Posted on 10/22/2007 11:22:56 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Edited on 10/22/2007 12:23:03 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
No excerpting because of copyright. The essay is at http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article3075642.ece .
You must mean by calling people "politically correct" and other insulting terms.
I don't buy that there's a genetically inherent racial reason for differences in "IQ" test results, just as I don't believe there's a gay gene, because science has never proven either to be true.
I thought that current science had shown that there is no such thing as race. For example a group of blacks sent to Scandinavia for 20,000 years would gradually change skin color to white and Scandinavians sent to Africa for 20,000 years would gradually turn their skin black as protection from the sun.
Race designations are just arbitrary groupings for identification purposes.
Are you aware of anyone being forced to grovel, apologize, or recant their statements because they feared being called politically correct? No. But the mere hint of anything politically incorrect brings out the PC crowd, screaming racist, sexist, homophobe, theocrat, or whatever, and soon Watson or Larry Summers or Judge Pryor is being run through the wringer.
I don't buy that there's a genetically inherent racial reason for differences in "IQ" test results, just as I don't believe there's a gay gene, because science has never proven either to be true.
Has science every proven that every racial grouping on earth is of precisely equal IQ? Why should that be the default position?
OK let’s agree that intelligence is primarily hereditary and that blacks have lower intelligence than the other major racial groups. That doesn’t prove that some races are inherently smarter than others. A Condoleeza Rice or a Clarence Thomas or a Jelly Role Morton would be as likely to produce smart children as a white counterpart. I think that this is an important issue because proponents of a welfare state in the US base their conclusions on the premise that blacks are incapable of making it on their own.
To illustrate, here’s a link to IQ scores in various cities in Europe.
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/NationalIQs.aspx.
Other such surveys have similar results.
Some comparisons are striking. Why are the Germans and Swedes so much smarter than the English, who are primarily descended from Northern Germans and Scandinavians. Why are the French so frigging stupid compared to their German, Spanish, Italian, English, and Dutch neighbors? How about the Jews, scattered in around Europe in small groups, who are so much smarter than anyone else and win about a third of the Nobel prizes (not counting the peace prize). In IQ scores, Germany and Poland (despite the jokes) , who if you ask them, don’t have much to do with one another, are off by themselves compared to other populous countries.
It seems to me that successful, serious cultures where there is a “need for achievement” causes high IQ’s rather than the other way around, while a silly pop culture causes low IQ’s. This is consistent with intelligence being hereditary. In a country in which the typical bloke in the street admires Mozart, it’s the smart guy that’s going to get the girls and make the babies. In countries with a less successful future, everyone’s ancestor is going to be the baddest dude in the valley, or the guy with the droopy drawers and his baseball hat on sideways.
Firstly, as I’ve noted in several posts, there is no such thing as absolute intelligence. Scientists generally list an overall quality of intelligence, with specific abilities in such things as verbal skills, spatial recognition, etc. Some dice it really fine, into as many as 120 separate categories (based on a 4x5x6t matrix.
Secondly, standard intelligence tests do have an innate cultural and linguistic bias. The standard tests given en masse are not as precise as individual tests such as the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. If the test was written for redheaded Californian grape stompers, then redheaded Californian grape stompers would be the smartest people on earth.
Thirdly, the measures of intelligence aren’t that different for most people. About 60 percent of the population is between 90 and 109 on the standard IQ test. The difference between an adult with an IQ of 90 and one of 100 isn’t very significant when you’re in your forties. Add to that measurement errors and statistical deviation, and the difference between 97 and 100 is totally insignificant.
Fourthly, Watson is not a psychologist. He’s a geneticst. He has never studied intelligence in a controlled basis, nor has he read the literature. If he did, he would find out his hypothesis has already been proven false.
Fifthly, what if there were a difference? Does that invalidate a person’s legal rights? If we can say that Terry Schiavo is a person who should not be killed, with no discernible higher cognitive functions, we cannot say that Joe Alphabet, who has an IQ of 95, cannot vote or hold office. IQ is only a number; intelligence is a totally different thing.
Sixthly, what is a race anyway? It’s a sociological construct. The difference between a black man and a white man at the cellular level is insignificant.
There's no such thing as absolute insanity, either, but we don't deny that insanity exists.
Secondly, standard intelligence tests do have an innate cultural and linguistic bias.....If the test was written for redheaded Californian grape stompers, then redheaded Californian grape stompers would be the smartest people on earth.
Then we should be able to get rid of quotas and affirmative action very soon. All we have to do is devise a test where everyone performs equally well.
The difference between an adult with an IQ of 90 and one of 100 isn’t very significant when you’re in your forties. Add to that measurement errors and statistical deviation, and the difference between 97 and 100 is totally insignificant.
If we can't measure intelligence, how do you know that?
If he did, he would find out his hypothesis has already been proven false.
Then why haven't any of the Marxist scientists, Politically Correct politicians, and other demagogues who denounced Watson provided us with that proof?
Fifthly, what if there were a difference? Does that invalidate a person’s legal rights?
I was unaware that anyone said it did.
If we can say that Terry Schiavo is a person who should not be killed, with no discernible higher cognitive functions, we cannot say that Joe Alphabet, who has an IQ of 95, cannot vote or hold office.
Without getting into the debate over literacy tests and voting, you're saying that because we shouldn't have allowed Terri Schiavo to be killed, we can never at any point distinguish between the intelligent and unintelligent. Would you hire someone with a very low IQ to be a pediatric nurse?
IQ is only a number; intelligence is a totally different thing.
Then alert us to a meaningful test of either in which blacks routinely rout whites or Asians.
Sixthly, what is a race anyway? It’s a sociological construct.
That's what feminists say about gender, and of course they're wrong, too.
The difference between a black man and a white man at the cellular level is insignificant.
If that were true, then there would be no reason why black couples couldn't routinely produce white offspring and vice-versa.
The burden of proof is on the ones making the assertions. Should I assume that you are a criminal because you have never proven to me that you are not?
In case you haven't noticed, both sides are making an assertion.
However, it's the egalitarians' assertion that goes against our daily observations, therefore the burden of proof should be more on them. A few examples should suffice.
Blacks and white liberals consistently demand affirmative action. Why? Because blacks on average don't perform as well as whites on things such as college entrance exams, job application tests, and so forth. The left thus demands that blacks be given preferential treatment on the grounds that blacks would have performed just as well as whites if not for various external factors. In other words, they're demanding that some whites who outperformed blacks be denied school admission, a job, or some other tangible thing, on the totally unsubstantiated assertion that blacks would have done as well if everything were "fair". The burden is on them to prove that.
In addition, inequality is the norm on planet earth. It is not the default position of nature. If you see an orange tree, you do not automatically assume every orange growing on it will be the same size. If you see two orange trees, you do not assume there will be the exact same number of oranges on each. If you see two orange trees, and one is a different type of orange tree from the other, you're less likely to find equality, not more.
Given the fact that we observe different levels of intelligence in individuals each day, and no one ever really disputes that, why would we expect every racial group to come out exactly the same? That would be an extraordinary result, one requiring extraordinary proof, or at least evidence.
Why is there no place on earth where blacks outperform whites on tests? Is there a place where blacks are the intellectual and scientific elite, while whites scream for affirmative action in hopes of being able to keep up?
Finally, why is it that the proponents of egalitarianism are the ones who get their panties in a twist whenever anyone suggests doing research into these issues? I'm not afraid for these issues to be studied. Walk into the president's office on nearly any college campus in the Western world and pretend to be a millionaire. Tell then you'd like to give the school a ton of money, but to get it they have to use some of it for legitimate research into race and IQ. Watch the look of horror, and see how fast the diversity officer descends on you, followed by crowds of leftist professors and students.
I hate typos!
then = them!
This has nothing to do with “politically correctness”. There is no solid evidence to back up Watson’s claims (that he himself is backing away from). To date, there has been no valid scientific research on this topic.
Here’s an example of what scientific research needs to show: Science has shown that Down Syndrome is a genetic disorder that leads to mental retardation and health problems.
Where is the genetic disorder that leads to lower scores on IQ tests of people who otherwise appear to be healthy and normal? It hasn’t been discovered, if it exists at all.
You're right - they are arbitrary. Consider the early 1900's in the U.S. when southern and Eastern Europeans were tested and found to be the lower, ignorant "races". As a result, all the non-northern Europeans - such as Eastern European Jews - were restricted in number in U.S. immigration. And Asians were banned altogether for a period of time. I just read that the Japanese tried lobbying at the time to be counted under U.S. policy as "white". Now that all Europeans are counted as "white", why aren't Ashkenazi Jews counted in the "white" category? They are not an isolated group at this point. Yes, the notion of "race" is very subjective. It's all so amusing.
So every human brain is identical unless there’s a genetic disorder? No one is better at anything involving mental faculties than anyone else? Prodigies don’t exist?
Having a lower IQ than someone else isn’t necessarily a genetic disorder. In fact, it would be the norm for people to have different levels of mental ability. It’s no more abnormal for one person to have a lower IQ than someone else than it is for one person to be slower at the 50 yard dash than someone else.
Watson is only backing away from his remarks because he knows there will be hell to pay if he doesn’t. The same thing is happening to him that happened to Larry Summers a year or so ago. Bullying, intimidation, threats of job loss, being smeared as a racist.....how many of us could stand up to something like that?
It speaks volumes about the lack of support for the egalitarian side in this debate that they have to resort to such abuse.
There have been a lot of outspoken atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchins going around ridiculing people of faith lately. They’ve been in high demand on college campuses and at other lecture venues. These determined atheists blame religion for all the problems in the world, claim that people of faith are stupid and gullible, and more. Yet, they haven’t been the victims of the type of insidious smear campaign that has been visited on Watson and Summers. In fact, prominent Christians have stepped up to the plate and challenged these atheists to debate.
I’d like to see some of the people who go around castigating Watson, Murray, Jensen, Shockley, and others debate them. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen, though. Why debate someone when you can more easily get them fired and have the media pound them into the ground?
I found this comment on a blog I frequent, and I thought it would contribute a bit to this discussion:
From: http://www.ttgnet.com/daynotes/2007/2007-42.html#Thu
I admire Dr. Watson’s courage. He must have known that his statements, although undoubtedly true, would be met with outrage, and that he would be denounced as racist. That significant differences in intelligence and other characteristics exist among the races is one of those facts that anyone who cares to look at the data knows is true, but that no one is allowed to talk about.
As Murray and others before him have pointed out, there is zero doubt that, as groups, the Chinese and the Ashkenazi Jews are much brighter than average. The mean IQ of the Chinese is between a third and a half standard deviation higher than the general population, and the Ashkenazi mean is one full standard deviation higher. Equally, there is no doubt that the mean IQ of American blacks is one full standard deviation below the mean of the general population, and that of African blacks two full standard deviations lower. Anyone who understands normal distributions grasps the profound implications of those facts.
That the IQ of Chinese and Ashkenzi Jews skews so far to the right on the bell curve and that of blacks so far to the left allows us to make some predictions with high certainty. We’d expect, for example, that Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews would be overrepresented and blacks underrepresented in rigorous disciplines in our university faculties and research laboratories, and that turns out to be true. We’d also expect that our jails and prisons would be filled with people from the left side of the bell curve, and that therefore blacks are likely to be overrepresented and Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews underrepresented in our prisons. That also turns out to be true. No surprises there.
But it’s Africa where the differences really come home to roost, and I share Dr. Watson’s pessimism about the future of Africa. That difference of two standard deviations in intelligence is simply insurmountable. Consider what a difference of two standard deviations means in practical terms.
In the United States, someone who is two standard deviations above the mean has an IQ of 130, assuming we’re using the SD15 IQ scale. That person is considered gifted, and is likely to become a physician or an engineer. Because about 95.45% of a normally distributed population falls within two sigmas of the mean, about 22,750 people per million have IQs of 130 or higher. That’s more than enough to ensure an adequate supply of physicians and engineers.
Furthermore, someone who is four standard deviations above the mean has an IQ of 160, which is generally considered the threshold of genius. Because about 99.9936658% of a normally distributed population falls within four sigmas of the mean, about 63 people per million have IQs of 160 or higher. That’s enough to ensure an adequate supply of theoretical physicists and Nobel Prize winners.
In Africa, the mean IQ, again on an SD15 scale, is only 70, which in the US would be considered mildly retarded. An African with an IQ of 100, normal for the US, is two sigmas above the mean in Africa. In other words, of every million Africans, only about 22,750 are bright enough to be considered normal in the US. Of every million Africans, only about 63 have IQs of 130 or higher, what we would consider normal for a physician or an engineer. That’s grossly insufficient to maintain a modern society.
When it comes to African theoretical physicists or Nobel Prize winners, the outlook is much, much worse. In Africa, someone with an IQ of 160 is six sigmas above the mean. Because about 99.9999998% of a normally distributed population falls within six sigmas of the mean, well, you can run the numbers. African geniuses are scarcer than the proverbial hen’s teeth.
I see no solution to Africa’s problems. Africans on their own simply don’t have the mental horsepower to maintain a modern society, let alone build one. British imperialism improved the lot of African blacks in Rhodesia and South Africa for a time, but two-tiered societies divided along racial lines are no longer politically acceptable.
As distasteful as it is to current sensibilities, white rule in Rhodesia and South Africa had the advantage of actually working. The white regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa were run for the benefit of whites, certainly, but they also benefited the blacks in those countries. While most of the world was condemning these regimes, African blacks were fighting to get into these countries. Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa, producing enough food to feed all of Africa, with sufficient excess to export outside of Africa.
African blacks were an underclass, certainly, but even they were smart enough to know when they had things good. Blacks in Rhodesia and South Africa had a much higher standard of living than blacks in any black-ruled country in Africa. Food was cheap and plentiful, and medical care was free and readily available. Blacks could not vote, nor could they hope to rise socially to the level of their white masters, but there were opportunities for advancement, and in fact a nascent black middle class was developing.
Then the do-gooders in the rest of the world decided that Africa should be ruled by blacks. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and within a few years devolved from being the best country in Africa for blacks to live in to being the worst hell-hole on Planet Earth. Zimbabwe confiscated white-owned farms, and was then shocked to find that food production plummeted to almost nothing. Zimbabwe expelled white professionals, and was then shocked to find that no professional services were available. Nowadays, Zimbabwe is completely controlled by blacks and nearly all of the whites have abandoned the country. And the blacks are left holding an empty bag.
I wish it weren’t this way, but, as they say, if wishes were horses beggars would ride.
Friday, 19 October 2007
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Watson is backpedaling furiously from his comments about racial IQ differences. I wonder what kind of pressure was brought to bear on him.
It’s clear to anyone who has eyes that there are differences in ability between the races. In a pure meritocracy, those differences are obvious and profound. Sports is one example of a pure meritocracy. Is there a reason, do you think, why blacks overwhelmingly dominate sports, why football teams and basketball teams have mostly black players and the best marathon runners are nearly all black? Could it be because blacks are, on average, physically stronger, faster, and more coordinated than whites and yellows? Similarly, hard-science research laboratories are a meritocracy, one that is overwhelmingly dominated by whites and yellows. Could it be, do you think, because whites and yellows are, on average, smarter than blacks?
There are no value judgments here. No one is saying that blacks are better people than whites and yellows because blacks are better basketball players, just as no one is saying that whites and yellows are better people than blacks because whites and yellows are better scientists. No one is saying that men are better than women because men excel at some things, any more than anyone is saying that women are better than men because women excel at some things.
More to the point, we need to think in terms of individuals rather than groups. There are first-rate white and yellow basketball players, just as there are first-rate black scientists. If someone is a magician on a basketball court, the color of his skin doesn’t, or shouldn’t, matter. If someone is a magician in a laboratory, it doesn’t or shouldn’t matter what color his skin is. A white player shouldn’t be denied a place on the basketball team simply because his skin is white, and a black scientist shouldn’t be denied a place in the laboratory simply because his skin is black. Equally important, a good black basketball player shouldn’t be denied a place on the team to make room for a less-qualified white player, just as a good white scientist shouldn’t be denied a place to make room for a less-qualified black scientist. Colorblindness should be the rule.
The politically correct push the idea that unequal outcome proves unequal opportunity, which is a lie. The differences in ability between the races and sexes guarantee that equal opportunity will result in unequal outcomes. The equalest opportunity in the world won’t produce many female weightlifting champions, nor many white marathon champions, nor many black astrophysicists. That’s reality, and attempting to force things to be otherwise is simply evil.
There is no such thing as absolute intelligence. There is a general quality and specific qualities, which I note you didn’t choose to mention in your response. People with the same nominal IQ will have different talents and skills.
I’m in favor of getting rid of quotas, both formal and informal, and I believe the time of affirmative action is passed. But affirmative action was not created because blacks were stupider than whites.
Of course we can measure intelligence; the issue is the time and effort to get a precise score. Mass testing can’t do it; you have to give everyone a Stanford-Binet or something similar, and that’s expensive. Standard pen-and-paper (or computer screen tests) have cultural and linguistic biases, and nurture has a part in those biases. Can’t be helped, can be accounted for.
I don’t give a damn what the Politically Correct academic says. I care what the psychologists who are researching intelligence say. The scientific, peer-reviewed literature shows Watson is wrong.
Race is a social construct. There are broad genetic patterns, but all humans can interbreed and create viable offspring. But who is a black man? Who is white? Didn’t the old codes say one drop of black blood made a person black? Am I, one-eighth Cherokee, white? There are races, but they aren’t genetically ordained; they’re socially ordained based on broad, trivial genetic patterns.
There ARE genes for melanin. I know, my wife doesn’t have functional ones and is very white. The rest of us are pink. Fortunately, we are really learning about the mind and about the gene - highly fascinating subjects I am delving in. Watson’s work was seminal in genetics. However, he is not a psychologist, and he can’t speak as an expert psychologist.
Thank you for your response.
To say there is no such thing as absolute intelligence is like saying there is no such thing as absolute adulthood, or absolute insanity. There is no pinpoint moment at which we can scientifically state that everyone reaches adulthood. After all, some kids mature faster than others, and some 35 year olds seem not to have grown up. But it doesn’t follow that society would be wiser or fairer if we declared adulthood to be a sociological construction and pretended that there is no difference between a 13 year old and a 19 year old. The fact that there probably are 13 year olds who could safely operate a motor vehicle, and clearly are 19 year olds who can’t, doesn’t mean we should pretend 13 year olds in general can operate motor vehicles.
You are correct that people with the same IQ would still have different skills in different areas. As one likely example, suppose a man and a woman have the same IQ. I would wager that the man has higher spatial skills and the woman higher verbal skills. And most of the time I’d be right. Not every time, but most of the time. People should be judged as individuals but that doesn’t mean that group differences won’t exist. The average IQ gap between men and women as groups is negligible, but there is a wider range among men (most ultra-intelligent people are men, as are most of the ultra-stupid), and in certain areas one sex far outpaces the other on average. Hence, the overwhelming majority of top tier math experts, chess champions, and physicists are male. Not all, but the vast majority.
I’m glad you’re opposed to affirmative action. However, you have zero chance of abolishing it in a society where everyone freaks out and begins smearing anyone as a racist when they make a statement such as Watson’s, or as a sexist when they utter a comment such as Larry Summers’.
For example, let’s say (for argument’s sake) that we all agree that there is no average difference in IQ between the races. In fact, anyone suggesting there is gets verbally shot down immediately, loses his job, becomes a social outcast. What do we do when blacks consistently fall short on getting into law school, passing the test for becoming police captain, and so forth? Given the corner we’ve painted ourselves into, we have no choice but the set up affirmative action programs and to boot out a number of whites or Asians who made the grade in favor of blacks who didn’t. If it’s impossible that blacks have a lower average IQ than whites or Asians, then the only alternative is that something out there in society caused blacks to perform poorly. Therefore it becomes incumbent for society to compensate for that evil.
This is why the technical abolition of affirmative action merely leads to sneakier methods of doing the same thing. When California voters abolished affirmative action in college admissions a few years ago, the number of blacks being admitted plunged. Within a year, though, they had come up with a scheme to get around the law. They had applicants compose a short essay about themselves, and the word went out that growing up in a ghetto, liking gangsta rap, and other such things would earn you diversity points. Michigan, where they banned affirmative action last year via referendum, is currently planning a similar scam.
If tests are culturally biased, why is it that Asians can enter America from their very different culture and outscore blacks who were born and raised here, and whose ancestors have been here for generations? Why is it that the liberal academics who run the California educational system can’t come up with a test where blacks perform as well as whites and Asians? Why is there no place on earth where whites or Asians need affirmative action to keep up with blacks?
You’re simply incorrect that the peer-reviewed literature proves Watson wrong. The hysterical reaction to Watson’s statement is proof enough that that is true. No one stepped up and challenged Watson to debate. No one alerted the press to any alleged peer-reviewed studies. Instead, a leftist scientist named Dr. Rose ran out and told reporters that he was confident the majority of scientists would reject Watson’s views. He said this after Watson’s name was turned over to a British thought-crime investigating committee. Watson was subsequently banned from his speaking engagement, suspended from his job, and threatened with termination. No doubt, under those circumstances, a majority of scientists will indeed distance themselves from Watson’s views. They won’t disprove his views, mind you, they’ll just express horror at them and then research something else.
Again, if race is a sociological construction, how do you know you are one-eighth Cherokee? What would be the chance of a male and a female, who are both descended from a long direct line of Cherokees, producing a child who is as black as a Central African and has the same hair texture, facial features, etc.?
Maybe it is not that our culture is biased, it is that the "black" culture is biased against their success. There are examples of individual blacks who are very bright.
Racism would be the belief that one race is superior to another.
The Japanese have a higher average IQ than whites. (114 to about 104). That does not mean I believe the Japanese are superior to whites.
Preference for ones own “tribe” is only racism if you’re white. If you’re white you’re expected to feel guilty for sins of the past.
No one here made any of those claims.
Having a lower IQ than someone else isn’t necessarily a genetic disorder.
If having a lower intelligence is genetically inherent, then something's wrong genetically. What is it? What in someone's genetic code produces lower intelligence? What genetically produces higher intelligence? That question has never been answered, probably because intelligence among healthy people is largely the result of environment. Maybe someday someone will discover a genetic reason. Until then, any claim that one group of normal, healthy people is INNATELY intellectually inferior to another (i.e. they're simply created to be less intelligent than other people) is unsupported by science. Just because you believe it to be so does not make it so.
There are so many valid arguments against this type of junk science. But let's focus on this one: Terms like "white", "black", "Asian", "Latino", and even "Ashkenazi Jew" are purely subjective. Those are social/cultural groups. There's no science behind those terms. In the early 1900's, southern and Eastern Europeans (including Jews) were deemed to be the lower races thanks to IQ tests. "Asians" were restricted from emigration to the U.S. for awhile. At one point, the Japanese lobbied the U.S. to be considered "white". Now all Europeans are considered "white", but not the Ashkenazi Jews, who lived in Europe. Why aren't they included in the "white" category? And why would all Asians be thrown together? They don't see themselves as one big group. And "Latinos"? Please. Some have more Spanish in their heritage while others have more Indian. How did "Latino" become a race? And many "black" people can trace their heritage directly to Europe. These groupings are all political.
Watson is only backing away from his remarks because he knows there will be hell to pay if he doesn’t. The same thing is happening to him that happened to Larry Summers a year or so ago. Bullying, intimidation, threats of job loss, being smeared as a racist.....how many of us could stand up to something like that? It speaks volumes about the lack of support for the egalitarian side in this debate that they have to resort to such abuse.
So these people can make unsubstantiated claims of intellectual inferiority about large groups of people, and that's OK. But, if anyone criticizes them or argues against their claims, you feel sorry for them? Puh-LEEZE. The First Amendment applies to everyone. They're free to speak, and others are free to speak out against them.
There have been a lot of outspoken atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchins going around ridiculing people of faith lately. They’ve been in high demand on college campuses and at other lecture venues. These determined atheists blame religion for all the problems in the world, claim that people of faith are stupid and gullible, and more. Yet, they haven’t been the victims of the type of insidious smear campaign that has been visited on Watson and Summers. In fact, prominent Christians have stepped up to the plate and challenged these atheists to debate. I’d like to see some of the people who go around castigating Watson, Murray, Jensen, Shockley, and others debate them.
Do you realize that WATSON is an atheist? He is not only an evolutionist, but one of the other infamous comments he's known to have made was in favor of abortion. SHOCKLEY is also an atheist, and MURRAY is an agnostic. Tell me, what kind of Christian supports these guys and their claims. My guess is, if these same guys produced IQ test results showing Christians with a lower average IQ, you wouldn't accept it without question. You would bring up arguments against it.
Are the Chinese genetically flawed because they don't excel at track & field? Do you assume that every human being who ever walked the face of the earth has the exact same intelligence as every other? And if Bill isn't as smart as Sam, then he's genetically flawed? Are you and I flawed in comparison to Mozart if we aren't musical prodigies as well?
What in someone's genetic code produces lower intelligence? What genetically produces higher intelligence? That question has never been answered, probably because intelligence among healthy people is largely the result of environment.
Twin studies and many other studies over the years show otherwise. Can physical damage to the brain harm one's intelligence? Yes. Therefore, there is a physical attribute to intelligence. Unless every brain is physically identical, there's no reason to believe that everyone is of precisely equal intelligence. The physical attributes of our brains are partly inherited, like every other physical feature of your body. You seem to be asserting that we can inherit our parents' eye color, hair color, propensity for heart disease, and many other things, but our brains are new and fresh each generation, and identical to every other brain. Why would anyone believe such a thing?
Maybe someday someone will discover a genetic reason. Until then, any claim that one group of normal, healthy people is INNATELY intellectually inferior to another (i.e. they're simply created to be less intelligent than other people) is unsupported by science. Just because you believe it to be so does not make it so.
Then you should write your local university and ask them to sponsor more research into these issues. If you're confident that there is no genetic link to intelligence, then the results of additional study should confirm your opinion. Why do you think only a few very brave, well tenured professors dare to do research on these issues?
These groupings are all political.
Well, liberals have been trying for a century now to come up with some type of test or measurement which all races pass with equal success. They haven't come up with one yet. Sometimes new immigrant groups have ended up in ghettos but they work their way out of them pretty fast. In her last affirmative action ruling, Justice O'Connor suggested that we need to give blacks race preferences for another 25 years to let them catch up. What do we do at the end of those 25 years if they still are falling way short on college admission and job application tests? She didn't answer that. But of course, the answer is that we'll give them another 25 years of preferences, and another, and another....
So these people can make unsubstantiated claims of intellectual inferiority about large groups of people, and that's OK. But, if anyone criticizes them or argues against their claims, you feel sorry for them? Puh-LEEZE.
I wouldn't feel the least bit sorry for Watson if someone challenged him to debate, or just disagreed with him. But what's been done to him is pretty abusive, don't you think? And this never happens to leftists. The reason I brought up the outspoken atheists was to note that their claims that religious people are generally dull-witted wasn't met with censorship or a government investigation of them for thought crimes. In fact, it led to them becoming popular in the media and in-demand on the lecture circuit. Furthermore, Christians have stepped up and offered to debate them. Is anyone offering to debate Watson? No, because he'd cream them.
Do you realize that WATSON is an atheist? He is not only an evolutionist, but one of the other infamous comments he's known to have made was in favor of abortion. SHOCKLEY is also an atheist, and MURRAY is an agnostic.
I'm well aware that Watson is an atheist and a pro-abort. And you'll note that those things never got him in any trouble. He wasn't banned from speaking. He wasn't suspended from his job. He wasn't forced to apologize and recant. None of those things happened to him until he offended a politically protected group.
Tell me, what kind of Christian supports these guys and their claims. My guess is, if these same guys produced IQ test results showing Christians with a lower average IQ, you wouldn't accept it without question. You would bring up arguments against it.
Perhaps, but no one is bringing up arguments against what Watson said about race. They're calling him a racist and letting him know he'll suffer enormously if he doesn't recant. If researchers claimed that Christians have an average lower IQ than non-Christians, I'd expect Christians to engage that argument intellectually, not to bully and intimidate people into submission. Isn't that how they've responded to Dawkins and Hitchins? They haven't thrown tantrums, demanded that atheists be banned from speaking or holding positions of public trust, or forced to recant if they wish to keep from losing their job or becoming a social outcast. Christians have risen to the challenge and countered what these atheists have said, and challenged them to debate. When the opponents of Watson, Shockley, Murray and others start behaving in a reasoned manner, I'll take them seriously. Until then, it looks to me like we're dealing with another Larry Summers situation, where the left knows it can't win an open debate or succeed in challenging the available evidence, so they seek to shout down the offending party with charges of racism and threats of job loss.
I've debated this topic repeatedly the past few days and it's becoming repetitive. If you want the last word I'm willing to let you have it. You're a good person (almost certainly nicer than me!) and I've said my piece on this topic, so I'll wrap it up for this thread. Unless, of course, someone takes a cheap shot at me! :-)
You did not specifically concede my point that "race" is an arbitrary notion, and that people have been assigned and reassigned to different racial groups again and again. There's nothing scientific about race. It's all political.
Are the Chinese genetically flawed because they don't excel at track & field? Do you assume that every human being who ever walked the face of the earth has the exact same intelligence as every other? And if Bill isn't as smart as Sam, then he's genetically flawed? Are you and I flawed in comparison to Mozart if we aren't musical prodigies as well?
We're talking about a group of people reportedly having a mean average IQ of 85 with everyone else hovering around 100. That's quite a difference. Remember, that means half are below 85. An IQ of 70 is considered mentally retarded. So, if indeed there's a genetic reason, there's either a genetic disorder or a deficiency. Yet, so far, there has been no conclusive evidence of either. That leads the rest of us to conclude that there are other factors at play that are not biological.
Twin studies and many other studies over the years show otherwise.
And all the ones I've read about have been refuted.
Can physical damage to the brain harm one's intelligence? Yes. Therefore, there is a physical attribute to intelligence.
Sure. So, where is the physical damage or genetic deficiency? It hasn't been identified. Maybe it doesn't exist.
If you're confident that there is no genetic link to intelligence, then the results of additional study should confirm your opinion.
I do think REAL scientific studies should be conducted. (Not psychometrics, which is questionable as a science.) And geneticists should be conducting the studies. The Human Genome Project is an example. Watson himself was involved with it at one point, I think. But Watson himself never conducted a study on race and intelligence, as far as I've read. And IQ tests should not be mostly verbal, which only indicates learned verbal knowledge. Setting up a series of situations and testing how people react in them should be a part of the tests. There are many more ways in which testing can be made more accurate. I expect studies to show that DNA doesn't break along what most people consider "racial lines" as perfectly as people would like to believe, and that different people have different strengths in different areas of intelligence, not breaking neatly across established "racial lines".
Well, liberals have been trying for a century now to come up with some type of test or measurement which all races pass with equal success. They haven't come up with one yet.
No, liberals are more in line with Watson's thinking. They may not admit it openly, but their actions demonstrate it. Today's liberals and white supremacists have a lot in common. Both are socialists. Both believe in social engineering of some type. Both believe Jewish people are evil and trying to take over the world. The liberal/Democrat support for race-based Affirmative Action is evidence of the way liberals/Democrats really think.
OTOH, conservatives (like myself) believe in the individual. We expect people to pull themselves up by their own boot straps. We constantly lecture on how choices people make affect their lives. We oppose race-based Affirmative Action because people should not be grouped according to arbitrary notions like "race". (I want government-funded education eliminated altogether.) This whole idea of the Bell Curve and racial inferiority is more in line with liberal/socialist thinking. Not conservative at all.
Sometimes new immigrant groups have ended up in ghettos but they work their way out of them pretty fast.
I remember how different European groups here in the U.S. hated each other and the stories my aunts and uncles would tell about their generation. The key to moving out of the "ghetto" was assimilation. It's easier to assimilate when you look more like the people in power. But that doesn't mean people are powerless when they don't resemble other people closely enough. There are circumstances beyond one's control, but choices we each make will affect our stations in life.
I wouldn't feel the least bit sorry for Watson if someone challenged him to debate, or just disagreed with him. But what's been done to him is pretty abusive, don't you think?
No, he should've known better. After eugenics was used to justify slavery, the Holocaust, etc., he should've known that the issue is a hot-button one, and that people do not let those claims pass anymore without arguing against them.
Is anyone offering to debate Watson? No, because he'd cream them.
Nah. Watson has never done work in the area of race and intelligence, as far as I've read. He's recanting what he said now, and maybe that's not due to pressure. He seems to feel his words were twisted and misunderstood.
If researchers claimed that Christians have an average lower IQ than non-Christians, I'd expect Christians to engage that argument intellectually, not to bully and intimidate people into submission. Isn't that how they've responded to Dawkins and Hitchins? They haven't thrown tantrums, demanded that atheists be banned from speaking or holding positions of public trust, or forced to recant if they wish to keep from losing their job or becoming a social outcast.
Remember Madelyn Murray? She received death threats. How about the guy who took the Pledge to court. He received death threats, too. Then there was the guy who was petitioned out of public office because he wouldn't recite the Pledge of Allegiance. And how about Christians refusing to shop at stores because employees aren't saying, "Merry Christmas." The First Amendment applies to everyone. Christians, atheists, everyone has a right to speak his mind.
I have to say, conservatives use the term "politically correct" just like liberals use "bigot". I've been called "bigot" by liberals, both on forums and in person, just because I oppose Affirmative Action (which only backfires because it reflects negatively on people), want a fence along the border, oppose illegal immigration, and oppose the destruction of the true definition of marriage. Now I'm being accused of "political correctness" here because I don't buy into this guy's reported claim. But I say my view is more in line with conservatism.
Have a good day!
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