Slate.com on race and IQ

[West]

another good one

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.c...ce_science.php

[InTheDark]

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This subject might be relevant if there was a significant difference between an IQ of 95 and 115.

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Nice, but let's take it a bit further.

Imagine there are two groups with a billion people each. One group has 10,000,000 people with IQs above 130. The other group has 100,000 people with IQs above 130. Does the subject become relevant?

Now go to 150. One group has 1,000,000 people with IQs above 150. The other group has 1000 people with IQs above 150. Relevant?

Go the other way. One group has 500 million people with IQs below 75. The other group has 20 million people with IQs below 75. Relevant?

If I was to put these two groups in identical starting conditions at the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, what do you think their respective societies, technologies, literature & philosophies would look like today?

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You should read a book called guns germs and steal, I think you'd like it. Would give you a better picture of human history too, and realise that there was a lot more important stuff than race going on.

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I read 'Steal This Book' and 'Guns, Germs and Steel' but not the above.


Diamond lays out a multi-hundred page alibi concocted of just so stories to get from his PC hypothesis to his PC conclusion. I find every motive of his suspect and obvious if one is to read only the introduction. I want that portion of my life wasted reading it refunded.

[InTheDark]

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Most of the work that is cited in that Slate article has been shown to be flawed methodologically.

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Damn near every bit of social science has warts or worse. Some is fraudulent, some skewed by agenda. Some is withheld since it doesn't confirm (or rejects) the beloved PC hypothesis, as in the recent revelations regarding Robert Putman.

So when I look at any race/IQ research from the last 40 years I assume there exists pressure to conform, as academia rewards the small players when they do. I think that older research might sometimes include a racist taint as well. But so many trends have occured over and over, a critically thinking observer is going to reach similar conclusions to Saletan.

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Afraid not. You should read that earlier link and move on from there. This link is not specifically about the precise paper referenced by Saletan, but you should see the relevance.

More , more , more

Might want to check this out (Caste)

Another perspective

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You do understand that this is an intellectual shooting war. The concept of a black/white intelligence difference wasn't even argued in the negative until maybe 50 years ago.

Good news for your side. IQ is being deconstructed. Race is being deconstructed. All associated discussion is nearly a firing offense. Bravo.

[Taraz]

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You do understand that this is an intellectual shooting war. The concept of a black/white intelligence difference wasn't even argued in the negative until maybe 50 years ago.

Good news for your side. IQ is being deconstructed. Race is being deconstructed. All associated discussion is nearly a firing offense. Bravo.

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I don't see why people think that it is so much of a taboo to talk about these things. Obviously a lot of work in this area is being published and discussed.

Obviously whenever someone claims to have proof that one race is "better" than another in some sense or another people are skeptical of their motives. Historically speaking there is good reason for this since we have a long history of prejudice and racism.

There is also a reason that race and IQ are being deconstructed. Namely, the fact that neither of them are accurate measures of what we commonly think they are.

[Subfallen]

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0.2% of the population, 25% of the Nobel Prizes.

Still waiting for why this isn't statistically significant.

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You are examining the wrong population.

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I assume you mean that I should be examining the academic elite, but that merely reframes the question. 0.2% of the population, 25+% of the academic elite.

Why?

[Splendour]

hmmm...seems I've heard this somewhere's else before...

[InTheDark]

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I don't see why people think that it is so much of a taboo to talk about these things.

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Are you cloistered? Larry Summers took a boot up the ass for saying only the mildest of unPC heresy. Academia is unforgiving and dogmatic in the extreme.

[Subfallen]

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hmmm...seems I've heard this somewhere's else before...

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I'm not Jewish, fwiw ( [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] ), I just fail to see why these statistics don't astound anyone but me.

[tame_deuces]

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Here we go again . . .

Most of the work that is cited in that Slate article has been shown to be flawed methodologically.

To sum up the argument that has been made on this issue several times:

- What IQ tests measure and what the general intelligence factor (g) means is highly debated

- There is probably some genetic component to intelligence

- Environmental factors >>>>>>> Genetic factors

- The evidence that the IQ difference between races is genetic is tenuous at best

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It seems people want to look at the intelligence measure aximotatically, when the sad truth is that it is more like a 1930s hubble constant.

[Splendour]

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hmmm...seems I've heard this somewhere's else before...

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I'm not Jewish, fwiw ( [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] ), I just fail to see why these statistics don't astound anyone but me.

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FWIW they are remarkable stats Albinus. Seems to indicate that someone put a little something extra into them.