I can't believe I'm starting a race thread...

[Rduke55]

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Mr. "social construct" above try to hide behind that fact.

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Is that referring to me?

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Because it helps us to understand why education and training programs for black people don't work as they should

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Can you expand on that?

[Rduke55]

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since we have albino blacks

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And people with black skin that are more related to other populations than they are to african ones, etc.

[vhawk01]

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since we have albino blacks

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And people with black skin that are more related to other populations than they are to african ones, etc.

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Definitely. I like the example of albino blacks because it is sneakier. OF COURSE they are still black, most people would say, and yet, if you knew nothing about albinism, you would almost certainly place them in the white 'race,' or at the very least some other group, not blacks. So, what is the underlying thing that makes them 'black?' Its their ethnicity, almost certainly.

[Rduke55]

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Race is a social construct because it is an oversimplification of human genetic diversity.

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If we killed everyone that ever used the term "social construct" as a way of making a point, the world would be a better place.

As for race - here's my take. I'm sick of this nonsense so I'm going to make it clear for all of you.

Firstly. Race is a rule of thumb which is used to roughly classify people based on both ethnicity and cultural origin. It is a horribly imprecise term, and as such has little scientific meaning. The apologist cowards like Midge and Mr. "social construct" above try to hide behind that fact.

But - and here's the point that often gets lost with all this nonsense - ethnicity is a very real thing. By ethnicity I am referring to the isolated populations groups that existed for a good 10K-80K years of human development. And there appears to be very strong evidence that intelligence, innate behavior, and (less so) physical prowess vary significantly between ethnic groups. For example, if I took income/socioeconomic status matched pairs of a random East Asian with a random person of Sub Saharan African origin, the great majority of the time, the East Asian would come out ahead in terms of intelligence - often far ahead. You would find this result in any country.

Why does this matter? Because it can explain a great deal in terms of social outcomes. Because it helps us to understand why education and training programs for black people don't work as they should, and possibly develop better alternatives more suited to their innate qualities. Because it puts expensive, wasteful programs like affirmative action in their proper perspective. Americans are catapulting incompetent idiots into positions of powers for the sake of political correctness.

And the most important reason is: because it's the truth, and we ignore the truth at our peril.

Ethnicity is a real and very meaningful classification. If people wish to debate that, I'm all ears.

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Holy crap. When did this happen, Phil? I am fairly positive you used to sing a fairly different (although not completley incompatible) tune a while ago. This is a good post, and I pretty much agree with all of this.

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Except that he's acting like he's taking the ethnicity is valid position and we aren't, yet we've mostly agreed on its validity.

[Skidoo]

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"reproductively isolated" = "cannot make fertile offspring"

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Not a very useful formulation. It is better to distinguish circumstantial reproductive isolation from that which is due to intrinsic incompatibility.

[Phil153]

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Except that he's acting like he's taking the ethnicity is valid position and we aren't, yet we've mostly agreed on its validity.

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rduke - then state it openly rather than obscuring the issues behind race.

State, for the record, that you believe there are significant differences between ethnics groups in intelligence, and that these differences are probably due, in significant part, to a genetic component (either different genes or frequency of genes).

If you don't believe this, then what differences are you referring to? The ethnicity/IQ debate appears to be the only contentious issue where racial groupings are concerned.

The idea the ethnic groupings exist is obviously trivially true, and not worthy of starting a thread. We can all see that Africans are black, for example, or that Asians have unfolded eyelids. You don't need debate (or even a high school diploma) to see that ethnic groupings share certain traits. So what is it that you're agreeing with?

[vhawk01]

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Except that he's acting like he's taking the ethnicity is valid position and we aren't, yet we've mostly agreed on its validity.

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rduke - then state it openly rather than obscuring the issues behind race.

State, for the record, that you believe there are significant differences between ethnics groups in intelligence, and that these differences are probably due, in significant part, to a genetic component (either different genes or frequency of genes).

If you don't believe this, then what differences are you referring to? The ethnicity/IQ debate appears to be the only contentious issue where racial groupings are concerned.

The idea the ethnic groupings exist is obviously trivially true, and not worthy of starting a thread. We can all see that Africans are black, for example, or that Asians have unfolded eyelids. You don't need debate (or even a high school diploma) to see that ethnic groupings share certain traits. So what is it that you're agreeing with?

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I think you invalidate this entire post with the line "are probably due, in significant part, to a genetic component..." It smacks of a hedge.

Its certainly not unthinkable or impossible that this is the case. Honestly, there are very, very few characteristics that DON'T have a genetic component. But saying probably and then saying significant, when we really have no idea what the genetic component is at this point (unless we do, I assume we do not but I am not an expert on this by any means) is really just grandstanding. It is almost certain there is a genetic component to intelligence. It is entirely unclear how significant that role is. Isn't it?

I know what stereotype you will accuse me of exemplifying by disagreeing with you on this topic, I've seen you do it in the past, but I can only do my best to ask honest questions and try to give honest opinions.

[Phil153]

It's not a hedge, just language that can be accepted by an scientist who's an expert in this field. I'm asking for an honest expert opinion. He's free to modify the language to something he finds acceptable. BTW..."probably" means "more likely than not".

RDuke has previously stated quite strongly that the race and IQ correlation is most probably due to non genetic factors, and ridiculed my knowledge and analysis. I want to see what his stance is on ethnicity/IQ without the "there's no such thing race" banner to hide behind.

[MidGe]

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Race is a social construct because it is an oversimplification of human genetic diversity.

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That's a very fair statement and could easily as well be said as race is a conventional (by convention) way of desribing groups of people.

To call race a scientific concept reminds me of a very recently in the news different scientific debate that displays a lot of similarity, namely the definition of planet and its recent change. Planet is only an agreement amongst scientists to name objects with certain characteristics (totally arbitrary) planet and other minor planets. It has not scientific usefulness whatsoever, exactly the same phenomena applies to the concept of race.

[Rduke55]

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State, for the record, that you believe there are significant differences between ethnics groups in intelligence, and that these differences are probably due, in significant part, to a genetic component (either different genes or frequency of genes).

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Did you miss the ashkenazi jew thread? I said there were very likely genetic differences in intelligence between ethnicities.
And vhawk is right, the significance of genetics in intelligence between ethnicities is unknown because of all the confounding variables.
Are you suggesting that variation in environment plays a much smaller role than variation in DNA?

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The ethnicity/IQ debate appears to be the only contentious issue where racial groupings are concerned.

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Are you moving the goalposts on purpose? I said before, multiple times, that it's not a question of ethnicity - it's friggin' RACE! Quit trying to make my points yours.