hammegk said:
I'm trying to gauge what level we should begin with. (Your final comments here do give me a much better idea, thanks.)
My last comment was provocation (see next remark). However, I will own up to drifting off during Experimental Design and Statistics lectures, particular during the subject of interquartile ranges, if that's any help.
omg is right. one is too many for me.
See--even across the pc/lib divide we can agree on some things. If it happens again I made need to step out the debate for a while...
Bring my evidence sounds good, but how? I will cite something, you will cite the alternative view -- in this subject you have a lot more citable ammo than I do. However more of this later.
What I decide is either a) stupidity or b) irrascable intractability will do it. Not much else.
Oh I've got tons of the latter, but I only introduce it when I suspect the other party of the same
Nope, in that data is scarce due in great part to the PC niceties; who would fund such a touchy study? Who would publish?
No it's not (and I hope you're not invoking the pc/lib conspiracy here?). Whilst the pc "bias" is that issues of race need to be treated with some degree of sensitivity, there's plenty of evidence out there that the DeGobineau classification (caucasian/mongoloid/negroid) does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. It's a
cultural construct, and needs to be addressed on that basis (and boy, there's
tons of work in that field!).
What I have is uncitable snippets -- a bit here on this tv show (discovery, tlc, etc), a bit there elsewhere in media that imply the racial grouping is as obvious from a given dna sample as is any information.
Sorry, but excuse me if I'm a little sceptical about
any evidence drawn from these sources; regardless of political bias, there's the simple bias of trying to fit a complex issue into the media format.
On environmental problems & statistics, what I have read -- maybe my understanding was subpar -- is that efforts to address these problems are integral to study design.
I have no comment to offer wrt your understanding; however essentially you are correct but the problem is always in how anti-bias strategies are implemented, how effective they are, and ultimately how rigorous the researcher is prepared to be.
To my own mind, the results would not necessarily be significantly skewed. The dna work would shed light on this effect.
Really?
You don't see the methodological problems with using a typology defines all blacks as anyone with any degree of sub-Saharan African ancestory, whereas all whites are people of European Caucasiod descent
regardless of any degree of sub-Saharan African ancestory? You'd consider this rigorous for research into genetic factors? Would this be an example of that irrascable intractability you mentioned earlier?
Thank you; I finally have some idea where you are coming from.
With agreement on those points, I will for the moment make some no-specific-source, snippet-based comments. Every effort over several decades now has been designed to find that nurture -- not nature -- is the key. Instead, the variance explained by genetics appears to have increased from initial 25%-40% estimates to near 80% today.
50-90% depending on country of origin of researchers, participants and and aspect of intelligence tested. From the same source
Any study that found nurture is the key would be trumpted by every media outlet in the world; i.e. ther is nothing to trumpet. This is borne out by the abject failure of Head-Start and the like; if any program had ever demonstrated tangible & lasting increases in IQ it would be world headlines. Rather, adult IQ edges closer & closer to being attributed 100% to genetics. Early IQ gains disappear with time.
I'll admit I don't know enough about Head-Start to offer any kind of informed opinion, except to state the obvious that a one-year intervention followed by a return to the environment the intervention was meant to address is not going to produce any stable gains. As for nurture vs. nature, genetics is the new sexy subject and nurture is just
so 1960s
I could further speculate on the ill effects of small-tribe genetics, which could address various 3rd world groups, and also mention wrt race today in the US, "it's a wise man who knows his father" -- older paternity testing was more an art than a science.
How many Afro-Americans (lineage negroid) remain for study in the 1st world? The dna work would be very interesting I'd think.
In terms of ancestory, certainly; but as we're all pretty much mongrels anyway, it's not really relevant to the issue at hand?
Do The Bell Curve analyses that were using lineage caucasoid cohorts bother you, or is it the "race card" in last couple of chapters?
The race card is kind of insulting, particularly as it's supported by spurious statistics (critique linked to previously), written by two authors with little to no experience in the area, with a very clear agenda which directs their work and funded by a rather--um--
questionable--group of people. Apart from that it's a typical political work; it's just not science.
