Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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A man's considered opinion is an irrational prejudice? Lammy must know something I don't. Someone please link me to the proof that races have identical intelligence. Because you'd have to prove that to call his comments "irrational prejudices". Perhaps Mr. Lammy lacks some critical thinking skills.


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I agree with what you are saying

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The British government's skills minister, David Lammy, who is black, called the comments "deeply offensive" and said Watson would only succeed in providing oxygen for extremist political groups.


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I also agree with this comment, and in my opinion, if opining about various degrees of intelligence among races, you ought to immediatly back up your assertations with some facts and context, unless you don't care about the ramifications of providing oxygen for extreme groups, who will certainly take your comments out of context (if you are a person people listen to) and run with them and cause harm in the process.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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Here's what I don't get about these sorts of scuffles:

What is the point of doing research into intelligence differences between the races? What's the agenda? Where does one go with the results? I don't see what the use is of trying to look into the question "black people are dumber than white people." It's a thorny question to look at purely scientifically (how are you defining black, dumb, and white?), and there are such obvious negative drawbacks even to "succeeding" that I wonder what people are hoping to accomplish with this information that makes it worthwhile. Because I don't see the point. Science is almost never just knowledge for knowledge's sake; there's a lot of careful choice that goes into what gets looked at and taken seriously. So, why?

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There are many agendas for doing this research. I'll just focus on the reasons why this stuff is immensely important:

1. Education in the US assumes blacks and whites learn in the same manner, and can both succeed studying the same subject material.
2. Affirmation Action gives the incompetent (by definition - affirmation action is for those with lower and often much lower scores) power, privilege and education over the more competent. One should wonder about a society that promotes the less competent...
3. Social policies are based on the assumption that intellectual capital is the same between races. This is a dangerous assumption when trying to fix something that's not working - you end up blaming the wrong reasons.
4. African development policies are based on the idea that there is sufficient intellectual capital to build and maintain Western style governments, industry, innovation, and peace. The reality is that you need a large number of 120+ individuals to solve social and engineering problems, make breakthroughs, plan for the future, and look after the 80-.

Do you see why this issue is huge?

I really do not see the downside. Sure, a few radical groups will jump on this stuff - but they do already. Compare that to the impact of official policies which will govern the lives of hundreds of millions, being based on faulty assumptions. There should be open and candid debate on this topic, not instant and unfounded vilification of those who try to help.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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Yeah, what most people don't know is that intelligence tests are not generalizable across cultures, what they might know is that the term intelligence is hotly debated, and is not strictly defined - so when a renowned scientist goes out and says something like this, then its pure junk - nothing else.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General...ligence_factor

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Yes, the general intelligence factor which you linked to with that article is indeed hotly debated and many claim it is plain out false, whereas others say it is simply irrelevant.

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You are badly misstating the general opinion of psychologists IMO. I did some serious reading on this topic and even the American Psychological Association has stated that IQ tests measure g quite accurately, and the differences between cultural groups can not be attributed to cultural biases (between all of their apologetics, of course)

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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This raises two questions in my mind,
1) Is this true?


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The evidence is pretty strong that his statement is true. Regardless of the criticisms that can be made of IQ tests and tests that involve vocabulary or reading comprehension, no one will ever convince me that a standardized math test is "culturally biased." Of course, no one with half a brain would publicly admit that his statement is true. It reminds me of the english maid from bonfire of the vanities -- nothing lowers social status quicker among educated people than being perceived to have racist beliefs. No matter how empirically, dryly, or scientifically asserted, any suggestion that average intellectual ability varies by race is a reputational death blow in sophisticated circles.

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2) Should I believe it is true because this guy obviously knows more about genetics than %99.99999 of the population?
(Similar to some of the arguements thrown around about Global Warming (this isnt a hit on global warming just making a comparision))

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Probably not, because it sure looks like his mind is past its prime. You shouldn't believe it until you look at the evidence, which is quite compelling. And even then, you probably shouldn't talk about it. Just look at the emotional, vitriolic responses this post has spawned.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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I'm not sure if there have been studies done about the "average" black man and white man comparing their physical strength. Most of the time I hear people making this argument about blck people being better atheletes on "average" they point to professional sports and things such as the Olympics ands say "See the fastest man in the world is black. 85% of pro basketball players are black(not sure if that is the actuall statistic or not). Therefore the average black man must be more athletic than the average white man." This is wrong because professional ateletes make up such a small percentage of the overall population you can't draw conclusions about the "average" person of that race from those observations. There may be higher variance amoungst one race allowing the outliers to achieve more than the outliers of another race, but that can tell you nothing about the average.

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Maybe true, but I think you forgot that the number of prospective non-black professional athletes outnumbers the number of prospective black athletes by 9:1.
And yet, we are seeing 8:1 in the other direction. Sure the number of pro athletes and olympians is small, but blacks would need to have a higher variance not only than whites but higher than every other racial group as well. This seems less plausible than that they are, on average, more athletic than the other races. In any event, this would be pretty easy to test, so if this were the actual reason, I would think someone would have proven it by now. That sort of analysis would be widely embraced and trumpeted from the mouths of academics because it would so nicely coincide with elitist PC values.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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Same thing with his comment about aborting homosexuals. It implies that a homosexual life is not worth as much as that of a heterosexual.

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I thought it was just a fetus. Now you're saying it's a life that has value and to be in favor of killing it is somehow wrong? I hope the DNC doesn't hear of your blasphemous talk...[img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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First of all, his opinion here is not truth - there is no solid enough finding to claim this is truth.


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So, you and the professor disagree. Welcome to intellectual discourse. Have you reviewed the test results?

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First you would have to a generalizable intelligence test, then you would have to have a strict definition of intelligence and then you would have to academic agreement on that term.


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There are quite a large number of scientists who believe that we have generalizable intelligence tests. Not everyone agrees, but unanimity is rare, especially when dealing with such an emotionally and politically charged topic.

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So what he stated was his opinion - and knowing he is an authority on the subject he should know what may fall, I don't deny him to the right to say what he feels like but neither do I feel any remorse that he pays the price.

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Yes, we should silence all discourse on this uncomfortable topic immediately. Anyone who disagrees with you should pay a reputational price.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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You are badly misstating the general opinion of psychologists IMO. I did some serious reading on this topic and even the American Psychological Association has stated that IQ tests measure g quite accurately, and the differences between cultural groups can not be attributed to cultural biases (between all of their apologetics, of course)

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This is pretty meaningless though. Even if IQ tests measure g quite accurately, what is g a measure of? That is where the debate lies. I hate it when people appeal to authority, but I must admit that I'm currently in a Psychology PhD program right now and I would like to think that I have a slightly better handle on the general opinion of most research psychologists considering that I talk to them and read their research every day.

Would you mind linking me to where you read the APA statement that you are referring to?

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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To those criticizing IQ - there are many measures of intelligence besides IQ score, some quantitative, others anecdotal, and they match pretty well on the racial divide. I've listed a heap of them before.


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I don't think there is a debate about whether or not different races score differently on these tests. The debate is over what these tests are actually measuring and why this gap exists.

While I wouldn't claim that there is absolutely no genetic component, we really don't have any compelling evidence that the difference can be best explained by genes. (Or adequately explained for that matter.)

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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Maybe true, but I think you forgot that the number of prospective non-black professional athletes outnumbers the number of prospective black athletes by 9:1.
And yet, we are seeing 8:1 in the other direction. Sure the number of pro athletes and olympians is small, but blacks would need to have a higher variance not only than whites but higher than every other racial group as well. This seems less plausible than that they are, on average, more athletic than the other races. In any event, this would be pretty easy to test, so if this were the actual reason, I would think someone would have proven it by now.

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Please propose a study that would be able to adequately test the extremes of these populations.

Don't you think if it were an easy study to undertake that people who believe that it isn't a variance thing would do the study to prove that whites and blacks have the same variance?