Posted on 10/17/2007 1:36:52 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
*Rolls eyes* Well, at least no one has been compared to Hitler yet. :p Calling everyone who disagrees with you a communist isn’t a valid argument.
However, these are good questions that you pointed out:
How can we say what intelligence really is?
How do we know what a race is?
Whose (sic) to say what race we belong to?
Can the Bell Curve guys or anyone else define intelligence with a single IQ number? Can they say precisely what a “race” is, and what to what parts of the genome they correspond?
Essentially, we are comparing two things. In order to make a comparison, we need to know 1) what things we are comparing, 2) what quality it is that we are measuring, and 3) what quantitative system we are using to denote that quality.
Ever take a physics class? Try writing down an unaccompanied number for an answer and see how long it takes for a big red X to appear next to it. You have to denote things in standardized units: meters, feet, grams, pounds, coulombs, MeV, and so forth. Saying a truck travels 30 is meaningless without units, otherwise, how do we compare it? Is it 30 ft/s, 30 mph, 30 cubits/shake of a lamb’s tail. Who knows.
Are IQ points a concrete unit of measurement of intelligence, on par with meters, feet, and grams? There are lots of reasons to think not. IQ tests are varied in their difficulty and composition. Some stress verbal and memory skills, whereas others stress spatial or mathematical skills. They test a wide variety of different things in different ways, but they all use the same IQ points as a measurement stick. There is no real encompassing philosophy or standard making body or system of rules to determine how these things are made, though. They are at best an indicator of skill with the particular aspects of intelligence covered by the test. Just because a person can’t easily tell that one thing’s not like the others or logically sort a set of pictures doesn’t mean they can’t understand partial differential equations or write a kick-ass novel.
Besides, ever been to a Mensa meeting? (If you have, you might have LOL’d right then.)
And you can’t just brush off the poor definition of race used in most of these studies as an evasion. It’s already been pointed out a million times that I can have more in common with a Japanese guy than people who live 20 miles away in Kenya do with each other. American blacks are often a mix of several distinct African ethnicities. How do you sort them? What sort of “race” are they? We aren’t just comparing apples and oranges, we could be comparing apples and Fords.
I really don’t see how this whole fracas can be seen as anything other than a baseless crotchety old man rant.
It helps to have high population densities and a large, fertile flood plain. :p
I didn't.
However, it's no more invalid than calling everyone who disagrees with you a racist, and that's obviously how leftists react when people such as Watson, Shockley, Herrnstein, or Murray speak out. It's even how they react when someone such as Larry Summers casually suggests that there may be a genetic reason for better male performance in areas such as math and physics, even though he suggested other possible explanations as well. (Of course, in his case he was called a sexist, rather than a racist).
Even though I didn't call everyone who disagrees with me a communist, the following description of the government investigation into Watson's remarks sounds pretty communistic:
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is now studying Dr Watson's remarks "in full".
Even if he was wrong, since when does a government agency investigate someone for non-threatening remarks made during an interview?
Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, told the Independent: "It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments. "I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's personal prejudices. These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exist at the highest professional levels."
Well, I'm also sure the scientific community will reject Watson's remarks. They'll have to if they want to keep their jobs, receive grant money, maintain a positive relationship with the media and assorted political parties, or perhaps even stay out of jail.
Research in this field may not be an exact science, but what does it say about your side in this debate that it must resort to legal intimidation of this type? You noted correctly (in a series of questions) that intelligence and race are not always clearly marked points, but that doesn't mean it's an area beyond research. You might just as well argue that we censor research into childhood or adolescence on the grounds that some kids grow up faster than others. Or that we abolish psychiatry because we can't with pinpoint accuracy define insanity.
Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University, told the Independent: "This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. "If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."
Odd that Rose didn't direct us to any counter arguments or definitive research that has refuted the idea that intelligence is determined (in part) by genetics. The closest he's ever come is a lame book entitled Not In Our Genes, co-authored with an old-line Marxist named Richard Lewontin, which has been dismissed by almost everyone who knows anything about the subject as a political diatribe.
When something repeats itself over and over, there's something to it. When literally no one can come up with a test for admission to UCLA which results in blacks performing just as well as whites, despite years of trying by egalitarian ideologues determined to close the gap, what are we to conclude? When we see South Africa and Zimbabwe sinking before our very eyes, what do we think? Do we assume the research that Herrnstein, Murray, and others have produced is accurate, or do we continue to insist that there must be some undefined force out there that causes whites to outperform blacks because "we all know it can't be genetics"? Once we find out what that evil force is and get rid of it, everything will be nice and egalitarian. We'll find out that the result of countless centuries of natural selection is.....equality. The precise opposite of what everyone previously believed, not to mention the opposite of what everyone observes.
I have absolutely no fear of additional research into this issue. In fact, I'd like to see lots of additional research.
Would you?
If so, you'll have to fight the liberal educational establishment, who are "confident" there's no link between genes and intellect, and also that there's no racial or gender gap in mental abilities. They're so "confident", they smear, censor, shout down, fire, or even launch government investigations into anyone with an opinion on the issue (other than their own opinion, of course).
The PC forces should be pleased. Watson has followed in the footsteps of Larry Summers and apologized. Not that it will do him any good, as Summers recently found out when he was disinvited to a speaking engagement in California after feminist professors objected.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/009040.html
He was making a statement about both science and public policy. "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really".
Everybody seems to misunderstanding the meaning of his statement. What he said was that we will not begin to help the African's that need help until we're willing to dispense with the PC crap, acknowledge that is an IQ differential and tailor social policies that will actually help.
Example: A high school drop out becomes lost in the wilderness. I send him instructions for survival and directions to a main road in Latin.
His prospects are gloomy.
Exactly.
His expression of outrage is racially based, in my opinion.
It's that 'white guilt' thing that I see popping up all over this thread.
(See post 425)
Hmmmm.....sarcasm?
Anyway, if your great, great, great Grandfather was indeed Robert E. Lee, then I would like to extend my congratulations on being a lucky descendant of such a great man. Which one of Lee's children is your link?
Bravo!
You can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear, which is exactly what the PC Nazi's attempt to do by stifling debate and controlling the message.
Watson's point is, we can't help peoples if we refuse to admit scientific evidence, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
There is a giant elephant in the room and no one wants to acknowledge it.
First, Wilson’s specialty dealt with the structure of organic molecules. Neither that nor his degree in zoology make him an expert on IQ, race or inheritance any more than a biochemist could tell you about the muscular mechanics of a puma; biology is a wide field (made wider in part by Watson and Crick) and a scientist outside his field is simply a layman.
Second, I am not misinterpreting his statement, which is consistent with others he has made. The categorical nature of his statement dealt not with blacks, but with “people who have to deal with black employees”, and it is manifestly incorrect; that is, most people who deal with black employees find Watson’s statement to be false.
Finally, if you think Dr. Watson incapable of being obtuse, you should read his pronouncements on religion, fat people, E.O. Wilson’s remembrances of him, etc. He is quite capable.
” I have absolutely no fear of additional research into this issue. In fact, I’d like to see lots of additional research.
Would you? “
Absolutely.
There is a reason this upsets people so badly, and it has nothing to do with “PC” and liberalism.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We aren’t talking about a disagreement about whether or not a particular sort of mudskipper is a distinct species from another or something. This isn’t a conservative vs. liberal issue, either. This gets to the root of what it means to be human. To claim that one “race” is less intelligent than another is to essentially attack their humanity, because excepting religious beliefs, intelligence is what makes us human. It goes against the grain of what America was built upon: that God created all men equal.
This is definitely non-trivial.
IQ testing doesn’t bring us any closer to proving our closely held belief untrue. Nor do of the examples you cited can be directly attributed to intellectual disparity. There have been plenty of Vast Empires with Big Buildings and Notable Scholars born in Africa. See the history of the Axumite Empire, for example. It lasted twice as long as the Roman Republic and Empire combinded and it and its successors stood alone against the Muslim hordes far longer than any European Christian kingdom. A black African empire (The Kushites, IIRC) conquered Egypt for a time. During the Middle Ages, Zimbabwe was home to a large, monument-building empire that stood until it was disrupted by the Portuguese.
The differences in scientific and technical progress can be easily explained by historical happenstance.
Consider this: are the Japanese inferior because we overwhelmed them in the 19th century with a handful of modern warships? Nope, they just never bothered to learn about gunpowder weapons because everyone knew a trained samurai with a bow and sword was much more dangerous than the same samurai with a musket in one on one combat. Once the Shogunate was in place, there was no need for mass warfare, and thus there was no need to improve on gunpowder and musket technology.
In Europe, though, that never happened, and when the plague hit, governments realized it was cheaper to train a peasant for a week and give him a gun than to train a knight or bowman for a lifetime, even though on average a bowman was much more lethal than an armed peasant. So the technology was improved and extended.
Likewise, the reason the Spanish conquered the Aztecs so easily has to do with the mode of Aztec warfare. They didn’t train to kill their foes with spears and swords. Rather, they trained to knock them out with war clubs in order to have plenty of live sacrifices without cutting into their own population. If the Aztec army had been more ready to poke holes and hew in twain rather than knock-upside-the-head, there’s no way the Spaniards would have prevailed.
Similarly, African kingdoms just never learned to stand against modern weaponry, and were overwhelmed before they could master it. Once they threw out the Europeans, they never had a chance to build a western-style freedom that respects human rights and contract law because those who had the guns had different ideas.
Remember that excluding Great Britain (and maybe France) most of Europe was still in the grip of aristocracies that ruled by force before the First World War. Much of Western Europe didn’t truly bloom until after it was made free by force of our arms or a period of several decades. Eastern Europe is only now coming into it’s own.
So you see, there is no proof, and that is what’s important in this case. Watson is saying big things with big implications if they are true. There is no definitive evidence, only a hint here and there, and those hints are by no means exclusively explicable by genetic differences which we do not even begin to understand.
That, in an unusually verbose nutshell, is why this statement bothers so many people. It is regrettable that the race pimps are jumping on it, but that doesn’t make Watson right. Just because the Nazis believed in nation-spanning freeways didn’t make them a bad idea. Just because the Jessie Jacksons of the world are jumping all over this old fart doesn’t make him right, either. :p
What scientific evidence? Have you been reading the thread?
Yep. Even with these things, only God knows how many would be world changers crapped themselves to death, froze, or were brained raiding wives for every one whose ideas made it out of his own hut. It takes the right person, and the right environment, and the right time, and a lot of luck too.
And all of these things managed to come together repeatedly in some societies - while others filed their teeth and threw babies in volcanos. In all likelyhood they would still be doing that in 5,000 years if they had been left to their own devices.
OH, how do you figure?
I realize that Watson’s statement is very controversial, but just because something is controversial does not make it wrong. Is the idea that African blacks could be less intelligent than whites rejected because it does not conform to a world view, or is there some sort of verification to Watson’s claims? There is an old rule that goes: he who asserts must prove. Watson is obligated to defend his position. I want to see the evidence.
apropos of the turn this discussion has taken:
“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”
Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html
I fully agree that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. However, it’s the claim that all races are precisely equal in temperament, inventiveness, and so forth, that is extraordinary. Nothing in the real world would lead us to believe that everyone is the same. Are all individuals of equal intellect? Obviously not. So what would lead anyone to conclude that all racial groupings are precisely equal?
To claim such a thing is extraordinary to the max, and no one ever appears to have even dreamed of such a thing until Boasian ideas began to be circulated by leftists about a century ago. Those were the blank slate theories which have never had a shred of evidence to back them. They’re just popular because people want to believe them for ideological reasons.
I think you have a very bad misconception of what the founders meant when they said all men are created equal. They didn’t mean that if Jack is a great chemist, then every other human being on earth must be an equally great chemist. For heaven’s sake, what would possibly make you think the founders were talking about literal equality when they wrote that phrase?
If you think a lower average IQ for a particular group makes them less than human, you’re going to have a hard time dealing with individuals. If you meet someone who isn’t all that bright, do you think of them as subhuman? Or do you think that they just APPEAR to be less intelligent, and in fact are as brilliant as Einstein? In fact, I guess we’re all as brilliant as Einstein. Otherwise we’d be less human than he is.
You’re using the concept of inferiority as if it has any meaning in this debate. I don’t think women are inferior because they rarely have the spatial reasoning skills of men. That would be as silly as saying men are inferior because women outpace us on the verbal portions of the SAT. The idea that everyone, or every racial or gender group, must be exactly equal to everyone else or else they’re “inferior” is ridiculous.
Nothing in the real world would lead anyone to conclude that equality is the default position of mankind. How could it be? To believe that it is, one would have to leave the word “selection” off the phrase “natural selection”. What, after all, is being selected?
The general patterns in IQ tests tend to correlate with our observations. Jews are said to score very high, and observation would tend to support that premise. Jews were a tiny, persecuted minority in Europe for around 2,000 years. They were repeatedly segregated, and denied admission to schools or certain professions. They were victims of pogroms. They were often chased out of particular countries with only the clothes on their backs. They were put through the Inquisition and the Holocaust. And each time they bounced right back. You don’t see Jews demanding affirmative action programs because they had a great-grandfather who died in the Holocaust, or a great-great grandmother who was victimized by segregation.
I’m not offended by the likelihood that Jews or East Asians have a higher average IQ than members of my own ethnic/racial group. If they do, good for them! I’m not going to put on sackcloth and ashes and whine about feeling less than human.
And, incidentally, no one is saying that all whites are smarter than all blacks. Nor is anyone saying that no dark skinned race has ever accomplished anything. Clarence Thomas, Walter Williams, Herman Cain, and many other blacks are brilliant men. People should be judged as individuals. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t overall IQ differences between races.
We’ve passed law after law, imposed quota after quota, and blacks still don’t pass tests in anything like their percentage in the general population. We have professional egalitarians trying to devise tests that will eliminate the racial testing gap, and it never goes away. The number of blacks getting into the California university system schools plunged to nearly nothing when affirmative action was outlawed there. Within a year, though, the administrators had come up with ways to get around the law. They now have applicants write a little essay about themselves, and they get diversity points for growing up in a dangerous neighborhood, liking gangsta rap, etc.
I do wish to commend you for wanting to see additional research done on the issue of genes, race, and IQ. You’re the first critic of Bell Curve type arguments I’ve encountered who didn’t want such research to cease and desist immediately. I tip my hat to you, sir!
BTW if whites hold blacks down, then why do blacks want integration? Shouldn’t they wish to get as far away from us as possible? Why is it that blacks’ standard of living goes up when they’re living in white lands? Why are South Africa and Zimbabwe now in a downward spiral?
Watson: "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really".
You'll have to ask Watson what scientific data/testing that he's referring to.
I have not discussed any scientific data.
I'm defending Watson's premise. (See post 425)
Have you been reading the thread?
.
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