Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

There's been a fair amount of discussion lately about whether or not there are innate differences between the races. I'm not really interested in getting involved in that debate, because it's always been far too trivial for me to waste my time becoming informed. But I was thinking about it today, and I wondered the following:

If God came down in person tomorrow and announced that "blacks" (however that's even defined) were less intelligent by 2 IQ points, on average, what specific things would change?

The only correct answer, it seems to me, is nothing. Would we quit worrying about the legacies of racism, slavery, and inequality in our society? Why would we? Even if some of the achievement gap were related to innate racial differences, we know that racism is also a factor, and presumably we would remain committed to fighting it.

Would we start making racially-based judgments about blacks? I certainly hope not. It's not as if the only bad thing about racism is that stereotypes are often wrong. If you approach an Asian person and say, "Wow, you must really be good at math" it's still offensive even though the imputed quality is a positive thing. Even if minor differences do exist, that's still no reason not to treat individual human beings as human beings.

Would our everyday lives change? I can't see how they would. I personally have never interacted with the black race as a whole. I've often dealt with individuals of different skin color, but I've never used statistical distributions to approximate their characteristics. Why would I when I could just find out about them as human beings?

For a topic over which such a large amount of ink (and blood) has been spilled, it seems to me to be of surprisingly little importance. Can anyone explain to me why it would have any impact if minor but real differences between races were discovered? (Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that such differences do exist, and I am personally skeptical of such claims.)

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

Because everything we do in politics is supposed to revolve around making everyone equal.

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

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I think it would do away with affirmative action, because if it is finally proven that black people are less intelligent then it should then be admitted that they have no place attending the finest institutions of higher education, and then by extension holding high ranking positions in government or the private sector.

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Huh? If averages were different, many individual blacks would still be more intelligent (whatever metic) than many individual whites. Many would still attend top schools and hold top positions on merit. Regardless, AA would still be around anyway. You'd have to make the argument that admissions/employment statistics are nearly 100% attributable to lower intelligence and other factors unrelated to slavery/racism. That's an impossible argument to prove. Supporters of AA from a "right-past-wrongs" perspective still have their motivation. And the "diversity" crowd wouldn't be affected one inch.

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

In a word: baby boomers.

No one else cares about race anymore. The surest sign that someone is a baby boomer is that they talk about race.


natedogg

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

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If God came down in person tomorrow and announced that "blacks" (however that's even defined) were genetically less intelligent by 15 IQ points, on average, what specific things would change?

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The big change would be that most areas of unequal outcome, education, crime, income, would now have a recognizable explaination. Instead of foisting these poor results off on white racism we'd realize that throwing money and reverse discrimination at these problems is futile. Resources are then much better allocated. Everyone wins and it's a big win. Bison will still be crippled with white guilt but most everyone else will move on.

Oh, Jesse Jackson will be out of a job.

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

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If God came down in person tomorrow and announced that "blacks" (however that's even defined) were less intelligent by 2 IQ points, on average, what specific things would change?

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Change it to 40 points or 80 points and then what do you think would happen? The same things would happen if blacks were genetically deemed inferior by 2 points (just to a lesser extent.) The biggest problem is that it will give people with already racist tendencies a "scientific" hook to hang their hat on. People will be make illogical extensions (why only 10% black people at xyz university, their genetic inferiority, obviously.)

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If God came down in person tomorrow and announced that "blacks" (however that's even defined) were genetically less intelligent by 15 IQ points, on average, what specific things would change?

[/ QUOTE ]

The big change would be that most areas of unequal outcome, education, crime, income, would now have a recognizable explaination. Instead of foisting these poor results off on white racism we'd realize that throwing money and reverse discrimination at these problems is futile. Resources are then much better allocated. Everyone wins and it's a big win. Bison will still be crippled with white guilt but most everyone else will move on.

Oh, Jesse Jackson will be out of a job.

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Really? We'd still have anti-discrimination laws, and AA would still be justified, as Poofler points out. Perhaps there would be some greater sense of complacency about how far we have left to go, but that's certainly not a "big win."

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

Aren't anti-discrimination laws based upon the belief that, "all men are created equal?"

If there was reasonable proof that this is not true and the races are not created equal, someone could make an argument for amending the constitution.

An amendment at the federal level could open the door for some old Jim Crowe laws to be reenacted in the Southern states. Even worse, the Jim Crowe laws were based on a separate but equal principle. What happens when it's separate and not equal?

Racism is slowly going away, but is still alive and well, particularly in the South (and not just with the baby-boomers). If there was reasonable proof that the "white race" was superior in any way, that would really fuel the fire I think.

Re: Who Cares About Differences Between Races?
 

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If there was reasonable proof that this is not true and the races are not created equal, someone could make an argument for amending the constitution.

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It is axiomatically true. Can races be uniquely distinguished? If so, then they are by definition unequal.