wading into race realism
Never in 1,000 years did I imagine that I would end up the person that I am today: a black race realist—someone who believes IQ is normally distributed and that averages may differ among races the same way other genetic variables do. Over the years, I noticed that people are fired up about this or that aspect of evolution, but that the question of genetic differences in race and IQ were off limits. (Amren.com)
Race realism is a subject best avoided for many reasons, not least that foul views don’t deserve attention. It is not different from any other form of racism, it just comes with accompanying statistics that allegedly make it ‘real’.
The article linked to above annoyed me so much that I feel the need to post a rant on the matter.
1. We are all the product of immigration and blending of different groups of people. Humans have been roaming over this planet for millions of years, crossing borders and oceans, and having sex. There are loose groups of people we often label as if they are distinct or pure races – they aren’t.
The very idea of “race” was (and to an extent is) a European or Western preoccupation, not endemic to all societies or civilizations—not only as a method to classify peoples but also to explain behavioral differences in terms of physical differences. … Race was often even something of a synonym for society or nation, as in the “British race” or the “French race.” Accordingly, in Rwanda and Burundi the Hutu and Tutsi were construed by administrators as two races, with distinct physical attributes; in Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese, with much less physical justification, have employed the race concept. Not only that, but by definition (at least by Western definition) races—unlike societies—are hierarchically related. Race labels communicate the message not only that “we are different from you” but that “we are better than you.” (Ethnicity, Culture, and “The Past”)
2. Race realists are obsessed with IQ statistics. If you do IQ tests over loosely homogeneous race groups across economic divides, you find that IQ is primarily a result of socio-economic conditions. You give people poor input, a poor diet, a stigmatised background riddled with discrimination, and they are obviously more likely to have problems reaching the intellectual level of those born into situations devoid of disadvantage. Nothing surprising there, yet race realists believe the statistics they flaunt have nothing to do with environmental factors.
When psychologists first started studying twins, they found identical twins much more likely to have similar IQs than fraternal ones. They concluded that IQ was highly “heritable”—that is, due to genetic differences. But those were all high SES (socio-economic status) twins. Erik Turkheimer of the University of Virginia and his colleagues discovered that the picture was very different for poor, low-SES twins. For these children, there was very little difference between identical and fraternal twins: IQ was hardly heritable at all. (WSJ)
3. I’m pleased some people have high IQs, and use their greater processing powers to progress key areas of knowledge for the human race. But I’m also pleased some people can dance beautifully, some people can draw wonderful things, some people are brilliant communicators, some grow perfect strawberries. This obsession with a human-developed scale to measure one aspect of potential achievement infuriates me.
Conclusion
As to “genetic differences in race and IQ” being off limits – it’s not off limits, it’s simply irrelevant. Race realists apply wonky labels to poorly interpreted statistics, while placing eminent value on characteristics that are of fluctuating and often debatable use. They encourage others to imagine that improvement within society can’t be found by providing opportunity, eliminating discrimination and raising living standards for those trapped at the bottom. They encourage others to discriminate against whole groups of people, and wonder why no-one wants to discuss their wonky statistics with them.
Race is an issue that has been dead for decades.
Unfortunately it is perpetually resurrected as a horde of undead, flesh eating zombies by greedy, power mad poverty pimps.
We all know who they are.
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US Republicans? 😉
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John,
The KKK was founded by Democrats.
The slave South was run by Democrats.
All the big cities where black people are being shot, stabbed and killed by the bushel, have all been run by Democrats…
…for decades.
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Wow, they’ve been alive for a long time. Perhaps they’re vampires and not zombies.
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Violet,
Maybe they are US Zombie Republican Vampires.
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Oh, I thought you meant right wing extremists, from ISIS to the Tea Party and Neo-Nazies. The US Democratic party must have changed a bit, since no founding father of the KKK would have elected a black man as their presidential candidate. Obviously they have changed for the better, would you not agree?
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Hey raut-
Do tell the crowd with a straight face the name of ONE tea party member who has been found guilty of cutting off a mans head.
Your bias knows no bounds.
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Well, I can not name a single Neo-Nazi, who has cut off a mans head either. In fact, I can not name a single ISIS member who has cut of a mans head, nor should you, because such an act does not deserve fame. And I could not name any cross burning and lynching members of the KKK either, because they wear those pillow cases on their heads. Can you? Should I not reject their hatefull output, because of that?
These all share extremist conservatism as a result of a fear of the unknown and the outsider. Do they not? And they seem to share an utter lack of trust in any duly democratically elected governments to keep them safe, rather they all hang onto their own guns, like those were some sort magical of safety handless. The weak always worship presentations and symbols of power… Luckily in some countries there are secular governments in place to protect the citizenry from the violence of the extremists. Right? Should you be so lucky as to live in such a country?
Yes, I have my bias. I thought everybody has their biases. Do you not have biases?
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Well raut, if you were not comparing american ‘christians to Isis.then I suppose I owe u an apology.
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Raut,
The Democrat Party was trying to elect Hillary Clinton wife of sexual pervert and predator Bill Clinton, when Barack Obama came along.
T’was the People, charmed by the black man Barack Obama, who elected him.
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Yeah, but then those Democrats turned coat and became Republicans, right? We know who’s wearing that hat today, don’t we? How many teabillies you want with that cup of tea, SOM? 😉
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Yes, John.
Once upon a time, the Great Spaghetti Monster descended from the sky and turned all those racist Democrats in rascally, racist Republicans.
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FSM is naughty that way, I agree… Which is why we must put our faith in Veles, so balance reigns in this particular universe.
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The main problem seems to be an inherent ignorance about how science, and especially statistics really work. The other problem seems to be utter and all ecompassing misunderstanding about how evolution functions. However, the problem behind these is most often actually just being a self righteous ignorant numbskull.
The human race is very young. Our species as such is not that young, but the modern human race of Homo Sapiens Sapiens – the wise, wise human as we have very smuggly come to call ourselves is young and apparently it even went through a very narrow bottleneck in the early stages of our spreading across the planet, wich is why we actually do have so very little variation in our genome.
In individual human terms and in the light of civilizations we are talking about wast timespans, but in evolutionary terms we are actually adressing a very short time table. This seemingly counter intuitive truth is one of the reasons why these “race realists” come to such nonsensical conclusions, wich by the way, most often are merely their preassumptions as satisfied by cherry picking information.
The race realists are all too keen to jump to claim there is a causation where they percieve correlation. However, correlation is not always causation and evolutionary pressure for change is not something all species and aspects of a species face all the time equally. The sharks have changed very little in 200 billion years. The apes have emerged and changed enormously in a fraction of that timespan. The pressure for skin tone to change is far more stronger, than the pressure for our brain to change. Infact because our brain is such a good and rather exeptional tool in some respects, there is very little pressure for it to change. Evolution works pretty much from the perspective, that if it works, do not fix it. Our brain makes it possible for us to survive in the most extreme conditions, from Sahara to the Arctic. If there ever was different pressure for the brain to evolve faster in some human group, as opposed to a nother, then we should expect that the Saharan and Siberian natives would show the highest levels of intelligence in some IQ testing. But they do not.
IQ tests are necessarily culturally relative. They test abstractions, but the intelligence of a person is not really measured alone on how good they are in abstract thinking. Rather such testing only ever reveals the ability of the individual to recognize the symbols for testing abstractions in their own culture.
We look different and behave differently because of the wast distances and various environments into wich our ancestors have accustomed. Our skin tones are different because we have lived for generations under different UV-radiation. The real idiots in this society are not to be recognized by what their IQ is, but by how easily they jump to conclusions about other people by mere perplexion.
Of course there are differeces between people from different parts of the world, different heritages, different social status, different gender, different age, even different intelligence. We are all different. The race realist is just a scared ignoramus, who tries to organize the chaos we all live in to fit their prejudices, so that they could feel secure by being able to recognize and name potential threats by mere glance. They have grown to rely on intuition as a good tool to evaluate reality, but they are also aware that they should be able to analyze reality and higher understanding comes from analysis, not from intuition. Hence, they are desperately trying to rationalize their intuitions by their failed logic, wich reveals their limited ability to actually analyze anything.
The problem the race realist tries not to face, and wich seems to terrify them, is that there are too many moving parts on the field and you simply can not make such childishly simple conclusions based on such limited information as to jump to any conclusions between skin colour and intelligence. We are so different in so many respects, that it is virtually impossible to reduce mental capacities to perplexion of any individual or group of people.
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“The race realist is just a scared ignoramus, who tries to organize the chaos we all live in to fit their prejudices”
Oooh, bingo!
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Heard a beautiful line the other delivered on BBC’s Hard Talk: “We are all Rift Valley diaspora.”
I think that line should become a meme.
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I love memes I have to google! 🙂
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Exactly! But it’s true, isn’t it? Casts this whole human adventure in the right light.
On that note… Did you ever see the racist guy who finds out on live TV that he has a sizable portion of negro in his DNA? Hilarious!
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Veles Bless Google!
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Doh!
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Funny video John.
“Water and oil don’t mix.” Exept that they do. That is what happens in emulsion. But the ridiculous “parabel”, or “metaphor” as used by the racist just goes to show how unscientific and ignorant is the mind set of the race “realist”. Gognitive dissonace sets in in the face of evidence.
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“Foul views don’t deserve attention.” What if reality is “foul,” Violet? Does it deserve attention? Population pressures suddenly don’t matter when it comes to race? Humanity is, with the exception of sub-Saharan Africans, approximately 3 to 4% Neanderthal genetically, and Jewish people have an impressive mean I.Q. of 115. Right, the issue is just too “icky” to discuss, and I must have some ulterior motive for doing so. Political correctness trumps reality once again. C’mon you wonderful scientific naturalists, be consistent in your views and face reality!
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Post : Race realists are obsessed with misinterpreted IQ statistics.
Jim: But what about these misinterpreted IQ statistics??
Violet, I would say your position just garnered some supportive empirical data. You’re definitely on to something!
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Yes, you sometimes wonder if people just read the title of the post … 🙂
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It seems utterly counter intuitive to claim, that we who do not percieve ourselves as race “realists”, should be blamed for not being willing to deal the issue of race, in a comment to a post where you have actually discussed the issue!!! WTF???
As if the only way to deal with the issue is to jump to the very same conlusions the race “realist” has come to. Is that not asking for rather overt amount of political correctness towards a single and poorly based view on the issue?
The term “political correctness” is spat out by so many people today, as if it was inherently flawed. But it is not. It is a tool of discourse and social concerns. Something being politically correct, does not run against evidence in itself. It means, that the viewpoint of the other, be it a race “realist”, neo-nazi, Islamist extremist, Bible bashing mad evangelical, or what ever even more ridiculous opinion, if that is even possible, is being considered, even when it lacks any evidence to back it up. Out of politeness and in order to reach a workable solution to the social issue at hand.
Maybe I should write a post about it, or better yet, maybe you Violetwisp should.
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“A tool of discourse.” LOL!
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“The term “political correctness” is spat out by so many people today, as if it was inherently flawed. But it is not.”
Yes, I find it curious too. Definitely merits further discussion.
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Yes, Violet, let’s.
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Face what reality? Give me a fact and tell me your conclusion. We can then decide if your ‘fact’ is a fact, and if your conclusion is logical. I have no idea what you’re saying.
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” and Jewish people have an impressive mean I.Q. of 115.”
Tiny Israel is a nobel heavyweight. I think they have something like ten percent of the world nobel laureates with less than one percent of the population? Interesting to consider why that is. Especially since the Jewish people have migrated and immersed more than just about any other culture.
They’ve been everywhere, so I’d hazard a guess they’re probably more “mixed” than just about any other race. We took a saliva test recently and I found out I’m ten percent Jewish. Never knew. My husband is almost half north African (never knew) and the other half Scandinavian (never would have guessed that). Most of us have no idea where our ancesters really came from.
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Why did you take such a test? Is it a common thing to do nowadays? I feel totally out of touch …
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I don’t know how common it is to take this test. I think it’s pretty new.
We know a person who found out he had a half sister he never knew he had by some send out saliva test, so out of curiosity we signed up. The test actually identified a close relation (2nd cousin of my husband). Only people who have run the test are in the database, of course.
We’ve never met, but they live about two hours away and asked if we wanted to meet up so we might sometime. It’s pretty fascinating to see where your ancestors are from. I thought I knew (my Swiss family has the ancestry tracked back 200 years and the Italian side 600 years), but there were some surprises. My husband’s was REALLY surprising (he’s Cuban, over 200 years of family record there, but there were no Cuban or south american genes, all Africa, Mediterranean, and Scandinavia).
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Race realism is a subject best avoided for many reasons
…the main one being the conspicuous lack of realism in it.
Good post, Violet.
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Right, Emma, we mustn’t think those dirty, taboo thoughts.
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I’m not sure what thoughts you have in mind, but I enjoy mine, thank you very much.
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Yes, Emma, and that’s the point. The important thing for you is to enjoy your thoughts, and not necessarily to be reality-based. When you don’t enjoy reality, you simply deny it.
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Great comment from Emma, everything I’ve never been able to express about IQ, but here’s another post I did on it:
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Thanks. And that there is another good post on the subject.
My lazily copied comment, which is slightly off-topic, came from discussion, such as it was, on this forum:
http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/yet-another-use-iq-tests-pseudo-science-mrzs/
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Oh, dear. Jim, you aren’t one of those tedious and annoying IQ fetishists, are you? There is as much use talking to that crowd as to any ideologues in love with their interpretation of reality. And about as much joy, which is why one prefers her own thoughts.
If you are, however, an IQ fetishist, then, first, let me offer you my sympathy (not that you want it).
Second, read what rautakyy said above — good stuff (since Violet’s wasn’t enough).
And third, let me repost a comment on this subject I’ve recently left on another blog (yes, I am that lazy):
IQ is not a monolithic measure. It encompasses a range of varied abilities that are “averaged” (not exactly, but) in that one number. This means that two people with an IQ of 140 may, and likely will, have very different profiles of intellectual strengths and weaknesses.
And so, for instance, the one whose verbal abilities are his leading strengths, and who may have weaknesses in visual-spatial domain (measured by the same IQ tests) may likely not go into STEM fields. But that — choice of career, etc. — depends on other factors, like special interests and talents, which are not necessarily directly related to intelligence.
The other one, who is a visual-spatial whiz, and may have an interest in math and science, may indeed go into STEM; but that itself does not translate into high achievement in his domain, and most decidedly not into life success.
High IQ is no guarantee of anything good in life. It correlates most highly with academic achievement; but, above a certain necessary threshold (which experts argue about), it has no bearing on originality, creativity, intellectual curiosity, good thinking skills, or wisdom. Go to any Mensa meeting (top 2-1%; qualifying IQ of 130-132, depending on the test used) to see for yourself. In fact, those in the highest IQ ranges (>160) tend to have substantial weaknesses in emotional and social intelligence that create obstacles to their psychological adjustment and development.
Beware of IQ fetishists. Apart from being a/holes, they possess neither the requisite intelligence, nor wisdom to understand the meaning of those numbers they like to, usually braggingly, toss around.
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“Apart from being a/holes ….” Emma! I know you didn’t mean that, so I forgive you. No, I insist.
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This is amazing: People showing up on a blog to prove their pc bona fides by being deliberately obtuse. I shall stand against the pc Blitz alone if I must. “Some chicken; some neck!” He was a great man.
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Are you in character today? If you really believe this, please give me some statistics you think are relevant and the conclusion you draw from them. I’m not scared, are you?
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LOL! I’m just sort of on one today, Violet, and having some fun. Look, we’re primates and have genes like any other animal. No one knows precisely how much of human behavior is genetic and how much is social. That’s simply true. Well, you wanted a spirited discussion on this topic, didn’t you?
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Indeed. And because it is not known, that is precisely why we should not jump to any conclusions about how much of our intelligence is caused by our “race” or genetics.
A nother reason might be, that in our experience segragation between the “races” leads to suffering.
Third reason not to jump into any conclusions about race and intelligence having a causational link is that we have plenty of evidence, that suggest these two are not related, while if there is correlation, we have ample of more likely reasons, that explain the correlation rather than our genetics defining our perplexion.
Lastly, there is also the problem of how to measure intelligence in the first place, or even “race” for that matter. Those are elusive concepts, that are extremely hard to evaluate. IQ tests are not a very precise method of testing anything. Intelligence is divided into so many areas, that a single culturally related test, could simply not provide us with any sort of objective data.
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I’ve never had any respect for IQ or intelligence. I much prefer wisdom, empathy, morality. That little talking chip in the stuffed Barney doll is probably more intelligent than most of us, but that doesn’t make it more valuable. In fact, it’s pretty much just annoying and useless.
This concerns me however, Violet. From a scientific perspective, “foul views don’t deserve attention.” Well now, so much for reality and unbiased observation? You’ve just declared that science itself should now be interpreted through a lens of “foul” versus “un-foul.” The foul should just be ignored? So when science doesn’t live up to the desired politically correct version of human reality, it should just be dismissed?
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Insanitybytes22, did you not read the topic post? Foul views do not deserve attention, do they? But there are a lot of views considered ethically complex and in the gray area, that do deserve attention. Why? Because there actually is some science behind them. The race “realism” is not among those. It is utterly non-scientific nonsense presented in a scientific way to give credibility to the prejudices of some.
If there ever was found some actually scientific data, that could set us apart as genetic groups in terms of intelligence, we should discuss it in scientific terms and then find an ethical solution to the issue through the best scientific data we have on the subject. However, we do not have such data. To aquire any, that would first require a scientific method to establish it. IQ testing is just so limited method of testing the ability of people to concieve abstractions and so culturally relevant, that it simply does not show any causation between ethnicity, percieved race, nor perplexion. We are talking about people who jump the gun, by claiming there is a correlation, but correlation, even if it were there, is not causation. The entire topic post is about such data not existing and what little we have to go on with being abused by people who have decided on the issue beforehand through their preconceptions of the issue.
This is exactly the same as why theology is not actually a science. In science you can not jump to the conlusion and only accept data that supports your preset assumptions. That would not lead to logical conclusions, but to the conlusions you have predetermined. Such information is not objective. Both racial research and theology have their long established history within the scientific community from beyond times when the scientific method was not as well established as it is today, and that is why such nonsense still lingers on culturally, even in the face of any evidence.
The entire question of race “realism” is foul, in that it makes the claim of being based on objective data, when it clearly is not. That is the main reason why it is so foul – it is to denegrate some people, without any actual evidence at all to back it up.
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“Foul views do not deserve attention, do they?”
Your science is very biased and disinterested in the truth when it must always be filtered through your personal opinion of what is foul.
As is typical when speaking to many of you, what you call “objective data,” always turns out to be only that data that you feel emotionally comfortable with. All other data simply ceases to exist. That’s actually not science at all, it’s ideology.
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Now, now Insanitybytes22, that is not the case. Not the case at all. How did you even come to that conclusion?
For example, I am not particularly happy about nuclear power being used as a weapon, or that we run great risks when trying to produce electricity with it. Or even that digging uranium to fuel the nuclear power plants creates environmental problems, not to mention the radioactive waste. Yet, I do not reject the idea of nuclear power existing, nor do I shun the discussion of how it should be handelled. Do you? To my mind, it deserves discussion, that we get it right despite the obviously foul and unpleasant sides to it.
The thing is, that nuclear reactions, nuclear power and weapons are a scientific researched thing, while race “realism” is not. It is just bogus, and foul bogus at that. Because it has the goal to justify foul segragation between humans. It is especially foul, because it is disguised as science, when it is nothing of the kind.
This is not about my “ideology”, rather the entire race “realism” is a concept made up to support an ideology. I am merely asking where is the science to back it up, wich is pretty much the same what Violetwisp is doing. And all we get is these ridiculous and obviously politically and ideologically motivated nonsensical research papers and wild claims in the internet.
I am ready even to discuss this issue, since it seems there are a lot of misconceptions about it around.
However, If we are to discuss it in scientific terms, the very least I’d expect is to have a scientific research, that shows not only correlation, but a causation between percieved race and intelligence. But none exist. Science does not simply accept as facts something a single, or even several credited scientists have written on a particular subject. Such research also requires the peer review of wether or not the methodology used is actually accurate in describing the phenomenon. As far as I know, all the research published in this subject claiming a correlation has totally and utterly failed to show any causation, though they are all too keen on to jump to the conclusion that there is some, wich goes to show why they have been uniformally rejected by the peer review.
On the other hand, we have an abundance of research on the human cultures, genetics and evolution, that suggests the opposite to what the race “realists” try to sell. Most of that wealth of information is from research, that does not even concern such concepts as race. It is not research that was set out to oppose the ideals of the racists, or race “realists” if you wish. It is just research in humans, that shows, how stupid the foul assumptions the racist makes are by coincidence.
Human intelligence is an especially difficult research concept, because we have great difficulty of even giving any measurements to it. Hence, research that tends to jump to far extended conclusions about it or it having some sort of correlation with the perplexion of humans, is allready in trouble from the start, and goes to show how it tries to fit the reality to a preassumed conclusion – much like in my example of theology. Do you see what I mean?
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“It is just bogus, and foul bogus at that. Because it has the goal to justify foul segragation between humans.”
It does have that potential negative, but you are getting ahead of yourself. You are assigning moral judgments to what could be an observable fact and dismissing it because you are emotionally uncomfortable with the potential implications. That’s fine, but it isn’t science.
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Insanitybytes22, did you not read my previous comment? No, I am not getting ahead of myself. My moral assesment of it is based on my current knowledge of the subject. Just as all of my moral assesments are and in my opinion should only be based on the best information I currently hold on the subject.
I do not make moral “judgements” based on what something “could be”, nor should you, but on what can and has been observed. What has been observed, is that racial segragation is harmfull, is it not? That then necessarily results in all unsubstantiated claims to achieve such ends are immoral and indeed “foul”. Does it not? The race “realists” have not presented any substance to their claims – mere assertions. That is not science, but for them to masquarade their racial prejudices as science is also extremely immoral and foul. This is so even, though some of them might have been merely mistaken or fooled by other people with similar prejudices. There is better information awailable in the world, hence that they did not know any better serves as no excuse.
I have looked into the subject and the claims the racists make and found them wanting in scientific terms. I happen to have a rather wide range of fairly objective data and scientific facts at my disposal on this subject because of my education as an archaeologist. In that field of study the understanding of human origins and how evolution affects us is not only higly valued, but ultimately necessary, to reach any even remotely objective conclusions.
With better information we are able to make better choises. That is why our morals has to stand on what we do know, not on some metaphysical assumptions, gods, spirits, crystals, or what have you nonsense. Science is pretty much the only method we have, to achieve any even remotely objective data. Objectivity is necessary for a moral assesment to be ethical.
Science comes first. Simply because it provides us with the best possible and most objective data we are able to acheive at any point in time. Now, if the race “realists” shall one day be windicated by scientific methodology then is the time when I need to reasses my morals about this issue. But since they have totally and utterly failed to even understand how the basic science works, it is not today.
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“Now, if the race “realists” shall one day be windicated by scientific methodology then is the time when I need to reasses my morals about this issue…”
Windicated by scientific methodology?? A typo I’m sure, but you made me laugh. Windicated, indeed.
Your answer is chilling, rautakky, when you say you might need to reasses your morals. See, my morals do not change in the face of so called science. Oppression, abuse, segregation, are harmful and wrong in the absence of genetic IQ data and they go right on being wrong in light of genetic IQ data.
Basically what you have just stated is that you believe it is morally acceptable to segregate and abuse certain people if science is able to demonstrate that said people do in fact have lower intelligence. You than proceed to declare Science to be your moral god when you say, “That is why our morals has to stand on what we do know, not on some metaphysical assumptions, gods, spirits, crystals, or what have you nonsense….”
Now see, my morals are not dependent on so called objective science data at all. For example, at the moment I happen to believe you are a complete moron, but that simply means I think you should be provided assistance when crossing the street, not that we should oppress and enslave people like you.
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No, Insanitybytes22, I have not agreed to segragation of people by their intelligence. How ever did you conclude that?
I merely said, I would have to reasses my morals, if ever there was some reliable scientific research to back up the claims of the race “realists”. Nothing more. How did you come to read so much more into my comment, than what I actually said? What should we be able to conclude about your intelligence from that leap? Do you have a tendency to jump into as absurd conclusions on as little evidence as the race “realists” do? Morals of any issue should always be reassessed if new and better information arises on the subject based on that information, not on some ideology, religion or other sort of metaphysical assumptions. Morality should relate to reality, not our preassumptions. Should it not?
Segragation of humans by their intelligence is wrong in scientific terms, because we know it leads to suffering and morals is all about human wellbeing, not following some arbitrary rules by imaginary deities, spirits, particular old books, or bearded demagogues. But we were not even that far yet. We were talking about the truth value of the racists claims.
If indeed the wild claims of the race “realists” were ever proven by scientific methodology, it would lead me to reasses my morals, in the sense, that people who genetically have poorer intelligent ability would then be entiteled to more support as we have in most civilized societies done with for example birth defected handicaps. That would be the scientifically based reaction to any such, if indeed their claims of our intelligence being affected by our genetical sub-groups were ever proven. But they are not. Are they?
Your opinion of me being a “complete moron” is an ad hominem, not a scientific fact. So, you are confusing concepts here. But regardless of wether your assesment that I need assistance to cross the street is based on science, or your personal empathetic feelings, if it indeed was objectively true, then science would be the best method to evaluate wether I do need such help or not. Right? That is why morals should be based on the best information we can achieve and at the moment in history it is through the scientific method and as objective as possible data it provides us with.
You see, science does not in any way rule out empathy. On the contrary, science has pretty much explained our empathy, why we have it as a result of our evolution, how it works and why we are in need to take it into account.
Now, you may call me a “complete moron” all day long and I do not care. I do not account your assesment of my mental ability as highly reliable. I have been called a moron before. The last time in the internet it was by a person who did not enjoy my assesment of her “evidence” for UFOs and acient cultures having had links. Perhaps you and her have something in common, or perhaps you are right. I for one am not in a position to estimate wether or not I am a complete moron. Especially if I am. However, I do think you owe me an apology for claiming I would support racial segragation even if science ever recognized the claims of the race “realists”, because I have not given you any reason to jump to that conclusion rather the opposite, if you read my previous comments through. Or have I truly?
I am sorry if I mispelled something. To be honest I have a rather high fever at the moment, so that could account for it as much as me being a “complete moron”. 😉
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“Morality should relate to reality, not our preassumptions. Should it not?”
Well, I am not the one who has declared that anything “foul” must be removed from so called objective data due to it’s potentially “foul implications.”
“However, I do think you owe me an apology…”
Hmm, or it is always possible that science seems to have gotten that empathy thing wrong again.
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Ha! Of course it is possible, that science has gotten empathy wrong. There is no access to absolute knowledge. It is logically impossible. Even if I was the creator entity of the entire universe with the perception, that I know everything, to be honest, I would have to first recognize the fact, that I simply do not know what I do not know and that there might exist information beyond my reach, that could change my entire perception of reality, if I ever came to learn it.
Again, we should not operate on what might be, rather on what we have fairly well established evidence that does.
Intellectual honesty requires, that we recognize we have been wrong when we are presented new as objectively as we possibly can verified information on any subject. That includes morals. To stand against such, is just being pigheaded. Or if you wish “complete moron”.
However, the thing about science is that it is not based on wild, metaphysical, or any other sort of guesses and we get better at it all the time. As we do, some scientific facts seem to get to be more firmly established, while many hypothesis become obsolete. Among the hypothesis that have become obsolete are for example race comparrisons in intelligence. That is because we have learned better methods to evaluate and recognize intelligence, than measuring skull cavity, or IQ testing. At the same time the study of our evolution and evolutionary survival traits such as empathy we share with all mammals has been more firmly established by many different fields of expertise. This has nothing at all to do with ideology – unless it is the ideology, that we should base our beliefs on established scientifically verified facts, rather than on our preconceptions and prejudices.
I am still awaiting for the apology. 😉
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@Rautakyy
What other methods should we use to assess intelligence other than IQ testing that can be considered objective?
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@Consoledreader, you have a very good question there. There are several different approaches to intelligence. Words betray us, as we so easily think of intelligence as a single factor. It is not.
For example three dimentional perception is an abstract skill, that can be tested to a certain limit by asking for people to explain three dimensional objects, but even then we have only achieved testing the capacity of an individual to do just that. Describe the three dimensional object. One person could be extremely talented in describing one, but at the same time that person may not have any ability to form a new three dimentional object. The opposite may be also true. A person may be talented in forming new three dimentional objects, but totally unable to describe any. Are we to asses either of these individuals as intelligent by this single token of talent they show? This is what I mean by intelligence being very elusive to measure.
We often have the misconception, that intelligence leads to social rise, but this is not necessarily so. There are aspects of intelligence, that may lead to such, but that is a limited scope on what we generally call intelligence. A person may be intelligent in that they are terribly manipulative, or in that they are empathetic and socially adept to gain popularity. These two traits may be very similar or completely opposite to each other. A person of high intelligence, like for example a talented mathematician, who masters the thinking skills on abstract may also be a total idiot socially and unable to gain any respect from others.
Our cultural heritages greatly affect how our perception and ability to understand reality develope. In some cultures for example certain kind of social skills, skills of abstract perception are more highly valued and/or more necessary for survival. To draw a conclusion, that since our cultures correlate with our genetics, our cultural traits must be the result of our genetics, is certainly not a show of intelligence.
The differences in various different types of intelligence between individuals are great, but the differences between social groups or cultures are less, differences between ethnicities are marginal and differences between genetic groups a mere coincidence. But people are being taught to not live up to their full potential. In cultures where people are told from the start to take faith as a virtue, the result is, that within such a culture gullibility is not even considered as unintelligent. In that sort of culture people are more likely to take anecdotes and hearsay as for real. That is not very intelligent.They are often also taught to take stuff for real on authority, without really understanding anything about the subject or even why this source of information should be considered authorative. They become more supseptible to becoming subject to authoritarianism.
There are various ways of measuring intelligence, from simple things like memory capacity to complex stuff like social adaptability, but the main problem is, that these are not necessarily, nor even very often comparable traits, that we put under the lable of intelligence. If we have two individuals in a room and one is very quick in Lakonian comebacks and the other is exeptionally good at interpreting statistical data, wich one of them is the more intelligent one?
I doubt that the entire concept can be measured as such by scientific methodology. The problem being, that the word – intelligence – as usefull as it is in common speach, is so obscure, that using it in scientific conjunction is either so overtly general, that it does not really mean anything, or it has to be dissected into so many smaller and often contrary concepts, that it no longer means, what we refer to in everyday expression. This would mean, that the word itself would have a totally different meaning in common tongue and in scientific terminology – much like the word theory has two separate meanings depending on wether we are talking about it in scientific terminology, or in everyday terms. Those two meanings are also so very, very misunderstood, misrepresented and down right abused by a good number of people with an agenda and a need to fix the world to fit their preconceptions, rather than to understand what it is really about.
After having had these discussions here, I would say, jumping to conclusions is a definite measure of unintelligent behaviour. 😉
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“This concerns me however, Violet. From a scientific perspective, “foul views don’t deserve attention.” Well now, so much for reality and unbiased observation? You’ve just declared that science itself should now be interpreted through a lens of “foul” versus “un-foul.””
Race realism is based on incorrectly assessed statistics. That’s what the post about. Do you agree with me? Or do you think my understanding is flawed? If you think I’m wrong, please show me a race realistic statistic and the conclusion they draw, and we can discuss the figures in question and how they have been applied within this area. Race realism is far from science, far from fact.
Race realism is only touted by racists. That’s also what the post is about. Do you agree with me here? If you don’t, please refer to the post and explain why you think the points above are incorrect.
So, now that we’ve established (unless you can actually follow a simple debating process and would like to seriously challenge anything above) that race realism is about misrepresenting often irrelevant statistics, and is used only in a racist manner, I would like to hear how you find this anything other than foul.
Racism = foul
Misrepresentation of irrelevant statistics for the purposes of promoting racism = foul
Racism does not deserve attention. Foul views should not be promoted or provided a platform.
… unless you have some scientific facts up your sleeve that could lead me to conclude that race divides exist and that racism is a positive force in society.
When I get time, I’m looking forward to putting together a post on the various occasions where you willfully misinterpret or genuinely don’t understand (who am I to judge?) what is clearly in front of your nose. Has your racist buddy Higharka been giving you lessons in twisting?
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Vi0let, you really need to learn how to think outside the box, specifically the boxes created by your own labels, judgments, and stereotypes.
The article you cite is from a black man, a well educated black guy with a background in science who has traveled the world. His article is called, “A Black Man’s Path to Race Realism.” He has an interracial marriage and he teaches chemistry in China. No matter how you try to contort it, I doubt he is any more racist than I am.
“Foul views should not be promoted or provided a platform”
Yes, so you’ve said. I have to wonder though, isn’t that a bit racist, sexist, intolerant, and oppressive of you? I mean seriously, talk about white privilege. You have just labeled a black guy’s ideas and opinions “foul” and declared he must be kept out and not given a platform.
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Thanks for your reply Insanity, but you didn’t address a single question I asked – any explanation? I think that’s called avoidance, deflection, moving the goalposts, or something like that.
I’m happy to answer any questions you have, but first I just want to get to the bottom of the confusion in your initial comment:
“The foul should just be ignored? So when science doesn’t live up to the desired politically correct version of human reality, it should just be dismissed?”
Do you not think racism is foul? Do you think racism should be given a platform and advertised? Did you disagree with my assessment that race realism is in no way scientific? If so, please give example statistics used by race realists that you agree with and how you believe the figures support their conclusions. It’s quite a basic request.
“Yes, so you’ve said. I have to wonder though, isn’t that a bit racist, sexist, intolerant, and oppressive of you? I mean seriously, talk about white privilege. You have just labeled a black guy’s ideas and opinions “foul” and declared he must be kept out and not given a platform.”
So do you agree with him that black people have lower IQs than white people and that they are destined to be generally low achievers who steal, can’t even organise a little church, and that black people are so undesirable that, as he says:
“For all these reasons I married a Chinese woman and we have a son. I don’t want him to identify as black. ”
You agree with him that ‘science’ demonstrates black people are inferior and the best option is to try and breed black genes out of majority? Do you consider yourself racist Insanity?
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I think the man spoke several truths about his own life and experiences, Violet. I think black men ought to be free to do exactly that, without being labeled foul and declared a racist by privileged white women more interested in trying to point fingers and promote ideology than to understand.
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I’m not clear what you mean, you’re completely avoiding my questions. Do you think racism is foul or not? If you don’t think the race realism views he’s espousing are in any way racist, you have to explain why my arguments in the post are flawed.
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You’re not asking questions, Violet. You revealed yourself early on, “The article linked to above annoyed me so much that I feel the need to post a rant on the matter.”
A black man, bearing all the credentials you claim to value, education, race, science background, world traveler, just expressed an opinion you disapprove of, so much so, you decided to label him and anyone who might listen to him, “foul and racist,” without even seeing the irony of what you are doing.
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“A black man, bearing all the credentials you claim to value, education, race, science background, world traveler”
Where did I claim to value these things and in what respect? I criticised people on your blog for talking about the rest of the world when they clearly had never left the USA. I criticised people on your blog for talking about history when they had studied nothing about history. I criticised people for spewing forth opinions from a stance of rank ignorance.
But, interestingly, I can criticise people’s opinions on any number of fronts. Imagine that! The author of the article, like all race realists, is basing his opinion on personal observation, badly applied statistics and drawing false and thoroughly racist conclusions.
Do you think racism is foul or not?
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LOL! Ha! Oh come now Violet, surely you can see the inherent problem with a little old white girl like yourself telling a black man that he’s doing his race realism all wrong?
I’m sorry but I find that pretty funny. You’re declaring the poor man to be foul and racist because his perceptions of his own race don’t align with your particular ideology.
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I acknowledge you find that funny, whatever floats your boat. Just to clarify I’m calling the idea unscientific and the general intent behind the propagation of such ideas (i.e. racism) to be foul. But you twist it to your own satisfaction, as ever.
So back to the real discussion. If you don’t think the race realism views he’s espousing are in any way racist, you have to explain why my arguments in the post are flawed. Are you able to concentrate on that?
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Well, as I’ve tried to explain, you have a well educated and successful black man expressing his observations and views on race. That’s actually the opposite of racism, that’s the freedom to speak and think and live your little truth. Than we have a bunch of other people calling him racist, foul, and declaring that he should be given no platform, that he should be silenced. That is actually rather racist.
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Yes, you’ve stated the same thing, what, five times now? I disagree that this is the case, and I’ve said why.
Do you think he is right? If, as I have demonstrated and you are unable to challenge in any way, what he is saying is factually incorrect, are you suggesting I should be quiet, in case a racist calls me racist??
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Here’s what he said Violet, “Two things contributed to my conversion to race realism. The first was my training—I have an MS in chemistry—and the second was a lot of life experience.”
A man’s “life experience” is what it is. To come along and declare that his life experience is wrong, foul, racist, and that you know better about what the “life experience” of a black man should be, ought to be, is mandated to be, according to your own ideology, is actually to demonstrate a racial hierarchy in action. Why do you believe your opinion should be given more weight and value than this man’s actual “life experience?”
In case his life experience and observations do not impress you, he does speak of his background in chemistry which has also influenced his opinion.
Do I think he is right? Well, I disagree with your statement that, “Race realism is a subject best avoided for many reasons, not least that foul views don’t deserve attention.” I disagree that science, life experiences, observation, should all be forced to pass through a politically correct filter that will determine what we are allowed to discuss and what facts we must avoid.
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“Why do you believe your opinion should be given more weight and value than this man’s actual “life experience?””
Read the post. Respond to the points if you think they are inaccurate. His method of reaching his conclusion is far from scientific.
“Do I think he is right? Well, I disagree with your statement that, “Race realism is a subject best avoided for many reasons, not least that foul views don’t deserve attention.” I disagree that science, life experiences, observation, should all be forced to pass through a politically correct filter that will determine what we are allowed to discuss and what facts we must avoid. ”
Is that answering the question? No, it’s not. Can you answer a question? Apparently not, especially when you realise your answer will clearly indicate you’re a racist.
For the last time, his method of reaching his conclusions is thoroughly unscientific and if you think this assessment is incorrect, tackle the points in the post like someone with a shred of debating integrity.
The reason I don’t like to give foul views like racism a public platform is because ignorant racists filter the words through their racist lens and ignore the evidence clearly presented. All this post appears to have done for someone like you is confirm your prejudices. I’ve given a racist a platform and you agree (although you’re trying hard to avoid saying it). You refuse to read my post, or if you have, you don’t even understand what is presented.
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I’m sorry you feel that way, Violet. A well educated, well informed black guy states his opinions about his life experiences, and I have to support that. That’s actually the opposite of racism, that’s attempting to empathize with this man’s views and honoring his right to express them.
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So if you support racist opinions because an educated black man states them, that’s not actually racism? If a white man expressed the same opinions based on life experience and a background in any old science would you be honouring his right to express his opinions too? Or does your agreement with an argument, your understanding of facts, depend entirely on the colour of someone’s skin?
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“If a white man expressed the same opinions based on life experience and a background in any old science would you be honouring his right to express his opinions too? Or does your agreement with an argument, your understanding of facts, depend entirely on the colour of someone’s skin?”
Violet, would you have started this thread if it were a white man expressing his opinion that white people had lower IQs than Chinese people, and he didn’t want his half Chinese son to identify as white?
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I can barely comprehend where you and Insanity are coming from on this. But:
1. Yes, of course, that would be equally unscientific and harmful in terms of race prejudice.
2. There would be a limited to zero market for that kind of idea, in terms of someone generating it, and in terms of the numbers of racist people (or anyone else) being interested in reading it, because there is very little international racism from that perspective.
3. You are completely missing the point. Black people are are a disadvantaged underclass in some societies, and the main thrust of race realism is to misrepresent irrelevant statistics to convince people with societal prejudices that the reason for this is they are somehow inferior. Other unscientific ‘conclusions’ reached by race realists are just as ignorant, they just don’t contribute as much directly to existing, problematic bigotry and discrimination.
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Violet: “I can barely comprehend where you and Insanity are coming from on this”
Are you sure you are “interested in formalising the ideas and discussing them with people who have differing perspectives” as you claim below?
I can’t speak for IB, and I don’t remember ever claiming to. I’m married to a minority. After taking on his last name I started getting a lot of calls from collection agencies and so forth. We combat stereotypes by not living them, and in our case his (and our sons’) minority status is the very least interesting thing about us. Sure, there is discrimination but there’s discrimination in all things (ugly people have it pretty rough). Anyway, I’m done on this topic. Bye Violet.
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I find this comment very insightful “You give people poor input, a poor diet, a stigmatised background riddled with discrimination, and they are obviously more likely to have problems reaching the intellectual level of those born into situations devoid of disadvantage.” As a school nurse in a rural area where a large percentage of children are on gov’t assistance, this hits home, as well as the other environmental factors that effect childhood development such as home life decisions. Humans are, indeed, a multi-faceted and complex set of events.
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I think especially in the USA, the land of opportunity, there’s this expectation that if anyone wants to do well, they can. It’s true to a certain extent, I believe people have the resources to overcome tremendous obstacles and to achieve great things no matter where they come from. No-one should feel limited by a broad description of group experiences. But at the same time we have to acknowledge barriers that hold people back, and that privilege hands to privilege. I don’t know how we achieve equality of opportunity, but it’s certainly not by placing people in false groups and telling them the are innately lesser than others.
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insanitybytes22 said…
“I’ve never had any respect for IQ or intelligence. I much prefer wisdom, empathy, morality…:
—-
aside from me commenting that the part about not having respect for intelligence is just plain funny and ironic, what do you think wisdom, empathy and morality are products of in the first place if not intelligence? and if you say the holy spirit (as I suspect you will), then what evidence do you have that origin for them or that they aren’t simply human in origin? (Occam gives a heck of a shave, doesn’t he?) -KIA
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“aside from me commenting that the part about not having respect for intelligence is just plain funny and ironic” – someone had to do it. 🙂
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I thought it was just damned funny lol
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http://io9.gizmodo.com/5851129/teenagers-iq-scores-can-change-dramatically-throughout-adolescence
IQs change.
They have some new tests available on Ancestry.com that allow people to track your genetic heritage. For about 90 dollars you can track where “your people” are from, about 600+ years down the line.
Results can be quite startling (they were for our family).
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I remember my teacher in primary school used to say what they have in the stomach, among other things, determined how they would perform. An impoverished kid would likely perform badly in an iq test compared to their well fed neighbours.
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“An impoverished kid would likely perform badly in an iq test…”
Perhaps, but an impoverished kid may well have better morals, more empathy, and a clearer understanding of the world than the well fed one who has had every advantage. Intelligence does not necessarily equate to having worth and value within a society. Serial killers and assorted psychopaths are often very intelligent.
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Indeed. And that is one of the reasons why human intelligence is so difficult to measure. Becasue there are different sorts of intelligence like social adaptability, empathetic skills, abstract mathematical skills, three dimensional perception skills, ability to concentrate on single issue, rapid intuition, etc, etc… Which is exactly why when people jump into conclusions about such evasive concepts as intelligence correlating with equally evasive concepts, like race, they reveal they are not really being scientific about their subject, but much more likely projecting their prejudices on it.
Using IQ tests as a measurement on human intelligence, is like trying to repair a computer with a sledgehammer.
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You may be right about an impoverished kid having more empathy but this is not always the case. Want tends to make the worst of us.
Is value arbitrary or does it not depend on societal factors?
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“Is value arbitrary or does it not depend on societal factors?”
I am still uncertain about that. Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, and Whitney Houston are all dead. What we call “societal factors” were all overflowing in their lives, and yet they all offed themselves.
“Want tends to make the worst of us”
Again, I am still uncertain. Want also tends to bring out the best in us.
Apparently value is somewhat arbitrary,since you and I appear to have a different definition of worth and value.
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I see nothing wrong with suicide. I don’t think you would have any justification from your good book against it. That a few people offed themselves doesn’t invalidate the claim that societal factors play a role in what value we put on lives.
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“I see nothing wrong with suicide.”
Well, those who have lost loved ones may disagree with you. Also, I find it a bit disturbing to be discussing morals with someone who sees nothing wrong with suicide.
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I have lost loved ones through suicide. I can not bring myself to judge them.
What is inherently wrong with suicide? A suicide is indeed a self centered act. Does that make it always harmfull to others? What if you sacrifice yourself on behalf of others? Like Jesus alledgedly did? Was his suicide, as described in the story, inherently wrong?
The logical ethics demand that the rights of one person only go as far as not to infringe upon the rights of a nother. If a person is totally dependant on a nother, is it then wrong for the person on whom the other person totally relies upon to kill themselves? Is it not within their own right to decide wether or not they can continue living or not?
People who are weary of suffering they can only end in one way commit suicide all the time and have for ever done so. Who are any of us to judge them and on what grounds?
I see nothing wrong with suicide itself, but it may have harmfull reprecussions on others, yet even so, it is the choise a person must have the right to make for themselves.
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Hi Raut-
A common misconception there of ‘suicide,’ but listen to the facts of scripture:
‘Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:’
and…
‘But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses’
Of course God knew all about it……………but certainly man is responsible for crucifying the Lord of glory. Suicide? Uh, no.
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Are you saying that a suicide by proxy is not a suicide? Like if a person steps in front of a train, then the train or the engineer is to be blamed, rather than the dude who stepped onto the rails?
Could the Jesus character have awoided being killed by the Roman soldiers? Could he have escaped that death? If he could have, then it was a suicide. If he could not have escaped that fate for some magical reasons, and it was not a suicide, then he did not sacrifice anything he was merely being a victim of circumstances. Or am I missing something here?
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@rautakyy-
Your concern is common as I said, but with little merit when examined against the narrative of scripture.
Read carefully what I posted earlier. If I told you I was certain of the outcome of a World Cup final, that I knew the exact score, who would get hurt, how many red cards, the exact number of patrons in the stands, etc, would this prevent the game from being played?
Of course not, and I certainly do not know the outcome………….but God knows everything, as He is outside of time, and scripture is rather clear as to the responsibility of the wicked acts of men.
I’ve probably taken violet’s space here off course, but just had to add a little context.
H a gr8 day.
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I do not see how your god character can at the same time claim to be the sole creator of everything and refuse responsibilty on anything by blaming what he has alledgedly created. That is twisted.
Nor do I see, how this is supposed to change anything from the act of the Jesus character from being either a suicide and a sacrifice, or an unfortunate series of events for wich he fell victim to.
It is also utterly abstract as long as no gods, supernatural or anything like it has been established to exist on any even remotely objective level. Right? Scripture you refer to, is rather obviously the machinations from the imagionation of primitive men.
Could we however, agree that it is possible for a man to sacrifice himself for others by committing a suicide? Like a man in a nuclear accident, who despite the fact, that he full well knows he is going to be horribly killed by radiation sickness, but never the less goes to the nuclear chamber to stop the chain reaction. Does that man do the wrong thing in sacrificing himself on behalf of others? What then, if this man later suffering from the terrible symptoms of radiation sickness shoots himself to save himself from the prolonged suffering? Is it not within his ethical right to make the descision on his own life?
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That has never bothered me any bit. I discuss with people who think their imaginary god is good
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So true. There’s been quite a lot of research into it. Nutrition in the womb, growing up … even breakfast on the day.
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Hmmm. The problem with your post is that in the end you just retreat to standard dogma that the solution to racial disparities is to end racism, improve the lot of the underclass, and open up opportunity.
What you don’t recognize is that point of departure for the “race realists” is the fact that 60 years of ending racism, improving the lot of the underclass and opening up opportunities have not had the desired effect, only a relative handful take advantage. Black Americans are, for the most part, still on the bottom, so the race realists are trying to find a different explanation in genetics.
Those who want to retreat to the “end racism add opportunities” dogma are forced to find ever more abstract and rarefied manifestations of racism, which is why so much of the rhetoric of the contemporary left is reduced to “everything is racist”. They basically have to invent racism out of thin air to explain why Black Americans are in the position they are.
Race issues in America have to be rethought from the bottom up with new categories.
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When did racism end? For all I hear, it seems still be going strong around the globe. But this is slowly changing, because the racists have less and less hiding places in supposedly scientific research. Science is a self repairing mechanism. It is not like the race “realists” have come up with any new ideas or even explanations to a rather obviously social problem. Rather they have simply re-used the prejudical nonsense stories actual science has put behind decades ago. But the attitudes of people do not change as rapidly as science does.
If poor people within a certain society are blocked from social rise, then they have not gotten the opportunity as percieved. Race plays no part, exept a certain racist attitude being acted out to prevent them from the social rise. If there is no rise from a certain social group, race is the least likely explanation untill someone can actually present the causation of how this actually works. Speculation on how genetics might be the cause are empty assertions and if they are coloured by racist bigotry, they do not make for very likely options as explanations to anything. Rather they reveal the preconception behind the alledged expalantion and an excuse to abuse people.
When I was a kid we used to make jokes about how unlikely it would be for a black man to become the American president. We could not possibly have guessed, that there would be one in our lifetime.
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I have no opinion on the scientific validity of the IQ-genetic link.
I’m speaking of the American context, not global. Americans are not particularly racist compared to other nations, Obama is a good example.
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No. Not racist. Just sexist. Bit short of women presidents.
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Big Sarah Palin fan are you?
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No. Donald trumps her every time.
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*Choke* Do you believe that dp or are you presenting someone else’s argument? Are you suggesting there’s no racism against Black Americans?
Humans in general need to find a way to make our societies provide equal opportunities for everyone. There’s discrimination and an underclass in most societies, and breaking out of the cycles so that the next generation has a better standard of living is a difficult task. In the USA a large part of the inequality seems to be based on skin colour, so racists roll up with some irrelevant statistics they think demonstrate inferiority.
What new categories are you thinking of?
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My hypothesis (which might be wrong, I’m not attached to it): Americans are not more racist than other cultures, in fact rather less so. (I know lots of Asians and Latin Americans.) So the position of Black Americans is not attributable to contemporary racism but to something else.
That is not to say there is no racism, but that whatever racism exists is not the determining factor in black outcomes.
In the U.S., African immigrants tend to do pretty well for themselves compared to Black Americans. On the other hand, white Appalachians exhibit almost identical social pathologies to urban blacks: teen pregnancy, petty crime, welfare dependency, drug abuse (heroin is a MASSIVE if understated problem where I live) etc. Pretty much every problem blacks face are mirrored in Appalachians, except for murder. The driver for America’s awful murder rate is almost exclusively black v black murders in a handful of cities.
So the problem isn’t race, but culture.
As for new categories: I’m only speaking as a disinterested white guy, I literally have no skin in the game, but I would raise the following questions.
1) Why insist that the problem is external to black culture and not internal? Why isn’t this a problem they shouldn’t be fixing for themselves? Why is it something white people have to fix for them?
2) Why should the goal for both right and left be entrance of Black Americans into polite white society? What is so great about white America that blacks have to aspire to it? Is there an alternate vision, maybe a better one they should be working on?
3) One of the strengths of Black America is a strong sense of place and community that white America simply does not have. Isn’t this something to build on? Isn’t this something to fight for?
4) Doesn’t the classic liberal vision of more opportunity, more education, etc mean leaving the extended community and ethnic identity? Isn’t it in the end about being less culturally black and more white? Sure you might leave behind black cultural pathologies, but what about the strengths?
5) Black America, in belief, is overwhelmingly Christian. Black churches ARE black community. What is the call of God to this community?
But I can only raise the questions in an abstract and theoretical way. They are not mine to answer.
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@Dpmonahan, I think you might be getting somewhere whith this.
The problem in the race “realist” suggestion lies, in that it is an unsubstantiated claim. Anyone can make up a claim that explains a phenomenon, but that does not make the explanation any more true. For example, I could claim that the problems of US black citizens turning into lower social class is because of supernatural Irish pixies who shall not allow the black people to get good positions within the society. Now I have fully accounted why and have provided an explanation, that is just as good to anyone who believes in Irish pixies with magical properties and that they might have something against the black people. Similarly, I could claim that since there is a strong correlation of black US citizens and religiousity, that would serve as an explanation to why they do not seem to be able to raise themselves to the leading positions in society. But although my second “hypothesis” had no supernatural element and featured a high statistical correlation with religiosity, that can be observed to correlate with ignorance among other “races” as well, I have not yet established any sort of causation. I have merely been guessing what the causation might be…
To me the US is a fine example among countries on many fields, but like all countries it has it’s problems and one of those might just be, the idea, that the cultural identity is often so closely connected to percieved race according to perplexion. This is perhaps a result of certain historical developments in economics, that led to slavery and for example the ill treatment of the natives. It is a big problem, just because the US is one of the first countries to form a nation of people with mixed heritage and one particular heritage has been for generations percieved to dictate the culture of all the leading positions within the society. But education and being learned is not the sole right of some particular race group. It is a misconception within the post-colonial western world, that does not correlate to the real world exept, that when Europeans conquered rest of the world, they (or should I say we) shamelessly destroyed the learned cultures of others and claimed theirs was the only one. After all, they had the one true religion. I know, I am painting with a bit too broad a brush, but you know what I mean…
Now, instead of wolloping in the wrongs of the past, it should be time to look forward and ask what in each of our marvellous cultural heritages is worth saving and continuing and what should we discard into the pages of history to remind us of what we should not repeat.
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Those are interesting questions dp – some of them could go somewhere, but I really object to quite a few of them.
You’re still failing to acknowledge that underclasses exists in many, if not all societies, and they are no always on perceived racial grounds. The only way to work towards economic and social equality is actively provide greater opportunity in areas where its lacking. I like the analogy Clare used once – for many of us life is a downhill run, in terms of access to education or anything else we fancy. For people born into any kind of disadvantaged sector or with any kind of characteristics that are frowned upon and discriminated against, everything they do is an uphill struggle. They are constantly meeting barriers and being slapped down.
Saying that people should always fix things for themselves is the smug independence of a pampered existence, or, worse still, the occasional smug sense of achievement from the few who luck squeezed past the barriers. In general, this could never bring any kind of wide-ranging change.
I see it as everyone working together to improve life experience and opportunities for everyone – not one group imposing their version of improvement on another, or the other group being left to get on with it from a starting point well below average.
I totally agree with the notion that you can’t impose your version of a successful or happy life on other people – of course not. The truth is that people in an underclass are often trapped in cycles of poverty, unable to access the kind of freedom of movement and choice that is readily available to other sectors of society. Step one is removing barriers and providing real opportunities for growth and movement – the much maligned positive discrimination. Where is goes after that and how society in general continues to evolve is anyone’s guess.
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Simpler version of the points you dislike: if the problem is cultural, no one is fixing it from the outside.
You are still reverting to worn out categories: “we need to remove external barriers”. What if the problem is internal barriers? And how does one tell the difference between a barrier that serves to keep the community in the underclass, and a barrier that serves some other purpose, say to keep the community united?
“Freedom of movement and choice” In other words like nice, moderately liberal, rootless, lonely, culturally poor, white suburbanites, who think and live the way they do because of the market (choice) which makes them move around so much.
These are exactly the kinds of categories that need rethinking. But again, I’m just raising the question, I can’t tell anyone what to do.
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“You are still reverting to worn out categories: “we need to remove external barriers”. What if the problem is internal barriers?”
We know external barriers are a problem. Poor education, poor diet and heaps of discrimination for anyone who wishes to progress in mainstream society – same for any underclass in any culture. What’s your problem with putting more resources into tackling such basic problems?
““Freedom of movement and choice” In other words like nice, moderately liberal, rootless, lonely, culturally poor, white suburbanites, who think and live the way they do because of the market (choice) which makes them move around so much.”
Em, no. Maybe in your head. Education brings more intellectual freedom, education brings the prospect of financial flexibility. It doesn’t mean by any stretch of the imagination you have to join another treadmill.
“I’m just raising the question, I can’t tell anyone what to do.”
Nah, you’re just encouraging the notion it’s the ‘fault’ of the underclass, so you feel justified in not lifting a finger to help, and electing politicians that want to leave poor people to remain trapped in cycles of poverty and disadvantage.
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Congratulations on another successful blog topic, Violet. Some provocative statements, a buzz created, more people commenting–that’s what you want. That’s when blogging gets really fun and interesting. Do you remember that crazy old man who predicted that the world would end on May 21, 2011? His name was Harold Camping, and he ran an operation called Family Stations, Inc. (Christian radio stations). Anyway, I started a blog late in 2010 called Family Radio Watch in which essentially I made fun of Family Radio and monitored Camping’s end-times rhetoric. On May 21, 2011 (Judgement Day), my blog got over 6000 hits. It was glorious! I’ll never forget that feeling. Since then I’ve tried to repeat that success by taking shortcuts, but that doesn’t work. One must be patient. How would you like 1000 comments on one of your blog topics? You could achieve that … with the right strategy. I’ll say nothing more about it.
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I don’t think we have the same motivation Jim. I’m interested in formalising the ideas I have floating round my head and discussing them with people who have differing perspectives. Of course I’m pleased that a number of people engaged in the topic, but I’d be dismayed if I had to keep up with a larger volume of traffic. It’s a hobby that keeps certain regions of my brain active while I’m in a generally uninspiring job and spending the rest of my time with children. I’d probably just quit if it got busier.
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Understood. Oh, by the way, I don’t want to concern you, but your Vladimir Putin quip on Clare’s Danish Girl post was positively Jim-esque. I was delighted.
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In what way? There was an actor who was the double of Vladimir Putin and was sooo wrong in the role. His presence jarred me out of the story in every scene he graced.
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Oh …. LOL! I thought you were saying that Vladimir Putin was in that film and played a horrible transsexual!
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This is an interesting thread, I’ll start a new one for my thoughts but I am quoting from the above.
Rautakyy: ”Our brain makes it possible for us to survive in the most extreme conditions, from Sahara to the Arctic. If there ever was different pressure for the brain to evolve faster in some human group, as opposed to another, then we should expect that the Saharan and Siberian natives would show the highest levels of intelligence in some IQ testing. But they do not.”
Why is that? What type of pressures would someone who lives in the Saharan or Siberia experience that would register on a test that measures the type of reasoning ability that put us created the jet engine and/or computers?
”IQ tests are necessarily culturally relative. They test abstractions, but the intelligence of a person is not really measured alone on how good they are in abstract thinking. Rather such testing only ever reveals the ability of the individual to recognize the symbols for testing abstractions in their own culture.”
IQ tests might be “culturally relative” but they are “culturally relative” in a way that Asians seem to excel. And Asians have certainly experienced a fair measure of poverty and “pressure” of all types. Likening IQ tests as a measure for intelligence to using a sledgehammer to fix a computer (as you did earlier) seems like of strange. Although IQ tests might only measure certain types of intelligence, but it’s the type of intelligence that Charles Dickens, Einstein, and Alan Turing.
I do agree that social intelligence is very important and people who are off the charts, intelligence-wise, can be pretty thick when it comes to social awareness (though not always, my husband has a genius level IQ and is the most socially adept person I’ve ever met in my life…his mother is the same, with an IQ of 160 and his father’s IQ is higher…pretty much off the charts and he has the personality problem but I think that’s more from abuse in childhood than “over-smartness”). But I’d place a high bet there aren’t many clever, socially engaging people who test low on that IQ spectrum either.
Also, I have to say I don’t believe (in some cases, definitely) the majority of differences we see in those IQ tests come down to “nutrition”. Not in the US. Does anyone really believe the secret to the ubiquity of Jewish intellectual success is Matzah balls? Yes, there is poor nutrition and some lead poisoning in certain segments of the population and that might skew results. But I think it’s kind of…well, frankly racist to suggest minority people as a group are by and large too ignorant to feed their children properly (and don’t give me the poverty angle, I’ve survived with small children on poverty-level grocery budgets before).
I wouldn’t be concerned if I didn’t think the prevailing paradigm of “everyone has their own unique special type of intelligence, one is no better or worse than any other” were actually harmful and promotes unproductive and unhealthy value systems that might provide indirect perverse incentives. Humans are social animals and they emulate what they see and experience around them. That’s where they learn how to measure success.
People have probably stopped read now because this is getting long, but I have to wonder what the impression of the article would be if it had been written by a white person? A white person living in China who had a child and married a Chinese wife and “didn’t want his child to identify as white”…and gave a list of very personal, anecdotal reasons. I think the impression would be much different. From my perspective I feel badly for this man and I think he is very much in error here, but I think his child will probably do very well if he ever takes an IQ exam, and it has nothing to do with him being black or Chinese.
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Just to add, I think it’s important to keep in mind too that IQs can change. I linked to one piece about the 21 point shift (that’s a hella lot, 21 points). I remember reading a while back a mother’s account of an IQ test her son took in grade school. It was in the 90s, if I recall correctly. He was supposed to go to remedial classes but instead she worked with him at home and kept him in the regular classes. Years later, after he graduated from medical school and took another IQ test where he tested at 130, she revealed his earlier score to him for the first time.
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Yes, IQ is fluid, and the tests vary in the type of intelligence they actually measure. I am strong in verbal logic and have a good ear for music. On the other hand, I have a poor sense of direction and have absolutely no business flying a plane. If you wanted to torture me, demand that I solve a Rubik’s Cube.
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Liz wrote: “… I feel badly for this man and I think he is very much in error here, but I think his child will probably do very well if he ever takes an IQ exam, and it has nothing to do with him being black or Chinese.” I totally agree with this.
Frankly I do not care wether a person who has a racistically coloured view of the world is black, white, or green. If someone is wrong, then they are wrong. If I am wrong, I wish someone can make me see the error of my thinking.
IQ tests are the tool we now have, but because they are a rather blunt instrument, they are subject to all sorts of abuse and misunderstanding. In any case, if a person can be tested to be handicapped by a lesser mental capacity, that person is in need of help. Not segragation from the rest of the society.
With the Saharan and Siberian examples I referred to a long enough timespan as an evolutionary survival pressure as the human brain has sustained in extreme conditions by any particular group of people, but my point was, there can not be seen any such differences. Hence the differences in IQ tests between human groups are products of something else than evolution. Much more likely a mix of many different cultural reasons.
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Spherical Earthism is a subject best avoided for many reasons, not least that foul views don’t deserve attention. It is not different from any other form of heresy, it just comes with accompanying statistics that allegedly make it ‘real’.
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