Did I say anything remotely like that?
No, in fact, I said the opposite. I said we don't know why.
And you chose to interpret that as me specifying a particular reason?
Of "In-Group" & "Race"
- Thread starter Foster Zygote
- Start date
No, in fact, I said the opposite. I said we don't know why.
And you chose to interpret that as me specifying a particular reason?
This is the most amusing dodge of all - pretending you don't know what racism is, or what it means.
To repeat myself: the social theory of race is that people with the same skin color share the same genes. This is the social theory of race. This is why Australian aborignes are considered the same race as Africans by racists. This is the theory I am attacking. This is the illogical, backass stupidity that characterizes racism.
To pretend you don't know what I am talking about - to act as if the KKK never expressed an opinion on the issue - is tantamount to apologetics.
I would get just as far as publishing my criticism of god in a peer reviewed theology journal.
Funny. Stephen Gould seems to have both read it and dismissed it as an "illusion." You'd know this if you read the Wiki article on him.
It would appeare that plenty of other people feel Jensen is controversial. But of course you present him as an accomplished fact. Really, what else needs to be said?
Theology.
Then we agree: the social theory of race is bunk, pure and simple. Because the social theory of race is that skin color is indicative of genetic similarity.
Go read the KKK, the Nazis, really any of the old-school racists. This is their argument. Skin color = genetic similarity.
The argument you are presenting is that genetic simiarity = skin color.
This is the difference between "all crows are birds" and "all birds are crows." One argument is a simplistic piece of stupidity and the other is an observation.
That is exactly the argument the social theory of race makes, and if you listen to Bpesta long enough, you will see that is the argument he ultimately is making.
You wouldn't, but looking ahead, I see other people do.
No we don't. We have no data that is not contaminated by cultural influence above our metrics ability to measure.
We know that cultural influence can have huge impacts. We know that our metrics cannot measure the differences in generations to greater than 30%. Therefore, by simple mathematics, we cannot measure differences in races more than 30%.
Do you see anybody claiming that black people are 30% stupider than white people? Of course not, because there is no data for such a claim. The only data they have are for differences of 5-10%... and this data comes from a metric that has been shown to be no better than 30%.
This is why I keep on about this issue. People are drawing conclusions from a metric with serious problems.
Excepting for cultural influences, which may or may not be useful for survival. Evolution is not surgery. We still have appendixes.
My point is that we do not know enough about these genetics to draw any conclusions from the facts you just presented. I am not disputing the facts. I am disputing the conclusions.
If you read the other posts, you will see that Bpesta has gone on to drawing conclusions.
But we don't know what they are. We don't know how many genes they require. We don't know enough to draw conclusions.
Consider this: if the achievement of sentience requires all of the 5% of the genes that differentiate us from the apes, then the idea that some of us have more and some of us have less is rendered mathematically impossible. The only way there can be significant differences between groups of humans
is if their are different gene-sets. But we simply do not know if it is possible to construct a normal human intelligence of any level without using all of the genes.
I am not saying this is how it works. I am saying we don't know enough to rule out this explanation, and hence drawing conclusions that presume intelligence is controlled by a smaller set of genes and thus differentiable over human populations is unwarranted.
You have demonstrated these are not cultural influenced phenomona? How did you demonstrate this?
Ask the KKK. When they say race, this is what they mean. When the rest of the planet says race, this is what they mean. The social theory of race is the bunk you have just rejected. Don't take my word for it - ask the people who push the social theory of race.
If you want to introduce a new theory, great. But if you call it "race" people are going to be confused.
You have demonstrated these are not cultural influenced phenomona? How did you demonstrate this?
I agree with you that it seems perfectly reasonable to think that personality, which is so obviously preset at birth, has an important genetic component. But agreeing with that reasonable inference and claiming to be able to measure it are worlds apart.
We know genetics matter. But we don't know how, or why, and so far we have not demonstrated the ability to measure these differences to the requisite precision, nor have we figured out how to cancel out the effects of culture on our measurements.
Consequently, all we can conclude is that we can't conclude anything yet.
And if you will read Bpesta's posts, you will see plenty of conclusion drawing going on.
When you can point to a gene for "perfect pitch," let me know. Until then, it is just speculation.
Then why do you object to my categorizing the social theory of race as an abuse?
There are such tests? They were validated how? They demonstrated what level of precision?
The Flynn effect comes along and proves that IQ tests are at best accurate to 30%.... and promptly gets ignored. Until the Flynn effect is explained, assuming we can do any human personality tests to finer than 30% is utterly unwarranted.
"Yes, I know that 60 years of testing has shown an error bar of 30%, but the test I invented last week is accurate to 3%! I know this because it gives me the answer I expected to 3%."
Not only do people pretend they can now measure IQ to better than 30% (by renaming it as "g"), but they apparently think they can measure a poorly understood mechanism like the effect of social expecation precisely enough to correct their IQ tests with it.
At what point do we just start counting angels on the head of that pin?
Since I am the one who introduced this notion, I can see you're not actually reading my posts. So I'll stop now.
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Why don't you produce a list of papers explaining how sickle-cell anemia works?
Would that list look like this one?
That's my point. My whole point.
So you admit that our understanding of human nature in general is still weak.
Yet you are ready to start talking about the differences of nature between groups of people?
How can you not see that you just made my point?
The people who deny that IQ can be reliably and validly measured are the people like Flynn.
Well, there you go. "My authority is bigger than your authority!"
If this isn't theology, what is?
Nonetheless, racism does exist and it does have an effect.
How did you start out by citing their useful effect, and then wind up calling them criminals?
If society doesn't want Al Sharpton shaking down corporations, then maybe society should deak with the issue. As long as society is going to leave it up to the free market to resolve, one can hardly bitch about how it gets resolved.
That said, I'm no fan of Al Sharpton's (to put it mildly). I'd rather he were out of business, and society took a more active hand.
I am too.
You seem to have gone to the point of assuming there is no signal at all. Your ancedotal evidence seems to imply that racism not only does not have any negative impact, but never did.
Is that what you mean to imply?
I stand corrected. However, your ancedote remains an ancedote. Thornton is obviously an exceptional individual, which I never doubted. But the fact remains that racism was real negative effect in the past, and remains one today (albiet reduced).
Are you asserting that all claims of racism are false? Are you asserting that social attitudes about race are totally unlinked to socio-economic status?
I'm not sure why you have difficulty reading or understanding my words, or for that matter, common scientific understanding.
You pretended to know what ancedotal evidence was, you pretended to understand that it does not prove or disprove a general claim, and yet here you are citing it as proof against a general claim.
I never claimed Thornton should fail. In fact, at the time this came up, I presented my own ancedotal exception: Fredrick Douglass. Why you chose to ignore this and return to the strawman you constructed confuses me.
If everybody in this conversation, and in this industry, prefaced their remarks this way... I wouldn't be arguing.
Articulette just claimed that not only do social expectations affect IQ scores, but we can measure how much they do. Now you claim they don't matter.
Who should I believe?
How about... none of you?
Racism is wrong. We know that. Judging people by the color of their skin is wrong. Whether it explains, causes, or is wholly unrelated to the current socioeconomic status of the average black person doesn't matter: it's wrong, and it should be stopped. By law, when necessary and appropriate. By social rejection of all social theories of race. And by assuming we are all equal until we can prove otherwise.
Said proof requiring more than a test that cannot distinguish between generations of white people.
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AmateurScientist
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I never said it didn't. It certainly does.
I didn't mean for it to come out that way. I loathe both those men and their methods. I was merely noting that as "racism police" they are probably more effective in certain instances than the EEOC. The mafia was effective at enforcing a certain brand of justice in certain neighborhoods too.
I don't think that follows. Just because racism exists (and always has, and does across cultures as well) doesn't mean we should attack the problem using vultures like Sharpton and Jackson, who simply exploit minorities for their own personal gain. Those guys are a**holes.
Me too. Sharpton isn't serving society. He's exploiting it and the conditions in it. He's not serving the interests of black persons either.
Of course not. I simply couldn't waste my time looking for a signal. I had to make a living, and I concluded there wasn't much of an honest living in letting merely disgruntled employees and former employees bitch to me for free when they had no legally cognizable claim for redress.
I never once ran across a case wherein I found evidence of a legitimate claim of racial discrimination in the workplace. Not once. That's not for lack of trying. Perhaps it would have been easier if there weren't so many claimants crying "wolf" all the time. I believe I already alluded to that earlier.
Of course he's exceptional. Of course racism was and still is real. Mr. Stanley simply didn't let it stand between him and success. He didn't use it as an excuse or a crutch. I suspect that too many black persons allow themselves to be held back due to their own self-fulfilling beliefs that racism will hold themselves back (and let's be honest here; not that many other ethnic minorities in the US try to use their ethnicity as an excuse for lack of job or career opportunities to the degree that some black persons do; for instance, how often do you hear of a person of Chinese descent claim racial discrimination in the workplace?).
No, I'm not. I do believe, however, that false charges of racism are far more prevalent in the US today than bona fide ones are.
You bring up an interesting point about socio-economic status. Although I don't think this is what you meant by it, I firmly believe that much of what we regard as racial prejudice today has to do far more with socio-economic status and culture than it does to do with skin color. Our society at large doesn't seem to have a problem accepting and respecting black persons who don't act like gangsters or ghetto shuckers and jivers.
Only white supremacists like the KKK and other extremists seem to have any problem at all looking up to accomplished and powerful black persons like Oprah Winfrey, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, the late Thurgood Marshall, Shirley Chisholm, Bernard Shaw, or Ed Bradley, for instance. They couldn't have gotten where they are or did if racism were such an ironclad barrier standing between black persons and professional success.
On the other hand, I never could have respected someone like Tupac Shakur because of the culture and values he promoted and lived. He was a thug, and proud of it. Sister Souljah (remember her?) is a black bigot. No respect from me, and not just because she is a bigot. Her whole sour, pissed off demeanor and attitude is a huge turnoff. The same goes for Spike Lee.
It's not nearly as much about skin color today as the Sharptons and Jacksons of the world want us to believe.
Nope. I cited it merely as a counterexample of the claim made. I'm fully aware that it's merely anecdotal and not evidence of any trend, or representative of anything. As a counterexample, it does tend to undermine the strength of your claims about how powerful racism is as a barrier between black persons and success (at least I think that was the implication of your claims overall).
Yes, you did. You said he wouldn't have made it 50 years ago. Don't pretend you didn't write that, because you did. That you mentioned Frederick Douglass doesn't change that.
You know what? I'm going to go out on a limb here and risk having my head ripped off by people not getting it. My belief is that it is some black persons themselves (some, but not all of them by any means) who are perpetuating racism against themselves by calling attention to their "blackness" and how it negatively affects them and how society seems to hold it against them. If they would simply stop thinking of themselves as African-Americans, and regard themselves simply as Americans, then race would eventually recede into the background as a major social issue. Black separatism in all its incarnations is a huge step backwards for race relations and equality.
People like Thornton Stanley are great to emulate in that regard. He doesn't think of himself as a successful black businessman and proud black father and devoted black husband. He's simply a successful businessman and proud father and devoted husband. His kids think that way too. There are two accomplished black women in my office who think the same, and race never comes up in our office, not even behind closed doors.
The KKK and other white supremacist a**holes are the fringe groups in the US in 2006. There are many, many, black persons who have made it into "mainstream" American society, including a sizeable and comfortable middle class, and even some who are very rich, including billionaires like Oprah. Nevertheless, there are far too many black persons who carry around a racial chip on their shoulders who do themselves a disservice by continuing to carry it around. The sooner they lose that, the sooner they can admit themselves into "mainstream" America. I think it's no longer "white" America who is holding them back, for the most part. It's themselves.
By the way, I hope you'll note that there are plenty of black writers and political pundits who have made the same assertion.
AS
ETA: I should note that to be fair, my perspective is probably a bit skewed. I happen to live in a very unusual city in Alabama. It is socially progressive (but conservative otherwise) and highly educated and skilled as a whole, compared to other cities of comparable size, especially others in the south.
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Ok. Sorry to even ask, since the answer should have been obvious, but certain other posters in this thread have created a sense of ambiguity...
Exactly.
One could argue that a large part of the reason the mafia exists is because society-at-large refuses to provide the services required.
Al Sharpeton makes a living because we don't solve the problem. It's not a question of right or wrong, but simple mechanics.
To be honest, I don't think Jackson belongs in the quite the same category as Sharpeton.
Consider McDonald's. Do the exploit society and its conditions? Are they solely interested in their own interests? Yes to both.
Are they serving society? Why yes, they are giving us exactly the services we demand.
Of course, by that logic, drug dealers are serving society... and to be quite honest, I think they are.
Any time you can get people to pay you for your work, you're doing something somebody wants.
The correct response to the Al Sharpetons of the world is to address the problem more effectively and efficiently than they can.
Of course, if Al's gig is precisely the one you turned down, that won't help much, will it.
Well, no argument there.
I completely agree. And yet... expecting every ordinary black person to overcome difficulties and barriers that do not apply to ordinary white people is just plain unfair.
Not everyone is strong enough to be a model citizen on their own. This is a fact of life that applies to all human societies.
Of course any individual black person could shrug off the social effects of racism and get on with their lives.
But by that logic... every individual person could shrug off religion and get on with their lives. And yet, they don't.
Human beings are social animals. Most of them will do no more than is expected of them.
You need to hang out in the Southwest. Hispanics are only marginally better off than blacks.
Here's an ancedote: my mechanical engineer routinely gets mistaken for the landscaper.
That's probably true, too.
But - your exceptional friend nonwithstanding - that socio-economic status is largely a product of cultural attitudes and practices.
Sammy Davis Jr. was not allowed to stay in the hotels he was wowing with his night-club act. He wasn't even allowed to walk through the front door.
And see my ancedote above, about my Hispanic engineer.
Most of our society now has learned to publicly conceal their racism. But it's still there, under the surface, in golf clubs and board rooms, in everyday transactions in the parking lot.
Nobody ever suggested that it was an iron clad barrier. I suggested that it was a drag. You completely agree with that. You understand that ordinary people are, after all, merely ordinary.
And yet you seem to want ordinary blacks to grab their bootstraps, get their act in gear, and get over it.
That's not how people work. As much as I agree with your sentiment, as often as individuals accomplish it, it simply does not describe how ordinary human populations function.
What facts do you have to back you up on this claim? Ancedotal evidence of a few who succeeded?
What facts do I have to back up my claim that social effects, even when subtle and difficult to detect, can have staggering biological consequences?
Gorillas.
Now, in this battle between your ancedotes and my biological observations, which side do you think we should pay more attention to?
No, it does not. No more than Fredrick Douglass undermines the claims about how powerful slavery was as a barrier between black persons and success.
Why are you unable to see this fact?
Where did I pretend I didn't write that? Didn't my response say, "I stand corrected." Why yes, I just looked, and those very words appear.
What the hell is the problem here? Why are people unable to read the words I write?
The point of Frederick Douglass is that ancedotal evidence doesn't mean anything.
If Thorton Stanely proves that racism is not a significant bar to black advancement in American society, then Frederic Douglass proves that slavery was not a significant bar to black advancement in American society.
Are we done with ancedotes yet?
How is that going out on a limb? Of course that is occurring. One would expect it to occur in basically the same proporition that one finds White Americans perpetuating racism against blacks to secure their own interests.
Black people are just as likely to abuse social mechanisms for their own profit as anybody else.
There are certainly white people pushing racism in open and direct ways. There are still plenty of white supremacists groups. The fact that there are so few black supremacists groups tells me that black culture was very effectively crippled in this country. The fact that we are now starting to see them is proof that racism, and its effects, are beginning to fade.
It's like the Wall Street Journal celebrating the great day when a black stockbroker went to jail for fraud. It was a sign of just how truly integrated blacks were becoming in our society. (I might have the wrong newspaper.)
If the Iraqis would stop thinking of themselves as Sunni and Shiite, and regard themselves as simply Muslims, then sectarian tensions would recede into the background as a major social issue.
For crying out loud, AS. What planet did you just step off of? When did you take a delivery of a truckload of naivete?
Are you new here, dude?
BTW, if white people would stop thinking of African-Americans as anything other than Americans, that would go a long way towards changing black attitudes. After all, whites outnumber blacks by a large margin: it is only logical that their attitudes should be more prevalent in social custom than the minorities.
There are still golf courses in this country that you can play on, that Thornton cannot.
When that changes, then we can ask black people to change their views.
No question about it. The system has changed. And plenty of people - like Bill Cosby - are pointing this out.
However, ask Denziel Washington how easy it is to get a cab in NY.
You forgot to label this part as "based on your speculation." The entire ******* point of this thread is that WE HAVE NO WAY OF MAKING THIS DETERMINATION. We do not know how pervasive social influence is, we do not know how destructive it is, we do not know how to measure either of those, and therefore we cannot DRAW CONCLUSIONS ABOUT ITS EFFECT.
You are looking at the data, acknowlegding that the data is ancedotal, incomplete, inaccurate, and poorly understood. And then you are REACHING A CONCLUSION.
How the **** does that work?
Indeed. I mentioned one of them above.
May I suggest it is seemly for black pundits to say this to their own people? While white pundits should focus on lecturing white people. When one side is blameless, then it will be acceptable for them to lecture the other. Until then, it might be more polite and effective to focus on the problems closest to our respective hands.
Ask Thornton a question for me (I am geninuely curious about this).
When he started his business, what percentage of his customers were black?
And now what percentage of his customers are black now?
If the answer is what I expect it is - 90% to 50%, that suggests his success came at the success of other black construction workers (since he monopolized the available business) which explains the need for AA.
If the answer remains 90%, then that suggests that his success is significantly linked to the general success of the black community - which points to the benefits of AA.
If the percentage has not changed, or went the other way, then that would torpedoe this line of questioning.
Not to detract in any way from his exceptionalness: but even exceptional people often have help getting to the top.
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AmateurScientist
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That's partly true. The mafia's existence in early 20th Century New York was also due to the fact that Sicilians who immigrated to New York brought that part of their culture with them. They policed their neighborhoods and brought their own sense of justice and protection with them because they felt their Italian brothers and sisters didn't get a fair shake from the institutions of the New York police and the local courts.
Is that imposed by society at large, or self imposed? Maybe some of both?
Well, given that the system can be exploited in the manner in which Sharpton exploits it, I have little doubt that if he weren't doing it, someone else would.
I agree with you that Jackson is a step or so about Sharpton, but not by much. I know he's a veteran from the very difficult struggles for civil rights who stood beside Dr. King, and he deserves credit for that, but he let himself become part of the cry "wolf" crowd later and paved the way for the Sharpton style shakedown.
Somewhere in there, I think Jesse abandoned some principles.
Consider McDonald's. Do the exploit society and its conditions? Are they solely interested in their own interests? Yes to both.
Are they serving society? Why yes, they are giving us exactly the services we demand.
Of course, by that logic, drug dealers are serving society... and to be quite honest, I think they are.
Any time you can get people to pay you for your work, you're doing something somebody wants.
The correct response to the Al Sharpetons of the world is to address the problem more effectively and efficiently than they can.
Of course, if Al's gig is precisely the one you turned down, that won't help much, will it.
Point taken. It's too bad for all of us that Sharpton can make a living doing what he does.
That's a very fair statement, and it's one of the underlying premises for Affirmative Action. Nevetheless, several conservative black writers and pundits like Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell have noted that AA has probably outlived its usefulness. Today, it serves more to undermine and cast suspicion on the genuine accomplishments of black persons who are successful academically and professionally than it does to lift others up who need it. Well, that's their criticism of it, anyway. I think they have a very good point.
No doubt, and I have no doubt that it's harder for the "average" ordinary black person to choose and pursue certain career and social paths than it is for the "average" ordinary white person. Of course, that's a very broad generalization, and it's far less true today than it was 50 or even 20 years ago. We've come a long way, baby.
True. I don't disagree that social expectations influence what people do with their lives. I just don't think it's as determinative in each individual case as you seemed to suggest earlier in the thread. Perhaps I misread your remarks.
I get it. It's sad.
When I heard my generally left-thinking Parisian friend gripe about Arabs in Paris, I had a profound realization that I still think is true in most places (and I had also just heard my friend from Montana who was with us on the Paris stay make derisive American Indian jokes) -- and I'll say this as delicately as I can, but it doesn't sound nice: everyone has their own n***ers. I hope you get what I'm trying to say. I'm not adopting or condoning the word or its implications. I'm expressing that there are minority groups in most places that get the short end of the stick in the larger society. For instance, Irish immigrants were generally regarded as trash and treated like ◊◊◊◊ in NYC at the turn of the century. It's much better today for them in NY, and it's much better for blacks in the south too.
No question about it.
Right, but that was 45 years ago. I don't think that would be true today.
I agree that it is there covertly for a very large portion of society, on the part of many segments of society, black, brown, white, yellow, and purple. I think it is partly human nature to identify with others who seem like us, and unfortunately, racial and ethnic identities are often bound with cultural ones, which plays a large role in self-identification, and in identifying others whom we think are sufficiently like us that we want to hang out with them.
Thus, we see a lot of voluntary segregation by race or ethnicity in places like churches, mess halls in the military, and at lunchrooms at school and in the workplace. Is that racism?
Yes, I want it for them as much as I want it for the rest of society. I hate seeing black persons I know and like with less self-esteem and confidence than they deserve. I wish I knew how to convey to them that they don't have to adopt the cultural priorities too prevalent in many of their neighborhoods that place little value on good grades in school and pursuing higher education. They can choose not to succumb to those negative peer pressures. They can choose to emulate other successful persons who came from similar beginnings.
Then again, as you mention, we are social animals and most of us are ordinary and prone to fall prey to those kinds of expectations. I can't disagree with that.
I'm with you to a point. I'm just not as convinced that it's so determinative.
I'm not. It was and is a counterexample, nothing more. I'll certainly grant you that it is an exceptional counterexample, like Douglass.
I get it, but it does mean something. Counterexamples can serve to prove exceptions to the rule. I get that they don't mean there can't be a general trend.
Yes, I know. I prefaced it with "going out on a limb" because it's a delicate subject and one's comments can easily be misunderstood.
For crying out loud, AS. What planet did you just step off of? When did you take a delivery of a truckload of naivete?
Are you new here, dude?
He he. OK. I didn't mean to state the obvious. Again, I might be a little too defensive with regard to this subject because it can easily be misunderstood and can become quite contentious. I'm glad you are reading me well and not reaching for the "racist" sticker to put on my lapel.
I agree. Too often, I get the impression that it's solely up to white people to affect change, however, and it's simply not.
Yes, but fortunately, this is becoming less and less true. I think we'll live to see the day when it isn't.
I'm pretty sure that was Yaphet Kotto.
Didn't I say "I think...?"
I think it generally carries more weight when black pundits say it, but I think that the notion that it does is rather sad. If it's true, it's true, and a white man's credibility shouldn't be an issue simply for stating it. Unfortunately, I have experienced this phenomenon myself, and I think I don't have credibility to black persons in general when I offer moral support for black persons about being able to succeed. The consensus seems to be that it's easy for me to say; I never had to face those racial challenges.
I'm afraid I can't. One, I'm not on close enough terms with him to discuss that, although I might be able to with his daughter, but I haven't seen her in a few years. I'm trying to get our mutual friend to arrange a lunch for the three of us when she is in town (she has been spending at least 1/2 her time in another region of the country). Two, his customers aren't homeowners. His company's specialty is site preparation, so his customers are developers, builders, businesses, universities, the city, and the state.
Of course.
AS
bpesta22
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I think Flynn would indeed admit that IQ can be R and V measured. In fact, one cannot get the flynn effect without IQ scores being R and V.
Flynn's argument, iirc, is that the effect is not due to increases in IQ per se, but to the more complex worlds we live in with each new cohort, especially over the last 100 years.
I think the same thing's going on with athletics. Olympic records set 50 years ago are laughable by today's standards. Does that mean there's something wrong with the R and V of our stopwatches?
***
It's interesting; I just read an article yesterday, showing that inspection time as a measure of g does not show a flynn effect...
This is a great read, folks, lots to think about and follow up on. I am not black, and was raised in a place where the non-blackness of my environment led me to be incredibly naive. When I lived in SE Michigan, near enough to Detroit and Chicago to have their newspapers, and then in PG county Maryland a stone's throw from DC, I had my first glimpse of how other communities had dealt with blackness/whiteness. It is a bit of a shock when a black person is rude or resentful to one in a way that makes no personal sense. I felt that a couple times. Not "white guilt" but more "what the hell was that about?" Far more numerous were the times of average, daily mingling were not really combined in any way with a skin-color notion. Sports events, for one, Wizards game at the MCI center was just a bunch of fans doing their thing. Didn't hurt that the Rockets were in town and Yao Ming (?) the 7 foot tall Chinese center was playing and there were a lot of Chinese embassy people there and such.
The main division, if you want to call it racial, out West is as much language and money as it is race in a lot of places. There are real a priori issues between some parts of the Anglo and Hispanic groups. I had a little girl in one of my classes, who was miffed in a child sense by having to stand in line like everyone else, and looked at the kid in front of her and said "You Just Didn't Pick Me First Because I'm Mexican!!!" That was a tough call, because as teacher I couldn't cave in to her demand, but I needed to let her know that there were more things in play than just what she may have heard others say. I think I wound up saying, as best I could sincerely and calmly, something like "oh, that's not really true, when we're done lining up we can talk about it."
The main division, if you want to call it racial, out West is as much language and money as it is race in a lot of places. There are real a priori issues between some parts of the Anglo and Hispanic groups. I had a little girl in one of my classes, who was miffed in a child sense by having to stand in line like everyone else, and looked at the kid in front of her and said "You Just Didn't Pick Me First Because I'm Mexican!!!" That was a tough call, because as teacher I couldn't cave in to her demand, but I needed to let her know that there were more things in play than just what she may have heard others say. I think I wound up saying, as best I could sincerely and calmly, something like "oh, that's not really true, when we're done lining up we can talk about it."
Let's not forget Prohibition, which funded generations of mafia.
They probably didn't.
What, exactly, is the difference?
Human beings, by and large, adopt significant portions of their identity from society. This is how they work. Not all of them; there is a range from absolute sheep to extreme individualists, from NPD to sociopaths. Nonetheless, the average human depends on social cues to establish their own personal sense of identity. Expecting any particular segment of society to not do this is simply unjustifiable. Sadly.
He wouldn't be a politician if he hadn't...
I agree, for much the same reasons you cited. BTW, do you know what group was the largest benefactor from AA?
White women.
Ya. Exactly.
Nothing is ever determinative in an individual case. You can find any number of adults who were abused as children, who themselves do not abuse. And yet... the number of abusers who were abused as children is vastly higher than the number that were not.
Lack of education, job oppourtunities, and stable homes do not compel people to be criminal. But you can't help but notice that an awful lot of criminals come from such a background.
This is, IMHO, the ultimate liberal/conservative divide. The liberals say, "They're not to blame!", and the conservatives say, "They made a choice!" And both sides are just wrong. It's not that simple.
To be fair to the Europeans: they tend to get the uneducated Arabs, while we get the educated ones. And America's source of manual laborers (Mexico) was conquered and assimilated by the West (even their religion was exterminated). So we have an easier time of it right now than Europe does. The immigrants to our country are not as foriegn as the immigrants to Europe.
One suspects that if there were no such group, society would invent one.
Japan might be an exception: they have largely exterminated their minority class (the original inhabitants of the island). However, they make up for it by basically treating the rest of the world as a minority.
In Boston they used to put up signs in the bars and such: "We'll take the blacks and the Jews, but not the godd*mn Irish!"
Not necessarily, but it is a vector for racism to spread. So it should be monitored .
I could say the same thing, except about religious people.
Why do we have so many social systems designed to corrupt and distort people's self-image?
Why, doh... so they can be controlled and used to society's end.
It's not solely; but it is a larger part than most whites are willing to accept.
Bascially, I think white people are prepared to accept blacks legally and socially; just not personally. They're like, "Why can't I have my own personal attitudes on this?"
And I'm like, "Because your own personal attitudes matter. When it comes to social attitudes, what you think makes a difference. Because most of you are not trained actors or monks; you cannot prevent your beliefs from affecting your behaviour, you cannot hide what you think and feel, and that leads to the very social expectation problem we're trying to solve."
But you can imagine selling this argument is nigh-impossible. I can't sell it with regards to religion, either.
On the other hand, the argument applies equally strongly to black people. They can't allow those attitudes, either. The argument applies to us all.
It's kind of like the government trying to tell kids that drugs are bad.
Yes, yes they are; but the government kinda burned its credit card on this issue, so we're going to have to rely on entertainers and sports figures to get the message across.
Which is the cop-out again, of course. The thing about playing the victim is it is really, really easy.
I always tell them, "Hey! I am a member of the most hated, reviled minority in the world. I am in the only group it is still acceptable to persecute; I am in the category less electable to president than a gay black Jewish woman. That's right... I am an atheist. So don't give me crap about social persecution!"
That sounds like he worked for mostly whites in the beginning, then.
Probably he had a killer advantage over his white competition: since he had black workers, he could pay them less. Even better, his customers would assume he would cost less.
Trust me, I can argue anything.
But I do recognize that you and I are on the same page here. Indeed, one could even argue that you are righter than I am: if social attitudes are the problem, then maybe the solution is to deny that social attitudes matter, so that people won't have social attitudes to hide behind. The false denial of the effect of social attitudes might be the required response to undo false social expectations, by robbing those expectations of their power.Maybe we need some over-correction before we can handle the truth. I dunno.
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More complex worlds?
Are you suggesting that IQ scores are culturally sensitive?
Why yes, yes you are. You are suggesting that the change in culture over the last 60 years accounts for the huge change in test scores. Mind you, no one knows how to measure that culture, or explain why it is different (Flynn noted, with suitable irony, that TV was advanced as a possible explanation - despite its routinely being derided as the "idiot box" by virtually the same people who now wanted to make it the source of increased IQ scores).
And yet, despite recognizing that culture has massive effects, and despite recognizing that we do not know what it is about culture that has the effect or how to measure it... you are going to measure a sub-culture and claim you've corrected for the effect no one else can explain in white culture.
This is called "an act of faith."
Ask the people who set those records why they are different, and they can tell you. In very definitive ways. They know exactly why Olympic records have changed.
Your analogy does not hold. That you would even advance it shows you are not serious. Like all woos, you resort to misdirection and strawmen when it becomes obvious you have no actual logic or evidence.
bpesta22
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I'm not suggesting the cultural explanation, flynn is, that's why I said it was flynn who suggested it, and not me.
I don't know what causes the flynn effect; I don't think there is a consensus on what causes it.
I'd think explanations appealing to prenatal nutrition would be more compelling than cultural ones, but that's just me.
I also think my analogy holds for the point I intended to make: Just because what you're measuring changes, doesn't mean you should replace the stop watch.
If that makes me a woo, so be it. But I am ready and willing to have my worldview shattered and admit to all reading this that my thoughts on IQ and g are wrong, if only some one would show me the proper data.
Got any?
Just to help the casual reader:
Which of us takes Race as social construct? Who derives traits from Race?
And once answered, what evidence of which type will support or deny.
At this point it seems like a debate between 2 posters. I honestly can't contribute anything now. Nature v. Nurture is an old question, almost like Michigan v Ohio State.
Which of us takes Race as social construct? Who derives traits from Race?
And once answered, what evidence of which type will support or deny.
At this point it seems like a debate between 2 posters. I honestly can't contribute anything now. Nature v. Nurture is an old question, almost like Michigan v Ohio State.
Then how can you justify ignoring it?
If there is no consensus on why pschyometrics are off by 30%, then doesn't it strike you as unjustifiable to even discuss measurements that are less than 30%?
Do you know why sports competitions trust the accuracy of their stop-watch? Because the stop-watch has been validated elsewhere.
Where has the IQ test been validated, other than in the very place it is being used?
How can you not understand that sports takes a metric from a different field, while psychology's metrics are all self-referential?
You cannot compare stop-watches to IQ tests. Doing so is utterly invalid, since it assumes the IQ test can be validated in the same way a stop-watch can. This is false.
It makes you a particularly odious kind of woo.
You have been shown the proper data. Namely, the absence of proper data.
This is like someone demanding textual documents from the ancient world to prove that the Bible is false. "Where's the data that proves Jesus didn't walk on the water? We've got first-hand accounts - where are your first-hand accounts it didn't happen?"
As I said in the beginning, this is theology.
This argument is not over Nature v. Nurture. This argument is about the feasiblity of measuring fine distinctions of 10% or less after conclusively proving that your ruler is only accurate to 30%.
This argument is about drawing conclusions from inadequate data.
That is all this argument is about.
When you capitialize it like that, it means the social theory of race, which is a social construct.
The scientific theory of genetic sub-populations is not the social theory of race, any more than archeaology is the study of Biblical Exegises. While the two may have areas of overlap, the similiarties are only superficial.
The same type of evidence that supports or denies in any other case.
bpesta22
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Yahzi, I wouldn't mind continuing the debate but I have no idea where to begin.
I see several lines of attack re your last post, but it seems to me we've been over this a few times already.
That said, I'm wondering if anyone else is reading this thread, and would be interested in hearing my counter to Yahzi's last post re the Flynn effect, the validity of IQ tests, and / or whether I am a woo and this is theology.
If you are indeed a poor sap who has read this far, what seems like it still needs explaining?
TIA
I see several lines of attack re your last post, but it seems to me we've been over this a few times already.
That said, I'm wondering if anyone else is reading this thread, and would be interested in hearing my counter to Yahzi's last post re the Flynn effect, the validity of IQ tests, and / or whether I am a woo and this is theology.
If you are indeed a poor sap who has read this far, what seems like it still needs explaining?
TIA