Well, it was quite a weekend over here in the House of Love, huh? My thanks to all who chose to get their legs wet in that conversation about race and IQ.I have one more point to make before recommencing the “Stakes Be High” dialogues with DeAngelo Starnes.
First, though, this all transpired because a blogger named Craig Nulan charged (in a comment thread here) that my notions on the heritability of intelligence are “pseudo-scientific and anti-Black,” and that I cling to them “despite mountains of indisputable evidence to the contrary.”Nulan literally counted the hours until I posted a fuller articulation of my views. Then he responded on his own blog.
I will leave it to any interested reader to decide which of us spoke plainly and which one argued poorly... which one is ideology-driven and deliberately oblique.
Now, to my additional point. It’s a simple one and should be of interest to those who argue that “intelligence” is hopelessly indefinable (while I think that high intelligence is a quality all of us recognize when we encounter it).
Craig Nulan informed me that he is affiliated with Kansas City’s W.E.B. DuBois Learning Center – a “tutoring program for elementary and secondary students in the areas of reading, mathematics, science, and computer science.” It is a volunteer program that serves about 400 students a year, mostly public-school kids.
On the Learning Center’s website, co-founder Leon Dixon, Jr., describes one of the center’s success stories... a young woman named Lisa:
“Lisa became a Learning Center student while in elementary school and demonstrated superior ability. She was placed in the enrichment program wherein she continued to excel. As a result, The Kansas City, Missouri School District allowed her to take freshman algebra during her seventh grade year. Lisa’s academic performance enabled her to receive a scholarship to Praire View A&M University where she graduated in mechanical engineering.”
Now, what did Mr. Dixon mean when he said Lisa had “demonstrated superior ability”? Did he mean that she worked harder than the other kids?
I think we all know what he meant: Lisa was exceptionally bright. And this was obvious way back in elementary school. And it’s probably no surprise to anyone that Lisa now holds an engineering degree.
If Nulan tutors kids in computer science, he must know that not every kid is destined to attend MIT. Those who might be... well, I bet Nulan can tell.
In my sixth-grade public-school class, I was considered one of the three “smart boys.” Another was Sidney Lowe. Our teacher – the only male teacher I had in elementary school – possessed a sense of humor. He nicknamed the three of us after classroom reference books. One of us was “Webster,” one of us was “Thorndike,” and I forget the third one. (I also forget who was which.)
Sidney Lowe, even in sixth grade, excelled at basketball. So it’s no surprise that he eventually played in the NBA. But due to his intelligence – on display at that early age – it’s also no surprise that he now makes his living as an NCAA Division I head coach.
We shouldn’t ignore our simple, real-world understanding of what “intelligence” is – and what it means – as we navigate this politically and scientifically complex subject.
Speaking of politically and scientifically complex...
While Craig Nulan marches up and down the sidewalk wearing a sandwich board that says “IQ is meaningless!” on the front and “Psychometrics is racist!” on the back... guess what? A subset of the high-IQ population is doing things like mapping the human genome, putting machines on the surface of Mars (and communicating with them), and pondering the nature of subatomic particles.
Hell, it takes a high IQ to even comprehend that stuff, let alone do the actual science.
This in itself renders silly any black-partisan blustering about the unknowability of “intelligence,” or the relativism of different kinds of intelligences. Whitey done sent a spaceship past Saturn, got-dammit! How you sound, talkin’ ’bout “IQ ain’t shit”?
This is what confuses me. Why, why, why is this issue so important to you?
ReplyDeleteYou've said that you want an open and honest discussion on this topic. Why this topic? Who will benefit from such a discussion? What value will come of it? There are many topics which we are discouraged from discussing openly, why are you so, so excited to talk about this one? Sure, we should all be allowed to speak about anything we like, but hell, you could be devoting your energy to uncovering the secrets of fisting or some other tender subject!
My own view is that IQ testing is hopelessly biased, that ideas of intelligence are hopelessly biased and that measured differences in IQ along ethnic lines are also directly related to environmental factors, but what if I'm wrong? What if one could isolate exactly what intelligence is (which I assume you don't believe simply equals the ability to get into MIT or to play chess well), and could correctly generalize about which ethnic groups are 'better' for this particular trait. Then so, the fuck, what?
We all agree that within every 'group' (ethnic or otherwise) there is tremendous variety. And I hope we all agree that everyone, regardless of their heritable traits, deserves the same human rights as everyone else.
I don't understand the desire to make this a hobbyhorse issue.
Bay Radical, let's be real about it: racial inequalities in America are a conspicuous aspect of society... and blaming white people/the U.S. government/capitalism/U.S. institutions for those inequalities has been a dominant feature of leftist rhetoric and liberal policymaking for the last 40 years. And it has done jack shit to erase those inequalities.
ReplyDeleteSo please don't talk to me about "hobbyhorse issues."
Your discomfort with the subject is all the more reason to talk about it. Or is your "radicalism" incompatible with a challenge to certain orthodoxies of social thought?
And does the Berkeleyan spirit of free speech reach its limit when sacred egalitarianist beliefs come under scrutiny?
First off, I am SOOO GLAD your vanity wouldn't allow you to let this go Johnny Ringo.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't think you're going to trot out anything else about selective breeding - as that opened up a can of complexity that doesn't lend itself particularly well to your plaintive appeals to "common sense";
I will leave it to any interested reader to decide which of us spoke plainly and which one argued poorly... which one is ideology-driven and deliberately oblique.
Now, to my additional point. It’s a simple one and should be of interest to those who argue that “intelligence” is hopelessly indefinable (while I think that high intelligence is a quality all of us recognize when we encounter it).
I've got two things to say about that.
1. Science is hard son.
2. Propaganda is easy.
You've taken the easy way out and played yourself. Having already admitted that The Bell Curve was a definitive influence on your thinking in this area - you clearly demonstrated that in your initial post. Albert Einstein put it best: "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." Prejudice is the cornerstone of your position on this subject David. You've been badly propagandized and are now loathe to have anyone point that fact out. The commonsense innocence, openness, and simplicity of the extremely politicized commentary and discourse you pretend to support is symptomatic of nothing more than conservative propaganda.
I'll say it again.
1. Science is hard.
2. Propaganda is easy.
Guess you didn't get Stephan Metcalf's crushing memo to pop cultural apologists for pseudo-scientific racism? Saletan adopted the same faux innocent pose you've attempted and FUBAR'd some hard-earned institutional credibility in the process.
See, I already knew the answers to the race and IQ questions a long time ago. What I was interested in exploring was the what's, why's and wherefore's underlying your own adoption of racist points of view. That remains what I'm most curious about. Why are you an anti-Black racist David?
The beauty of taking a psychological tack with regard to your professions on race and IQ, i.e., "why have you internalized pseudo-scientific racism?" - is that it is producing the inevitable cascade of unintended self-disclosures that are the real crux of the matter - like lancing a boil.
racial inequalities in America are a conspicuous aspect of society... and blaming white people/the U.S. government/capitalism/U.S. institutions for those inequalities has been a dominant feature of leftist rhetoric and liberal policymaking for the last 40 years. And it has done jack shit to erase those inequalities.
In a society defined by race and inequality for 400 years, it is absurd on the face of it to imagine that 4 decades is sufficient to correct the damage that centuries have wrought. If your goal is nothing other than to continue the system of inequality - which is the defining goal of conservativism - then propaganda tools are of paramount importance.
Your discomfort with the subject is all the more reason to talk about it. Or is your "radicalism" incompatible with a challenge to certain orthodoxies of social thought? And does the Berkeleyan spirit of free speech reach its limit when sacred egalitarianist beliefs come under scrutiny?
You're no truthseeker, rather, you're a pop cultural gatekeeper for longstanding orthodoxies of intolerance. Why are you an anti-Black racist David? Dressing up your true sentiments in the ill-fitting drag of genetic pseudo-science....,
Whitey done sent a spaceship past Saturn, got-dammit! How you sound, talkin’ ’bout “IQ ain’t shit”?
I sound like somebody who didn't get hoodwinked and bamboozled into internalizing racism under the guise of psychometry and selective breeding....,
Except at the extremes of very high and low, differences in IQ have no discernible effects in practice. I'm reminded of David Halberstam's facetiously titled The Best and the Brightest in which men with exceptional intelligence, like McGeorge Bundy, committed disastrous blunders in foreign policy.
ReplyDeleteI've taken more tests than most of the population. I can tell you there is no way to predict from a test who is a better doctor. During residency I worked with a couple of guys who had published research and they were horrible in the clinical setting. My best friend from medical school, on the other hand, tested poorly but was skilled at thinking on his feet while sleep deprived and performing lifesaving procedures.
So even if you choose to believe that there are genetic differences in IQ based on 'race', why is it significant? Maybe this is God's way of compensating for the asymmetrical distribution of penis and buttock sizes among the races.
Maybe this is God's way of compensating for the asymmetrical distribution of penis and buttock sizes among the races.
ReplyDeleteSub???
Elevate yo game bruh.(^;
We are obliged to keep this on the highest of the high roads so as to fully illuminate what's gotten hold of young master Mills here.
So even if you choose to believe that there are genetic differences in IQ based on 'race', why is it significant?
It's very, very significant because it's all about his politics and has nothing whatsoever to do with any scientific understanding whatsoever. Read him close;
Your discomfort with the subject is all the more reason to talk about it. Or is your "radicalism" incompatible with a challenge to certain orthodoxies of social thought?
And does the Berkeleyan spirit of free speech reach its limit when sacred egalitarianist beliefs come under scrutiny?
Just think about all the random variables David leaves hanging in his rush to judgement that IQ is heritable? You yourself pointed out one on the original thread. Brougham's got no reliable or repeatable definition of "race". He doesn't know a damn thing about alfred but that has no bearing on his beliefs.
The essence of the thing we're interrogating here is David Mill's beliefs, his uncritical rush to judgement, susceptibility to racist propaganda, and subsequent political apologetics.
Has nothing whatsoever to do with genetics or IQ. It has to do with racism which he's uncritically internalized. I want to know much, much more about that phenomenon. Believe me, he's not the first. Dubois, Turner, Garvey, and others expressed their own bellies-full of eugenic blather back in their day too, or did you suppose that the "talented-tenth" and "racial purity" were of exclusively "white" agency?
Now, to my additional point. It’s a simple one and should be of interest to those who argue that “intelligence” is hopelessly indefinable (while I think that high intelligence is a quality all of us recognize when we encounter it).
Any test for IQ that tested heritable human intelligence would have to be constructed so as to be taken by all humans, and would include culturally agnostic measurements of knowledge, skill, sensori-motor coordination, social aptitude, as well as culture-specific grammar and symbol manipulation. Do you have a universal maze "bright"/"dull" test for humans David?
Intelligence simply isn't the complex kind of quality you can test for by distributing individual pieces of paper to human beings in a classroom. Doing so compromises the objectivity of the test because grammar and symbol manipulation skill is inherently a social construct and product of acculturation as much as making a bamboo spear and spearing fish with it would be. Racists blithely, ignorantly, and propagandistically mix up culture and genetics - and have done so from the outset of the psychometric pseudo-science with Galton.
Genetics is about a broad range of complex interactions giving rise to phenotypic structures and functions which in turn give rise to neural paths, neurotransmitters, and related systems and processes which can have a decisive bearing on the same.
No scientist claims to know what proper configuration of neural paths, neurotransmitters and the like go into the overall form of human intelligence. But it explains why momentarily tried to embark on a discussion of brain size as a genetic target - because otherwise your appeal to "common sense" is lost. "Throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks"
IQ tests, which are products of early 20th century acculturation, long before the advent of either neurology or genetics, and, at the height of the racist imperialist ethos - is about acculturation and its effect on curricular assimilation. IQ heritability is a hybrid of 19th century science with early 21st century racism - most useful for sussing out the kind of entrenched prejudices you see in the governing class and its ever ready apologists.
I was trying to show how silly and scientifically worthless this topic is. Just like Fisher says that anal sphincter size is just as valid as race in sorting distinctive human categories. But your right on as far as its political significance. What Mills hasn't explained to my (and Bay Radical's) satisfaction is other than a constitutional right to 'free speech' why is this subject worth his serious consideration? What is his endpoint? To use a spades analogy, I'm willing to let his little joker walk. What's next? I think I know, but I'd like to hear him out.
ReplyDeleteI recommend Walter Goldschmidt's excellent book, The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene. It's a particularly good book for folks who do not have strong natural or "hard" science backgrounds (although, I advise anyone who does not have the equivalent of a bachelor's degree holder's knowledge of at least one hard science or of mathematics to seriously consider investing a few hundred hours of one's leisure accumulating such knowledge, if necessary, autodidactically).
ReplyDeleteGoldschmidt, writing plainly and for a broad audience that would include those who don't have strong anthropology, biology, psychology, or sociology chops, shares the following insightful and easily graspable syllogism on page 19 of the book:
• Many genetic instructions that make us human are indeterminate, requiring fine adjustments.
• These adjustments are responses to situational conditions.
• The actions of other humans create some situational conditions.
• Therefore, social and biological cannot be separate realms.
Craig wrote: "No scientist claims to know what proper configuration of neural paths, neurotransmitters and the like go into the overall form of human intelligence."
ReplyDeleteBut don't scientists want to know? Aren't they studying this very thing? Should they not study this on moral (anti-racist) grounds... because of where it might lead?
Craig, if you think the nature of intelligence is unknowable, I have one bold-face question for you... (Put on your tap shoes, Sandman!):
Is research into "artificial intelligence" (AI) a waste of time? If so, why? If not, why not?
(Deeper still: Is the study of "artificial intelligence" racist?)
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ReplyDeleteIs research into "artificial intelligence" (AI) a waste of time? If so, why? If not, why not?
ReplyDeleteLook who's slipping and sliding around on the old soft shoe now?
That's a trivially easy kwestin to answer though from where I sit. AI was a complete and total waste of time from the perspective of its nominal aim. As a practical matter, like the so-called Star Wars initiative under Preznit Raygun, it served as a convenient pretext for funneling lots and lots of taxpayer dollars into massive computational R&D, which research and development bore lots and lots of of industrial and infrastructural fruit and powered much of the informatics boom of the 1990's right up through the present day.
As for the alleged goal, well, Sir Roger Penrose argued accessibly and persuasively enough for my tastes that enough of the qualities ascribed to mentality are classically non-computational that it makes about as much sense to talk about AI as it does to talk about the heritability of IQ.
(Deeper still: Is the study of "artificial intelligence" racist?)
Not particularly. However, it IS one of the elements comprising and feeding into the transhumanist zeitgeist. I consider the direction and substance of this collective human endeavor to be of sufficient gravity and importance that I find it deeply disturbing when 19th century racialist superstitions contaminate the atmosphere in which funding and proprietary decisions are taken surrounding this activity.
submariner...
ReplyDelete"What Mills hasn't explained to my (and Bay Radical's) satisfaction is other than a constitutional right to 'free speech' why is this subject worth his serious consideration?"
Sub, what needs to be pointed out here is that this is a case of an advocate of racialist genetic determination of human mental capacity (Nulan) trying to argue the opposite here, namely that human mental capacity is not genetically determined. This is disingenuous to say the least.
To wit:
Craig Nulan claims as follows:
"High levels of dopamine impairs the minds ability to think creatively."
Earlier Nulan stated that:
"All drugs of addiction (and addictive behaviors) and only these ultimately stimulate dopamine release or increase its activity in the nucleus accumbens, the same way electrical current in rats, monkeys, and humans does, and cause dopamine release throughout the brain, and produce the hedonic response. The hedonic responses to these addictors are: I like that, motivation, incentive stimulus, goal directed behaviors. Addictors stimulate dopamine release in nucleus accumbens and throughout the brain. Drugs that block dopamine block this response. Dopamine coordinates responses throughout the brain, especially the emotional and memory parts of the brain. It provides information about what’s important to the organism a well as feeling of well being. Dopamine does all this in all people, so why do only some people get addicted and most others don’t?
The organisms (animals and humans) that get addicted are the ones that started genetically with low dopamine activity to begin with.
This genetics separates people who get addicted and people who don’t.
These genetically low dopamine people have, by definition, addictive tendencies. It is this low dopamine activity that causes these people to unconsciously seek out dopamine raisers, drugs and behaviors, and get addicted to them, all unconsciously, from the very beginning.”
So what we have here is the following...
Nulan divides humanity into genetically determined high dopamine people and low dopamine people.
(This genetics separates people who get addicted and people who don’t.}
Then he posits that dopamine levels affect creativity (a mental activity, and, I would argue an important aspect of intelligence).
("High levels of dopamine impairs the minds ability to think creatively.")
Thus, just as "sphincter size is just as valid as race in sorting distinctive human categories", Nulan uses just as valid markers of "dopamine levels" (without quantifying these levels as determinants of race)and creates, a la H.G Wells, two human categories (i.e. "races") by ascribing genetically determined dopamine levels and thus genetically determined mental capacities to each such human category ("race").
That makes Nulan certainly an incomparably more rigid genetic racialist than Mills.
The question now is, as you put it in regards to Mills "What is his endpoint?" "What's next"?
Well, Nulan has constructed a whole social mechanism of genetically determined dominance based on his genetic dopamine theory complete with genetically determined"low dopamine" people who dominate genetically determined "high (and thus genetically determined creatively impaired) dopamine people".
Moreover, Nulan states that
"That white supremacy is an extreme syndrome within the more encompassing pathology of dopamine hegemony"
Which use of the term "white supremacy" in that context says that the "low dopamine" folks are or tend to be "white" and the "high dopamine (creatively impaired) people) are non-white.
In other words, white people have a higher mental capacity as manifested by their genetically determined superior creativity than non-white people whose inferior mental capacity is genetically determined by high dopamine levels.
That is anti-black racism par excellence.
So what is the political meaning of Nulan's campaign against Mills when Nulan's ideology is incomparably more anti-black than Mills' could ever have been?
Moreover, let's consider the fact that Nulan's racist anti-black views have no objective scientific and empirical basis whatsoever.
I argue that what we have here is a case of a pro-white wolf hiding in a black sheep's clothing.
Ain't no amount of Nulansian epithets which usually follow any such exposure of his anti-black and certainly pro-white views, gonna change that.
Oh lawd, here come that pitiful basehead still mad cause nobody wants any of his MF'ing GSWS cheeseburgers.
ReplyDeleteFisher, I'm anti-stupid. If that bothers you - then commence to posting at the assault about a global system of smart supremacy that is systematically discriminating against your dumbazz....,
Now what I done said about the follow up with Nulansian epithets?
ReplyDeleteUBM, I still don't get it: If you found incontrovertible proof that there were differences in intelligence along racial lines, would that "erase [the] inequalities" in our society? If you're saying that there are racial inequalities in our society because the beneficiaries of these inequalities (white people) are, in general "smarter" than those who get the short end of things (for the most part people of color, but also women, and poor people of all ethnicities and genders), then what comes next? How does that conclusion help to undo those inequalities? (I assume undoing inequalities is a goal for you.) Even if you believe there are generalizable differences in intelligence along racial lines, you can (and do!) put energy into changing inequalities without "blaming whitey" for the differences in resource allocation etc. Why is this particular issue of such importance to you? I don't understand.
ReplyDeleteAnd does the Berkeleyan spirit of free speech reach its limit when sacred egalitarianist beliefs come under scrutiny?
Surely you can understand, given the way racialized theories of intelligence have been used to excuse everything from unequal resource distribution to slavery, why many people get uptight when this topic is raised. But as I said in my comment "we should all be allowed to speak about anything we like". I just don't understand why you personally wish to belabor this "controversy" (which, as I understand, is not generally a controversy among experts in the fields of genetics or anthropology.)
(I assume undoing inequalities is a goal for you.)
ReplyDeletecomedy gold! brougham hasn't a single egalitarian bone in his body....,
Interesting take on AI. Meanwhile, those high-IQ Japanese done went ahead and created robots that can serve drinks!
ReplyDelete(Your’re right about one thing, though, Craig: Transhumanism gon’ be a bitch...)
You earlier wrote: "In a society defined by race and inequality for 400 years, it is absurd on the face of it to imagine that 4 decades is sufficient to correct the damage that centuries have wrought."
Maybe that "equality" game was over 800 years ago, Craig... long before Whitey ever laid foot on sub-Saharan Africa.
Eight hundred years ago... when Western Europe had the University of Bologna and the University of Paris and Oxford up and running (with Cambridge soon to follow)... and our African ancestors were going about their business without benefit of an alphabet.
Maybe it's all about the cultural advantages accruing from an alphabetic writing system, which led to infinitely complex expressions of thought... and the transmissibility of those expressions to future generations. Which in turn facilitated explosive growth in Whitey's base of practical knowledge? Maybe... who knows?
But even if you grab a megaphone to go along with your sandwich board, Craig, the fact remains: Whitey done cracked the Big One, the human genome. And just like with quantum physics and computational science, the future advancement of theoretical knowledge and technological creativity is in the hands of humans at the far right end of the bell curve.
Meanwhile, bruthas be frontin' like Neely Fuller and Frances Cress Welsing represent some kind of summit of black intellect... and be wondering why shit ain’t "equal."
Meanwhile, bruthas be frontin' like Neely Fuller and Frances Cress Welsing represent some kind of summit of black intellect... and be wondering why shit ain’t "equal."
ReplyDeleteWhat? You not takin no cheeseburgers either? LOL!!!
Be that as it may.
I expected your 800 year gambit and put up a lil sump'm-sump'm to counteract that dialectical pose..,
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ReplyDeleteDang, it's like watching Jesse L. "Nulan" Peterson (I'll explain the reason for that one later) and Ward "Mills" Connelly duking it out...
ReplyDeleteMills...
"Maybe it's all about the cultural advantages accruing from an alphabetic writing system, which led to infinitely complex expressions of thought... and the transmissibility of those expressions to future generations. Which in turn facilitated explosive growth in Whitey's base of practical knowledge? Maybe... who knows?"
Even if that were so, how would that correlate with intelligence, intelligence quotient, and inheritablility?
Now remember, it was neither the English of Oxford, nor the French of le universite de Lutetia nor the founders of my alma matter, the third or fourth oldest University in Europe and certainly the oldest in Germany, who invented the alphabet that we use to this day.
Nor are the origins of the legal and scientific principles in use to day in Europe to be found in that place.
Moreover, as I recall, Nubia, Phonecia, Ethiopia and Kemet and Sumeria, where these legal and writing systems originated were populated by what would today be pheno-typically be termed as "Blacks" these days.
Now, let's get to a more basic question.
How is it that some "white" guy off the street in the highlands of Scotland can claim credit for the accomplishments of, let's say, Madame Curie?
How does that work?
"Whitey" ain't done shit. Neither has "Blackie". Individual people have accomplished things in the context of their contemporary social structure.
And that social structure was usually more or less determined by interactions with neighboring or even far-flung peoples, wars, environmental factors such as droughts, snowfall or other niceties, the violent theft of knowledge (take the destruction of the Great library of Alexandria, Egypt, or the library of the University of Sankore, Mali), etc. etc.
This shit ain't got nuthin to do with "group" intelligence, "group" dopamine levels, or "group" creativity. It's got to do with where an individual happens to be born.
If you, David, had been born in 200 AD among people who had no knowledge of the written word, I highly doubt that he'd be a talented screen writer writing Cop and Robber scripts.
As to Fuller and Welsing, I suggest that you don't follow Jesse Lee Nulan Peterson's footsteps and make statements about folk's theories without actually taking time to refute them.
It is unbecoming.
Maybe that "equality" game was over 800 years ago, Craig... long before Whitey ever laid foot on sub-Saharan Africa.
ReplyDeleteEight hundred years ago... when Western Europe had the University of Bologna and the University of Paris and Oxford up and running (with Cambridge soon to follow)... and our African ancestors were going about their business without benefit of an alphabet.
This is a joking invitation to go all
Van Sertima and Rashidi on you right?
Your move David, I'm done.
ReplyDelete^ Check and mate.
ReplyDeleteThanks for playing. Don Pardo, tell him about his lovely parting gift...
Damn Mills, you just proved Nulan's point about your self hate and adherence to racist 'logic'. I really wanted to believe that you had a genuine difference of opinion without holding black people en masse in such low regard; but that last comment could have been uttered by any white supremacist. You truly are Joe Christmas come to life.
ReplyDeleteSorry you feel that way, Submariner. But with each passing day, geneticists are coming closer and closer to figuring this shit out.
ReplyDeleteAnd it looks like egalitarianism is going the way of the flat earth.
If my alphabet comment was too outrageous, well... maybe it takes a willfully provocative utterance or two to shock people into questioning their comfortable (yet useless) assumptions.
We need a new politics. One that doesn’t rely on egalitarianist horseshit. All human sub-groups are not genetically identical.
If you think that Africans would’ve put a spacecraft on Mars by now if only the wicked Europeans had left ‘em alone 500 years ago... then, damn, call me any names you want.
As it says in that news story I just linked to:
“[University of Utah anthropologist Henry] Harpending said the genetic evidence shows that people worldwide have been getting less similar rather than more similar due to the relatively recent genetic changes.
“Genes have evolved relatively quickly in Africa, Asia and Europe but almost all of the changes have been unique to their corner of the world. This is the case, he said, because since humans dispersed from Africa to other parts of the world about 40,000 years ago, there has not been much flow of genes between the regions.”
submariner said...
ReplyDelete"Damn Mills, you just proved Nulan's point about your self hate and adherence to racist 'logic'."
Once again, submariner, what's happening here is the snowflake calling the ice chip white.
Take the pitiful base head put down.
What is a black man who became a crack head so desperate that he offers to sell blow jobs in order to obtain some more crack?
I've lived in inner city black communities for the greater part of my life. I can tell you from observation that most of such black men resort to the crack pipe because of the stress that 24/2/365 racism induces. They are victims of racism and just plain ill.
It is white supremacists of the most vile variety as well as their "black" imitators who would abuse desperately ill black men as a put down and joke. Thus, by the way, my reference to Jesse Lee Nulan Peterson. Actually more correctly Craig "Jesse Lee Peterson" Nulan.
Moreover, only such people would think it appropriate to shoot such an ill black person in broad daylight as happened in the clip Nulan referenced.
Assuming that Nulan is indeed black, then advocating this type of imagery to depict another black man, particularly in the context of Nulan's opposition to the idea of the existence of white supremacy as a social system, is, I would assert, a manifestation of the type of self-hatred you ascribe to Mills.
It is these type of Negroes such as Nulan and, Michael "Biggie and Tupac were Saints" Dyson who are much more dangerous than a David Mills could ever be. Covered with the fake cloth of "black partisanship" they work to spread confusion and nonsensical values among black people and elevate white folks in a back-handed, and I would contend, highly effective manner.
After all, sub, you and many other brothers and sisters still appear to take Nulan as a black partisan.
See? it works.
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ReplyDeleteThat's 24/7/365 racism.
ReplyDeleteDavid Mills. What does that article, which is a bit of pop science and highly dubious (evolution inducing radical changes just doesn't happen that fast) have to do with intelligence, even if it were accurate?
The fact that some people are lactose tolerant and others don't doesn't have anything to do with intellectual capacity as far as I can see.
Fret not Sub...,
ReplyDeleteHarpending is a mormon for God's sake!!!
This is where Mills gets his silly nonsense about Ashkenazi selective breeding in the middle ages and how they've speciated.
Aside from their tendency to get Tay Sachs and becoming the target of the Holocaust, I'm not sure what "benefits" they're reputed to have derived.
In regard to this silly paper that David referenced, even the knuckle-dragging Armand LeRoi to whom I linked upthread as one of the bad guys said the following;
Armand Leroi, Reader in Evolutionary Biology at Imperial College, London, said: “In principle, this could have led to speciation if it had continued. In practice, it has got to be the case that that cannot happen now. The reason is that this study has looked at largely separated populations in the past, but everything about human history since the Industrial Revolution weighs overwhelmingly against separation and thus against speciation too. Huge increases in gene flow are going to wipe this trend out.”
I appreciate Mills generous service as a rhetorical Internet pinata.., I only wish he had the testicular fortitude to answer any of the straight questions by you, Bay Radical, and myself. Oh well...,
Where are you from originally David? Tell us about your geographic and personal origins so that we can infer the origins of your archaic politics?
ReplyDeleteI think you better fess up that you were raised on Dopamine Drive, Dave, or Nulan will epithetically squeeze it out of you.
ReplyDeletedopamine drive
ReplyDeletetee hee hee hee, buncha hothouse flower buhzhee selective breeding signifying nothing.....,
Goodness. This comment thread has the feel of an incomprehensible inside joke. Maybe I'm the one who needs to step off, but I wish ya'll would speak plainly.
ReplyDeleteUBM, I have another question: how does attacking egalitarianism help address racial inequality? I'm stipulating that everything you say is true -- intelligence is real, intelligence can be accurately measured using the tests we currently have, "cognitive elites" are perhaps represented in higher percentages in one race than another (I'm not actually sure if you're making that particular argument or not, though...?)
I just want to get a better vision of the "new politics" that you would like to see.
Part of me is thinking that you may be arguing that black folks need to clean up our own house before blaming The Man for our problems...am I right? But I was just thinking that, heck, if black folks' lack of cognitive elites is just a matter of heritability, what's the point? Maybe we can't clean up our house because we are mostly dumb, and will always be that way because it's in our genes. Perhaps we should commence to marrying off the few black cognitive elites that exist with the smart white people that will have us, and just do something to keep the dumber people from breeding?
Obviously, I'm being tongue in cheek, and I know I'm going way off on a tangent. I don't think you're really saying all that (are you?) I just really do want to understand better where you're coming from on this particular issue.
If the main point is "the heritability of intelligence should not be a forbidden topic," I'm down with that too. :-)
Christina, this is exactly what I've been trying to understand throughout the many threads on this topic!
ReplyDeleteRight. But I don't want to frame it like, "tell me what you're thinking so I can tell you why you're stupid," which seems to be the way things have been going. That must be one of those Mars/Venus debate techniques that I don't get because of my chromosomes. I want to remain openminded; I'm just curious to know what this contention about intelligence, race, and heritability is building up to.
ReplyDeleteCraig and Fisher, maybe you can help me with this. Wasn't it Mills who disputed the utility of the blogosphere/internet as a forum for genuine debate because of the lack of black input in its construction? Now he wants us to believe in the validity of genetic research conducted by whites showing racial distinctions in IQ.
ReplyDeleteChristina,
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure we've got the same basic chromosomal pairing, but point taken.
I'm just curious to know what this contention about intelligence, race, and heritability is building up to.
ReplyDeleteanticlimax. Or perhaps more ruthlessly appraised, a debauched and inbred evolutionary blind-alley, signifying nothing.....,
submariner...
ReplyDelete"Craig and Fisher, maybe you can help me with this...."
I don't remember, submariner.
Part of me is thinking that you may be arguing that black folks need to clean up our own house before blaming The Man for our problems...am I right? But I was just thinking that, heck, if black folks' lack of cognitive elites is just a matter of heritability, what's the point? Maybe we can't clean up our house because we are mostly dumb, and will always be that way because it's in our genes. Perhaps we should commence to marrying off the few black cognitive elites that exist with the smart white people that will have us, and just do something to keep the dumber people from breeding?
ReplyDeletereluctantly, i have to admit that i was kind of thinking the same thing.
i generally agree with UBM that this particular subject is fascinating and is something we shouldn't be afriad to talk about... but the longer the discussion goes on, the more i get the feeling that there is an unspoken point being worked towards here.
if that point is that black folks ARE just plain dumber than whites (which i don't necessarily think UBM believes, but...) well, what can be done about it?
UBM has stated many times that one of the most disturbing aspects of the belief in a GSWS and leftist politics in general is the implication that black people have no power whatsoever and our only route to advancement is petitioning/attacking/guilting De White Man.
but if the conclusion is that we're just dumb, isn't the end result more or less the same? that we can only get anywhere with whitey's help?
of course, i've read that entire populations have been able to raise their IQ over generations, but how? is accepting that we're dumb perhaps the first step in that process?
i really do not know...
UCBM:
ReplyDeleteYou notice how everyone does this:
1) States there position based on their opinion, moral objection, anecdotal evidence from a bias sample.
2) Follows up with appeals to authority of people who say the opposite in the media.
There is no detailed analysis of any of the topic. This tells me that most of the people involved do not understand the topic and do not want to. They simply want to spread their own propaganda to make themselves feel good. This is not conducive to any further enlightenment on the issue and IN NO WAY adequately refutes the position of those who they appose.
In other words it is "white noise" hoping to crush any possibility of debate. This is right down the "ideologues" playbook from A-Z.
Typically when I approach this issue, I attempt to flesh out the logic behind the findings and the key variables that logical determination is based on. Then I argue, from that point, what I believe to be likely or not and where the argument falls short.
I don't see that from the people who always have an "opinion" on this board, besides you.
The unspeakable rotteness at the bottom of the "conservative" apple barrel.....,
ReplyDeleteBay Radical, my thing about chromosomes was more intended to distinguish myself from Michael Fisher and Craig Nulan, not you. I get the idea that those guys have a long-standing disagreement that I am not even going to BEGIN to get in the middle of!
ReplyDeletecomb&razor: good question...
ReplyDelete"of course, i've read that entire populations have been able to raise their IQ over generations, but how? is accepting that we're dumb perhaps the first step in that process?"
Understanding and then accepting any limitation is the critical step to advancement. Waiting on gene influence takes too long. But there's always another way to 'skin-the-cat'. One example is the 'early bird effect' whereby first-mover advantage is captured. Whether by genes or culture, this tendency is advancing and does well any group that practices it. Black rejection, via CPT, of this obvious advantage presents a stark example that should humble and motivate black leadership. Instead, we twist advancement to our alleged favor, via the CPT is cool argument, and the group suffers the consequences.
In the long run, when cognitive horsepower is valued by the masses of blacks at the same level it currently values athleticism, sexual selection and heredity will boost genetically influenced intelligence. Until then, the opportunity is social, but only with open eyes.
okay, JCC...
ReplyDeleteIn the long run, when cognitive horsepower is valued by the masses of blacks at the same level it currently values athleticism, sexual selection and heredity will boost genetically influenced intelligence. Until then, the opportunity is social, but only with open eyes.
are you saying in essence that we're dumb because we don't value intelligence?
i can see where you're coming from with that, but there are some problems inherent in that line of thinking...
C&R: I try not to make absolute statements, but returns are always relative to investments. Inasmuch, relative to other groups and for many reasons, black investment in intellectual challenges lags, therefore we lag in the resulting benefits.
ReplyDeleteBlack intelligence, as imperfectly measured, lags non-black groups, not because of genetic distinction, but rather normal distribution that proved itself long before we became 'races'.
Dragon Horse:
ReplyDelete"There is no detailed analysis of any of the topic."
What else would one expect of a blog conversation such as this? From what I’ve read, I’d be willing to bet that, at most, only two or three of the participants in this conversation have a bachelor’s level or higher scientific knowledge in one of the germane fields of science and have read more than a dozen esoteric papers or books pertaining to these complexities. Most participants appear to have read little more than a few fewer-than-1,000-words exoteric articles and bits and pieces of a few popular books that very few eminent scholars have a modicum of respect for.
Perhaps some folks are using appeals to authority because they themselves lack the scientific wherewithal to do otherwise. Perhaps the folks who are read-up on much of the latest and most pertinent literature published in credible books and peer-reviewed journals during the past few decades, do not think there is much good falsifiable scientific evidence left to debate.
Since scholarly and pseudo-scholarly writings on the possible relationships between human genes and human intelligences offer a lot of inductive evidence about possible causal links and possible correlations between different human species types and their performances on intelligence tests or their intelligence levels, but no irrefutable proof of probable causal links or probable correlations, perhaps most curious audience members, at this point, would be wise to make plans to invest a few hundred of their leisure hours 1) mastering a "hard" science or the "hard side" of a social science at the bachelor’s level or higher and 2) cultivating sufficient mathematical skills so they could 3) competently interpret and evaluate the most pertinent and falsifiable scientific evidence published by credible professional scholars during the past few decades for themselves.
It would be a shame if a curious reader’s or commentator’s actual goal were to rely upon these sorts of casual and occasionally entertaining blog conversations for anything more than helping him or her determine just how much he or she probably doesn’t know about these complexities or approximately how many dozens of papers or books he or she would probably need to read before he or she would be in a good position to form decent opinions about these complexities.
Black intelligence, as imperfectly measured, lags non-black groups, not because of genetic distinction, but rather normal distribution that proved itself long before we became 'races'.
ReplyDeletenow there's an intriguing candidate for intellectually aggressive comment of the week....,
have any one of you guys heard of the Flynn Effect? see this article in the New Yorker
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/071217crbo_books_gladwell?printable=true
the mind is like a muscle, all it takes to raise I.Q. is to incourage a positive environment were learning is valued.
Bay Radical wrote: "How does that conclusion help to undo those inequalities? (I assume undoing inequalities is a goal for you.)"
ReplyDeleteBR, I think we need to accept the reality of certain unequal outcomes as the state of nature, not the consequence of white racism. We can accept that reality and still fight vigorously to undo inequalities of opportunity which impede black people's ability to fulfill their potential.
I hope that distinction is clear. I shall endeavor to make it more so:
If 6 percent of a given freshman class at MIT is black, the egalitarian impulse is to say that this is an unjust "inequality" because 12 percent of the U.S. population is black, and the proportion of blacks at MIT should reflect that.
But the 6 percent number could be totally just... if we accept that blacks, due to the IQ gap, won't be proportionately represented at elite institutions, if admitted under objective criteria (like test scores).
We can accept that unequal (yet absolutely just) outcome... and oppose policies which actively discriminate against qualified blacks.
This was the nature of the struggle for black advancement until very recently: the demand to be judged fairly, to be judged based on one's merit, to not be discriminated against on the basis of color.
In that way, I think I'm going back to a "classical" version of the struggle... while tossing in the trash can the intellectually bankrupt religion of "black nationalism."
Fisher wrote: "... Ward 'Mills' Connelly..."
ReplyDeleteI won't run from that one. Ward Connerly is on the side of the angels when it comes to opposing racial preferences.
Submariner wrote: "Wasn't it Mills who disputed the utility of the blogosphere/internet as a forum for genuine debate because of the lack of black input in its construction?"
ReplyDeleteThat was me clownin' on black-nationalist rhetorical styles.
OK.It certainly helps to understand more clearly what you're hoping to achieve - even if we disagree - although I am left with the same questions as Christina and Comb and Razor here...
ReplyDeleteD: "Fisher wrote: "... Ward 'Mills' Connelly..."
ReplyDeleteI won't run from that one. Ward Connerly is on the side of the angels when it comes to opposing racial preferences."
Accept that Connerly's leading argument is the 'unfairness' of preferences to whites, rather than the crush of proliferating under performance and disparity onto blacks. The question of Ward, which I do not have of David, is not whether he cares for others, but what he cares for black folks?
Dragon Horse wrote: "In other words it is 'white noise' hoping to crush any possibility of debate. This is right down the 'ideologues' playbook from A-Z."
ReplyDeleteAbsoultely right, DH. Thanks for doffing your cap to me.
Perhaps the supreme value of these IQ threads (as much as they might unsettle certain sensitive readers) has been to reveal the weakness of black-nationalist thought processes, knowledge bases, disputational styles and intimidation tactics.
We need a new politics!
Unfortunately, the siren song of black nationalism has drawn many of our brightest young folk into a cul-de-sac. Meanwhile, Whitey's on Mars.
Christina wrote: "I just want to get a better vision of the 'new politics' that you would like to see.
ReplyDelete"Part of me is thinking that you may be arguing that black folks need to clean up our own house before blaming The Man for our problems...am I right? But I was just thinking that, heck, if black folks' lack of cognitive elites is just a matter of heritability, what's the point?"
Christina, thanks for sticking with this thread for this long. You have a sense of where I'm headed.
It bears repeating that "intelligence," unto itself, is not the supreme human virtue. One can be intelligent yet a sociopath. One can be intelligent yet lazy and undisciplined and useless. One can be intelligent yet inexplicably drawn to superstitious beliefs.
The white hereditarians who accept a genetic explanation for the IQ advantage of Jews and East Asians don't go around with their heads hung down because somebody else is "smarter than us." They focus on getting the most outta what they got.
On an individual level, an acceptance of IQ disparities as a "state of nature" does not invalidate the progressive impulses to build black culture; to support black artists; to patronize black businesses and black professionals; to organize for political and economic advancement; to demand high standards of one's own; to reward black excellence; to love black people.
All it does mean is: abandon affirmative action and other policies of racial preference; and dial down the rhetoric of anti-white resentment, because white people aren't responsible for all inequalities in the U.S. or the world.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteokay, JCC...
ReplyDeleteIn the long run, when cognitive horsepower is valued by the masses of blacks at the same level it currently values athleticism, sexual selection and heredity will boost genetically influenced intelligence. Until then, the opportunity is social, but only with open eyes.
are you saying in essence that we're dumb because we don't value intelligence?
i can see where you're coming from with that, but there are some problems inherent in that line of thinking...
now, I'm the first Black man to shoot down that whole "white man's fault" and "slavery" for social inequality,but,how can you ignore history? During de-facto segregration in the south and de jure segregration in the north,black people were socially engineered to believe themselves un-intelligent, and valued for there athleticism,and discouraged from education or self-determination. Images of stupid and stereotypical black people were very common from 1900-1950. While so-called Black "leaders" and liberal,as well as conservatives,like to talk about the economic gains of the Black middle-class(which while not the majority of blacks,is growing), don't forget most African Americans are just 2 or more generations removed from a negative environment and society that used to say,in school room text books across America,"that Blacks aren't human" and actively discouraged Black self-determinism. It's not that insane to say that maybe, a large percentage of blacks,have serious self-esteem problems and don't apply themselves, and turn to excuses like "it's the white man's fault".
Further more, have anyone one of you read "The Moynihan Report"?(you can find it online,its free) I have and in this report by intellectual Patrick Moynihan in 1968, it showed that the unique structure of underclass Black families,usually matriarchal, induced a tangle of pathologies that don't are anti-intellectual,anti patriarchal,with the men never being involved in child rearing or being positive role models.These pathologies are the reason for the large out of wedlock childbirth that aflicts urban underclass blacks,70% as of 2007. Of course, the Black Power movement was in full swing, and they weren't going to have a white intellectual use "logic" to solve problems,when they could just blame the white man.
A bit of a tangent I know,but I have yet to see anyone mention has yet to mention this important document, and the affect family has on intelligence(it has been proving children of single parents are less intelligent, and more prone to deviant behavior,across all racial and class lines)
Mills...
ReplyDelete"Perhaps the supreme value of these IQ threads (as much as they might unsettle certain sensitive readers) has been to reveal the weakness of black-nationalist thought processes, knowledge bases, disputational styles and intimidation tactics."
Ok, I guess it might be time you and I do battle in a structured setting. 'Cause Nulan (apparently, looking at the pic you found, not being the type of guy who should be throwing estrogen-challenged rocks in his own darn glass house) ain't a "black nationalist". Quite the opposite.
Nulan done demonstrated no such thing as you claim on "behalf of" black nationalism, but, on the contrary, demonstrated solely such things on behalf of the philosophy of nutter butter Mat Hatism.
So, please don't equate Nulansianism with Black Nationalism.
Fisher wrote: "... Nulan (apparently, looking at the pic you found, not being the type of guy who should be throwing estrogen-challenged rocks in his own darn glass house)..."
ReplyDeleteI know, right? His man-tits are absolutely adorable! Enjoy them before he hacks me and removes it, like he did the previous photo.
He hacked you?
ReplyDeleteDarn. That ain't nice.
Can he do that? Or did he run off to the blogger people and told on you?
^ I don't know what he did, but he did something.
ReplyDeleteMills...
ReplyDelete"I know, right? His man-tits are absolutely adorable!"
Yeah, well ever since I stopped doing Kyoshinkai I'm starting to develop these damn things, too. Time to get back to the gym before I turn one 'o them Lesbian sisters on.
Mills...
ReplyDelete"I don't know what he did, but he did something."
Didn't he use your pic (as did I) on his site?
JCC, thanks for answering my question... sorry i'm getting back a bit late.
ReplyDeleteI try not to make absolute statements, but returns are always relative to investments. Inasmuch, relative to other groups and for many reasons, black investment in intellectual challenges lags, therefore we lag in the resulting benefits.
see... what's problematic for me is that while the argument can (and has) been made that black Americans have tended to invest less in intellectual achievement than other groups, the same is not necessarily true for blacks from other parts of the world... the West Indies, say. or Africa.
so if there are blacks who do value learning and intellectualism and what have you, and science says that they are still genetically less intelligent... well, what hope is there, really?
Elle: "...now, I'm the first Black man to shoot down that whole "white man's fault" and "slavery" for social inequality,but,how can you ignore history?..."
ReplyDeleteEver since the first Africans walked their high-intelligent behinds off the continent, the de-colored return crowd has always been laced with 'wolf-tickets' backed by advanced technology. Slavery and Jim Crow were not unique inventions of subjugation for blacks.
Arguing whether Kunta Kente was better or worse off getting abused by whites or his competing tribal brothers is irrelevant. Everybody has a burden and this is ours.
Fortunately, the human condition is amazingly resilient if it is self-allowed. This is how African immigrants outperform everyone, including Asian, in education attainment.
The key ingredient is mustering the fight against all manner of adversity - always has been - always will be.
Comb & Razor wrote: "so if there are blacks who do value learning and intellectualism and what have you, and science says that they are still genetically less intelligent... well, what hope is there, really?"
ReplyDeleteI guess the question is: What hope is there for what?
For an African nation -- or consortium of African nations -- to put a spacecraft on Mars? Ain't gonna happen.
This, again, is why egalitarianism is a failed religion. It's so hung up on the notion of "equality" (whatever that means) as a supreme goal of mankind... that when inequalities manifest themselves (one society or group of societies is hugely advanced technologically compared to others), people's feelings get hurt.
It's egalitarianism that makes us think it's somehow bad are wrong that some societies are advanced compared to others... or wrong to even use such "value-laden" words as "advanced."
Every nation just needs to maximize all its resources... including its cognitive resources... without distraction from quasi-religious notions of "equality."
Meanwhile, I'm curious about Nigeria, C&R. It seems to be the No. 1 nation in Africa when it comes to turning out computer scientists. I did a count a couple of years ago... there were something like 20 Nigerian-born faculty members in U.S. university-level comp.sci. departments -- much more than from the rest of Africa put together.
And there were another 20 or so Nigerian-born faculty members in U.S. math departments.
Is Nigeria well known in Africa (as far as you know) for math-and-science smartness? Do Nigerians themselves acknowledge this? Is it part of the Nigerian sense of national pride?
C&R: Exceptions prove little or nothing, except what is possible. What is probable is always found near the mean.
ReplyDeleteI'll repeat, blacks carry no genetic distinction of less intelligence. What they carry is a predisposition (empirically backed) to perform below the imperfect standard benchmark of IQ=100 for yet identified reasons.
We need to resist substituting genetic differentiation for heredity - they are not the same. Differentiation is developmental, while heredity is about transportation.
Jim Collier wrote: "I'll repeat, blacks carry no genetic distinction of less intelligence."
ReplyDeleteNow I'm confused, Jim. I thought your premise boiled down to: The smart ones walked out of Africa and became non-black; the less smart ones stayed behind and stayed black.
Yes David, the smartest blacks did walk out, lighten, and returned to start some shit. But their smartness was not the result of a mutative differentiating event. We know what those look like, with the polymorphic sickle-cell being our nearest-to-heart example.
ReplyDeleteBut the smartness that moved people to successfully exit Africa was indeed passed, in part, along to their chilin's.
Every natural or man-made test we have ever recognized or devised backs this up. Too bad we have pre-conditioned all of our arguments with race-driven differentiation and this is patently false and hella-confusing.
Hope this clears it a little.
Did I say every test? Correction, all test by competent researchers seeking true results. Of course, history is littered with bogus efforts./JCC
ReplyDeleteHacked you!!!
ReplyDeletePuh-leeze David. Why would I trouble myself to vandalize a google property when I have your home IP address? Not my steez son.
What we have here is a case of you taking the low road after you realized you'd been factually, logically, and rhetorically pulverized. Not only have you not made the case for IQ heritability, but you've also failed to explain your own weak-azzed acceptance of pseudo-science and racist extrapolations of the same. Oh, and on the trivial tip, here's a week old picture of me and mini-me.
Elevate your weak-assed game to a baseline of competence, because as things currently stand, you've both let old Sgt Waters down.
On second thought, Collier hasn't said anything intellectually aggressive at all..., my bad.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis, again, is why egalitarianism is a failed religion. It's so hung up on the notion of "equality" (whatever that means) as a supreme goal of mankind... that when inequalities manifest themselves (one society or group of societies is hugely advanced technologically compared to others), people's feelings get hurt.
ReplyDeleteIt's egalitarianism that makes us think it's somehow bad are wrong that some societies are advanced compared to others... or wrong to even use such "value-laden" words as "advanced."
Every nation just needs to maximize all its resources... including its cognitive resources... without distraction from quasi-religious notions of "equality."
Next thing you know, you'll be advocating for lebensraum herr stumpenfuhrer mills . You keep singing the praises of putting little putt-putts on Mars, but the fundamental question facing the species at the present moment is the question of sustainability.
Methinkst your uncritical, arms-length worship at the alter of advanced technology has utterly blinded you to the profound vulnerabilities which inhere to any such system. This bad boy is fixing to collapse in the not-too-distant. It's not a question of "if", rather, it's only a question of "when" and "how precipitously"?
One last thing...
ReplyDeleteAll it does mean is: abandon affirmative action and other policies of racial preference; and dial down the rhetoric of anti-white resentment, because white people aren't responsible for all inequalities in the U.S. or the world.
...did you read any of the articles in that "Being A Black Man" series that ran the paper where you (and I) once worked? The first story included a lot of poll results, where black men were asked to assess their own issues. I remember the overwhelming majority felt that whatever problems existed in the black community were of our own making, and could only be solved by our own efforts. One thing I really noticed was that black men are incredibly harshly critical of each other -- I know that people think that sistas do all the disrespecting, but it's always black men who are talking that big talk about how we have to do better. (I wonder why that is? Interesting though for another day.)
I know things get a little heated here in the blogosphere, but I think that anti-white resentment may not be as prevalent as you may believe. Particularly among the young. But maybe I'm just looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.
I apologize - I had to erase my earlier comment because the typos were ridiculous. Trying again...
ReplyDeleteUBM -- thank YOU. I appreciate you taking the time to go into this further.
I believe that I still disagree with you on parts of this! But that's all right, 'cause I could be wrong. But, I am drawn back to your example of proportionality in college admissions. You seem to suggest that given objective criteria, black folks would never be represented at MIT in the same proportion they exist in society. I would argue that such truly objective criteria do not exist. And it never has! And that's a good thing, in my opinion. Because places like MIT, or Harvard, or colleges in general, should not be just for "cognitive elites."
Otherwise, someone like me who is smart and tests wells but is essentially lazy (less so than I used to be, but let's not talk about high school) would get a head up over someone who might have a lesser IQ, but will work like hell and get something out of MIT that I never could. And really, what's the cutoff? Who is going to say, sorry, kid, your IQ is a point below the arbitrary line, time for you to go to plumbing school (not that there's anything wrong with being a plumber!) That seems so brave-new-worldish.
I also think that you possibly could be ignoring that there are outside influences that affect one's measured IQ. I DON'T want to sound like I'm getting into blaming The Man -- I'm not talking about why people are poor and have few enriching intellectual resources, but let's just accept that it happens. I can take a baby born with normal intelligence and grow that baby up into a kid who might test as moderately mentally retarded (if I were a sadist.)
I guess, at the end of the day, I don't consider intelligence to be as immutable as you do, like the color of one's eyes. I don't accept that intelligence gaps are just the way things are. It doesn't have to be that way. I believe that a consortium of African nations could put a spaceship on Mars. Maybe not now. But it can be done. I believe there is intelligence there that we have not yet begun to tap. (Not "multiple" intelligences either - I'm talking about the straight-up math/science/readin'/writin' you're talking about.)
All that said, I said earlier that perhaps proportional admissions policies (for example) are too blunt an instrument for the problem they were meant to solve, and I still believe that. I'm certainly open to other views. So maybe we are both sort of traveling in the same direction, but taking different roads?
Obviously, some folks cast a blind-eye toward legacy admissions at premiere colleges and universities. Can't find a full copy of the original article, but this blogpost captures many of the salient points. In any event, it's not only in America where this traditional anti-meritocratic phenomenon is rampant. I spent the better part of last summer in India. On a weekly basis there were firestorms in the Indian press concerning profound inequities in access and exposure to the best colleges and universities in India. From cheating on tests, to cheating in admissions, and the population is so vast and the competition so severe that these aren't modest inequities that are being protested.
ReplyDeleteAs far as sheer difficulty goes, IIT surpassed MIT quite some time ago, though it'll be some time (if ever) before IIT's endowment and connections enable it to afford its community the same type of uniquely privileged access and exposure that MIT is able to afford its community - given its massive endowment and centrality of research importance to the corporate and military industial sectors in the U.S.
Bottomline, it's not so much a question of sheer ability, rather, it's a question of access to a privileged and still quite discriminatory social network arrayed around the most profound educational, developmental, and technological opportunities that this society has to offer.
The white hereditarians who accept a genetic explanation for the IQ advantage of Jews and East Asians don't go around with their heads hung down because somebody else is "smarter than us." They focus on getting the most outta what they got.
ReplyDeleteGetting the most outta what they got? WTF? Doing what? Peddling anti-Black pseudo-science?
All it does mean is: abandon affirmative action and other policies of racial preference; and dial down the rhetoric of anti-white resentment, because white people aren't responsible for all inequalities in the U.S. or the world.
In light of American history, there is no credible reason for abandoning affirmative action or racial preference as a remedy for centuries of exclusion from this society's mainstream. That kind of accomodationist submission in the face of generations of legally sanctioned disparity is patently ridiculous on the face of it and smacks of cowardice more than anything else.
David, who exactly do you propose in the alternative as responsible for race-based inequalities in the U.S.?
You make one indefensible and preposterous statement after another and apparently no one else has the temerity to call you on it.
IQ pseudo-science exists and thrives because it relieves many members of a biased and oppressing majority from feeling responsible for the glaring social/political/economic disparities that continue to exist between racial groups in the U.S. and which were inherited from a legally codified tradition of inter-racial criminality which only ended as a matter of law in 1968 but which continues as a matter of custom right up to the present day.
ReplyDelete^ Well then, Craig... I guess that members of that "biased and oppressing majority" have concluded it's in their self-interest to keep black people down forever (seeing that their practice of "inter-racial criminality" remains in full effect).
ReplyDeleteConsidering that the white majority holds so much economic, political, legal, academic, media and military power... there truly seems to be NO HOPE for black people in America.
Keep lettin' everybody know, dude.
Craig Nulan...
ReplyDeleteme and mini-me
Ok, so in light of the fact that you got a breast reduction, I'll change the sentence to...
(apparently, looking at the pic you found, not being the type of guy who should be throwing somatotropin-challenged rocks in his own darn glass house)
In other words, stop making fun of people's appearances, perceived or real.
Well then, Craig... I guess that members of that "biased and oppressing majority" have concluded it's in their self-interest to keep black people down forever (seeing that their practice of "inter-racial criminality" remains in full effect).
ReplyDeleteSome elements clearly have and these are elements that must be actively and intentionally opposed. Not uncritically or erroneously aided and abetted as you have elected to do.
Considering that the white majority holds so much economic, political, legal, academic, media and military power... there truly seems to be NO HOPE for black people in America.
and given that their superior genetics makes them mars-bound and worshipped at the alter of their own self-proclaimed superiority by folks like yourself and Colin Spears aka Dragon Horse - one could easily conclude from the bizarre quilt of subgenius superstition and political evasions you've concocted that there is in fact NO HOPE for Black folks in America.
80+ comments into this "discussion" and you have as yet to reconcile the racist feldercarb you've internalized with your exceedingly weak pro-Black affirmations. By trying to integrate these mutually exclusive stances, you've managed to sow an incredible amount of confusion simply judging from the questions put to you on this thread by folks benignly interested in understanding where you profess to be coming from.
UBM,
ReplyDeleteyou seem to be buying into a weird collectivism here. "Whitey" isn't on Mars. A very select group of whites, and Asians, and Middle Easterners put those probes on the moon. It's sort of like saying Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner is mine because we're both of African and Native American ancestry.
Northern Europeans were quite backwards until recently. I give them credit for their rapid progress, but I don't think civilization somehow belongs to them.
These things can change rapidly. The savages become the dominant power, and they end up looking down on the descendents of the old civilization. We don't really know how the future will turn out. Present trends will most likely not continue, because they rarely do.
And yeah, there are enough African scientists and engineers right now to put a probe on another planet. They'd be much more likely to achieve this feat working together in the US or Europe than in Africa though.
UBM,
ReplyDeleteyou seem to be buying into a weird collectivism here. "Whitey" isn't on Mars. A very select group of whites, and Asians, and Middle Easterners put those probes on the moon. It's sort of like saying Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner is mine because we're both of African and Native American ancestry.
Northern Europeans were quite backwards until recently. I give them credit for their rapid progress, but I don't think civilization somehow belongs to them.
These things can change rapidly. The savages become the dominant power, and they end up looking down on the descendents of the old civilization. We don't really know how the future will turn out. Present trends will most likely not continue, because they rarely do.
And yeah, there are enough African scientists and engineers right now to put a probe on another planet. They'd be much more likely to achieve this feat working together in the US or Europe than in Africa though.
(Repost)
ReplyDeleteIf cold adaptation is the answer, why doesn't it work for Amerindians and their descendents like Mexicans? Nobody's more cold adapted than the Native peoples of Canada and the Northern Great Plains. They have massive social problems, and are worse off than black Americans in the US and Canada.
These places have always been a lot colder than Western Europe. Western Europe's extremely mild for being at such a high latitude.
Of course, the academic racialists don't obsess about Native American IQ because Natives aren't numerous, or politically and culturally influential the way black Americans are. Dare I say it, it's our meteoric rise that's the problem. From slavery and 99 % illiteracy to effective political control of most of America's major cities in a little more than a century. That's why we're worth hating.
And why have the Russians, easily the most cold adapted people in Europe, been so backwards? Why is their murder rate currently just as high as the black American murder rate?
Genetic arguments don't work here. And as Thembi noted, the stats in the Bell Curve fall apart under rigorous analysis.
It would be nice if black Americans were playing the same game as most white and Asian Americans, with the same fervor and consistency, but losing anyway.
This isn't what's happening. For black women under 30, three quarters of the kids they have are born out of wedlock. Black women also use abortion as birth control with much higher frequency than white women do. This suggests a lot of kids being conceived and born under less than optimal conditions. Less preparation, poorer or non existent prenatal care and nutrition.
Once the kids do arrive, they end up watching a lot more TV, reading and being read to much less often, and eating a lot more junk food, than white kids. The studies bear this out, but I've also seen it with my own eyes.
It's much easier too deny the value of IQ tests than it is to address the real problems, so black politicians and school officials prefer to do nothing.
add.
I also want to see a good, verified example of a group of people who were abused and persecuted in essentially the same way and to the same degree that black Americans were, and still became prosperous and advanced in a few generations.
A real, control group, if you will.
European Jews don't work. They migrated into Europe by their own choice, with their culture, religion, and economic practices fully intact. In fact, it was their superior cultural and economic practices that allowed them to prosper, much to the resentment of their European neighbors.
Asians in America won't work either. Not that they weren't oppressed at times, but nothing comparable to the ethnic cleansing and large scale anti black govt. actions common during Jim Crow.
Maybe you can use Amerindians. Arguably equal or maybe even greater oppression. But in spite of their fitness for sub arctic cold, they aren't going to put anyone on Mars either. In fact, they're having real hard time just surviving these days.
Nulan wrote: "... one could easily conclude from the bizarre quilt of subgenius superstition and political evasions you've concocted that there is in fact NO HOPE for Black folks in America."
ReplyDeleteNo, slick... but as I've said long before this IQ conversation, our only hope is to embrace and live the values of education, law-abidingness and work... the values which, a few generations after slavery, have led to more than 4 million black U.S. bachelor's-degree holders... and more than a million master's-degree holders.
Under the world view of your dead religion of racialist resentment, it doesn't matter what values black people embrace or don't embrace. Because the "biased and oppressing majority" is gonna keep us down regardless.
You do nothing, Nulan, but endlessly spout the dying rhetoric of a dead religion.
co-sign odocoileus fully!!!
ReplyDeleteOne minor footnote; And why have the Russians, easily the most cold adapted people in Europe, been so backwards? Why is their murder rate currently just as high as the black American murder rate?
The russian murder rate is considerably higher than the inner city drug trade murder rate. This was a fact pointed out to Mr. Mill's at Blackprof.com on the occasion of our very first political disagreement.
Under the world view of your dead religion of racialist resentment, it doesn't matter what values black people embrace or don't embrace. Because the "biased and oppressing majority" is gonna keep us down regardless.
ReplyDeleteYou do nothing, Nulan, but endlessly spout the dying rhetoric of a dead religion.
Care to point out a single example of the racialist resentment of which I stand accused?
While you may find the practice of delineating and resisting explicitly bad actors and folks who actively lie on Black folks upsetting, it can hardly be termed "racialist resentment".
It's increasingly apparent that you're an extremely truth- challenged antagonist when your back's up against the wall.
Odocoileus wrote: "you seem to be buying into a weird collectivism here. 'Whitey' isn't on Mars."
ReplyDeleteFisher went this route too... it's only certain "individuals" who built a machine and put it on the surface of Mars. Nulan's tack was to belittle the accomplishment altogether.
(How ridiculous that he appeals to "scientific consensus" when it suits his polemical purposes, then dismisses one of the grandest accomplishments of human science as something petty.)
Have you thought about the combination of extraordinarily complex knowledge bases necessary to accomplish the task of putting a machine on Mars and communicating with it?
Rocket propulsion, metallurgy, computational science, gyroscopy, radio communications...
The task of exploring the surface of another planet was the task of a civilization... one with a priority of cultivating and exploiting its cognitive capital to the highest degree.
Nulan's tack was to belittle the accomplishment altogether.
ReplyDelete(How ridiculous that he appeals to "scientific consensus" when it suits his polemical purposes, then dismisses one of the grandest accomplishments of human science as something petty.)
It's not useful, and given the military applications and efforts toward the militarization of space, I'm not supportive of these "show activities". OTOH - I'm all about the computational genomics. That's where the singularity (if it's going to happen) is going to come from. This is simply a question of priority and interest, not politics.
Said intensive interest also comprised the means by which I knew your claims re: selective breeding were prima facie ridiculous.
Speaking of ridiculous claims space cowboy, are you going to prove your contention that I'm a racialist resenter, or was that just more chaff you're blowing in order to evade giving straight answers to simple questions?
Oh yeah, the comparative murder rate stats can be found here along with my and David's first sword crossing. Remember, that was when you got called for a bad case of Giant Negroism over at Blackprof.com. Didn't you get the memo from Cobb David, there's no such thing as black crime, or was that just another example of the weird selective collectivism clouding your judgement?
The task of exploring the surface of another planet was the task of a civilization... one with a priority of cultivating and exploiting its cognitive capital to the highest degree.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly.
Much of the technology was developed for war making.
You're getting all starry eyed on us, here, UBM. It's a fairly standard non tech person's reaction to large scale technological achievement.
The Russians beat the US into space. The Nigerians will be able to do something comparable, or would be able to, if their culture and politics were as unified as the Russian's were in the Soviet Union.
I'm not one for master race arguments. If I had to make one, though, I'd have to choose betweent the Chinese and the Japanese. The Chinese for enduring achievement. The Japanese for being the best at just about everything in the industrial world from mid century onwards.
The fact that "whitey's on the moon" as Gil Scot Heron would but it, is proof that just about anyone can do it, given the right circumstances.
Remember, the Greeks saw the northern Europeans of the interior as backwards savages - a spot on observation for the time, I think.
A few centuries later, the descendants of the savages are on top, looking down on the swarthy Greeks and Italians.
Advances in genetics will indeed change our understanding of the human race, but not in ways that anyone can predict.
You really think they "have the shit figured out"? The human brain is a dynamic, electrochemical syste m composed of billions of parts. Just like weather systems, the brain is subject to Chaos effects. Small changes in initial conditions can lead to large changes in outcomes.
Hell, there may even be quantum effects involved in human brain function. Stuff may be going on there that will take us centuries to figure out.
The other problem is that the mechanism for this evolutionary differentiation is based on a fantasy about Africa. Africa as tropical eden. The real Africa has always been a brutal place to survive, with droughts, natural disasters, famines, and debilitating disease. Not to mention the fierce competition for resources with ones neighbors. People like the Yoruba and Akan have been living in cities for centuries.
Africans figured out, on their own, how to smelt high carbon steel, how to do grain cultivations, and how to raise cattle.
I'd mentioned a real control group earlier. I figured out, several years ago, how one could actually come about. A thought experiment.
ReplyDeleteThe Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, and press on the West Coast of the US. They bomb the harbors, and follow up the air attack with a full scale naval assault. Long story short, the US loses the war.
The Japanese soldiers go crazy on white folks, just like they did on the Chinese in Nanjing. The Japanese conquer and colonize the US. Any white American who tries to resist is dealt with the way the Japanese have always dealt with such people. Not pretty. Not pretty at all.
Of course, the white folks are stripped of their language and culture. Of course, they are subject at all times to an ideology of Japanese supremacy and white inferiority.
Lots of hapa kids running around in the slums where white folks are restricted to unless they are working for the conquerors. Of course, these kids aren't Japanese, cause you can't be Japanese unless you're full blooded with a verifiable pedigree. No need to school the people of the sun on the One Drop Rule. They've been doing it forever.
Sure, white people might not like it, but they have to take it. Have to. Just look the other way when the salary men come down to drink saki and push up on mamasan.
Tell me. Convince me that these white folks are gonna bounce right back, and a few generations after the Japanese let go of apartheid, the white folks who managed to survive would be productive, cheerful, law abiding citizens.
The available examples aren't promising. The aforementioned Russians. Not bouncing back. In fact, getting worse. Lower life expectancy. More drunkeness. Not just more, massive amounts. Entire towns full of people where nothing gets done because everyone is blind drunk by 10AM. Massive corruption. Street crime. Robberies in broad daylight. Beating down foreigners on the subway. One of the more profitable industries is pimping out schoolchildren.
The Irish? The ones who came over to the States were seriously effed up for a long time.Violent, criminal, stupid. In the opinion of respectable white folks of the time, beyond hope of civilization.
So much changes over time, and the experts of the day always think they know, and they are usually wrong.
UBM sez:
ReplyDeleteIs Nigeria well known in Africa (as far as you know) for math-and-science smartness? Do Nigerians themselves acknowledge this? Is it part of the Nigerian sense of national pride?
hmmm... i'm not sure. I remember back in the day reading articles in Nigerian newspapers about how Nigerians (or was it Africans in general?) are consistently among the top performers in foreign universities, bypassing even whites... and i think there is a an understated pride amongst Nigerians in the Diaspora regarding our excellence in math and science.
but i wouldn't say it's a point of national pride at home, especially since due to brain drain, most of this excellence is being exhibited overseas and very little of it is benefiting the homebase in any perceivable way.
i said:
ReplyDeleteI remember back in the day reading articles in Nigerian newspapers about how Nigerians (or was it Africans in general?) are consistently among the top performers in foreign universities, bypassing even whites...
i meant "bypassing even Asians"
I have nothing to add. I just wanted to see UBM get his first hundred comment thread. Come on, let's beat this dead horse until we crack it!
ReplyDeleteHi, I’ve never posted before, but now that the debate is effectively over, I’d like to add my 2 cents :-)
ReplyDeleteI’ll be glad if UBM get’s to his 100 comments mark; but I would much rather have seen such an extensive debate on how to improve the schools that our children are going to do (b/c letting people opt out of taxes if they send their kid to private school is only making under-funded schools worse), or how to ensure better success for Black-Owned Businesses.
As it was said more than a few times earlier in the comments thread, this is all high-level and mostly unverifiable science, put forth mostly by racists who made it their career ambition to prove their personal ideologies (as opposed to letting science draw its own conclusions).
Because whether this science proves true or not, the intended affect has already been accomplished:
To remind an already oppressed people that they are still not equal (b/c we as a people are more intelligent now, so the old methods of intimidation and biblical rationalization no longer work).
And to have intelligent people who hold power in their field or community busy themselves with mute topics as opposed to real change.
black_girl, thanks for commenting. But the topic isn't mute... or moot either. In fact, now that the genome has been mapped, the genetic nature of humans is gonna be talked about more and more.
ReplyDelete(Three more, y'all...)
dougfp,
ReplyDeletetryin' to make this a greatest hit? I'm down.
Dave, you stole my crescendo thunder, yo!
comment #99
ReplyDeleteAnd... our long national nightmare is over.
ReplyDelete