Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

Watson cancels tour. and makes a forced apology.

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?

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The study wouldn't test the extremes or the variance; it would simply test the proposition that we actually care about (i.e. averages across racial groups). Obtaining direct evidence of averages across a large sample for things like foot speed and jump height is not difficult. He is proposing an alternative explanation that seems implausible, as proof of a negative. Proving the positive, i.e. that blacks are, on average, faster, stronger, etc. is quite easy to prove (or disprove) directly.

edited to add -- whatever data set is used to determine cutoffs for the presidential physical fitness test (http://www.presidentschallenge.org/e...standards.aspx) would probably suffice.

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But the distribution is way more important than the average in this case. If it were the case that blacks and whites have the exact same distribution except that black people have a much longer tail at the positive end, this would not necessarily mean that black people are more athletic than white people. It simply means that there are more of them at the extreme end. This would affect the "average" athleticism score, but it wouldn't prove what some people are claiming.

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For one thing, when you make estimates from large samples, you often exclude outliers by doing things like eliminating the top and bottom 2% or 5% of your data set, which would eliminate that possible effect.

And, if the distribution curves were identical except that there was a very long tail at one end of the curve for blacks, they would be more athletic, on average, than whites. To ignore the long tail would be like ignoring the chance of winning the jackpot when doing an EV calc.

More generally, when making inductive arguments, I am comfortable assuming normal distribution unless I look at the data and see otherwise. That is because it is "normal" for data to be distributed that way. Turning back to the original topic of the post; most test score data are distributed quite normally.

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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Were we talking math, there's no problem Add four or subtract negative four, you end up the same place. When you say blacks are superior athletes, it's a very different thing than saying they're stupid.

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why is it so different?

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

Watson suspended.

What Would David Say About This Remark?
 

"It just goes to show that people who are intelligent in some ways are not intelligent in others,'' Matory said today in an interview. ``They often extrapolate based on very inadequate reviews of the evidence and inspired more by their prejudices than scientific method.''

Re: What Would David Say About This Remark?
 

Comparing Black Americans, White Americans and Asian Americans really is terrible sampling.. A lot of asians that come here get here through top graduate schools in the US. You're looking at the cream of the crop in their country. Like wise, Black Americans have a history of slavery.

In the end, why should any of it matter?

Re: What Would David Say About This Remark?
 

It matters for any number of reasons. For example, if people can rationalize the lower achievements in income and education for blacks compared to whites with the explanation that they're genetically inferior, there would be less reason to devise social and political policies to try to alleviate the income and education disparities.

Re: What Would David Say About This Remark?
 

true that

Re: Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb
 

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Were we talking math, there's no problem Add four or subtract negative four, you end up the same place. When you say blacks are superior athletes, it's a very different thing than saying they're stupid.

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I agree the implications are different, but your previous argument was silly.

Re: What Would David Say About This Remark?
 

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For example, if people can rationalize the lower achievements in income and education for blacks compared to whites with the explanation that they're genetically inferior, there would be less reason to devise social and political policies to try to alleviate the income and education disparities.

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Stated differently, we could devise social policies around whatever the truth is, rather than whatever makes PC elitists comfortable.