John Derbyshire’s own personal Turner Diaries for Kids that ABL commented on the other day has, thankfully, brought out a lot of heat. But unfortunately, a lot of these pieces operate under the assumption that there is something more pernicious or racist about Derbyshire’s version of “race realism” than any other kind you might find. That’s not true. It’s never been true. And the consistent attempts to act as if there is a more responsible version of race science are, to me, just as scandalous.
I wrote about this subject at length the last time that Andrew Sullivan started up the Bell Curve controversy. (Sully getting that argument going is like Opening Day or the sighting of the first robin of spring; it’s that cyclical and predictable.) Sullivan, having naturally upset Ta-Nehisi Coates by again showing sympathy for a patently racist text, complained that “No one is arguing that ‘that black people are dumber than white,’ just that the distribution of IQ is slightly different among different racial populations.” No one is arguing that? That’s exactly what the Bell Curve is arguing! The Bell Curve says that IQ is an effective metric for designating intelligence, that our tests for them are accurate, and that the average black American is more than a standard deviation below the average white American in IQ. That is not in any way, shape, or form a slight difference. Sullivan says this stuff about the Bell Curve constantly, and it’s always wrong. I genuinely wonder if he has read it in the last decade.
Some people are expressing incredulity that Derbyshire has not yet been fired. But why? William Saletan still has a career. And his series of essays endorsing race science used the exact same research that the grimier, Stormfront-reading wing of the racist Internet references time and again. Elspeth Reeve’s piece in the Atlantic attacking Derbyshire plays this same game. Reeve claims “Derbyshire doesn’t say that black people, especially women, are pathetically stupid people….” Yes! Yes he does! Here’s Derbyshire:
The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”
That is precisely saying that black people are pathetically stupid people. It is so aggravating that journalists, under the guise of attacking race science, repeat this canard that there is somehow a more responsible, less racist version of race science. I can only conclude that 1) most journalists are so put out by elementary social scientific terminology that they assume any argument expressed in that terminology is somehow responsible and 2) most journalists arguing against race science don’t bother to read the research they claim to be debunking. Dave Weigel says “He might have done permanent damage to the whole “human biodiversity” project.” But what he is saying is perfectly typical of that movement! Why should it be more damaging for him to express it here? Race science types claim, for example, that sub-Saharan Africans have a mean IQ two standard deviations below the average– in other words, closer to those with Down Syndrome than to white Americans. Who cares how that opinion is expressed? What is racist is the content of the argument, not the idiom in which it is expressed. Weigel’s piece and so many like it demonstrate a fundamental problem with how we talk about race today: acting as if it the problem is expressing yourself in an inflammatory way, rather than expressing racist ideas.
If we’re going to make progress and move beyond the John Derbyshires of the world, we have to stop pretending that there is some difference between what Derbyshire wrote and books like the Bell Curve. And we have to insist on honesty from those who talk about these issues. Weigel makes hay out of the fact that Taki Mag is a fringe publication. But Slate is not a fringe publication. The New Republic is not a fringe publication. Mainstream publications dip their toes in these waters all the time. Well, that’s freedom of speech for you. They’re entitled to. But we have to call them out on it. John Derbyshire’s post was absolutely banal, boilerplate race science, of the Charles Murray variety. Call this bullshit out when you see it: if somebody acts like there’s a nicer version of race science, tell them to get real and decide if they think that black people are stupid or not. Otherwise, we’ll never achieve change. Getting John Derbyshire fired is not enough.
kindness
The Right is doing everything it can to generate gut wrenching issues for the November elections. That’s what motivates conservatives more than liberals, the emotional component. It allows you to abandon reason.
God knows as well as the right that their candidates aren’t gonna motivate anyone.
MattF
Well, thank you. Of course it’s racism, as in ‘race’-‘ism’. And, of course, the conventional early 20th century wisdom that the Yiddish-speaking hordes on the Lower East Side were intellectually deficient was also racism. I’ll stop here, ’cause I see the Cliffs of Godwin nearby.
goethean
This is what gets me: what is the proposed legitimate use of these studies? Why are we having this debate as part of our national conversation? Apart from the obvious, why is a significant portion of the population emotionally invested in saying that black people are inferior to whites? What legitimate question does The Bell Curve supposedly answer?
WJS
Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times that.
There is no such thing as “race” because we are the human species. We are one goddamned species. Fuck these people and their insanity.
Baud
I could see a legitimate scientific inquiry into whether poverty, malnutrition, oppression, discrimination, etc., adversely affect cognitive development in the formative stages of a child’s life, and whether certain demographic groups may be more susceptible to these conditions.
What’s offensive is the suggestion that an intelligence test can inform us as to a genetic predisposition to intelligence. These people are really no different from “creation scientists” who come up with scientific-sounding but vacuous arguments against evolution.
goethean
Okay, I think I understand. From the wikiarticle on the Bell Curve, it sounds like it was hinting that social Darwinistic policies are okay because blacks are stupid and designed to serve white rich people, and they’ll never get a leg up in society anyways. Makes sense.
The Ancient Randonneur
The next time one of these half-bright atavists (and I include Sully in this group) open a discussion about “race science” point them to this TED talk. I realize mathematics is beyond the intellectual reach of Sullivan, and a good portion of the right wing mouth breathers, but this video should be the start of any discussion of “race science”.
Peregrinus
As a semi-expat (born in San Juan, moved up here for college), I really appreciate the openness a lot of Americans have in talking about real, systemic problems. This kind of thing would never get brought up back home.
I say this because, to me, it both increases the value of commentators who are willing to call out bullshit like Derbyshire’s, and decreases the value of commentators who aren’t willing to do the same. What annoys me the most about Dave Weigel’s “much ado about nothing” schtick is that, presumably, Derbyshire’s form of expression was just objectionable enough to keep him from being able to express it on a wider platform. I wish that were a sign of progress, rather than a sign of a lot of network executives and newspaper editors saying “we probably shouldn’t publish this because it’ll inflame tensions.”
I also say this because I think you nailed it when you said that there’s a hidden “code of respectability” – the idea that, as long as you’re not overtly racist, it’s fine to still say racist stuff. As an educator, things like The Bell Curve or pretty much anything that has ever come out of Charles Murray’s mouth make my blood boil.
Linda Featheringill
What are you talking about? The bell curve is simply the truth. Tell me, have you ever seen a stupid white dude? Well, have you?
Baud
For those who like Steve Benan, he just put up a post on the Derbyshire article.
beltane
Up until 500 years ago or so, northern Europe was widely considered to be el Culo del Mundo by the inhabitants of the civilized world, a godforsaken place peopled by filthy, smelly, illiterate savages who were only just barely removed from the days of human sacrifice and cannibalism. This is something I always keep in mind when reading the ravings of white supremacists.
Ash Can
Really? They are?
Exactly. Why would anyone all of a sudden call for this schmuck to be fired, when this shit has been spewed by him and other prominent racist assholes constantly, and for years?
Egg Berry
@goethean:
How do I sell books to racists who want to think they’re “scientific”?
Peregrinus
@Egg Berry:
Also, how do I justify continuing to reduce public spending on education for low-income and minority children?
JPL
@Linda Featheringill: Besides the author of the article, Derbyshire, well yes I do. Red State blog lets them comment there.
Peregrinus
@beltane:
Tee-hee. You said culo.
It must be added that my Castilian ancestors continued to consider the Nordics rather barbaric, but eventually it changed from being their pagan origins to their adoption of Lutheranism. :P
ChrisNYC
I don’t see why there’s a need to choose. I thought a lot last night about whether Derbyshire’s piece was actually perversely helpful — the baldness, the brutality of it, showing what’s the real deal behind the sugarcoated version. But, the other part is that brutal, demeaning, belittling, humanity-denying rhetoric does hurt people, specifically, its targets. Here, the individual black people who read that crap. That happens separate and apart from the intellectualized consideration of the race discussion, actual racism in our culture, veiled racism, etc etc.
dan
Ummm, it’s not really just the IQ stuff. It’s the inherently evil, violent, drugged out, dangerous rapist kind of stuff.
HRA
If I have learned anything in this life, it is that those who point fingers and make spurious statements about others are themselves lacking in what they promote is lacking in others.
It has surprised me too many times to not make note of it whenever anyone spews this rubbish. Where once I would not engage in correcting anyone, now I give the example of their own same ownership. As my father once said, “let me lie down so you can run over me”.
cromagnon
I think the Derb is a complete moron, obviously he is the ‘1’ out 6 whites who are dumb shits, but I don’t get this incessant need to get people fired over shit they say. That’s the game the right-wing lunatics always play. Why go there?
I agree with the Lizard guy (aka Charles Johnson)… the best way to expose these people is to give them an open forum to spout their bile. Then everyone can see them for what they really are
giltay
@goethean: The question The Bell Curve is trying to answer is, “Why do black/brown/Jewish/etc. people do so much worse than whites in this society?” There are two popular answers to this: 1) that US society is racist, and is somehow oppressing—intentionally or not—nonwhites; and 2) that nonwhites are somehow inferior.
This is a question with profound consequences. If nonwhites are found to be mentally inferior, well, then there’s not much point in spending lots of money educating them. You just need to get them to a point where they can
pick cottonfunction at a basic level, and use the rest of the money to educate much more capable, white people.However, if there is little or no difference between races, then it is clear that we as a society are punishing good people for no reason, that money should be directed to nonwhites’ education to level the odds in order that they can succeed, and make the country a better place for all people.
It’s a legitimate question, with an important answer. Which was discovered decades ago: there is no significant difference in mental capacity among the races that cannot be attributed to poverty, diet, education, plus all the little privileges white people take for granted. Publications such as The Bell Curve are behind the times, and in a way that can only suggest that the authors are themselves too racist to see the problem.
cmorenc
The native intelligence of blacks is certainly no lower than for other ethnic groups, particularly Caucasians, but so far as it goes, there are cultural, social, and economic factors which result in lower statistical performance on the particular sorts of things current standard versions of I.Q. tests measure. Query how the test comparisons would come out if socioeconomic factors were normalized, i.e. children of upper-middle class blacks compared with children of upper-middle class whites, etc. I’m willing to bet that the statistical gap would disappear.
Peregrinus
@giltay:
I don’t think they’re so much “behind the times” as trying to sidestep all the science that has proven them wrong by bringing what (they think) proves them right to a wider audience.
Jennifer
Well, no, but it’s a good start.
WyldPirate
@WJS:
This is an idiotic statement. Different populations of the same species have quantifiable differences in all manner of characteristics as do different age groups and the sexes of the same species.
Some of you people act like the wingnuts who want to shout and scream that global warming doesn’t exist and anthropomoric activities cannot alter the environment because they just don’t like the potential implications of the data’s interpretation.
Jennifer
BTW, Derbyshire’s pals at NRO have been all over the twitter-twat trying to distance themselves from this. Pantload said something to the effect of “I wish he hadn’t written this,” which I took to mean “I’ve known forever that this is what he truly believes and had no problem with it but he should have known better than to write it down and let everyone know that this is what he believes.”
Baud
@cmorenc:
IIRC, the Bell Curve anticipated that argument and claimed to account for that. That doesn’t mean their results are scientifically valid, just that the authors weren’t so stupid as to ignore that possibility in their writings.
Villago Delenda Est
You’d think that Trading Places would have long ago dispelled the notion that there is any “science” behind the concept of race. Because in the end, that movie shows that it’s bigotry, pure and simple, not based on any objective reality at all.
PurpleGirl
@Linda Featheringill: Your snark is great today.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est: Nice!
Villago Delenda Est
@WyldPirate:
Ah, the racist shitstain opines in.
beltane
@Jennifer: Honestly, I prefer the John Derbyshires of the world to weasels such as Jonah Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan. The only thing worse than a white supremacist is a genteel white supremacist.
Craig
@Baud:
They’re full of shit. Controlling for socioeconomic factors eliminates the race gap in IQ tests, standardized academic testing, and academic achievement.
One of the most striking examples is that of Jewish army conscripts who were tested during World War I, and the test results of Jewish-Americans today. It turns out that getting the equivalent of a grade-school education in a poverty-stricken shtetl does not prepare you for IQ tests as thoroughly as being born into a wealthy-well-educated middle class.
Mark S.
Does Samara have the day off? This is her favorite subject in the world. I was expecting 29 of the comments so far to be by her.
WyldPirate
@giltay:
There is plenty of data showing a disconnect between per pupil spending and outcomes just as there is a disconnect between money spent on healthcare and health outcomes. The US spends a lot on both and it is trailing other countries miserably in both.
Baud
@Jennifer:
The first rule of Racist Club is: you do not talk about Racist Club.
The second rule of Racist Club is: you do not talk about Racist Club.
Culture of Truth
Define “fringe”
dj spellchecka
the la times has a piece on what local african american parents mean when they speak about giving “the talk”
Parents say some version of the conversation, ubiquitous in African American life, is necessary regardless of how high they climb on the socioeconomic ladder. It is about learning to say “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” when a policeman pulls you over, no matter how unjustified the stop seems. It is about keeping your hands on the steering wheel and giving officers no cause for panic. It is about swallowing your anger and pride and coming home alive.
Luke Walker said that when his grandson, now 20, was learning to drive a few years ago, he started hammering home certain realities about dealing with police.
“I tell him one of the worst things to do is be belligerent with police,” Walker said. “Whether you’re right or not.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-black-youth-20120407,0,3935542.story?track=lat-email-topofthetimes-April72012
Jennifer
Something else that occurs to me….people who aren’t insecure about their own intelligence etc would not feel the need to try to prove that statistics show that they are probably smarter than most people of X race. I know I’ve never spent any time thinking about even the possibility that some racial groups are more intelligent than others and it’s probably down to two factors: one, I’m not a racist shitstain and two, which may in part be the basis for one – I don’t feel inferior in terms of intelligence. By the bullshit IQ test measure I know that I’m not, in that narrow regard, inferior to much of anyone. At the same time I recognize that there are multitudes of people smarter than I am in a multitude of ways but being assured that I’m no slouch, that doesn’t bother me.
I think this type of thing only really find purchase with people who really want to believe that they are intellectually superior, when in fact, they are only just smart enough to fear that they actually are not.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
The “fringe” publications are loud and proud about their overt racism. See our Stormfront friends. Ron Paul is their friend, but can’t be too loud about it, because he is trying to defringify his own racist, homophobic, and neofeudal positions.
WyldPirate
@Villago Delenda Est:
Fuck you asshole. What I said above is the goddamned truth.
Now run along and go find a pile of dogshit to munch on.
Villago Delenda Est
@WyldPirate:
The racist shitstain responds as one would expect. It is not truth. It is a racist lie.
We learned how to deal with assholes like you in World War II.
JGabriel
__
__
Culture of Truth:
__
I don’t have a definition for “fringe” in this context, but it’s should be safe to say that any publication which has served as a training ground for eventual NY Times writers, as Slate and TNR both have, is probably not fringe.
.
Silver
@dj spellchecka:
Malcolm X pointed out that’s black man with a PhD was still just a nigger.
If you want the ultimate example of that, look to the Kenyan anti-colonialist usurper in “our” White House right now.
beltane
@Craig: IQ tests are themselves hardly neutral in the way that a test to determine blood-type is neutral. Who could ever imagine that tests designed by the Aryan upper class for the benefit of the Aryan upper class would be biased in any way (although these tests always use the alphabet taken from Mediterranean brown people, why is that).
Immigrants to the US used to be given IQ tests upon arrival at Ellis Island. The tests were, of course, in English and geared towards Nordics. Shockingly, southern and eastern Europeans did not do well on this tests and were categorically dismissed as “feebleminded”.
bemused
@Baud:
Benen pointed out Rush, Coulter and Beck reaching breaking points. Now this creep. I won’t be surprised if more of these vile creatures put themselves in the zone of the so obviously bigoted even the other bigots have to reluctantly respond. They can’t resist letting their hate flags fly.
Ash Can
@cromagnon: It’s up to the publication to decide whether or not it wants someone like Derbyshire being, essentially, the face it presents to the public. Derbyshire would be free to continue writing for someone else, or on his own, if NRO were to fire him, so BFD. However, this is NRO we’re talking about, which has published crap like this constantly for years. It’s foolish to think that NRO would suddenly find principles and fire someone for essentially promoting what has always been NRO’s basic mission.
Joel
People like Derbyshire lean on crap like race science to cover for their own weaknesses. The guy is seven levels of pathetic. He’s not even a cold-blooded sociopath of the Murray variety.
Wonkie
About a decade ago I took an Educational Psychology class. The instructor discussed The Bell Curve with the class. (I haven’t read it myself.)
This is what he said: research shows that African-Americans, Caucasian Americans and Asian Americans have different bell curves. Asians are higer, C’s in the middle, and AA’s lowest. However the curves only differ by a few points which means the overlap area betweent the three overwhelms by far the differences. Also the differences are within the margin of error, rendering them meaningless. And lastly, generalities do not apply to individuals.
IF that’s what the Bell Curve actually says, then there is no fuel there for racism. Has anyone actually read it? I remember seeing the book once and it looked huge and boring so I passed.
WJS
@WyldPirate:
Yes, but the data all turns out to be bullshit.
MariedeGournay
@The Ancient Randonneur: That blew my mind.
beltane
And just on cue, we have a shooting spree in Tulsa, OK involving a white man in a pick-up truck and several blah victims http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/07/1081464/-BREAKING-Shootings-in-Tulsa
Question: If white Americans are so inherently superior, why do they need violence and an utterly rigged legal and educational system to stay at the pinnacle of society?
Mark S.
Taki Magazine.
Shawn in ShowMe
Looking at race for an indicator of mental superiority is the ultimate bridge to nowhere. Whatever race has possessed the superior instruments of war has dominated the social hierarchy. So until China establishes military supremacy in space or South Korea builds a cyberspace unit to take down U.S. weapons systems or the world runs out of the oil the U.S. needs to fuel the armed services, the white supremacist power structure will be around.
When the West loses its title as the masters of war, our new overlords can claim genetic superiority and future Balloon Juicers will mock them. It is the way of things.
Joel
Legitimate scientists have definitely shown that there are (were) distinct human populations with identifiable genetic markers. But those markers don’t actually mean anything with regards to intelligence, and they certainly became less prominent once Europeans started fanning across the world and interbreeding with everyone. Note: the map dates to 1500.
Chyron HR
@WyldPirate:
Ah, back to coprophilia. How utterly un-surprising.
JGabriel
If you go to the National Review website, right now the front page features as the lead a photo of Obama, our first black president, with the single word “Contemptuous” in big bold letters above it.
This despite the criticism National Review is receiving over Derbyshire’s TakiMag post.
So why would anyone think they would fire Derbyshire?
.
GregB
Give Derbyshire a break, he hasn’t been the same since he found out that Tom Metzger might be getting thrown in jail.
It has effected his writing.
Ruviana
@Wonkie: If I remember correctly, Murray and Herrnstein used not exactly IQ data but an aptitude test given by the Army. There’s an enormous critical literature in the social sciences about the book’s flawed methodology.
beltane
@Joel: And we would be amiss in failing to mention that African-Americans share many of these genetic markers with white Americans as they are, on average, 20% white. Perhaps it was the inflow of white slave-owner genes that contaminated the gene pool.
MikeJ
Personally I’m more interested in why the blues could barely beat a bunch of Wigans. And sorry Torres, too little, too late. Most overpriced mumble mumble. Grr.
samara morgan
freddie, you ignorant slut.
there is no “bell curve controversy”. its all manufactured poutrage.
the SCIENTIFIC truth is that within group variation in IQ is significantly greater than between group variation in IQ. This is true for gender, political affiliation, and race.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Heh. Go Nucks.
PanurgeATL
@WyldPirate:
Yeah, race exists, but how far does it go? It’s really “family” writ really large, and it only describes what’s happened so far, not what might happen in the future.
Egg Berry
IIRC, genetic research showed we all descended from africans, so, yeah, not so much.
samara morgan
@Mark S.: my current favorite subject is Mooney’s new book. The Bell Curve is a 17 year old book by a political “scientist.”
its no longer relevant imho except as a tribal shibboleth for juicers and other bioluddite dinosaurs.
we have learned a lot OF SCIENCE in the last 17 years.
;)
Jewish Steel
I think you nailed it on 1).
Karl Zimmerman
I frequently read Balloon Juice on RSS, but don’t comment here. I read and comment on the Discover Blog Gene Expression. Razib Khan is a former member of the “Human Biodiversity” crowd, and several commentera (including the odious, infamous Steve Sailer) still identify with this movement.
Regardless, let me give a bit more of a nuanced view here.
1. A lot of the supporters of “human biodiversity” seem to be racist cranks, like Derbyshire, Murray, and Sailer.
2. That doesn’t mean they must be 100% wrong. To argue they are is ad hominem.
I’m a skeptic that the variations intelligence tests show between human populations are mostly genetic, the main reason being that no hypothesis has yet to be given which makes sense. Climate is often cited, for example, but Africa has a huge range of climates, some far harsher than Europe. Civilization selecting for intelligence is also often suggested, but Ethiopia has been civilized far longer than half of Europe, so this falls flat as well.
That said, from a scientific angle, there is zero reason the null hypothesis should be absolute equality of ability between all human populations. There are, after all, genetic variations which cause differences in height. Even though most height variance historically has been caused by poor nutrition, even in modern Europe there are still modest differences between the height between say Portugal and Denmark. It would not be unsurprising, similarly, if most variance in IQ between populations was historically due to environmental factors, but some subsection was due to genetics.
And when it comes down to it, while some of the evidence thrown together by Charles Murray and his ilk is selective and questionable, to the best of my knowledge there has been no oppositional research more rigorous. The counter research which has been done is sometimes called by the HBD community akin to Intelligent Design. There are similarities, in that both seek to demolish the credibility of the presenters, or the validity of the models (for example, attacking IQ tests themselves) more than actually engage with the data.
Ultimately, the whole HBD community makes the left, and a large portion of the right, feel icky because it challenges one of the core moral dogmas of modern U.S. culture, and would shake both our own personal, and societal, foundations to a great degree. It makes me feel profoundly icky as well. But just because something makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it must be wrong.
I personally would need a lot more conclusive data, as I said, to ever feel comfortable embracing such findings. Even if the bizarre fantasies of Derbyshire were true, going back to de-facto segregation would be terrible for the 1/6th of African Americans even he admits are above average, who would be grossly stereotyped by the new American paradigm. My hope is if genetic differences are ever discovered, they are small, and easily correctable through gene therapy and the like within the next few generations.
samara morgan
@Joel: murray, derbyshire, the NRO ppl, Levin, Malkin, etc, etc. are all organic conservatives.
Read The Republican Brain.
samara morgan
@Jennifer: really? hate-speech laws?
you wanna go there?
Porlock Junior
@cromagnon:
The weird and particularly ugly thing is that Derbyshire is not a complete moron. Not unless he got someone to ghost-write (under a powerful seal of secrecy) his book about the Riemann hypothesis, which seems to be considered a competent work among people who know that stuff.
He is worse than just stupid, as deliberate stupidity always is worse than the natural kind. There are some possible excuses for him, starting with his English heritage, with a different history and culture of racism from ours. (Sorry, and I’m a lifelong Anglophile, but I’m no more obliged to admire their particular forms of racism and of killing people over football games than I am to love Rush Limbaugh, American.) But could he take that excuse? Or would that make the shrunken cowering remnants of his brain and conscience finally rebel in a kamikaze attack on their oppressor?
General Stuck
All you have to do is read current articles by an assortment of wingnut pundits and bloggers, to see that Derbyshire simply took the prevailing right wing rhetoric concerning Obama, to a logical conclusion of Obama is a uppity tyrant dictator according to mainstream white republicans – so now what are you prepared to do (fellow white republicans) about our nigger problem?
There is a detached ominous tone to these writings, pathological in their utter lack of perspective and fact, that leaves an odor that reeks with revolt on a visceral level. Then we get neo nazis and now Tulsa crackers in pickup trucks spree killing black people at random.
They can’t beat Obama politically, so they are branding him a traitor that needs to go, one way or another.
WereBear
Situation unchanged since Galton.
Yutsano
@General Stuck:
That already happened. What do you think all the birfer nonsense was about? They just wanted to annoy everyone born in Hawai’i?
samara morgan
AMG.
srsly freddie?
you are a retard.
how is it possible that BJ has a firebagger emo-prog troll for a front pager, that advocates anti-free speech blockades over material he has zero grasp of.
definitely sully-bait.
;)
inkadu
@WyldPirate: I don’t know if you’re a troll, but I actually agree with you on this point.
It’s trivial to point out that some breeds of dog have different skills and temperaments. Nobody bats an eye when you say some dogs are good at tracking and others at herding others in sitting on laps and others at retrieving. You can calmly explain that some families have a tendency toward breast cancer, heart disease, or schizophrenia — and nobody sees anything wrong with that. But when there is even a whiff of breed (or race in the case of our favorite ape (and what is a race but a very large extended family?) people start stuffing envelopes with light-triggered explosives.
The problem, though, is that once you let that camel’s nose in the tent, you’re pretty much accepting “racism” as a scientific fact. Which, unfortunately, it most likely is. However, scientifically, we are nowhere near being able to tell who is “smart” (or even WTF that means or how to measure it) and there are so many confounding factors, that it will probably be quite some time before we can figure out what it really means. And when we do, we won’t even be able to tell much about somebody by looking at the color of their skin or the curl of their hair. Are the genes for X present in this individual, who, though he is “white”, only has a 10% inheritance from the part of Europe that X has been linked to? There are so many problems mixing the scientific idea of “race” (which is always a fuzzy concept where lines are arbitrarily drawn) with the social construction of “race” (which is comically oversimplified) that it would likely be societal disaster, even if the science is “responsible.” I think the most responsible science would have to ditch race altogether and get down to individual genes. But guess how you’d get a bead on those individual genes? By finding small populations who have abnormal traits (good or bad) and trying to figure out what genes they are related to. And, JESUS, even then, genes interact with other genes, so there may be several genes needed to create an effect and we probably won’t have a great idea of what that is, even if we know some small subpopulation of Sicily has abnormal hand strength (or whatever damn thing we’re looking at). In the meantime, the press would be running with, “Sicilians genetically better at hand mixing dough,” and bakeries would be discriminating against Mexicans for not having that genetic advantage… People as a whole aren’t good at evaluating complex information.
So maybe it’s true there is no responsible RACE science, per se, only responsible genetic science — and even that responsible science has very limited responsible application.
and yet the other thing is do we really want to live in Gattaca? Do we want to live in a society where we have a genetic predestination? How would we be anything more than an updated version of the caste system? That’s a philosophical and moral question, though, not a scientific one.
So, I don’t know if you’re the latest incarnation of Brick Oven Bill, but that’s my “yes and no” response on this issue.
Egg Berry
@Porlock Junior:
I’m sorry, you’re going to need evidence to back up that claim.
Jennifer
@samara morgan: Don’t know where you think you’re getting “hate speech laws” out of anything I’ve said. Which first off, was a bit of a joke, kind of like “what do you call a bus of lawyers going off a cliff?” and secondly, had nothing whatsoever to do with legislating anything. Though I have to say, I do think it would be generally a good thing for a democratic and pluralistic society if certain people weren’t highly paid to produce this kind of bilge. That doesn’t stop the bilge from being produced, but it would be helpful if it weren’t finanically rewarding.
The Pale Scot
Well my own completely unscientific survey of my middle aged peers has lead to believe that the whites around here in the Tampa area are morons compared to the pinkies, hands down.
I’m not going to give any anecdotes ’cause it’s to0 nice a day to be banging my head against the computer
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Even worse than that: Sullivan’s new thing is to openly (and somewhat smugly) declare that math is useless for most people.
__
This, from a man who makes statements like ‘the math demands it!’ and ‘we must open our minds to the science!’.
General Stuck
@Yutsano:
True, my point is that none of that has worked , and now we have top tier, or what passes as top tier republican thinkers and writers writing sociopathic racist screes, both coded and not coded, devoid of any self examination as a group (republicans). The tone has changed to more ominous, imo, and will only get more so as the goopers face defeat next election.
samara morgan
@inkadu:
But how do you avoid gattaca?
science progresses continuously.
conservatives have tried to suppress R&D before (eSCR), and to create their own experts (Discovery Institute), and conducted smear campaigns (global warming denialism)….but information wants to be free….now ballon-juice liberals want to suppress IQ research?
good luck with that.
if the US doesn’t do the research, someone will, some where.
to avoid gattaca we have to protect human genomes as a privacy concern, not deny the heritability of IQ.
we need to do a MUCH better job of privacy and security of citizen data.
or else.
samara morgan
@Jennifer: you are apparently joking about getting derbyshire fired for racist speech.
not funnie.
Porlock Junior
@dj spellchecka:
Thanks for bringing in, or back, the subject of The Talk. After all, that was D’s springboard for his entire witty commentary: The Talk for white kids.
Some of this thread, like others I’ve seen, is really too superficial, failing to try to plumb the depths of this guy’s real, no-kidding, evil. Too painful, perhaps, and maybe it’s better not to try.
samara morgan
@The Pale Scot: do you live in Dunedin, Highlander?
Jennifer
It’s a good thing Sully doesn’t allow comments.
Math is useless for most people? What a douche.
Familiarity with and the ability to mentally calculate with numbers, fractions, percentages, & etc is something most of us need to be able to do just for routine financial transactions. I want to buy X and it is on sale for 30% off. How much is the sale price? How much will it be with sales tax included? It’s the 16th of the month and I need to figure out how much I can afford to spend at the grocery store and still cover the 4 bills I have to pay before my next check.
And that’s without getting into the math needed for any of a variety of jobs – construction guys have to be able to measure, add & subtract measurements using a base of 16, 12, 8 & so on. Hair stylists have to mix color in a certain proportion. And so on and so forth.
Sully’s an idiot; all he reveals with that statement is that he sucks at math.
Egg Berry
Can we agree that IQ tests are not actual measures of intelligence?
Carlo
@WyldPirate:
@PanurgeATL:
No, race doesn’t exist. The quantifiable differences that can be found between populations, whether genetic or phenotypic, exist along a spectrum. The best predictor of genetic differentiation between subpopulations on a global scale is geographic distance, not race. (In other words, black and white subpopulations living in Europe are more genetically similar to each other than to black and white subpopulations in North America.)
The racial divisions that we create between groups of people are purely cultural artifacts, and have no scientific basis. For example, people tend to refer to Obama as black, when of course he’s biracial. That tendency is due to our cultural biases.
Jennifer
@samara morgan: That’s up to Derbyshire’s employers. If they are willing to accept the potential business implications of association with a stone racist, that’s their business. If they find certain consumers no longer interested in doing business with them thanks to their unsavory associations, well, that’s just the way things are, which is why most businesses are in the habit of disassociating themselves from people who are unsavory, though since to a certain extent racism IS the business that NRO is in, in their case it might not be much of an issue for them.
samara morgan
@inkadu:
interestingly dogs have twice as many chromosomes as humans. 86 chromosomes. that is why there is such huge dimorphism between dog breeds, and plus we have breeding dogs for different traits for thousands of years.
all humans pretty much look and act the same– all dog breeds don’t.
i think you can successfully argue that IQ doesn’t differ all that much between different demes of humans…. like size and shape.
;)
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Wonkie:
I did read it, back when it was first published, and there’s more to it than that. The book doesn’t just report the stats, it goes on to make policy suggestions based on the stats. Stuff like “See? Headstart programs for the inner city are a waste of money!” and “See? it’s ok to hire your smart friends’ kids because they’re more likely to be smart, too!”
__
Funny how they always managed to arrive at their foregone conclusions at the end.
Jennifer
@Egg Berry: IQ tests are measures of certain types of mental agility, such as pattern recognition, which do have implications on subjects’ math aptitude, analogy, which has implications for both verbal and logical aptitude, and so on. They don’t tell you how smart anyone is but rather how quick they are with recognizing patterns, drawing conclusions & etc.
samara morgan
@Jennifer: I’m against the moral scold police in principle. Derbyshire can say what he likes, as far as I’m concerned.
Why silence him?
The Derb aids our cause by alienating the dark-skinned organic conservatives that would otherwise vote republican.
samara morgan
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Charles Murray was on Stephen Colbert recently and he says you are lying, or mis-remembering.
OzoneR
@MattF:
Of course, and the Italians and the Irish were treated the same way, and the response is “but we didn’t ask for hand outs, we survived with hard work”
Another words, because we slept in hallways and shit in buckets, they should too.
samara morgan
@Carlo: pants on fire false. there are distinct genetic markers for different races.
we can have this discussion about IQ correlated with race, IQ correlated with sex, or IQ correlated with political affiliation.
In every case the within group variance is greater than the between group variance.
Dr. Lynn has done a lot of work with IQ correlated with nationality, and also with religiosity (not religion, please note).
same thing.
within group variance >> between group variance.
Carlo
A couple of points in Freddie’s post need unpacking. If IQ isn’t an effective measure of intelligence, then are all IQ tests and studies (irrespective of race) meaningless? I took an IQ test in high school and got a pretty high score; was my pride in that score misplaced? I’m asking sincerely here. From what I’ve observed, IQ test scores seem to correlate pretty well with both intelligence and academic success. (I can’t say the same for career success).
Second, what does Freddie mean by the “human biodiversity project.” Because to me that sounds like human population genetics (a perfectly respectable field), but he seems to be equating it with race science.
Porlock Junior
@Egg Berry:
Perhaps you might read the *second* sentence of my comment. If, after that, you are too lazy or incompetent to see whether my allusion to the book Prime Obsession is pure fabrication, I can give you a citation or two, and then you can demand a term paper proving that his book is not pure garbage.
Or I could resist feeding what would appear to be a rather silly troll; yeah, that could have value too.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@samara morgan:
Both of those statements were in the book.
__
ETA: A decent (Cliff Notes’ style) summary of the book can be found here. The claims against Headstart were in chapter 4, apparently.
Tehanu
@giltay:
FTFY
samara morgan
well, i have to cc Sully this post and explain why freddie is a retard.
ta for naow.
;)
RD
Not sure if serious.
Egg Berry
@Porlock Junior: okay. not a complete moron. Would you take 99 percent?
pseudonymous in nc
The examples offered by Freddie are all varieties of Sailerism, and that’s why he’s an especially insidious fucker.
The Sailer argument runs something along those lines: blacks and Hispanics are genetically dumb, and thus social policy ought to treat them like mental defectives, children or animals, and people who say otherwise are both deluding themselves and making things worse for the darkies. Now, Sailer will never explicitly put it in those terms, out of plausible deniability, but his racist sycophants, and unreconstructed bigots like Derbyshire, will do it for him.
WyldPirate
@WJS:
Perhaps in the case of The Bell Curve, but not in the context of what I originally said: that there are measurable differences in different populations of the same species. For someone to deny that suggests that they are either deeply mired in denial, scientifically ignorant or simply stupid.
I read The Bell curve shortly after it came out and read a lot of criticisms in the aftermath. There were many aspects to the criticism of the book, but IIRC one of the major criticisms was that the authors attributed much of the differences in intelligence to heritable genetic traits while ignoring the questions of “nurture” and post-partum developmental, sociological and environmental influences on the development of intelligence. At the time, I fell into the camp that they ignored to many of the extrinsic factors that can affect the development of intelligence and that their prescriptions for dealing with the low-IQ underclass was barbaric horseshit.
However, evidence over the years has emerged to perhaps give context to how extrinisic factors can affect development of characteristics in a heritable manner. Our genomes are complex and the expression patterns of different isoforms of genes can be changed both quantitatively and qualitatively due to things that happen to our parents at the genetic level prior to our birth, in utero and after birth. Animal models (and I think some human data) indicate that these modifications can be passed on to subsequent generations. While the field of epigenetics is in its infancy, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that the myrid factors individuals and populations of people face during the development of “intelligence” are influenced in a heritable manner.
Overall, I think Murray and his co-author were full of shit and that if we could control for all the factors influencing the development of intelligence we would see no difference between different “races”. Unless we are going to start treating humans like lab rats we are unlikely to be able to sort this out in an uncontoversial manner, though. I also think that there are different kinds of “intelligence” and that it would be a crime to adopt the changes that The Bell curve authors suggest to deal with those they describe as lacking intelligence. However, these things are independent of the fact that genetics can play a role in the development of intelligence.
samara morgan
@Carlo:
freddie is pandering to the juicitariat by ripping on the Bell Curve book, because he is trying to distract them from his last sawdust sawing post and the fact that he is a Jane-Hamsher level emo-prog firebagger who CANNOT IN GOOD CONSCIENCE VOTE FOR OBAMA.
IQ is a psycho-metric measure of intelligence, and right now its the industry standard.
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: quote please then? i do not think murray used your phrasing.
WyldPirate
@Chyron HR:
You can go fuck yourself as well, dickhead.
samara morgan
@RD: I’m serious.
@pseudonymous in nc: Sailer and Derbyshire are actually anglo-saxon nativists.
they want all immigration of the dark-skinned suppressed.
racist tropes just support their anti-immigration policies.
pseudonymous in nc
@Carlo:
IQ tests can be useful when applied very narrowly in a wider testing context; at worst, they’re crudely applied and actively harmful. This piece gives a summary of the problems from the perspective of psychologists, who have been seeking better testing models. A shitty driving test doesn’t predict whether you’re a good driver.
My suspicion about the spread of Sailerite neo-racism is that it’s yet another way to avoid discussing structural social inequality in the Calvinistic way that America does so well.
Carlo
@inkadu:
I see what you’re getting it, but I think this is a misconception. Dog breeds fall into distinct categories, with distinguishable genetic and phenotypic traits, because they’re bred that way (by definition). Human admixture is far more complex. A black person in Papua New Guinea may resemble another black person living in Africa based on the few phenotypic markers that are most obvious to us (most notably, skin color). But genetically, they’re nothing alike.
The tendency for certain diseases in certain families has even less to do with race. All it means is that a specific (set of) genetic marker(s) can be identified as having been inherited within those families – a genetic marker that is correlated with the incidence of a disease with a genetic etiology. That genetic marker doesn’t have to be the causal disease mutation, and it certainly doesn’t have to be restricted to one sub-population vs another.
In other words, that fact that there’s an indisputable (though complex) relationship between genotype and phenotype is no justification for claiming that genotypic and phenotypic differences across human populations divide humanity into discrete groups.
samara morgan
@WyldPirate: again ….SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD BOOK.
Boyd and Richardson didn’t publish until 2005.
The Origin and Evolution of Cultures
The four paths of inheritance– genetic, epigenetic, behavioral and symbolic.
behavioral and symbolic in inheritance are largely environmental, genetic and epigenetic are organic.
alicia-logic
Sullivan and Derbyshire should pay less attention to the work of Charles Murray and more to that of David Dunning and Justin Kruger.
Carlo
@pseudonymous in nc:
This is a relief. I’m a decent driver, but absolutely horrible at driving tests.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@samara morgan:
Headstart discussion starts on page 404. Mostly focused on how HS programs haven’t been shown to raise IQ scores (which was never their function in the first place). Money Quote on p 405:
samara morgan
@pseudonymous in nc:
fixt
Clime Acts
@Peregrinus:
I call bullshit. Seems to me the logical conclusion of a Bell Curve take on intelligence would be that society should spend MORE, not less in this area.
samara morgan
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: which is not at all what you said, right?
again, this is a SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD BOOK.
the Heckman Equation has entirely discredited the Bell Curve discussion of Headstart.
does ANYONE pay attention to the SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD BOOK anymore?
does anyone cite it in modern publications?
anyone except Ballon Juice that is.
Clime Acts
@giltay:
Ahem. You can’t say that, remember.
There are NO races!
Chyron HR
@WyldPirate:
Hey, I’m not saying you HAVE to be ashamed that many of your posts here are about people eating feces, I’m just saying that if you ARE ashamed of it (as you appear to be), you might want to try not talking about it for a change.
Or maybe not. Up to you.
Carlo
@WyldPirate:
Yes, there are measurable differences, but those differences exist along a spectrum, and don’t divide humanity into distinct categories. Some of those differences, like skin color, are far better explained by environmental factors, like exposure to UV, than by race or ancestry.
Clime Acts
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s awesome how you use carefully reasoned logic and dispassionate quotations of the results of scientific inquiry to counter WP’s point.
Clime Acts
@Jennifer:
Love how you use the bullshit IQ test measure to not so subtly imply that your more intelligent than most people.
lolz
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@samara morgan:
What I said:
What the book said, SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO:
.
I’m frankly surprised I remembered it as closely as I did, from a casual reading SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO.
__
I have zero interest in defending the book, BTW, to me it’s a classic case of statistics abuse, and a good argument for why more laypeople need to be educated in stats and analysis, if only to inoculate themselves.
__
So I’m trying to figure out what your actual goal/point/agenda is here.
WyldPirate
@Karl Zimmerman:
Unfortunately, this is all a large contingent of BJ are capable of.
Good post as well. You should unlurk more often.
BrianK
The Village’s favorite “reasonable Republican”, Mitch Daniels, cites Charles Murray as his favorite author and always promotes Murray’s books on his annual Christmas books list.
Ethan
It seems to me that Weigel was saying that it was a good thing that this would do permanent damage to the “human biodiversity” field. And that he was making essentially the same point about the line that was crossed being just a framework to give reprehensible ideas a semi-respectable sheen. He thinks that it’s a good thing that Derbyshire expressed these ideas in a form that leads to them being more effectively attacked and discredited, but I don’t think he suggests that Derbyshire’s other writings don’t also deserve to be discredited, just the opposite.
jnc
To believe that IQ tests have any validity at all is as stupid as believing that genetics plays any role in athletic ability.
WyldPirate
@samara morgan:
Epigenetic inheritance can be heavily influenced by environment and behavior.
Jennifer
@jnc: That’s kind of a dumb statement.
Certainly IQ tests aren’t the end-all, be-all, nor do they tell us who is the “smartest.” But they do measure a few types of aptitude – it’s just that these few types of aptitude are not the equivalent of global “intelligence.”
What you said is kind of like saying “anyone who thinks the LSAT has any validity at all is stupid.” The LSAT measures some things crucial to success in the study of law – facility with written language, logic & argumentation, and so forth.
As for not believing genetics has any role in athletic ability, well, that’s dumb too. A 7′ tall guy has a better chance of excelling in basketball than a guy that’s 5’4″. He may be a faster runner too, thanks to the length of his stride. Someone with bigger lung capacity has a natural advantage in many sports. And so on. These are inheirited physical traits. On their own, they won’t make anyone an Olympic gold medalist, but they do have a role in a lot of sports.
RD
@Karl Zimmerman:
I’ts not as if you’re the first to think of this.
samara morgan
okfine.
ONE MORE TIME.
freddie is sawing more sawdust here, you dumb juicers.
the Bell Curve is a discredited SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD BOOK.
John Derbyshire IS a racist, like ABL ALREADY POINTED OUT>
samara morgan
@WyldPirate: sure, gene expression is nonseperable from interaction and trigger effects… but the reason there is no consideration of nuture in SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD BOOK is that people were not really researching that yet.
samara morgan
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: my point?
balloon juice has spent enough time on SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD BOOK that no one reads any more.
science has moved on.
balloon juice should too.
;)
WJS
@WyldPirate:
See, I can cut and paste, too.
Were you born full of shit? Was it a genetic abnormality? Or is it an inherited trait passed on by a white hooded uncle?
samara morgan
@Carlo: exposure to UV? shades of Trofim Lysenko!
that is just sillie.
how about the Ashkenazi and Tay-Sachs screening?
Or blacks and sickle cell anemia?
Are you a Lamarkian or sumpin’?
samara morgan
@WJS: chillax dude. all genetic inheritance is heavily influenced by environment and behavior.
its called gene expression.
RD
@samara morgan:
What was the genetic advantage of Asperger syndrome?
Carlo
Why hasn’t the troll (and I think we all know who I’m talking about) been banned yet from this site?
WJS
@samara morgan: Who appointed you thread cop?
samara morgan
@RD: unknown. what is the genetic advantage to serial killers, given that their incidence in the population is unexpectedly high, also given they almost never reproduce?
people speculate linkage to a benevolent gene complex, but we do not really know.
samara morgan
@WJS: nobody, i was just pointing out what WP says about gene interaction with environment is pretty standard.
its called gene expression.
you are welcome to say anything you like.
IMHO BJ doesn’t need a new Hall Monitor since Allan left.
for example, i NEVAH ax for anyone to be banned.
;)
samara morgan
FYI, NRO just might fire the Derb.
Jennifer gets her wish?
samara morgan
@Carlo: awww. did i hurt your fee fees?
i hereby nominate Carlo for the New BJ Hall Monitor.
;)
samara morgan
@Carlo: you should email Cole to ban me.
he loves mail.
RD
@samara morgan:
My personal theory? They created the tradition of Shamans.
samara morgan
@RD: the aspergites? or serial killers.
;)
i love shamanism, it enabled Chenggis to almost conquer the known world.
nitpicker
The best part is Andrew “I Supported The Bell Curve First” Sullivan acting shocked by all this.
Karl Zimmerman
@RD,
Godwin much?
There’s a world of difference between suggesting genes which cause disadvantage to individuals might be fixed free of charge in the future, and active discrimination based upon genetics. I’d argue the only way to prevent the latter is the former.
Karl Zimmerman
@RD,
Godwin much?
There’s a world of difference between suggesting genes which cause disadvantage to individuals might be fixed free of charge in the future, and active discrimination based upon genetics. I’d argue the only way to prevent the latter is the former.
lacp
These issues (and some other interesting ones)sometimes come up at this site.
http://www.ieet.org/
Villago Delenda Est
@samara morgan:
Why do you pay any attention at all to a 1400 year old book?
Cripes, your obstinate obtuseness never ceases to amaze.
Villago Delenda Est
@Carlo:
She’s been banned multiple times, and comes back under a new nom-de-dumb after each ban.
samara morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: the Miraculous Quran is not a “book”. It is the word of Allah and therefore outside time and space.
a quantum document if you like.
;)
samara morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: every new nic has to be approved. i change my nic when i evolve, not at bannings.
but, you too, should mail Cole and demand i be banned.
fill Hall Monitor Allans shoes.
;)
samara morgan
@Karl Zimmerman: thats why we need universal healthcare.
because germline engineering will very be expensive at first.
Imagine what the market will charge the 1% for designer babies.
Some Guy
@Villago Delenda Est:
I thought he meant WyldPirate. I find him much more annoying than Samara who is more easily ignored.
PanurgeATL
@samara morgan:
Are you incapable of conceiving that there might be white Christians that aren’t Calvinists?
PanurgeATL
@Carlo:
You’ve got to define something (or refer to a definition) before saying it doesn’t exist. What’s your definition of “race”?
samara morgan
@PanurgeATL: of course not.
but all the white christians i know personally are nativists.
;)
samara morgan
@Some Guy: pardon…but do we know each other?
i remember a some guy from TAS.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
If people like Derb and Murray and Sullivan really want to go here, we might as well bring out the big guns, and reintroduce the word ‘eugenics’ to popular discourse. You know, Charles Benedict Davenport? That’s really where all this crap ends up leading anyway. I’d love to watch Sully twist himself into pretzels trying to explain why ‘The Bell Curve’ is scientific but ‘The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics’ was not. I’m not sure the Derb would bother. He’s a disgusting human being, but he’s up front about how disgusting he is. Like Crazy Uncle Pat.
samara morgan
hey freddie…..hes fired.
happy naow?
Heliopause
May I quote Chomsky? That was a rhetorical question, I’m going to quote Chomsky:
“a correlation between race and mean I.Q. (were this shown to exist) entails no social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this category … In a non-racist society, the category of race would be of no greater significance [than height]. The mean I.Q. of individuals of a certain racial background is irrelevant to the situation of a particular individual, who is what he is. Recognizing this perfectly obvious fact, we are left with little, if any, plausible justification for an interest in the relation between mean I.Q. and race, apart from the ‘justification’ provided by the existence of racial discrimination.”
This was written in 1972 and it’s sad that our society is still talking about this, but consider for a moment what he is saying here; even if these correlations could be shown (he doesn’t acknowledge they have been, but assuming so), what consequences would this information have in a decent society? The answer, of course, is that it should have none.
Ohio Mom
@RD: The genetic advantage of Asperger Syndrome, according to Temple Grandin, is that while all the other cave people were sitting around the fire, content to be just sitting there and socializing, the Aspie was off to the side, inventing the wheel and all the other technologies that enabled us to leave cave life behind.
samara morgan
@Heliopause: well, you can’t stop the signal.
there is a significant area of study and research called cognitive genomics and that WILL be published.
and there are correlations between IQ and sex, IQ and political affiliation, and IQ and race.
there is already a significant body of research on the negative correlation between IQ and religiosity that has been published.
rb
@WyldPirate: Different populations of the same species have quantifiable differences in all manner of characteristics as do different age groups and the sexes of the same species.
Trivially true. For instance older people have lower BMD.
Unfortunately these ‘populations’ bear no relation to the ‘races’ we are familiar with. That’s why people are interpreting your jargon as obfuscation. It doesn’t mean anything, and anyone who thinks about it for a second sees this. But, you know, KFTC.
Porlock Junior
@Egg Berry:
Yeah, I think that on a reasonable scale that would be about it. It implies a sensible weighting as between sheer ratiocinative power and being human.
Rogers
Little late to the party on this one…
BRAVO Mr. deBoer. Why do some people suppose that there is a NICE way to fuck others over? Nearly self-refuting, isn’t it? It’s a puzzler.
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