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White Man's Burden

So here they come again, spouting nonsense about race, intelligence (definition please?) and IQ (the measurement you can improve, prvoing just how innate it is.)

My preferred response echoes Atrios.

A more learned response from Brad DeLong.

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    Actually, (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by Deconstructionist on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 02:05:15 PM EST
     I believe the more learned response is from Thomas Sowell.

    Indeed (none / 0) (#2)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 02:08:04 PM EST
    That is true.

    Parent
    Atrios' (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by taylormattd on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 02:18:55 PM EST
    response is better, IMO.

    or maybe (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by taylormattd on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 02:25:34 PM EST
    his response is just more satisfying to read, lol.

    Parent
    It's simple. (1.00 / 1) (#9)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 09:04:07 PM EST
    I once asked a high school basketball coach of a team who had just won the state championship why the black players were obviously the best on his team.

    His answer confirmed what I had long believed.

    They practice harder and longer.

    I think that pretty well shoots down all the learned comments re intelligence and race and race and athletic ability....

    I really liked my childhood IQ test scores. (none / 0) (#5)
    by jerry on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 03:34:45 PM EST
    I think you folks are all wrong, and I think the facts here are clearly biased. :(

    Though, (none / 0) (#6)
    by HeadScratcher on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 03:43:15 PM EST
    I believe there is NO difference in IQ betweeen any race (since I don't believe in the concept of race since we all are the same with the exception of skin tone and that is different even among those of the same 'race'. One of my child has the skin tone normally associated with India while the other is just a tad less pale than an albino).

    I've always been struck by how the human race would behave if it could be proven that race does exist and certain races where indeed smarter, faster, etc... than others...How would that fit in with the politically correct world...Are Kenyans (Africans) really faster than Bhutanese (Asians)? Are certain Asians (Chinese) really intellectually superior to whites (Appalachian)?

    I like to think we are all mutts and that's the end of it...

    One thing that has always been (none / 0) (#7)
    by Deconstructionist on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 04:17:09 PM EST
     intriguing to me is that the one group MOST certain we all have descended from common ancestors are biblical literalists. The scientific consensus also assumes that we have all  descended from common ancestors but because it's "science" and empirical evidence is lacking that allows for less certainty.

      Yet, we seem often to see a greater emphasis on identifying and acting upon differences from many bibilcal literalists.

      Now, one could be a biblical literalist and accept that part of evolutionary theory which speaks to adaptation to environment and natural selection without accepting the "Grand Theory of Evolution" which speaks to the hypothesis that all life has descended from a common ancestor and diversity through mutation. But, logically speaking wouldn't "scientists" be more likely to believe in the concept of genetic differences explaining differences than "religionists?"

     

    Scientists, race, intelligence and genetic testing (none / 0) (#8)
    by jerry on Tue Nov 20, 2007 at 07:19:42 PM EST
    But, logically speaking wouldn't "scientists" be more likely to believe in the concept of genetic differences explaining differences than "religionists?"

    And I think that's the case.  I think the problem here is the use of two very vaguely defined and hard to measure concepts, race and intelligence.

    I think (could be wrong) that scientists are happy to discuss what different genes and their variations do, and what happens in inheritance patterns or to groups that seem to share certain genes.

    But do clusters of genes make up races?  Probably not.  If anything it seems that clusters of shared genes make small related groups of somewhat isolated populations where isolated may be due to geography or religious practices.  In a sense it seems clear to me that there is no African race, but I would think it makes sense to discuss various genetically related population groups that come from Africa.  Or Europe, or Asia, or South America.  And more sense still to talk about people that have gene X or some particular group of genes.

    And then there is the question of intelligence which usually does seem to be measured more relative to cultural issues than to some sort of inherent intelligence.

    My problem though is that we do claim to be able to measure the intelligence of various animals, and so I suspect that in the long run, we will have various markers that seem to correlate to some inherent intelligence.

    I don't think it's true that intelligence is not measurable, though I tend to agree that it's most likely that our current IQ tests are very culturally related.

    And when the concepts of race is tossed out, but the concepts of groups of people that share certain gene patterns is included, I think it will be clear that on average some groups that share certain genes are more intelligent than other groups that share certain genes.  Perhaps they have more effective myelin coating their neurons.  Perhaps nerve cells cluster and self arrange a little better.  Perhaps nerve cells fire a little faster.

    I don't think differences in some group average should be considered a big deal -- it tells you nothing about an individual.

    I also think that whether it is genes coding for intelligence or genes coding for a disease or any other gene, we need strong privacy laws to make sure that information is not used against individuals by insurance companies or employers or schools or anyone.

    There is also a battle that can be seen at various liberal blogs this week to make sure this topic cannot be discussed at all, without calling people racists.  I think that's a pretty dumb, unscientific, illiberal approach.

    Perhaps, just as the stem cell opponents don't want to put taxpayer money into stem cell research, people that feel there can be no discussion of any sort of how intelligence is inherited, created, developed, encouraged, or just differently distributed would be happy if no taxpayer money goes into such research.  I'm not sure what impact that might have on Alzheimer's research though.

    If there are real differences, that information will come out, and people that are not biologists should be more interested in making sure that such information cannot be used to harm people than in declaring emphatically that there will be no difference.

    Parent

    I think you identify (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by Deconstructionist on Wed Nov 21, 2007 at 07:21:03 AM EST
     the problem. Words are just words. Words used to describe concepts as opposed to concrete things have meaning only to the extent we ascribe them meaning and when different people ascribe different meanings, we spend so much time arguing over what the words mean we can lose focus on the analysis.

      What is "justice?" What is "love?" What is "hate?".... What is "race?" What is "intelligence"?

       Beyond agreeing about what a word used to describe a concept means, we have the problem that even if we agree upon a definition for the sake of a particular analysis that does not mean we can measure the quantity or degree to which it is present.

       IQ tests, for example, clearly measure something important and valuable, but what are they measuring? Is it the innate ability to comprehend and analyze complex abstractions? Is it the developed ability to process information quickly? Is it a comprehensive and organized memory? Is it familiarity with the concepts and knowledge the test-designers have determined should be given the most value? I'd suggest it's  all of that and more. I'd also suggest that factors other innate or developed intellectual abilities affect test performance. Confidence, anxiety, desire, apathy and who knows how many other personality traits (for lack of a better term) probably exert influence over performance to a highly significant degree.  

       Will it ever be possible to design a test capable of singling out innate ability and controlling for all the other variables of performance? I doubt it.

      Even if we had no racial, ethnic, social or cultural differences this would be the case.
       Does that mean that innate intelligence does not exist and vary widely? No. Does it mean that very imperfect measures have no value? No. does it mean we should be very hesitant to label or group people based on these test results. Yes.

       We want to understand how the mind works if for no other reason than to develop teaching strategies for assisting people in reaching their fullest potential.

       

    Parent

    If (none / 0) (#11)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Nov 21, 2007 at 10:17:45 AM EST
    Right now these folks are attempting to say they know they exist.

    No one knows anything is my point.

    Parent

    Sure, but as also there is a different role you (none / 0) (#12)
    by jerry on Wed Nov 21, 2007 at 02:40:16 PM EST
    might play....

    As an attorney and not a biologist, you could take a leading role in advocating for strong privacy laws, and laws that protect citizens and consumers from "redlining" due to genetic information.

    As a software engineer, I can probably help make that technically possible, and I can explain the issues, but in a sense, I do think we need "our progressive liberal attorneys" to help make this the case regardless of what the genetic information is revealing - height, propensity to obesity, vulnerability to various diseases, sexual orientation, or even markers of intelligence.

    If folks are willing to stop at saying "no it's not true let's not discuss it" then we might not be able to put the genie back into the bottle.  (As an example, a relatively young and privileged Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor at Reason and libertarian, was wrote last January, that there was no such thing as privacy, and that government surveillance cameras should be embraced!  A very interesting libertarian point of view.  On NPR, one of her examples was quite literally: suppose they had gov't cameras outside of gay bars, everyone would still go in!)

    Parent