One possible way to end Affirmative Action?

There is alot of controversy surronding the bell curve, there are biasis in testing, especialy IQ testing.

So what was this thread about , oh yeah affirmative action. Wether people want to talk about it racism does exist, there is the 'redlining' phenomena where wihite and blacks are set different standards for buying houses.

I agree that AA is not the best solution but why are people in denial of the crap that does occur in the 'back room'. Seriously , in most cases the job hiring decision is made before the applicants are even interviewed and who you know counts for more than what you know.

So is economic status the only consideration for AA?
 
David James, this debate is not about the BELL CURVE. I have seen all the half-ass, panicked rebuttals of the BELL CURVE. The fact is, many of the statitics in that book are so god damn clear that no human being alive could refute them. NO ONE. Even the critics pick and choose a few points to try to discredit the whole book, but numbers are numbers.

Anyway, there is no "proof" at all being offered here to show that race is not a factor in human intelligence, so all the blanket statements saying race "couldn't possibly" be a factor need to be backed up, or seen as what they are -- wishful thinking.

I know it's not popular to say things like this, just as the English skeptic in James Randi's column this week discussed . But I can't stand seeing flat out falsehoods being accepted at face value simply because they fall in line with PC thinking.
 
"this debate is not about the BELL CURVE"

True and it was going along guite nicely until YOU referenced it to support your beliefs. At that point, it becomes open for discussion as a viable source of information.

So if you want to retract YOUR use of the Bell Curve to support your claims, then you will not need address it anymore.
 
David, people like Malachi151 are making pronouncements that intelligence differences between racial groups could not possibly have anything to do with why certain races do better than others in school. To make statements like that in support of government-funded discrimination policies (AA), he needs to back them up.
 
I think that there is good eveidence that if you come from a white middle calss familt then you will do well on an IQ test, the question is if the test is

1. Culturaly biased towards ethic europeans of the middle calss?
2. Do IQ tests reall mean anything?

If IQ tests were really good at determininbg who would make a good employee then I am sure most employers would use them. The problems with the genetics of race is that there is more divergence inside 'races' than between 'races.

GP, you are getting very good at this, you are making more points, I comend your more rational and less emotional approach.

(YOUR still wrong, nyah,nayh,nayh,naysh. WINK)

Where does this go with affirmative action?
 
Genghis Pwn said:
David, people like Malachi151 are making pronouncements that intelligence differences between racial groups could not possibly have anything to do with why certain races do better than others in school. To make statements like that in support of government-funded discrimination policies (AA), he needs to back them up.
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I never said that, I specifically left that open as a possibility.

Furthermore, intelligence is not the only factor in doing well in school or work. In fact many intelligent people don't do well in school. Einstein did poorly in school, I was a C student in highschool and college, yet have an IQ in the 140s, while people with IQs in the 100 range make all As and Bs.

To say that genetics is the sole reason and that enviroment makes no difference though is to total cast out mountians of obvious data.

Its up to you to show that improvements in enviroment will have no positive effect of success or achievement.
 
Genghis Pwn said:

Lol, the ad hom "racist" attacks commence simply because I offered a skeptical view of people who made blanket statements saying intelligence couldn't possibly be a factor in why different races perform differently in school.
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No, that's not what happened. First, you're not exactly showing any "skepticism" about your sources. Second, your "... intellegence ... factor" statement is a straw man, and finally, it's not ad-hom if it's true.

Stop dodging.

You asserted a position from the "Bell Curve".

So, address the criticisms or be known to have no support and no skeptical enquiry about your own sources.
 
Genghis Pwn said:
David James, this debate is not about the BELL CURVE.

It wasn't until you raised that nasty bit of trash.
I have seen all the half-ass, panicked rebuttals of the BELL CURVE.

Really? Have you seen the serious, telling, obvious ones that utterly destroy any idea that the book might have meaning?

Or did you ignore those?

The fact is, many of the statitics in that book are so god damn clear that no human being alive could refute them.

Ok, now we see your agenda showing. They have been refuted over and over. Furthermore, even the BEST results that the book shows are limited and questionable, and account for 25% of the variance in the data. That's really a pretty lame trend when you get down to it.

So what's to refute? A 25% trend that is only that if one accepts the idea that IQ tests measure anything beyond the ability to take IQ tests.

NO ONE. Even the critics pick and choose a few points to try to discredit the whole book, but numbers are numbers.
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And the numbers are clear. There's nothing much, if anything, to the whole point of the book.

Now, understand I am not saying that there are not genetic tendencies in any given individual, it's obvious that there are. What is also obvious is that the assertions about races just don't hold up to any serious examination.
 
Genghis Pwn said:
Lol at people who pretend it's impossible that blacks are intellectually inferior. The BELL CURVE seemed pretty straightforward and clear to me when I read it.

I guess you can completely rule it out, even though you have no facts or evidence.
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That American blacks in general are the intellectual inferiors of American white people in general is obvious. The question is whether this is due to genetic causes or environmental causes.
 
JAR said:

That American blacks in general are the intellectual inferiors of American white people in general is obvious. The question is whether this is due to genetic causes or environmental causes.
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Jar, I'm sure both are factors.

Anyway, a good replacement for Racial AA is Socioeconimic AA. I hope the debate will begin to focus on what comes next. Using race to pit one part of America against another cannot be justified.
 
JAR said:

That American blacks in general are the intellectual inferiors of American white people in general is obvious. The question is whether this is due to genetic causes or environmental causes.
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Obvious to whom? I know black people, do you ? How do you define 'intellectualy', lets see, most black I know are better story tellers than white folks, they seem to have a higher understanding of the complex interedependant nature of reality and they seem to have better social skills. I could say something like 'most red necks are very shallow and intellectualy challenged' but it doesn't make it so.
Telling point, I scored two perfect scores on the ACT, rated 97% on the PSAT, I didn't learn to read til third grade , didn't learn to spell until I was twenty five. I still have the most horrible cursive handwriting.So am I stupid, or do I have strenths and deficits?
I have better intellectual capacity than most stupid people I know.
 
Dancing David said:


Obvious to whom? I know black people, do you ? How do you define 'intellectualy', lets see, most black I know are better story tellers than white folks, they seem to have a higher understanding of the complex interedependant nature of reality and they seem to have better social skills. I could say something like 'most red necks are very shallow and intellectualy challenged' but it doesn't make it so.
Telling point, I scored two perfect scores on the ACT, rated 97% on the PSAT, I didn't learn to read til third grade , didn't learn to spell until I was twenty five. I still have the most horrible cursive handwriting.So am I stupid, or do I have strenths and deficits?
I have better intellectual capacity than most stupid people I know.
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A bunch of anecdotal BS and fuzzy feel-good speak. :rolleyes:
 
Dancing David said:
Obvious to whom? I know black people, do you ? How do you define 'intellectualy', lets see, most black I know are better story tellers than white folks, they seem to have a higher understanding of the complex interedependant nature of reality and they seem to have better social skills. I could say something like 'most red necks are very shallow and intellectualy challenged' but it doesn't make it so.
Telling point, I scored two perfect scores on the ACT, rated 97% on the PSAT, I didn't learn to read til third grade , didn't learn to spell until I was twenty five. I still have the most horrible cursive handwriting.So am I stupid, or do I have strenths and deficits?
I have better intellectual capacity than most stupid people I know.
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You bet I know black people. I live next door to black people and the people who live across the street from me are black people. I went to a middle school and a high school, both with more black people than white people. If you think they are intellectually superior than white people, I don't know what you're smokin'.
 
JAR said:

You bet I know black people. I live next door to black people and the people who live across the street from me are black people. I went to a middle school and a high school, both with more black people than white people. If you think they are intellectually superior than white people, I don't know what you're smokin'.
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My apology Dancing David. Perhaps white people aren't so smart after all. White people like you who love affirmative action so much are pure evidence that white people are a bunch of stupid shmucks.
 
jj said:


Well, Malachi, there are lots of people here who like to argue about the validity of the BullS**t Curve. I knew it would come up in this discussion sooner or later.

But for some reason, we never really see much addressing of prenatal care, education, etc, issues. A few people do bother to give lip service, and then proceed to claim that a few tests are completely unslanted socially, etc, and that they show that genetics is the primary determination... It gets tiresome, and the same people, when challenged, resort to simple, arrogant namecalling instead of addressing the issues.

(Which I suspect is because they can't, they don't show that race is what it's made out to be, they can't show that things like nutrition, prenatal care, etc, don't matter, and they don't want to take into account the economic implications. Given what has been demonstrated about early childhood development, making claims like "so you say it happens before year 2" and so on look like aggressive debating manouevers from someone who isn't interested in seeing the other side at all.)

Don't take me for one of them.
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JJ

These claims aren't true. I've always argued that the black white differences are neither due to environmental factors nor to test bias.

And, I've backed my claims by citing relevant peer reviewed literature at every step.

Plus, I don't think I did any name calling.

I'd just stop short in claiming the difference is genetic. I think the difference is real, we just don't know what causes it. And, if it is envionmental, it's escaped about 80 years of research on potential aspects of the environment that might cause the difference.

I think the error with AA is the assumption that education makes one smart.

It doesn't.

Smart people get educated.

Hence, accepting people into an academic program when the lack the cognitive ability to succeed in the program will always be doomed to failure.

On the other hand, I think AA in employment is reasonable. As outlined in Steelworkers V Weber, AA is ok if:

it's remedial (a disparity exists),

it's temporary (once the disparity is corrected, the plan ends)

It doesn't trammel the interests of whites (e.g., by saying no white person can get hired when the AA plan is in force).

Using race as a consideration in selection is ok, only as long as the candidates are otherwise qualified.

Letting unqualified blacks in (i.e., those that lack the cognitive ability to succeed, as evidenced by their test scores) is wrong on so many levels.

BTW, which issues do you want me to address with your claim that it's the solely the environment that's caused the black race to under achieve?

B
 
Genghis Pwn said:


A bunch of anecdotal BS and fuzzy feel-good speak. :rolleyes:
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Oh GP you let me down. whats the matter sprain your brain?

Define intelectual and then explain how IQ testing has anything to do with it.(IQ testing has nothing to do with anything other than IQ testing it is not shown to have a relative coorelation to anything)
 
jj said:

And the numbers are clear. There's nothing much, if anything, to the whole point of the book.

Now, understand I am not saying that there are not genetic tendencies in any given individual, it's obvious that there are. What is also obvious is that the assertions about races just don't hold up to any serious examination.
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JJ.

You could throw out the Bell Curve-- pretend it never existed-- and still make the same claims as it did using other data sets.

I think the quarrel isn't with their stats, methods or results. It's the conclusion that the differences are genetic that's shaky.

Other than that, I don't think scientists who publish in this area would consider the bell curve to be a piece of trash.

If you want trash, consider the mismeasure of man!
 
JAR said:

My apology Dancing David. Perhaps white people aren't so smart after all. White people like you who love affirmative action so much are pure evidence that white people are a bunch of stupid shmucks.
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I'm glad to know you know some black people, usually when people making sweeping generalizations it is based on ignorance. Could you explain how you came to the conclusion that black people are intellectualy inferior?

And where do you get off with the stuff about affirmative action, I have joined the socioeconomic AA bandwagon. Do I love afirmative action, perhaps I should start sneaking around having an affair. Please don't tell my wife.

Your conclusion that I love affirmative action is based on as much evidence that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites.

Gee I can't say that your any good at insulting people but that must be a sign that you have an overpowering intellect.
 
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