It’s trivially easy to find studies that have attempted to quantify discrimination. Here are two examples – I’m sure you could find more if you wish.
What do you believe is the best explanation for the test score gap? You are aware that there is specific experimental evidence that refutes the genetic explanation, right?
And why are you only asking me these questions? They apply even more so to CP – he believes that genes are responsible, without quantifying the genes responsible or how they effect intellectual ability.
Are you saying that these factors are the ones responsible for the gap in black test scores?
It is not necessary to point to a specific gene pattern in order to conclude that genetics affect a given outcome. This has been pointed out to you previously.
No “if”. Scientists abandoned the idea of biological race years ago.
No-one disputes the idea of smaller population groups with distinct genetic characteristics, CP. They just have bugger-all to do with the arbitrary larger groups known as race.
And you can bet on the Yoruba all you like, I know that the only way a Nigerian basketball team ever made a championship is by including Americans. Because culture trumps genes.
Possibly. They fit the facts, and unlike the genetic explanation, do not actually have specific experimental evidence that refutes them.
Then what is necessary to conclude that genetics are responsible for the disparity? Do you conclude that they are? Especially considering that there is specific experimental evidence that refutes the genetic explanation?
Are you able to state your opinion on this? I’d really like to know.
What about an acceptance of existence requires an ability to quantify? Probably I’m just misunderstanding you on this point. I can certainly think of examples where the existence of something was reasonable to accept but not the number of/extent of that thing(s).
Perhaps you meant to say (from a genetics standpoint), “African Americans”?
Because it does not take much observation to see that wrt BB in the US, if we look at gradeschool, we see diversity of self-identified whites and blacks about proportionate to the population. As we proceed up the skill and age ranks, whites drop out until by college there is a marked reversal of ratios. By the pros, there is almost a complete reversal, with white exceptions being disproportionately represented by a small group of eastern europeans.
Don’t get confused that scientists “abandoning” race means that average gene pools are not what drive average outcomes. The answer to why we see average differences among self-identified “races” is, in fact, genes. “Race” and the debate around how to use the term is just a wordsmithing device to leave an inference that it is not genes which drive average performance outcomes.
I find your assertion that a black student with educated and well to parents finds himself so discriminated against in school that he can’t learn to be a ridiculous notion.
I do not doubt that an absolute bias against some groups exists on the part of some of our population. Racists, even, of every color.
The vast majority in both education and business have nothing to lose and everything to gain if the disparity between black and white performance goes away. Business are desperate to find, accept, keep and promote black employees. The educational system is equally desperate to create successful black students. Indeed, they are heavily incentivized to do so. They are specifically tracked and rewarded for creating successful black students.
Higher education systems (prep schools; colleges/universities/advanced degree programs) have an equal incentive to eliminate racial differences in performance. An enormous effort is spent on special training and help; special admissions coaching; special scholarships; special tracks; special admissions criteria…all directed toward black-specific success rates.
This nonsense you keep advancing that there is some sort of broad-based, enslavement-tainted, anti-success hold-down of the black student is so ass-backward with respect to reality, I don’t even know where to begin attacking it other than to say it is insubstantiated pap at odds with the real world. In that real world there is a heavy, intense, broad-based effort to help black students become successful, and it is supported at Federal, State and Local levels all the way down.
I thought you were asserting that the factors that caused academic under-performance in American students with an SIRE of black were different from those that affected SES. Is that the case?
Studies in which other factors like SES and parental education are held constant.
Did you really think that it was necessary to point to a specific gene variant that controlled intelligence in order to establish that genetics affected intelligence? Is that the specific evidence that you thought disproved genetic influence?
Or is the constant repetition of “the correlation isn’t 100% therefore it’s zero” that you meant?
That’s not my assertion. When have I ever said anyone “can’t” learn? You’ve repeated this crap so many times it’s pathetic. “More difficult” doesn’t equal “can’t”. Stop saying that I say anyone at all “can’t” learn or “can’t” succeed. I’ve never said such a thing.
I think these sorts of forces in society are a small stream of progress that are still pushing against the mighty dam of oppression that still exists, weaker as it may be than in the past. Equally qualified black applicants are still less likely to get callbacks. Peaceful and non-criminal black people are still more likely to be hassled by police. Black convicts get longer sentences for the same crimes. Black applicants for housing are more likely to be rejected. Black customers are more likely to be hassled inside stores. Black children are more likely to be disciplined by teachers, regardless of their actual behavior. Black people have less per-capita representation in government, and vote in districts with less per-capita influence. Black people are less represented in the media, and more likely to be represented as criminals or other negative figures.
In the real world these efforts (which are not even close to “heavy, intense” in my opinion) are still up against the realities of institutional discrimination and oppression in society at large. It’s better than it was, but it’s still far from equal.
You just think now is special. I don’t – I think the societal forces that have operated and held sway over humanity over human history are still in play and still a major force, even if they are not quite as powerful as they were in the past. You think that opportunity really is equal now for equally talented and hard-working people. I don’t – there really are obstacles that exist for black people that don’t exist for others.
There’s no reason to continue to harp on this stuff. We know where we disagree. You think that we’re able to “normalize nurture” – and that SES is most of this. I don’t. I think SES is a very small part of “nurture”. You think outcomes now are special and show truthfully some sort of natural genetic hierarchy – I don’t. I think now is just another part of history, with the same forces that have always been around, albeit in different proportions.
And most notably you dismiss actual experimental evidence that refutes the genetic explanation, while showing no interest in actually repeating what would be a very cheap and easy experiment to run. I don’t – I think that the experiment was valid, and while it’s reasonable to challenge its findings, it’s not reasonable to challenge its findings while refusing to repeat the experiment with modern methods and making excuses about why such an easy task is not possible.
Perhaps, but this isn’t the question that I was answering.
So you’re not aware of the Scarr study, I take it?
I’ve never asserted such a thing. I’ve never challenged any assertion that genetics can affect intelligence.
Nope. In case you’re not aware, the Scarr study I’ve referred to compared the test scores of poor black students to the percentage of African ancestry among the black students. There was no correlation at all. Poor black students with greater proportions of African ancestry score no worse than poor black students with lower proportions of African ancestry. That’s the specific experimental evidence that refutes the genetic explanation, and that is just ignored or dismissed by the “blacks are dumber” crowd.
I’m going to continue asking this question – and you’ll probably continue to refuse to answer, even while I answer your questions: Shodan, What do you believe is the best explanation for the test-score gap? Do you believe that black people are inherently inferior in intelligence, on average, due to genetics?
No, I meant to say “Americans” - these are Americans of recent Nigerian ancestry, but notAfrican-Americans the way the term is understood by many (i.e. slave descendant population.) The fact that they are culturally American but wholly Nigerian genetically is the point.
…Then more blah-blah from you completely missing my point…
Perhaps you meant to say, “self-identified blacks.”
Wordsmithing of any kind around race or national identity does not eliminate the simple fact that a difference in the average genetic pool for self-identified blacks puts them in a category which has an average genetic advantage for the skillset of basketball.
Of course nurturing drives how maximally that genetic potential can be realized. But that does not change the fact that the average genetic pool is quite different for self-identified whites and blacks wrt basketball gene variants.
There is a reason for the overwhelming over-representation of self-identified blacks in basketball, and it’s not “cultural.” It’s not the laziness of whites. It’s not that whites abandon their NBA dreams because the used car salesman job beckons. It’s not that whites have no use for a BB scholarship. It’s not that whites have parents who are uninterested in having them succeed at a lucrative sport. It’s not that whites have crappy coaches and lousy facilities. It’s not that whites get distracted by drugs. It’s not that whites get dumped into prisons. It’s not that whites have no encouragement to take up basketball and see if they are any good at it. It’s not that whites have hard-working single Moms with no time to focus on creating a stable family structure that allows for BB development. It’s not that whites love school studies and loathe basketball.
…or whatever other “cultural” crapola you want to postulate.
It’s a difference in the average genetic pool between self-identified whites and self-identified blacks. That average genetic difference drives the maximum potential once nurturing is reasonably available.
Laugh at good science and then make excuses as to why your side refuses to do good science (which would be cheap and easy with modern methods). Excellent strategy.
Detection is another thing entirely. You can detect something without being able to measure it, or quantify it. To quote you again;
[QUOTE=Shodan]
If they are quantifiable, please cite the studies that demonstrate them. If they are not quantifiable, you have no basis to believe they exist.
[/QUOTE]
Your claim was based purely on quantification.
…mighty dam of oppression…
…institutional discrimination…
…special obstacles for a special group…
I think you have been listening to too much rhetoric…
Worse, I think this kind of hang-wringing, “we have a special case over here” kind of bullshit is very counter-productive.
The world is full of the strong eating the weak; the advantaged rolling over the disadvantaged; the privileged out-maneuvering the less privileged; the lucky taking advantage of the unlucky; tribe A blocking tribe B.
This is true across every self-identified grouping, at every level of grouping.
There is absolutely nothing so special about self-identifiying as “black” that a privileged black student with highly educated parents and access to financial resources should be unable to learn on par with his peer group. The average person in this society does not give a rat’s ass about self-identification past a superficial introductory curiosity and beyond the tribalism we all have to every circle but our own. In education and business there is an overwhelming reach-out and hand-up specifically directed toward self-identified blacks. Moreover, it is in the self-interest of both schools and business to accept, promote and success-enable blacks. Both areas are desperate to improve black-specific outcomes, and have spent decades trying to make the disparate outcomes just go away.
You want to fabricate a list of excuses for a privileged black student to fail by creating a vague and unsupported construct that ancestral mistreatment and some sort of pervasive conspiratorial hostility are the reasons he is not doing well in school.
Providing him with a list of rhetorical bullshit to hide behind is the lowest form of patronizing, and the best way to ensure he has enough excuses to fail.
You, sir, are not helping the problem. You and your list of black-specific lame-O excuses are hurting the cause you love so dearly.
You, sir, continue to misrepresent my argument with bullshit phrases like “unable to learn” and “excuses” to “fail”. I’ve never said anyone at all is unable to learn or will inevitably fail.
And you, sir, are living in a fantasy world if you think that if only we as a country went back to our 19th century popular opinions on the natural intelligence of black people that it would actually make things better for black people. This is the most utterly ridiculous part of your argument.
In the real world, discrimination and oppression have been massive and driving forces for most of this country’s history, and they still exist, even if to a lesser extent.
Were there obstacles that made it harder for a black person with equal abilities to succeed in 1850? How about 1900? 1950? I’m sure you’d agree the answer is “yes” for those three periods. So what’s special about NOW? I think it’s still “yes” in the present, even if the obstacles (which make it harder but not impossible) are less powerful today. I’m not convinced that a few decades of weak effort, from groups that were intimately tied to discriminatory policies in the past, to undue such effects, is even close to enough to make a difference. I’m not convinced that we can dismiss good science and make conclusions to the opposite without doing any actual good science to replace it.
Your arguments are not convincing. The Scarr study was good science and your side is too cowardly, lazy, and uninterested in actual science to recreate the experiment. Discrimination and oppression are still real forces in this world and in our country. Now is not special.
It has nothing to do with “personal favorites”. It is simply a matter of eliminating explanations that do not stand up to close scrutiny and appear to be contradicted by data that exists elsewhere. I already outlined why it couldn’t possibly be genes that are at play in this particular problem being discussed. I also suggested a very plausible explanation for why bright kids who are of a particular social caste (regardless of income) might underperform academically which you and some others here seem incapable of grasping. I also explained why some of these comparisons you continue to brandish are fallacious. And, finally (in response to the last sentence), I already gave a clear example of a different pattern observed in another part of the world in a different “political and cultural boundary”.
I believe another poster asked you to clarify, several pages ago, whether you are actually implying that there are no black students that achieve top scores or whether you are simply talking about averages. You might need to clarify that again.
Also, please stop distorting what I said. I never claimed that we can simply replace ‘intelligence’ with ‘work ethic’ and arrive at the solution to this problem. I simply said that it plays a role in this discussion. And at no time did I even suggest that blacks are naturally lazier than whites or vice versa. Strawman tactics are a sign of desperation and it doesn’t help your position as much as you think it does.
From the link provided, here’s the actual data for each “major ethnic grouping” (ie: races) for 2013/14:
On page 9. Table B: Percentage of pupils achieving 5+ A*- C GCSEs (or equivalent) grades including English and mathematics by major ethnic groups (in descending order): Chinese -74.4%, Asian – 60.8%, Mixed – 57.7%, White -56.2%, Black -53.1%.
Notice the proximity between the black and white percentages despite all the social and economic disadvantages that blacks have compared to whites (both indigenous and immigrant) in the UK.
Unfortunately, this document does not provide the percentages for specific nationalities of black Africans (as it does for Asians and Europeans). The link I provided in post 669 gives a more detailed and accurate picture of ethnic nationalities and their GCSE performance within the UK, and the fact remains that children of West African immigrants (especially Nigerians and Ghanaians) are among the top performing groups. Incidentally, that document also shows that immigrant students from war-torn Congo are the only black African group listed whose percentage is below the national average (third from last after the Portuguese).
Note that I never said that blacks in the UK (and other western countries) do not face socio-economic problems. The point of the link I provided was to show that there are clear examples in the world of black students doing much better academically than the general white population. Unless every one of these kids had been screened for their intelligence prior to their parents coming to the UK, one simply has to acknowledge that the genetic explanation to the phenomenon of kids of highly educated and wealthy black parents in the United States badly underperforming in school doesn’t make any sense.
