[im a model]

after reading this entire thread:

1) andy, enough already. we realize that watson isnt an exemplary individual. whenever someone tries to discuss something in this thread you talk about how watson is a bigot and his views are biased. we know. everyone has moved on from watson. your continued ad hominem arguments add no value to this thread.

2) this notion that blacks (you could pick nigerians for sprints or kenyans for long distance) are worse swimmers than whites seems totally unfounded. we can say blacks (or at least the high outliers of blacks) are better than whites at track and basketball and football because a huge percentage of whites play all of these sports. you see no blacks swimming in the olypics because almost no black people compete in swimming. most blacks i know dont even know how to swim because its not a big part of their culture and they dont take swim lessons and get into competitive swimming like whites do. its like saying that americans are intrinsically worse at cricket than south africans or indians, which is why americans always get crushed in international competition. anyone can figure out that americans suck at cricket because nobody plays it.

3) the idea that we dont know if blacks run faster on average than whites because maybe the ones who excel and who we see on tv are the product of a high variance distribution seems silly even in theory--and i dont even see why it is pertinent to this discussion of intelligence--but either way, this seems really unlikely. people who have lived in places with a high concentration of blacks can certainly attest to the fact that the average black guy is more athletic than the average white guy.

4) stop citing the study about the one-year-olds as though it were a ligitimate study. it was rejected in peer review. and also, even if it were a worthy study it has very little significance in this debate since we are interested is the advanced cognitive ability of grown-ups, and the high IQ or g of a one-year-old does not by a long shot necessarily imply a high IQ or g through the entire development from infancy to adulthood. the parts or functions of the brain that develop later in life and that are the relevant ones to this debate are not going to be necessarily testable on an infant.

5) there is certainly plenty of debate about the implications of g and its meaning, and it is certainly true that "blacks" and "whites" are umbrella terms describing people of various ethnicities who can be very different from one another, but just because we arent far along in the process and it may be a more complicated issue than it seems initially doesnt mean that devoting time and scientific study to racial differences isnt a worthwhile endeavor. the science does have applications and i think it is always right to discover the truth even if its not something that everyone will like. as for an application, take the public school system: if we knew that blacks scored worse on exams, then when a predominantly black school scored poorly on an exam, we wouldnt incorrectly categorize that school as being poorly run and underfunded and in need of more government aid, whereas with the current prevailing wisdom that everyone is equal, we would.

6) [ QUOTE ]
From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes little sense that race and intelligence are strongly linked. The various races of the world began to diverge about 100,000 years ago in waves of immigration from Africa, long after humans evolved their large brains, which took millions of years of evolution. So the races of the world are a relatively new phenomenon, whereas, human intelligence is much more ancient. (DNA analysis, further, clearly shows that the greatest genetic variation exists, not between races, but within races.)

[/ QUOTE ]

we are always evolving. even if we are "devolving," as some people put it, thats still evolution. 100,000 years isnt enough time for any huge changes in brain structure, but its enough time for disparities to appear between groups. its enough time for some groups to develop superior athletic abilites and different facial structure, and its definitely enough time for a statistically significant difference of a few percentage points of IQ to appear. i think its better to look at facts and come to a conclusion (science) than to try to explain the origin of something with no predictive or applicable value (not science).

7) the issue of the stereotype threat is very unconvincing to me. i acknowledge that it is a real phenomenon, but i dont believe it plays nearly as big a role in accounting for the difference in test scores as the apologists let on. and why does it so heavily affect blacks but not whites to be told that they dont do well on a test? if you hire a black employee will he continually need positive reinforcement so he doesnt succumb to stereotype threat and lose 5% of his productivity? these tests like the LSAT and SAT are taken under real-world conditions (not a lab on a contrived IQ test with purposeful stereotype threat reinforcement), and you can ascribe whatever bias you like to them, but that bias is going to reflect what happens in the real world when that person is taking a test or crunching numbers in an accounting firm. i have more to say on some of the studies and papers on this, but i want to wrap up this post.

8) the big statement in this thread is one that a lot of people have already made: the topic of race is now taboo to a ridiculous and harmful degree. it has come to the point where you cant even suggest performing an objective, scientific study that may come to a conclusion that is not concordant with the government's policy that all races are totally equal in all respects. i hate the idea of purposefully covering up the truth. if people werent so near sighted about this then perhaps we could really start making some progress in terms of domestic policy changes to address areas where blacks are being unfairly treated and there could be honest and open talk about racial matters (crime, poverty, racism, etc.), but instead we choose to just say that anything negative about any race is absolutely unacceptable even if it is potentially true and you are fired and vilified and ostracised if you make any such statements that dont fit into the accepted social outlook. its so sick.