Why do people cling so tightly to racism?

[Zero]

Originally posted by Adam
Dude, since you feel the need to dictate how everything in this thread must be, it is up to you to define precisely what you think the topic is. Clearly, if I state my opinion regarding Eugenics, you will say either "you don't understand!" or "you're off-topic!". So, to avoid such nonsense, tell us what you think Eugenics is, and give us your opinion about it, then ask your questions from that basis.

Ha! You know what eugenics is...both the dictionary definition, and its application in racist dogmas. But, since typing "http://www.google.com/" seems to be a sticking point for you, I'll do it for you. Broadly, "eugenics" is a human breeding program which hopes to "improve the stock". Specifically, as it is commonly used, it is "the selective prevention or encouragement of births for social, racial, or political ends." It is the second definition which seems to be prevalent, and the focus of this thread.

 

[Adam]

Okay, now that we all know exactly what you are talking about, I can supply further information.

1) Eugenics is the principle of weeding out the weak and combining the strong, to produce more strength, basically.

2) Eugenics has not in any way been "debunked" or "dismissed". Doctors all over the planet tend to recommend against people with very serious hereditary problems having their own kids. Often those possessing serious hereditary defects are proponents of Eugenics.

3) As for my personal opinion, I think it's a great idea. Do some genetic tinkering, get rid of Osteo Genesis Imperfecta and numerous other nasty problems. Tinker with people until we get rid of all such problems. Wipe out defects which result in humans living pain-filled lives of physical disadvantage.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Zero
Would you agree, Russ, that data alone doesn't create science?

Certainly. Even fullly developed theories have a broader purpose. That was my point.

I was thinking of an example as I wrote that post: AIDS research. A biologist might do a study of t-cell production in aids patients given different drugs. The data might or might not show something interesting, but regardless of the specifics of the study, the point of the research in the first place is to find a cure/vaccine for AIDS. It won't even say it in any specific paper, but there is no question that that's the purpose of the line of research.

In contrast, people doing race vs intelligence "research" often claim not to have a larger purpose in mind. Its as if we're expected to believe they just threw darts to choose an area to research and don't have any kind of reason for choosing it or broader purpose in mind.

(I'm willing to make the same stipulation as you are, at least for the moment) Isn't that really the beginning of real study, not the end of it? It seems like some people found the data they liked, and matched it to their preconcieved notions about race, and called it a day.

Also agreed (both parts).

You mean threads like https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread...;threadid=13254 started not by Nachtwolf but by peonyu? A thread with an opening post which suggests not that racism is justified, but that it exists in higher education arenas in the USA.

Not exactly relevant to this thread, but that's an example where the point/purpose is relatively clear: racism and sexism exist and something should be done to eradicate them.

Second, we have my post which brought to attention another thread which attempted to show not a justification for racism, but that racism exists in universities and such. Hardly proof that people keep posting threads which attempt to justify racism. In short: evidence against the supposition of the opening post of this thread. Thus, not only is it related to the thread, it is also inherently related to the topic of the opening post and therefore indicates an understanding of the topic.

Not really, Adam. Interestingly enough, that's a good illustration of part of the problem we're analyzing here: people don't know what it means to provide evidence to support something. Evidence is generally a positive thing, not a negative thing. If you want to try to prove a negative, you need a whole truckload of failed attempts to find the evidence (see: ether vs relativity).

Linking one thread not relevant to Zero's point doesn't prove that there aren't other threads that are relevant to Zero's point - and there are probably a good dozen of them.

) As for my personal opinion [eugenics], I think it's a great idea.

The problem is the scope/scale. While it may sound like a good idea on the small scale, its often used as a justification for outlawing interracial marriage, or even genocide (Hitler: Jews are inferior - instead of just not allowing them to breed, let's be proactive and just kill all of them). Which takes me back to my point: its not important how Zero (or the dictionary) defines eugenics, what's important is how the people doing these studies and starting these threads define eugenics and how exactly they want to implement it.

 

[Adam]

Interestingly enough, that's a good illustration of part of the problem we're analyzing here: people don't know what it means to provide evidence to support something. Evidence is generally a positive thing, not a negative thing.

It's not "evidence for a negative" at all. Consider. Two opposing propositions. 1) Too many damn threads trying to justify racism! 2) Clealry there are threads which not only don't do that, but go the other way, complaining about racism. My link supports 2, which is not a negative at all.

In future, please refrain from Zero's oft-employed "you simply don't understand". It's just silly.

The problem is the scope/scale. While it may sound like a good idea on the small scale, its often used as a justification for outlawing interracial marriage, or even genocide (Hitler: Jews are inferior - instead of just not allowing them to breed, let's be proactive and just kill all of them). Which takes me back to my point: its not important how Zero (or the dictionary) defines eugenics, what's important is how the people doing these studies and starting these threads define eugenics and how exactly they want to implement it.

The larger the scale, the better. Eradicate hereditary disabilities globally. Eugenics is good stuff.

However, what you're talking about there is not Eugenics. You're talking about loony-toons whacko NAZI ideas which had nothing to do with Eugenics, although people applied the term.

The problem is not Eugenics. The problem is human fear, hatred, greed, mistrust, et cetera. Eugenics is simply an earlier version of "War On Terror". A label which has nothing to do with actual events taking place, but which will be thereafter tied to those events, regardless of merit.

 

[Zero]

Seems to me that someone was disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable...

And, Adam, since the "loony-toons whacko NAZI ideas" are generally included under the umbrella "eugenics" heading, that is what I called it. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[NateTG]

Something rather amusing about eugenics is that, as a result of eugenics laws, germans who attempt to marry U.S. citizens in germany have to be certified sane before they can legally marry.

The reason is that if a foreigner gets married in Germany, german law requires that all of the legal requirements for mariage in that person's country be met in addition to the german laws. The US has eugenics laws that prevent insane people from getting married, but although these laws are no longer enforced in the US the Germans want to make sure that the marriage is legal in the US.

 

[Nachtwolf]

Race, and ultimately, Eugenics

I'd like to see some studies that correlate brain size to intelligence. By your reckoning a person's I.Q. ought to be reflected in their brain size. Got any studies showing this?

Zoobyshoe, I hope hitsquad has answered this question to your satisfaction. If not, please let me know.

Nachtwolf, I must point out that you state that these threads have a purpose but you didn't provide one. If you don't, we are left with making our own judgements as to what the purpose might be. Frankly, I agree with Zero: taken at face value (facts or no facts - for the purpose of this discussion, I'll even stipulate to them), the purpose of these threads and research seems to be a justification of racism.

1. Gee Russ, I'm sorry if you expect me to provide a disclaimer at the start of every post stating that I'm not one of those evil racists (I'm just one of those evil eugenists). My views and motivations have been stated multiple times, and can be fairly easily learned by clicking the link in my sig. Here is probably the most relevant quote you can find there:

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/eugenics.htm --> Race

As long as we avoid discussion on the very real differences which exist between ethnicities, we will continue to waste money on environmental programs designed to increase minority intelligence, whites will continue to be blamed for the intelligence disparities which refuse to go away, and minorities will continue to fail economically in our intelligence-dominated meritocracy.

It is important for us to ask ourselves whether we want to see social disparities continue forever. Do we want a society stratified by ethnic lines? I submit to you that it is only racial supremacists who draw satisfaction from the plight of other ethnic groups. The heritability and importance of these differences only strengthens the imperative to apply a eugenic solution. Our society is currently spending billions of dollars in an effort to reduce the IQ disparities with environmental intervention, but thus far very little has been effective. Why not use this money in a way which will actually do some good?

Why not consider eugenics?

Here it is spelled out for you, again. Happy?

2. Who the hell cares what my motivations are? What if my motivations were to breed East Asians with Blacks to create a super-race in order to dominate the world? Would that suddenly make Ashkenazi Jews score worse on measures of IQ than Australian Aboriginals? Would this suddenly cause the brain size disparity which exists between human groups to vanish? I shouldn't have to remind you that it wouldn't.

For some reason, PhysicForums posters seem incredibly interested in the people at the expense of the facts. Evo's offensive psychoanalysis of Carlos Hernandez and Zero's bumbling attempts to pin racism on me are utterly meaningless distractions, but many of you (especially Zero and Evo) can't perceive them as such. Zoobyshoe is the wisest poster on this thread - he shows no interest in my mother's maiden name or the price of Tea in China; he just wants to see relevant studies, and that's to his credit!

Do some genetic tinkering, get rid of Osteo Genesis Imperfecta and numerous other nasty problems. Tinker with people until we get rid of all such problems. Wipe out defects which result in humans living pain-filled lives of physical disadvantage.

I'm a little squeamish about this, Adam. When people talk about wiping out alleles, they're suggesting that we should take a big risk. What if these alleles become important or necessary somewhere down the road? Doesn't Sickle-Cell provide immujnity to Malaria? Doesn't Cystic Fibrosis provide resistence to Cholera? I agree wholeheartedly that we should reduce the levels of these traits in the general population, but I disagree that wiping genes out is a wise move.

Which takes me back to my point: its not important how Zero (or the dictionary) defines eugenics, what's important is how the people doing these studies and starting these threads define eugenics and how exactly they want to implement it.

Oho, so you're learning! Here's what Francis galton, the Father of Eugenics, had to say.

http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/perl/local/psyc/makedoc?id=17&type=html

Individuals appear to me as partial detachments from the Infinite ocean of Being, and this world is a stage on which Evolution takes place, principally hitherto by means of Natural Selection, which achieves the good of the whole with scant regard to that of the individual. Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also to power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective. This is precisely the aim of Eugenics. Its first object is to check the birth-rate of the Unfit, instead of allowing them to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race by furthering the productivity of the Fit by early marriages and healthful rearing of their children. Natural Selection rests upon excessive production and wholesale destruction; Eugenics on bringing no more individuals into the world than can be properly cared for, and those only of the best stock.


--Mark

P.S. Hey Zero, I'm sorry - I must have missed where you so carefully and thoughtfully posted your study showing that blacks have high IQs or that East Asians have small brains or whatever it was (I don't actually know what it says, but I'm looking forward to reading it). Please repost it so that the board will know that you aren't a mindless fool. Thanks!

 

[Zero]

In other words, you are a racist...did you need to cut and paste all your propaganda, when a simple admission would have done?

Hey, Russ, am I completely off base, but isn't this exactly the sort of thing we were talking about as being racist?

 

[Zero]

Ok, since we have established your position, call you tell us what drove you to support an idea which everyone considers racist?

 

[Nachtwolf]

Why don't you try to provide a source to contradict everything I've been saying, Zero? Your doomed search for such a source just might give you the understanding of me which you so inexplicably desire.

--Mark

 

[NateTG]

Zero:
Please define what you understand under the terms racist and racism.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Why don't you try to provide a source to contradict everything I've been saying, Zero? Your doomed search for such a source just might give you the understanding of me which you so inexplicably desire.

--Mark

You haven't really said much...again, what are the sources of YOUR views?

 

[Nereid]

But what is 'race'?

In the 2000 US Census, Q5 asked: "What is this person's race? Mark [X] one or more races to indicate what this person considers himself/herself to be." The choices given are (the layout has meaning too, but I can't reproduce that):
White
Black, African Am,. or Negro
American Indian or Alaska Native - print name of enrolled or principal tribe
Asian Indian
Japanese
Native Hawaiian
Chinese
Korean
Guamanian or Chammoro
Filipino
Vietnamese
Samoan
Other Asian - Print race
Other Pacific Islander - Print race
Some other race - Print race

http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-1.pdf is an 11-page Census Bureau publication which gives a summary of some of the results from analysis of answers to this question (and Q5, the 'Hispanic' question).

Since 'race' is clearly NOT a biological term - at least, not as used by the US Census Bureau - IQ studies, g studies, etc based on 'race' rest on a very fragile foundation. Further, using 'race' as an integral part of a eugenics program can't be scientific.

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
If you want to refute these facts, again, you might want to show me one study - just one study! - which finds blacks outscore East Asians for IQ or have larger brains than East Asians. You won't, of course, because you can't.--Mark

What study are you referring to that shows that Asians have larger size brains than Africans? If you are referring to that unscientific, biased & debunked study by Rushton, that won't fly. What study (other than Rushton's) are you referring to?

Funny that the reason the African brain size was significantly smaller was due to the grossly disproportionate sampling of PYGMIES.

"This paper
contains the geographical means widely cited by Rushton, namely
that the mean cranial volume for 26 Asian societies was 1380 cc,
the mean volume for 10 European societies was 1362, and the mean
for 10 African societies was 1276. Notably, the African sample
contained 5 groups that are characterized by exceptionally small
body size (2 pygmy groups and 2 bushman groups). Indeed the Akka
pygmies (representing 1/10 of the whole African sample) had the
smallest cranial volume ever found in extant humans (1085 cc)."

http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/anthro-l/archive/november-1994/0088.html

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Zoobyshoe, I hope hitsquad has answered this question to your satisfaction. If not, please let me know.

Hitsquad left an enormous, space taking gap in his post that causes a huge delay in my scroll function on that page, and despite my request, has not corrected it. This makes his answer to my question irritating to try and study.

Zoobyshoe is the wisest poster on this thread - he shows no interest in my mother's maiden name or the price of Tea in China; he just wants to see relevant studies, and that's to his credit!

Zoobyshoe, in his wisdom, is also not interested in being sucked up to by someone in a ploy to split him off from other posters.

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
'race' is clearly NOT a biological term - at least, not as used by the US Census Bureau

The U.S. Census Bureau seems to largely use the word race...


--
How are the race categories used in Census 2000 defined?

“White” refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples
of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

“Black or African American” refers to people having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa...

“American Indian and Alaska Native” refers to people having origins in
any of the original peoples of North and South America...

“Asian” refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent...

“Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” refers to people having
origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or
other Pacific Islands...

“Some other race” was included in Census 2000 for respondents
who were unable to identify with the five Office of Management and
Budget race categories.
--
(p2 of 11, blue box)
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-1.pdf




... the same way Jensen uses the word race:


--
...forces act together to produce the anatomical, biochemical, and behavioral differences that allow us to distinguish subspecies within a species, which in the case of our own species, Homo sapiens, we term "races." Because isolation of groups is not 100 percent and because races are interfertile, they are not distinct categories, or pure types, as exist in other species. Races have been called "fuzzy sets" because, rather than their having distinct boundaries, we see a continuous blending of the characteristics that, on average, distinguish the different groups as races.

The relative geographical isolation of Africa from Europe and of both of these continents from Asia, combined with the hazards of prehistoric migration over such long distances, produced the three largest and most distinguishable groups: sub-Saharan Africans, Caucasians, and Mongoloids. There is considerable variation within these broad groups, of course, and there are many other derivative or blended groups that could be called races...

...the criteria for all of the classifications are genetically based.
--
Intelligence, Race, and Genetics. Chapter 4: What is Race? p116.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081334008X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

IQ studies, g studies, etc based on 'race' rest on a very fragile foundation.

--
If racial differences are not explainable in terms of test bias, other explanations must be considered, including biological and genetic causes. I researched these questions in depth and stated my conclusions in my 1980 book Bias in Mental Testing.

It is my position, based on the available evidence, that racial group differences in g are essentially no different from individual differences with respect to their causes and consequences. I see average group differences simply as aggragated individual differences.
--
Intelligence, Race, and Genetics. p114.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081334008X/?tag=pfamazon01-20




The conclusion of Bias in Mental Testing "has since been accepted and affirmed by the majority of experts in the field of psychometrics:"


--
...some of the issues raised by my 1969 article in the Harvard Educational Review determined my research and publication agenda during the subsequent years... The main themes in much of this work, I decided, should be consolidated into separate books, each dealing with one of the key topics of my 1969 article...

The second book in the series was Bias in Mental Testing (1980), in which I examined as comprehensively as was possible at that time the then controversial question of whether the psychometric tests of mental ability that were widely used in schools, colleges, industry, and the armed services yielded biased scores for those racial and cultural minority groups in the United States that, on average, score below the mean of the rest of the population. My conclusion from this research was that the currently most widely used standardized tests of mental ability yield unbiased measures for all native-born English speaking segments of contemporary American society, regardless of their sex, race, or social class background, and that the observed mean differences between various groups are not an artifact of the tests themselves, but are attributable to factors that are causally independent of the tests. In brief, the tests do not create the observed group differences, they simply register them. This conclusion has since been accepted and affirmed by the majority of experts in the field of psychometrics. This book, too, was later written up as a "citation classic" in the ISI's Current Contents (1987).
--
The g Factor. px.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874




Edit: fixed page number reference
Edit2: Reinstalled Nereid quotes which had accidentally been removed


-Chris [/B][/QUOTE]

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Here it is spelled out for you, again. Happy?

Quite franky, I haven't read all these threads that close, but in any case, I appreciate your being so forthcoming. Anyway...

Let me see if I can boil it down a little: you desire racial perfection and to achieve it wish to identify and filter out undesirable people by group. Ie, ethnic clensing/genocide.

Yup, that's Hitler in a nutshell. I imagine that's the reason why most people who favor these ideas generally keep their real motives to themselves. I had never even seen the term "eugenics" before seeing it in these threads.

Hey, Russ, am I completely off base, but isn't this exactly the sort of thing we were talking about as being racist?

Quite frankly, I didn't expect it to be so plain. However, the possible implications of eugenics are pretty clear, so its tough to use the word and disguise the motive, even by saying it with 200 words when its more clearly stated with 10.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Evo
What study are you referring to that shows that Asians have larger size brains than Africans? If you are referring to that unscientific, biased & debunked study by Rushton, that won't fly. What study (other than Rushton's) are you referring to?

Funny that the reason the African brain size was significantly smaller was due to the grossly disproportionate sampling of PYGMIES.

"This paper
contains the geographical means widely cited by Rushton, namely
that the mean cranial volume for 26 Asian societies was 1380 cc,
the mean volume for 10 European societies was 1362, and the mean
for 10 African societies was 1276. Notably, the African sample
contained 5 groups that are characterized by exceptionally small
body size (2 pygmy groups and 2 bushman groups). Indeed the Akka
pygmies (representing 1/10 of the whole African sample) had the
smallest cranial volume ever found in extant humans (1085 cc)."

http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/anthro-l/archive/november-1994/0088.html

*Grins* Thanks, Evo, for your contribution. Most of the basis for the racist eugenics movement has been debunked in a similar fashion. For instance, the idea that IQ is heritable is fine, but that absolutely doesn't mean it cannot be raised, and swiftly. Much of The Bell Curve fails to stand up to scrutiny as well, which is probably why it was published instead of submitted for peer review.

 

[Adam]

Originally posted by Zero
In other words, you are a racist...

Dude, you're a moderator. Rise to a standard. Quit the ad hominems. Address the points of discussion.

 

[Adam]

IF a study shows that, on average, people from one group have larger or smaller brain sizes than another group, it is not racist to mention that study. It might be racist to mention that study as a rationale for saying something along the lines of "This is why you crackers suck". I myself belong to a certain group, which as far as I know does not restrict itself according to ethnic divisions, but personally I couldn't give a rat's Rs about the other members of this group. They're as annoying as any other people.

As for weeding out problems such as Osteo Genesis Imperfecta, I don't see the problem at all. Sure, maybe some day there may be some reason for the condition to be useful. But until then, a lot of people are living lives which involve a lot of pain and suffering. And perhaps by the next turn of the century, we'll be designing new and better genes and such anyway. I really doubt that we'll be in dire need of that specific problem, and be unable to fiddle our genes to come up with a solution.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Adam
IF a study shows that, on average, people from one group have larger or smaller brain sizes than another group, it is not racist to mention that study. It might be racist to mention that study as a rationale for saying something along the lines of "This is why you crackers suck". I myself belong to a certain group, which as far as I know does not restrict itself according to ethnic divisions, but personally I couldn't give a rat's Rs about the other members of this group. They're as annoying as any other people.

As for weeding out problems such as Osteo Genesis Imperfecta, I don't see the problem at all. Sure, maybe some day there may be some reason for the condition to be useful. But until then, a lot of people are living lives which involve a lot of pain and suffering. And perhaps by the next turn of the century, we'll be designing new and better genes and such anyway. I really doubt that we'll be in dire need of that specific problem, and be unable to fiddle our genes to come up with a solution.

Well, it is also racist to intensionally misrepresent the study, or to "pad" the study by not getting an appropriate test group(intentionally or not) For instance, look at what Evo posted, about Pygmies being over-represented in the study on cranial sizes, which lowered the averagel cranial size for Africa as a whole.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Adam
Dude, you're a moderator. Rise to a standard. Quit the ad hominems. Address the points of discussion.

When somebody states their racism that openly, how much decorum would you like me to use?

 

[Nachtwolf]

Hitsquad left an enormous, space taking gap in his post that causes a huge delay in my scroll function on that page, and despite my request, has not corrected it.

I never noticed any gap; his post looks fine to me. Anyway, would you like me to post some other sources, or not?

Zoobyshoe, in his wisdom, is also not interested in being sucked up to by someone in a ploy to split him off from other posters.

Zoobyshoe, how could I not put you into a different group from these other posters? Granted that your preference for whining about invisible gaps over asking me to supply information is unimpressive, you still haven't said anything even remotely close to the same level of stupidity to be found elsewhere on this thread. Just look at this drivel:

What study are you referring to that shows that Asians have larger size brains than Africans?

Um, no single study. There have been brain size disparity studies undertaken with a variety of methods, including filling the inside of the skull with sand or weighing brains during autopsy and, most recently, MRI studies. But here's one in particular you may find interesting:

From Ho et. al. (1988) "Covariation Between Intelligence and speed of Cognitive processing. Genetic and environmental influences" (Published in Behavioral Genetics, 18, page 247-261.)

White Males (413)... Brain Weight: 1392g... Brain Weight Ht.Adjusted: 1392g

Black Males (228)... Brain Weight: 1286g... Brain Weight Ht.Adjusted: 1290g

Note that this represents a difference of over a hundred grams, and even after adjusting for height. The Pygmy excuse is pathetic and can't obscure the facts.

When somebody states their racism that openly, how much decorum would you like me to use?

I told you, Zero, I'm not a racist. I'll repeat, with a dictionary definition for you:

"Racism n The notion that one's own ethnic stock is superior."

Well, I'm white (European American). So even pretending that IQ is a measure of absolute superiority, my ethnic stock would be inferior to Ashkenazi Jewish stock and East Asian stock, wouldn't it? So I can't very well be a racist, now, can I?

Let me see if I can boil it down a little: you desire racial perfection and to achieve it wish to identify and filter out undesirable people by group. Ie, ethnic clensing/genocide.

See Russ, this is what I'm talking about when I say that you and Zero have a fundamental inability to understand the issue. I openly oppose (although I shouldn't even have to make it plain that I oppose these things):

Genocide/ethnic cleansing
Involuntary sterilization
Forced procreation

I don't want these things. I'm not trying to achieve racial perfection (I just want to raise the average IQ to around 125) and I can't make it any clearer than I have been making it throughout my time posting here. Your inability to grasp my position would be absolutely astounding if it weren't so common, Russ.

IF a study shows that, on average, people from one group have larger or smaller brain sizes than another group, it is not racist to mention that study.

It's good to know that someone understands the obvious, Adam. Just don't be too disappointed when you see these people utterly failing to understand what you just said. They probably never will.


--Mark

 

[Njorl]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Zoobyshoe, how could I not put you into a different group from these other posters? Granted that your preference for whining about invisible gaps over asking me to supply information is unimpressive, you still haven't said anything even remotely close to the same level of stupidity to be found elsewhere on this thread.
--Mark

Wow. I haven't been called stupid in so long I had forgotten what it was like.



Njorl

 

[Zero]

See what I mean about getting to falsly claim intellectual superiority by clinging to discredited ideas?

 

[Zero]

Including ANY pygmies in a sample group that is supposed to represent Africa, let alone 20% of the overall sample, is an example of EXTREME intellectual dishonesty...anyone care to guess why?

 

[Evo]

Actually Nachtwolf's problem is that he has an irrational fear that people with what he considers "substandard" IQ's are going to take over the world.

Here's what he posted in another thread recently:

(originally posted by Nactwolf) The crucial importance of intelligence, and the current drain on our intelligence, overshadows all other political concerns and represents the greatest threat to civilization in the modern world. Unless we enact some form of eugenic program or take voluntary action to solve this problem, we are living in the last days of modern civilization.

He doesn't have the intelligence to grasp the fact that there has been a broad range of "IQ's" since man appeared on this planet. The fact that IQ tests were developed over the last 70 years doesn't mean that up until then everyone had high IQ's and now there is this sudden critical threat to mankind of being bred out of existence by people of lower IQ's as he claims.

Nachtwolf is just a crackpot, the fact that he likes to put down entire races based on the biased "reports" he likes to mention, over and over and over, is just another one of his shortcommings.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
I told you, Zero, I'm not a racist. I'll repeat, with a dictionary definition for you:

"Racism n The notion that one's own ethnic stock is superior."

Ironic, folloing a post by Zero about intellectual honesty (Zero, I'm not rubbing off on you, am I? ). HERE is the full definition of racism:

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

You fit both definitions to a t, your attempts to misrepresent them notwithstanding.

See Russ, this is what I'm talking about when I say that you and Zero have a fundamental inability to understand the issue. I openly oppose (although I shouldn't even have to make it plain that I oppose these things):

Genocide/ethnic cleansing
Involuntary sterilization
Forced procreation

I don't want these things. I'm not trying to achieve racial perfection (I just want to raise the average IQ to around 125) and I can't make it any clearer than I have been making it throughout my time posting here. Your inability to grasp my position would be absolutely astounding if it weren't so common, Russ.

Then clarify it. Simplify. Boil it down. HOW EXACTLY do you plan/hope to achieve this? Do you wish to convince blacks they shouldn't breed? Outlaw interracial marriage? You wax on for 1000 words about lofty goals of improving the gene pool, but you still (that I have seen) haven't said what you want to have done.

 

[Zero]

Russ, I hope you never, EVER rub off on me...capitalist scum!

I DO wonder though...you make no bones about your political beliefs, nor do I...and neither of us feels the need to hide behind a thousand words, we just state what we believe as simply as possible. No need to try to distract from this issue at hand(well, except for when you bring up that "liberal media" nonsense...LOL) Why would someone hid3e their views behind rhetoric?
Further, what is all the constant insults, and claims to be somehow magically smarter than EVERYONE?

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by hitssquad How are the race categories used in Census 2000 defined?
quote from a CB publication:
“White” refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa... etc

Actually, that's only how the OMB/CB wrote it; how each of the >250 million people who put multiple "X" in squares is known only to those folk; they could be lying, ignorant of their "origins", feeling that "it's none of your *** business", etc

[Edit: this para added]
In fact, from studies which Jensen himself cites, we know that almost all those who put an "X" in the "Black" square should (if they only knew) have also put an "X" in the "White" square, and a great many the other way (and almost all the "Indian (Amer.)" an "X" in the "White" square too) ... assuming they wanted to answer the CB's question accurately.

BTW, to what extent do younger people in the US feel uneasy about their 'race'? For example, are there large numbers who feel it's not important to them, or who cherish their rich ancestry (so a single label is anathema)?

hitssquad again, quoting Jensen...forces act together to produce the anatomical, biochemical, and behavioral differences that allow us to distinguish subspecies within a species, which in the case of our own species, Homo sapiens, we term "races." Because isolation of groups is not 100 percent and because races are interfertile, they are not distinct categories, or pure types, as exist in other species. Races have been called "fuzzy sets" because, rather than their having distinct boundaries, we see a continuous blending of the characteristics that, on average, distinguish the different groups as races.

Note that, AFAIK, Jensen means "population groups", not races. He may also have been somewhat disingenuous about the "fuzzy sets" part; in the case of US population groups, by 2002 (when the book from which the quote was taken was published) there was ample demographic and other data to clearly show that Jensen's characterisation could have but a limited life at best, say 1 generation?

hitssquad again, quoting Jensen (my emphasis) There is considerable variation within these broad groups, of course, and there are many other derivative or blended groups that could be called races...
...the criteria for all of the classifications are genetically based.

Translation: because there's a lot of variation, there's no clear, consistent means to define a 'human race', and (modern extension) studies of human genetic variation support the conclusion that 'race' is, biologically, for humans, a largely arbitrary choice.

So, in summary (and somewhat oversimplified), we have a test-based construct - with no theoretical or biological basis - correlated with a social construct (with well-known political and social baggage) being used to draw 'scientific' conclusions about the innate, biological capabilities of those social groups. Oh, and which conclusions conveniently support the political and social agendas of some members of the dominant group.

[Edit: added para about multiple answers in the 2000 Census]

 

[Nereid]

Nachtwolf wrote: For some reason, PhysicForums posters seem incredibly interested in the people at the expense of the facts. Evo's offensive psychoanalysis of Carlos Hernandez and Zero's bumbling attempts to pin racism on me are utterly meaningless distractions, but many of you (especially Zero and Evo) can't perceive them as such. Zoobyshoe is the wisest poster on this thread - he shows no interest in my mother's maiden name or the price of Tea in China; he just wants to see relevant studies, and that's to his credit!

Hmm, a quick review of some other threads in this sub-forum shows that Nereid and Nachtwolf/hitssquad accounted for far more posts than anyone else, and (my emphasis) Nachtwolf repeatedly ignored questions, said he was too busy to address manifest inconsistencies in his assertions; hitssquad posted many excerpts from various souces (usually Jensen), but also repeatedly failed to answer questions about inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and other flaws in the case he and Nachtwolf (or Lynn and Vanhanen, or Jensen) were seeking to make.

Nachtwolf's talk of 'facts' and 'distractions' is particularly ironic; how does the English expression go? 'the pot calling the kettle black'?

 

[Zero]

What is the saying? Correlation doesn't equal causality? Most of these studies attempt to correlate poorly defined "results"(often statistical data based on incorrect assumptions and gathering methods) with preconceived racial and social causes. All this leads to bad science.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Zero
What is the saying? Correlation doesn't equal causality? Most of these studies attempt to correlate poorly defined "results"(often statistical data based on incorrect assumptions and gathering methods) with preconceived racial and social causes. All this leads to bad science.

You could have said this more strongly; the lack of a theoretical or biological basis to the g-construct means that it's a dead-end, scientifically - there's nowhere you can go with this, and every time you want to establish another correlation, you are forced (if you're honest) to repeat the entire set of studies in the new context (this is one of the flaws in Lynn and Vanhanen's work). Why? Because there's no firm basis which you can use to claim that extrapolation is warranted.

In the science I am familiar with, correlation is interesting, but of limited value unless underpinned by a theory whose predictions can be tested beyond the special case in which the correlation was first observed.

 

[selfAdjoint]

the lack of a theoretical or biological basis to the g-construct means that it's a dead-end, scientifically - there's nowhere you can go with this, and every time you want to establish another correlation, you are forced (if you're honest) to repeat the entire set of studies in the new context

This is just not true, and only shows the predjudice of the "hard" scientist against the social sciences generally. IQ is the most reproducible variable that sociologists measure, and g is as consistent. Any new test can readily be calibrated on its g-loading, and is then available to add to the data set. Lynn &co. were unsound because they made use of unvalidated data, but that doesn't refute the solid results that have been produced.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
the lack of a theoretical or biological basis to the g-construct means that it's a dead-end, scientifically - there's nowhere you can go with this, and every time you want to establish another correlation, you are forced (if you're honest) to repeat the entire set of studies in the new context

This is just not true, and only shows the predjudice of the "hard" scientist against the social sciences generally. IQ is the most reproducible variable that sociologists measure, and g is as consistent. Any new test can readily be calibrated on its g-loading, and is then available to add to the data set. Lynn &co. were unsound because they made use of unvalidated data, but that doesn't refute the solid results that have been produced.

Deep breaths, chum...no one is saying that IQ tests are completely invalid, except maybe Nereid, and I'm not sure why. I'd agree with you that IQ tests can be valid, in the right context.