelligence of a child of bright parents simply falls right back to the average value (like a ton of bricks). This is not the way I understand the principle to work. A quick search on the internet leads to this:
This is why it puzzles me that the reaction of many people to the information that ‘the children of very bright black parents (since, presumably, that’s why their incomes are so high) perform very poorly academically’ is “this shows blacks are really dumb” instead of “this shows that that there are factors beyond just income that negatively affect the academic performance of black kids in America.” Because it seems obvious to me that the second reaction is the most sensible one. Yet, many people here – and on other internet blogs – seem to just take the first one for granted.
The principle of regression to the mean is not surprising and it is a principle that one would expect of nature. If the intelligence of a child generally turned out to be the same as the average of his/her parents, it would be too quick and easy for intelligence (and other biological traits) of a population to evolve. On the other hand, if the intelligence of the child simply tended to fall right back to the average value of the population, then intelligence would probably never evolve. So the mean IQ of the offspring, according to the quote, tends to be slightly greater than the midway point between the population average and the mean of the parents. Now, it is clear from the comments that have been made here that we are talking about black parents with extremely high income as a result of their high education and intellect. In other words, these posters are not just appealing to wealth (and, thus, lack of the ‘poverty excuse’) as a means of advancing their arguments about black intelligence. They are clearly appealing to the RTM principle. Though, it is clear that they are also partially appealing to the income factor (which I’ll address later).
Now, let’s suppose that we take the mean IQ of the average “highly educated wealthy black parents” to be 120 (to be conservative). And let’s assume that the black average ‘g’ in America really is 85 (which I am pretty sure is a gross undervaluation). An IQ of 0.6n standard deviations above the “black mean” would be about 106. Even if we suppose that only one parent is the smart and successful one while the other is just of “average black IQ”, it would still give us a mean IQ of about 95 for their kids. Therefore, whichever way you look at it, these sort of “woeful”, “drastically low” scores that are being described do not make any sense if we are trying to use intelligence as an explanation. By the way, let me point out something I couldn’t help noticing while reading some of the comments: the liberal and colorful use of derisive language by one or two posters in describing the scores of black students compared to whites. I think I’ve seen adjectives like “enormous” and “staggering” used to describe these differences. How much of this is a fair depiction of the situation and how much of it is just scornful hyperbole, I don’t know. But I think one can still take from this that there is something very wrong in American society that is badly depressing the academic performance of black children that goes way beyond parental income and actual intelligence.
And that brings me to something else that should also be considered (in response to the argument that this woeful academic performance is the result of the RTM principle): Why is it that children of black African parents in the UK tend to do so well academically relative to the average population of that country? I’ve heard that the same is true in the US as well, though I don’t have specific data to cite for it. The usual handwaving response of “oh immigrants are self selected” doesn’t cut it here because, remember, the IQ’s of these children should be “African low” even though their parents are above average (even for whites).
In this report, Table 6.1 shows the performance of children of West African immigrants to the UK in GCSE exams compared to the national mean. There is some correlation between the above-the mean percentage points and the population size of the countries they represent or the percentage size of their population within the UK but it’s only a small one (Ghanaian students’ percentage difference from the national mean is higher than that of Bangladeshi students despite a population ratio disadvantage of almost 6 to 1). Interestingly, the differences are much higher when Math and English are included than when they are excluded from the comparison.
This suggests that this whole thing about children of bright (and wealthy) black parents having abject academic performance might be a distinctly American phenomenon that probably owes its explanation to the pertinacious and subtle nature of American racism and social stigmatization.
Regarding the income factor (the ‘lack of poverty as an excuse’ argument), it should be pointed out that the ‘socio-economic factor’ in education and academic performance is being talked about by some people in a rather disingenuous way. Essentially, what these people do is zoom in on the ‘economic’ part of the compound word and ignore the ‘socio’ part of it and then talk as if the only conceivable thing that could possibly affect the academic life of a group of students is income level. This leads further to the second distortion: When focusing on the economic aspect, they basically distort (usually by implication) the manner in which the factor plays the role that it does. They talk as if low income negatively affects academic performance of children largely for micro-economic reasons instead of macro-economic (as it actually does). This then allows the fallacious comparisons between “high income black kids” and “low income white kids” that are obviously meant to serve as a ‘killer argument’ for inferior black IQ. But it is all just disingenuous. The fact is that, all else being generally equal, parental income is of no real relevance to how well a kid does academically as long as s/he has the basic materials needed to succeed: books, a decent school, motivation, social support (or lack of social hindrance) and so on. Besides, I’m pretty sure that these “10,000 dollar per year income white kids” being bandied about have rich access to government welfare (in addition to their parental income) or/and extended family resources. Furthermore, they are very likely to be attending predominantly white public schools (which are free, remember) that provide very good educational facilities. Sure, a high income could afford one extra things like private tutors or fancy private schools. But such things are often rather extraneous and unnecessary and – in the case of private tutors – it depends on whether or not they are used and how effective they are. The reason why poverty can be a serious educational hindrance for black kids, but not necessarily for white kids, is because it generally brings along with it certain social problems that are characteristic of low income black communities.
It would be more productive if you would simply state the average scores of the students by racial group for each of these exams instead of constantly indulging in the use of subjective sensational language.
Well maybe there is your answer (or, rather, part of it). What else do you expect when you keep lowering the qualifying scores every time (for any group of students)? Of course you will get lower and lower averages. And it isn’t only because you would be admitting a broader range of students for one group while admitting a narrower range of students for another group (the ‘elite’ ones). It is also because of the simple psychological fact that the tendency to work hard tends to be reduced when students know that their cut-off point is low. Try it as an experiment and see. Now, you would say “well their cut-off score has to be lowered because there are not enough of them that score in the top percentiles.” Okay, let’s take a look at that. Firstly, you are clearly disregarding the fact that blacks are outnumbered in the population by whites by a ratio of about 1 to 6. Also, the effective population of blacks compared to that of whites is even significantly lower (for reasons I don’t have to explain –and it has nothing to do with IQ) particularly as far as this issue is concerned. This means the white student population is at the very least six times more likely to produce a student of any particular IQ than the black student population assuming the IQ averages of both groups was exactly the same (and assuming that academic success is just down to IQ, which isn’t even the case). “Well the Asians are also a minority.” Sure, but, as you yourself would point out when it concerns successful black immigrant groups, they are self-selected for. And also, many of the Asian students in graduate colleges in the US are international students. So I would presume that a substantial portion of the Asian scores in these exams are international. In any case, (East) Asian students – particularly the Chinese- have a very strong academic work ethic that US blacks and whites (except maybe Jews) do not have. Therefore, these comparisons you keep brandishing about “black scores” compared to “white scores” (as a proof of superior IQ) are not entirely honest.
I’m glad you know what the height of absurdity is, but I don’t believe anyone has ever said that all group variations in intelligence are completely “ZERO!” The question is whether there is any significant difference in it between certain groups (which tend to be selected for comparison purely for socio-political reasons) that are beyond what you would normally expect from statistical error (ie: beyond trivial). Personally, I believe that (despite superficial appearances to the contrary) there aren’t any non-trivial or significant variations in intelligence among human populations. While you can find such differences among individuals or even among families, it starts to become more and more unrealistic the further up you go in scale. Ironically, the very premise that the topic of this thread hangs on – regression towards the mean – is just one of the many factors that make significant variations in the intelligence of human groups to be unlikely. Even in the case of height, which is a trait that is far more straightforward in terms of its susceptibility to environmental influence than intelligence, there is hardly much difference in the adult height of most human populations of the world when they enjoy the same prenatal health care, diet, nutrition and so on. Though, there are some niche populations in the world that seem to be genetically particularly tall or short, like the Tutsi, Dinka and Samoan people (tall), the Pigmy peoples (short).
But seriously, do you really think it is valid to compare intelligence (and the manner in which it evolves) with other traits like skin color, height, susceptibility to sickle cell and so on? If you’re going to draw a straight line comparison between “the physical structure of the brain” and those other biological traits, why stop there? Why not also suggest that the difference in intelligence between human populations should be just as drastic as that of skin color for example? Since some human populations have a great abundance of melanin and others have extremely little (almost none), then perhaps we should expect that some human populations have a staggering amount of intelligence while others have almost none and are basically vegetables. Much more reasonably, take a look at the fact the Dutch were the shortest people in Europe (and one of the shortest in the world) only a century ago, but now they are the tallest people in Europe (and perhaps even in the world). Perhaps we should likewise expect that the indigenous people of New Guinea might have some of the highest average IQ scores in the world at some point in the future when their environmental circumstances change for the better.
I don’t know if it was you but someone earlier brought up the issue of environmental adaptation and evolution of intelligence, and a reference was made to the popular notion of “cold harsh climates” evolving greater IQ. This argument has never seemed very credible to me for reasons that have to do with certain assumptions that people make when advancing (or accepting) it which I think are unfounded. I’ll highlight some of these things as briefly as I can. And this will touch on why intelligence doesn’t evolve in the simplistic way that you seem to think it does like other biological traits (at least with homo sapiens).
Where do I start? Well, consider the very concept of “cold harsh climate”. What is so “harsh” about it – other than the fact that it is cold? Of course, Jarred Diamond pointed out in his book GGS that the Eurasian continent is (was) for the most part a more advantageous environment compared to Africa because of the greater degree of domesticable animals and crops it provides, and the much greater geographic continuity with which it provides them. But this isn’t what I’m driving at. My point is that: if the ecology was so “harsh”, why would the people have lived there or even moved there in the first place? People tend to think about the past through the prism of their own experiences. Maybe it’s because we are so used to just hopping on a plane and getting to another side of the globe within hours, we probably tend to think as if the hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times did something like that (like some kind of star trek space-warp). In reality, it generally took many generations, hundreds of years, for people to migrate from one environment to one that was even marginally different. And each time it was mostly due to exhaustion of the immediate environment’s resources or expansion to minimize competition with other human groups. There isn’t a clear sharp line between one clime and another (just as there isn’t such a line between races). You don’t just ‘step’ with one foot from the savannah to the Sahel or from the Mediterranean to the Alps. There is plenty of time for prehistoric nomads to adjust to each environment they find themselves in, and they certainly wouldn’t remain there if they found it harsh; they would just move. Of course, eventually, different climes would call for different clothing, ways of building shelters, knowledge of plants and animals and just basic survival skills. But in order for such things to cause evolution of intelligence one would have to assume that each of these tasks could not have been done (or figured out) by anyone of average intelligence (or even somewhat lower). And remember that they had plenty of time; they weren’t just zapping around from one climate to another. In fact, Geoffrey Miller, proponent of the sexual selection theory of the evolution of human intelligence, even argues that “human intelligence is unnecessarily sophisticated for the needs of hunter gatherers to survive.”
And here’s the other thing to consider: Even if there is a particular thing that needs to be invented or hunting strategy or battle strategy that needs to be devised that requires exceptional intelligence, does that necessarily mean it would lead to an evolution of intelligence on the basis of ecological survival? The only way that could be guaranteed to happen was if people lived and survived individually (like tigers) rather than communally, so that it was every couple (and their kids) to themselves. But the problem is that people lived and worked in large groups. Therefore, whatever invention (or brilliant plan) a person would come up with for ecological survival would almost definitely benefit the rest of the community (and the survival of their genes). And this is one of the most crucial differences between intelligence and other biological traits that make it silly to talk as if their evolutions are similar. Intelligence has this ‘piggyback factor’ where other people can enhance or maintain their survival based on one person’s intellectual work. But when it comes to traits like height or skin color or even running ability, it’s different. You either have a skin color that makes skin cancer unlikely or you don’t. You can’t piggyback your survival on someone else’s darker skin. You are either tall enough to see above the shrubs or you’re not. Your parents may help you for some time, but after that you’re on your own. You can either run fast enough from danger or you can’t. So, other biological traits are more individual-selective. Intelligence tends to be more group selective. But even then, whatever it is that needs to be invented (or devised) for survival in that environment would have to require an IQ level that is statistically unlikely for the normal size of a hunter-gatherer community in order for group selection to lead to evolution of higher IQ for people in that environment. For example, suppose the normal size of a community is 50. It would require an IQ greater than 132 to solve that particular survival problem. But how remotely likely is it that anything that prehistoric hunter-gatherers had to do required anywhere near that kind of IQ (especially when movement was so slow and they had a long time to adjust to things)? This is why I believe it is much more reasonable to see intelligence as having evolved in primitive societies largely by sexual selection and only slightly by natural selection.
Note that all of the things aforementioned does not in any way mean that primitive peoples wouldn’t recognize the importance of intelligence in their daily existence and value individuals who display it exceptionally (by music, art, social interaction and conversation, or even inventions). But there is no reason to think that such appreciation is limited to any particular climate or ecology (or absent in any). By the way, many people in the west seem to have very naïve ideas about African ecology and they seem to think that living in Africa, even as a hunter-gatherer tribe- is a piece of cake. Thus, there is this ridiculous, but popular, notion that surviving in African environment isn’t intellectually demanding but somehow surviving in Asia, the Mediterranean and pretty much everywhere else in the world is. Just for a glimpse of how demanding hunter-gatherer life can be in a tropical climate, I picked this quote from pg 69 of The Third Chimpanzee (it isn’t Africa, but it’s even better because these people are alleged to have an IQ average of less than 60):
Another thing: If cold climate is so wonderful for producing high IQ, then why do aboriginal Americans have such low iq scores compared to that of whites despite the fact that their ancestors lived in the coldest regions of the world like Alaska and Siberia? Is there something about the American continent that caused their intelligence to fall drastically once they started living there?
If there is anything that cold climate may have done in favor of higher intelligence, it may have simply been to increase cranium (and brain) size as an adaptation to cold, since a greater size would mean a lower rate of heat loss from the head. Neanderthals presumably adapted to the cold climate in the same way. I should highlight that it makes a difference that nature is selecting for larger crania (whether or not it comes with greater intelligence) and not more intelligence. This is because it would then mean that the correlation between rate of increase of cranium size and rate of increase of intelligence within the given population would not be the same as the correlation of those values between populations that have evolved in different climes. In fact, it would likely be significantly smaller. This is because we have to consider the fact that some individuals are going to have larger than average brains without necessarily having greater than average intelligence as would be normally expected. This means that their brains have structures that are inferior to those of average intelligence but average brain size. Therefore, nature would be conferring a survival advantage to such individuals at the expense of individuals with superior brain structures but lower cranium sizes. How this eventually plays out in terms of the intelligence of the final generation being considered would depend on things like the frequency at which it happens as well as the heritability of brain structures that affect intelligence with respect to the heritability of brain size (which I believe is about 0.8). I should point out that even if we judge the IQ’s of the respective races according to their average brain sizes, we still do not get anything at all like the kinds of bizarrely wide differences that are often purported:
By the way, this is why I think sprinting may be the one area in which one can confidently say that one ‘race’ has some kind of advantage (given the global popularity and participation in the sport). And it is the only thing I tend to agree with Philippe Rushton about (the one little pearl of truth that can be found within his pile of dung). Supposedly, the pelvic bones may have been angled out very slightly in the bodies of populations that evolved slightly larger cranium-size averages (so that women could have somewhat larger birth canals) than in those that didn’t. This gives some populations a better fulcrum and higher center of gravity for running. Of course, this doesn’t explain why this advantage seems to be limited to West Africa, or why the sport is dominated by African Americans and Jamaicans (which I’m sure is due simply to culture and dedication). But I think it may be a factor.
The only decent attempt to provide a remotely credible support for the race-IQ hierarchy perspective, in my opinion, is “The 10,000 year explosion” by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. I’ve not read the book, but I’ve read summaries and outlines of the work and their theories. The only strong part of their argument I can really see is (and this is my interpretation) that agro-based societies would lead to a wider and more uneven distribution of wealth than exists in hunter-gatherer societies, and men with higher incomes are likely to have more children and also capable of providing for them. But the main crux of their argument about larger populations leading to more frequent mutations and therefore greater intelligence doesn’t make all that much sense to me. That is despite the fact that it echoes a suspicion I’ve always had about there being some positive correlation with ethnic/linguistic population size and intelligence averages (without the differences in averages being really that significant). Sure, a larger pool would increase likelihood of mutations. But it also increases likelihood of negative mutations. The important thing is whether there is a reliable mechanism that breeds out the less desirable members. Ironically, a general increase of wealth tends to make that even less likely. Also, a larger population dilutes the mutations more. Even though smaller populations have a frequency disadvantage, when they do get those mutations, the effect on their gene pool is much stronger. Even the authors seem to admit that the rate of mutation was lower than rate of population increase.
Furthermore, if we focus just on the more-income-more-kids perspective, certain questions need to be addressed: What is the nature of the wealth distribution? (because throughout much of human history, it has been more in the form of a few fat cats at the top and everyone else at the bottom (or a few social hierarchal gradations adding to that) rather than a smooth continuum. How much did parental income really correlate with factors like infant mortality rate and life expectancy in ancient times? And, mostly, how much did above-average IQ actually factor in attaining wealth or power? I don’t know if they actually addressed such questions.
But the most important question that hasn’t been talked about with regard to the theory is how does the evolution of intelligence in hunter-gatherer societies compare with agro-based Neolithic (and modern) societies? I don’t think it is valid to compare two things by only focusing on one of them. It’s like trying to compare the speeds of two brands of race cars by only running one of them. I don’t think these authors have actually bothered to study intelligence (and how it is selected for) in hunter-gatherer societies. They seem to just assume and take for granted that it either doesn’t or that it is too slow to even bother considering.
Also, this theory of theirs fails to explain why Indians and many middle eastern (and north African) populations score significantly lower on IQ scores than Europeans despite the fact that the agricultural revolution and civilization started in those regions of the world. Sure, China happens to work out fine for the theory. But what about the other ones? And there is also India’s large population – comparable to that of China – (particularly the Hindi population) that makes it even more of a problem for this theory.
I think the part about Neanderthals supposedly blessing the human populations they raped with superior intellectual endowments is just fantasy and wishful thinking on the part of those two intelligent and highly educated racialist clowns (I mean, talk about “wishful thinking”). The Neanderthals may simply have endowed them – via their sperms – with larger brain sizes as an adaptation to colder climates, though humans could still have evolved this adaptation themselves.
It is also seems like these authors, like many otherwise sane and reasonable people, fall into the trap (or pretend to) of looking at people in impoverished parts of the world and concluding, based on their relatively ‘disfigured’ body shapes, that they must be “lesser evolved” without realizing that it is simply a facet of nutrition and malnourishment. Would they say that Sri Lankans who were born and raised in the US are “more evolved” than those born and raised back home? Anyway, that’s all I’ll say about it.
There is another part of this discussion that involves ‘racial’ classifications or genome groupings that has taken on a life of its own on the thread. What I don’t get about this is that while I’ve been under the assumption all along that there are said to be three broad categories of races: ‘Caucasian’, ‘Negroid’ and ‘Mongoloid’, some people on this thread seem to have refined it so that there are now essentially only two ‘races’: what they call ‘African’ (or sub-Saharan African) and what they call ‘Eurasian’ (even though they caveat it with things like “no I’m not talking about “race”, I’m talking about “gene pools”). I’ll reserve any comments (or questions) I have to make on this for later.
You seem a bit fixated on the idea that, if we can dispense with race, we can dispense with genetic explanations for average differences observed in groups who self-identify with race.
I have made the point often that the Mbuti are not the Yoruba or the Igbo. If we were to take those self-identified groups, I’d place my basketball money on the Yoruba/Igbo for average outcome performance. The reason for my wager would be the average frequency of genes for basketball between those self identified groups. And I would not have to know the exact gene variants. I would not have to figure out how to create a strict biological definition of a Yoruba or Mbuti.
The Mbuti have been separated long enough that they have different average gene pools. Evolution has diverged them.
Now let’s take basketball in the US as an index case (sure, magellan01; sprinting if you like but it doesn’t make any difference). What are the two self-identified groups? “I am black,” and “I am white.” Why does basketball (or sprinting) have an over-representation of blacks? Because that self-identification, regardless of whether or not “race” meets some kind of external criterion for a biological category, lumps one group into a genetic pool where the good genes for BB are more frequent than in the other pool.
The average performance outcome difference is genetic.
Mbuti notwithstanding; buggering of “race” notwithstanding.
G. E. N. E. S. (…variants 
)
As a first aside to your comments about Neaderthal introgression, the effect of those genes is unknown. Of significance is that 1-4% of the makeup of non-africans is thought to be Neanderthal, so between that and the fact that about 20% of the whole Neanderthal genome is retained in non-africans, there is reasonable evidence some benefit was derived.
As a second aside, you might consider reading about the peopling of India.
I want to focus on why you think genes are not at play wrt to the OP’s question.
I’ll be interested in your comments on your personal favorite explanation of why US black students under-achieve academically when poverty is factored out.
Let us leave aside an argument of “intelligence” and how to measure it, and focus on the skillset required to perform on academic testing.
As a reminder, the specific data is that in 1995, when the College Board released parental education and income figures in association with SAT scores, black students with highly educated parents scored barely on par with white students who had parents with educational levels at high school or below. Black students from what was then the highest income tier (80+K/year) scored barely on par with poverty-stricken whites (family income <10K/year). (Following 1995, the College Board stopped releasing this data so freely.)
This is an extraordinary disparity, and it exists despite what had always been the standard explanation–Socioeconomic Status–being normalized. Actually; not only normalized but skewed markedly in favor of black students.
That’s the fundamental data point underpinning the OP.
What’s your personal favorite nurturing explanation for this disparity?
And does it also apply to the same pattern observed worldwide, across every political and cultural boundary?
I am confused about your point here. Is it that less able students (as evidenced by crappy scores to begin with) will of course have crappier subsequent scores?
If so, we agree.
The difference is not nurture; it’s ability.
We can lower admission standards to get the brightest possible (but still underperforming) black students, and exposing them to the same educational curriculum will not then produce equality of performance 4 or 8 years out (pre med/law; medical licensure…). The difference is ability and not opportunity.
Nothing in higher education efforts has ever changed this, and those efforts have been substantial. At every tier of opportunity and every tier of education; at every SES tier; the same order persists, with those hard working Jews and asians at the top, the moderately lazy whites in the middle, and the completely lazy blacks at the bottom. :rolleyes:
Damn those asians and Jews, and their frigging work ethic!
SES was only ever a small part of the “standard” explanation. Any sort of “standard” explanation always was and still remains some combination of societal factors including small scale and large scale discrimination, both informal and formal, both group and personal, both day-to-day and periodic; media depictions and role models; teacher expectations; and multiple other factors that may make the “black” experience in America significantly different (and present unique obstacles) than the “white” experience.
See the most recent England Department for Education source data (that I can find, anyway)here.
If I may, from Page 3:
*"Chinese pupils are the highest performing ethnic group
74.4% of Chinese pupils achieved at least 5 A*- C GCSEs (or
equivalent) grades including English and mathematics. This is 17.9
percentage points above the national average (56.6%).
Almost half are achieving the English Baccalaureate (49.5%); 25.4
percentage points above the national average (24.2%).
Pupils from a black background are the lowest performing group…
53.1% of pupils from a black background achieved at least 5 A*- C
GCSEs (or equivalent) grades including English and mathematics;
this is 3.4 percentage points below the national average (56.6%)."
*
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
It’s not clear to me that the overall UK data is particularly different from anyone else’s, anywhere in the world.
Alas, asian work ethic appears universal, as does white lassitude (and black sloth)? :dubious:
Let me guess:
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These are impossible to accurately quantify, and never will be.
-
They have become much more interesting since SES crapped out.
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You find them so persuasive that genetics is highly unlikely as an explanation for average differences.
They are very difficult to quantify. Maybe this will improve. It doesn’t change the fact that such things exist.
The affects of segregation, Jim Crow, regular lynchings, second-class-citizen status, and the like, on intellectual development, would have similarly been very difficult to quantify – I see no reason why modern versions of discrimination would be easier.
SES never “crapped out” – it’s actually part of the explanation for test score disparities. Otherwise it wouldn’t have to be corrected for at all.
I lean towards those explanation for multiple reasons: the gap has shrunk by some measurements, the efforts to close the gap have been paltry and weak, such discrimination absolutely still exists and is a major force in our society (if not as major as in the past), different groups have been at the top and bottom of society and achievement throughout history in different parts of the world – if genetics wasn’t the explanation then, I see no reason why it would be the explanation now (because opportunity to succeed hasn’t come close to being equalized), proponents of the “blacks are dumber” hypothesis refuse to do actual science (or when they try, they make up data like Richard Lynn) and continually make excuses about why they don’t want to, and there is specific experimental evidence that refutes the genetic explanation (with no such specific experimental evidence that refutes the societal explanation).
All in all, lots of reasons to favor societal factors over genetics as the best explanation.
If you cannot quantify them, you have no basis to assert that it is a fact that they exist.
As mentioned previously, this is a Finagle Factor - an unprovable, unfalsifiable magic something that fulfills no need except to serve as an alternative to an explanation you don’t want to see. It’s rather like mediums who claim that the spirits won’t show up if there are any skeptics in the room. Rather too convenient, doncha think?
Regards,
Shodan
Discrimination can be quantified in many ways, and without much difficulty (except for certain more insidious forms of discrimination).
What I called “very difficult” to quantify were the cognitive effects on intellectual development that are caused by various forms of discrimination.
Jim Crow definitely existed and could be quantified. The effects of Jim Crow on the intellectual development of black children were probably very difficult to quantify.
If you want to argue that regular lynchings, segregation, Jim Crow, and other forms of discrimination and oppression had no effect on the intellectual development of black children at the time, then go right ahead, but that seems unlikely to me.
Is the factor(s) you claim are responsible for under-performance by black students quantifiable, or not?
If they are quantifiable, please cite the studies that demonstrate them. If they are not quantifiable, you have no basis to believe they exist.
Regards,
Shodan