Thoughts on race/racism

[FedUpWithFaith]

my anecdote you quoted above makes absolutely no claims whatsoever about there being any evidence to support that races have genetically-tied differences.

Nevertheless, isn't it about time you begin to furnish some scientific support to your assertions regarding genetic inferiority along racial lines? All I can recall you backing the claim up with is a study you are too lazy to provide links for, a conclusion that is manifestly no more than a subjective opinion on account of its being based on anecdotal stuff, and an equally subjective evaluation on the odds of blacks being genetically inferior.

In short, so far support for your contributions to the debate is no better than I expect to hear from some boozed up bogan in a pub. Where it differs is that you profess to have no certainty about your beliefs. Phew! What a fucking relief. It makes me curious, though, why you spend so much time on generating hot air.

I'm glad you asked this question Seraph and you know me well enough to know i really don't mind the lack of courtesy from you. Let's face it, each of us thinks the other is an ego-centric dick. And we're both right. I just don't like my ideas or motives mis-characterized or my integrity challenged.

In a scientific sense, I've already agreed with you that many of my arguments or hunches in this area are essentially "hot air" in the sense of providing proper citations to decent research. But that's not the reason why i posted my original stuff here. The title of this thread has nothing to do directly with different scientific measures of intelligence or the genetic support of same. If I had come to a thread like that prepared for proper scientific debate I would have made sure I'd done my homework and had my references handy.

One reason I was prompted to post about racial intelligence was to expose the assumption biases in approach to the problem that irreligionist had already made and everybody seemed to implicitly accept. I feel I accomplished that using mostly pure logic alone without much need for evidence at all, at least no evidence that Irreligionist had not already implicitly conceded existed anyway (in the very nature of demonstrated IQ differences that environmental causes were hypothesized to explain away leaving no genetic residual).

Rather, I came to this thread mainly to address those inner conclusions and assumptions we all have on this sensitive issue and how it impacts the very nature of how we define and approach race and racism. I took what i consider a fairly bold step of admitting to some views I knew would be extremely unpopular here. And, conspicuously, I can't help but notice that nobody else has answered my life-or-death question yet. I didn't come here prepared to properly back up my beliefs nor did I come with the intention of proving to anybody I'm right about them. Conversely, I didn't think I could simply come out and say "I have a hunch that blacks have certain forms intelligence inferiority based on their genes" without at least giving a brief summary why I believe this. I just wanted you to take it as a given to some extent and discuss the implications of it, whether true or false.

Actually, I've been intending to get around to addressing Rum's post which gave a very good example of the questions I wanted people to ask. But I keep finding myself stuck in the derail I helped perpetuate.

[FedUpWithFaith]

To best support your position you want to find the cross-correlational studies involving varying intelligence measures (along an ordinal scale) whose population variance in subsumed in the additive extrapolations from various forms of environmental correction/normalization in those same populations. In other simpler words, you need to show that a properly extrapolated environmental intelligence variance (ANOVA) fully explains raw intelligence test difference.

No - I believe my point was that until we can accurately define and measure genetic potential intelligence all of that is a waste of time - where, no honestly, where did you see me say anything like that?

Look, answer or not - I may answer or not. We've bordered on rudeness to each other in this thread, I think primarily out of frustration. I think it is the nature of debate that when two people hold from the start different paths to their reasoning they are unable to meet at a later point and frustration is a common outcome.

I don't mind readers just making up their own minds - as invariably folk do. It doesn't matter greatly to me how I look, more how I think which is a work in progress, I just haven't found things in what you've written informative, others may well have done, another thread, another day it'll be me that learns something new.

That's life!

LOL, I just am somewhat dumbfounded by how you keep misinterpreting my ideas and intent. Not only was I not feeling or evidencing any personal animous towards you in the post you quoted from (I was a little rude in earlier posts but not much) the part I quoted was a lead to help you prove I'm completely full of shit if you want to continue your studies in this area. I was giving you the ammunition, or at least the outline of the ammunition in deeper statistical structure, that would destroy my position. I was arguing against myself. I'd suggest you do the same. I never try to make an argument to others unless I've already made the opposite case against myself. I could argue for your side better than you have and have done so many times in the past. It would be a good exercise for you to put on the other hat and give your best argument for the other side - and let's see you try to defend it from attack. If you decide to try, let's set up another thread. If and when I have time to reassemble all the research, I'd be willing to do the same thing.

[floppit]

To best support your position you want to find the cross-correlational studies involving varying intelligence measures (along an ordinal scale) whose population variance in subsumed in the additive extrapolations from various forms of environmental correction/normalization in those same populations. In other simpler words, you need to show that a properly extrapolated environmental intelligence variance (ANOVA) fully explains raw intelligence test difference.

No - I believe my point was that until we can accurately define and measure genetic potential intelligence all of that is a waste of time - where, no honestly, where did you see me say anything like that?

Look, answer or not - I may answer or not. We've bordered on rudeness to each other in this thread, I think primarily out of frustration. I think it is the nature of debate that when two people hold from the start different paths to their reasoning they are unable to meet at a later point and frustration is a common outcome.

I don't mind readers just making up their own minds - as invariably folk do. It doesn't matter greatly to me how I look, more how I think which is a work in progress, I just haven't found things in what you've written informative, others may well have done, another thread, another day it'll be me that learns something new.

That's life!

LOL, I just am somewhat dumbfounded by how you keep misinterpreting my ideas and intent. Not only was I not feeling or evidencing any personal animous towards you in the post you quoted from (I was a little rude in earlier posts but not much) the part I quoted was a lead to help you prove I'm completely full of shit if you want to continue your studies in this area. I was giving you the ammunition, or at least the outline of the ammunition in deeper statistical structure, that would destroy my position. I was arguing against myself. I'd suggest you do the same. I never try to make an argument to others unless I've already made the opposite case against myself. I could argue for your side better than you have and have done so many times in the past. It would be a good exercise for you to put on the other hat and give your best argument for the other side - and let's see you try to defend it from attack. If you decide to try, let's set up another thread. If and when I have time to reassemble all the research, I'd be willing to do the same thing.

I think I'll give argument lessons from you a miss, but thanks all the same.

[FedUpWithFaith]

You're welcome floppit!

[FedUpWithFaith]

I think much of this thread misses the point completely. Trying to establish if there is a racial basis for intelligence is, in this day and age, a redundant activity in my view, whatever the reality may be at the end of the day. What could the outcome possibly be if final and conclusive evidence one way or the other was produced? Scientifically justified and verifiable prejudice? I don't think so.

Rationality really is not everything. Better to focus on the reasons for socially based racial inequality and try to do something about it. Sometimes the social and emotional domain really does trump empiricism.

Spot on. I intended to say something along those lines at a later stage. The reason for wanting to delay it escapes me now.

Rum and Seraph,

I've been meaning to get back to you on this fascinating post for some time.

It sounds to me like the question and study of genetic-influenced or -driven intelligence factors between different race and ethnic groups is something you believe should not be pursued. Am I correct? Are you proposing that certain forms of inquiry be limited or suppressed in any way (for the purposes of this argument, I would include the passive decision not to actively solicit or fund such research to be a form of suppression)?

If so, as you appear to indicate, would you also be willing to suppress scientific study of the genetic basis of intelligence period (which always implicitly includes, and usually begins with, diseases affecting intelligence)? Before you answer, do you realize that such studies (for any realm of phenotypic study - not just intelligence) would normally involve discovering and identifying as many different genes as possible potentially correlated to phenotypic effect from as many races as possible? Would you promote restricting this sampling? How? Have you thought deeply about the consequences of such a restriction?

Finally, if you believe, as I do, that the intelligence differences between races/ethnicities attributed to genes will turn out to be reasonably insignificant, certainly not significant enough to justify racism, then what are you afraid of exactly? And if we're both wrong and there are major differences due to genes, wouldn't understanding those genes offer us perhaps the best hope to address the problem? What if the disparity in intelligence could actually be "cured" or treated by gene therapy, a drug, a different diet, or explained by a genetically-based perceptual problem (perhaps some form of dyslexia yet to be discovered) that, if identified early enough, could be "cured" simply by following a particular form of education regimen?

Think about it...

[FedUpWithFaith]

Since we're speaking anecdotally, I'll tell you from experience that this is not so. Poverty and prejudice stifle excellence, and nurture and perpetuate ignorance and mediocrity. There are layers of this from under which people must erupt to overcome their particular circumstances. In western and westernised society, as I see it, the very outer layers are 'white' and male, the very inner layers 'black' and female. Easier for those in the outer layers to emerge than those in the inner layers. In other cultures the layering may be different ... but the point is the same.

Charlou,

I was re-reading through this thread including my earlier response to your quote above and I realized I left out a huge part of the rationale behind my argument because I took it for granted. But since it may not be apparent, please let me expand upon what I said in that previous response.

I have formed my "hunch" regarding high-level mathematical ability largely in contrast to other levels of performance. If your statement was literally true, there would be no great black writers, lawyers, teachers, politicians (hmmm...), CEOs, etc. etc. etc. Obviously, this is not the case - there are many. I don't argue that poverty and prejudice don't tend to stifle black achievement. They clearly do. Blacks are also under-represented in all the aforementioned professions to varying degrees, all requiring a high-level of learning and/or educational resources. So why do I not have the hunch that the lack of brilliant black lawyers is genetically-based also? Because if one looks at all the highly skilled and educated professions outside the hard sciences, the under-representation of blacks, is relatively uniform by comparison. One can logically surmise this rough level of under-representation as the base line correlation to environmental repression caused by "poverty and prejudice" assuming no genetic effects whatsoever. Does this make sense so far?

The under-representation of blacks in the hard sciences is far more severe than other educated professions and it gets worse the more you move towards those fields requiring the highest level of mathematical ability. What accounts for this? I don't see how you can make a strong argument for poverty or prejudice. Mathematically-gifted black students, at least in the US, practically can have a free ticket to the finest academic training possible. Many programs exist for such encouragement from both the black and white communities. Is it harder to become a black math professor than a black CEO or lawyer? No, I'd argue quite the opposite. People in science and mathematics tend to be more liberal, not less. Affirmative action for blacks in the sciences is justified and strong and though weakened in recent years, it still enables blacks to obtain positions that whites of the same ability of even better are not given. I have practiced this form of reverse "discrimination" myself within limits.

If not poverty and not prejudice where hence the cause? Other than genetic, I think the only other likely cause is black culture itself which denigrates "nerds" and "geeks" even more than white culture does. In fact, it is compounded by many blacks viewing this as "acting white" as I mentioned in an earlier post. How do I know this? From reading and movies and having lived in integrated environments and with discussions with black friends in the sciences and engineering. Yes, this is all anecdotal information and you are free to dismiss it. But I'm simply telling you how my opinions were formed.

If not but for this explanation, my weak "hunch" about black mathematical ability would be a belief of significant likelyhood. Why do I retain this hunch rather than believe culture is likely to account for the entire remaining difference? Part of that was given in my previous posts but in the context of this post the reason is this, from all the anecdotal evidence I just referenced, especially conversations with about 25-30 black scientists and engineers, blacks don't seem to engage in significant differential discrimination after you enter "brainiac territory" where you are branded as acting white for being gifted and interested in any form of mathematics, science, or advanced engineering. For those blacks who are in brainiac territory they are already outcasts of a sort but their passions still propel them to pursue their love of science, math, etc. And among these black brainiacs (at least the ones I've known) they don't see mathematics as being somehow a lesser pursuit but rather the most challenging of all, just as I do. Yet, as the advanced mathematical requirements of the science increase, the fewer blacks you find and this slope of diminution is much steeper than for whites... Again, I know its weak evidence and I haven't cited references for you to confirm. I said it was only a hunch.

[Rum]

I think what worries me most about this is the amount of mental energy you seem willing to expend on developing a case for black people not being able to perform as well at a higher mathematical level as white people. What on earth for? You are pushing like and I am not sure why.

Personally I don't give a fuck either way.

[FedUpWithFaith]

I think what worries me most about this is the amount of mental energy you seem willing to expend on developing a case for black people not being able to perform as well at a higher mathematical level as white people. What on earth for? You are pushing like and I am not sure why.

Personally I don't give a fuck either way.

There are several reasons Rum, first, if i just said i had a hunch and didn't explain why that would be worse. Unfortunately (at least in the opinion of many like you) it takes a lot of explaining (and much of what I've written was not about black genetic performance BTW)

To repeat, I'm not trying to prove to you that any of this is right, for knowledge's sake, that's one of the reasons I'm not providing citations. I'm trying to explain to you what i believe, why i feel justified in doing so, and how I feel about it, in part, so other people can open up about it (or dump on me - that's perfectly OK), so we can discuss some deeper issues about racism.

You see Rum, there is a big part of me that feels "shame" at having this hunch and more worried if I'm right. I don't want to have it. I've made many arguments with myself to try to expunge this hunch over the years but it always hits back like a biting flea. At various points in my life I devoted significant thought and research to it (the last time was about 4 years ago). Don't forget, I'm an AI scientist and transhumanist that believes intelligent conscious "aliens" will be upon our world in my children's lifetimes. Many of these issues have deeper implications for me.

Before I was about 30-35 I would have been as adamantly opposed to me as floppit and irreligionist are now. So I have struggled with this issue and its implications for years but never written about it before. When I saw this thread, I just decided to write about it in the one forum I thought i might be able to pull it off. Otherwise, it is something I can't really talk about. Perhaps 5 people outside this forum know my views on this and if my writing were ever revealed in a company I ran or controlled I'd be liable for a great amount of trouble. So, this is a bit of a nervous and cathartic opportunity to get it out , address the taboo nature of discussing racism itself, and see how other people struggle with stuff like this which they instinctively know has potentially dangerous side effects on various sides of the fence, be it the reinforcement of racism or the limiting of free inquiry.

The reasons get more complex then this too. Obviously, once debate is joined, it takes its own path. People react and you want to understand why. I'm not sure I could tell you all the reasons I feel compelled to argue the issue at this point but one thing I do know is that I bristle when people seem to close their minds and limit or contain speech as some here seem to do. This is one taboo subject that may need more discussion by everyone rather than to be buried under the table where it can do even more harm. I stand for free inquiry above all and I feel a general obligation to provoking thought and debate on topics of interest, even when unpopular.

So I still hope you address my previous post to you here more deeply.

[Hermit]

It sounds to me like the question and study of genetic-influenced or -driven intelligence factors between different race and ethnic groups is something you believe should not be pursued.

I would not want to supppress any scientific pursuit. This is not the same as saying that I will not regard some of those pursuits as bad science. While the concept of 'human races' is fraught with so many serious problems I regard research in a subset of the area - racially based differences of intelligence - as bad science, almost as bad as trying to scientifically determine if some cedars contain more phlogiston than others.

Rather than trying to suppress any particular scientific project, I would prefer if resources were directed at those that build on more solid bases, at least until all the world's governments' military budgets are redirected to the education sector.

[FedUpWithFaith]

It sounds to me like the question and study of genetic-influenced or -driven intelligence factors between different race and ethnic groups is something you believe should not be pursued.

I would not want to supppress any scientific pursuit. This is not the same as saying that I will not regard some of those pursuits as bad science. While the concept of 'human races' is fraught with so many serious problems I regard research in a subset of the area - racially based differences of intelligence - as bad science, almost as bad as trying to scientifically determine if some cedars contain more phlogiston than others.

Rather than trying to suppress any particular scientific project, I would prefer if resources were directed at those that build on more solid bases, at least until all the world's governments' military budgets are redirected to the education sector.

I understand your priorities and agree to them to some extent except you seem a little naive about how science really gets done in the trenches.. Bad science is determined by how it is conducted, not by the ideas investigated unless they are already falsified or logically incoherent with established science. Your analogy to phlogistan is therefore flawed simply because it has already been falsified. Previous to that, well-constructed studies in search of phlogistan or its counterparts could have been helpful in falsifying it.

I previously acknowledged myself that race is hard to define and I've only been using it as a well-known shortcut.. But science studies lots of things that are hard to define. In fact, it helps define them better. It was genetic studies that showed that different black populations that superficially we think of as one "sub-species" are really at least two that evolved separately, more significantly separated by genetic distance than blacks from whites. Science is today studying genomic distinctions that will, I'm sure, both converge and diverge from our quaint notions of race. Do you have a problem with this?

Do you feel the same way about research into sexually correlated brain structure and cognitive differences or the search for a "gay gene" (which most geneticists use as a cute shortcut for a gene-spectrum)?

Science is really a very sloppy enterprise in many ways with an elegant manner of convergence. I don't think you really have to worry about much money being used to fund studies designed to show racial inferiority or superiority. Few want to touch such studies with a ten foot pole. What will really happen is what already happens, science will continue to expand sampling of the genome, proteome, and phenotypes across all races attempting to identify genes to different functions, including mental ones, especially where diseases are involved, cross-correlated to every possible categorization of humans where patterns and relationships may be found, Powerful data mining technology keeps improving to do this. This will converge upon our evolving definitions of human "race" or "sub-species" just as the phenotypic correlations will. We will be compelled to do this to learn how the brain works and cure diseases in the most efficacious manner possible.

The answers we've speculated upon to genetics, race, and intelligence will eventually fall out from this process whether we like it or not. Some of the answers may be embedded in research already done. If such science were good and had, for sake of argument, properly defined races genomically, and compiled phenotypic data you could reasonably assume contained "the answers", would you oppose the final statistical steps to extract it?

[Hermit]

Bad science is determined by how it is conducted

Indeed. I just happen to think that conducting projects like research on the possibility of intelligence being based on the nebulous and fraught concept of race is an example of it.

If there was such a thing as phlogistan I'd expect it to be located in the vicinity of Kurdistan, but that is beside the point. I used phlogiston as an analogy because it was a seriously considered concept for a while in the 17th century, and serious (for that period) research had been made based on it. The analogy with the concept of race and research projects regarding racially determined rates of intelligence is by no means without weaknesses that can be picked on, but I think there are enough parallels and similarities to lend some validity to it.

[charlou]

Analogies ... I find it's constructive to give due consideration to an analogy for the point/s it was intended to convey. Points that, if considered and understood, should at least be acknowledged, rather than ignored. What is the use of discussion if points are being ignored?

[floppit]

Before I was about 30-35 I would have been as adamantly opposed to me as floppit and irreligionist are now.

It's the poor reasoning I stand against both regarding the self awareness of scewed personal experience and in those who have 'jumped the gun' in trying to determine correlations between race and intelligence prior to having the nature of intelligence or the extent to which it's 'controlled' (as opposed to influenced) by genes.

The biggest evidence in favour of the validity of IQ tests comes from the correlation the scores appear to show with life events. Aspects such as unemployment, age of marriage, mortality, age of reproduction, length of relationships (divorce rates and speed of divorce0 and of course educational levels achieved. The difficulty arises when one tries to transpose these life events to other cultures, that difficulty being so plainly obvious I won't insult anyone here by listing it! In other words what IQ tests measure is something referred to as 'g' something we can safely say is relevant and predictive in OUR society, although not entirely so. The correlations rely on large numbers for the differences between groups to gain mathematical significance over the differences within groups, a high IQ score won't ensure you remain married for more than 5 years or that you won't be unemployed for a month in the last year, BUT it does mean you are statistically more likely to have a marriage lasting more than five years and not to have been unemployed for a month last year. I (personally) don't doubt that IQ tests measure something which provides distinct advantage in our culture I'm absolutely aware of it's cultural base and relevance. The problem is two fold, firstly the tests and measures are culturally weighted and validated and as yet we have been unable to break the surface tension of such bias, and secondly we have no consensus into how or why so many exceptions exist and they do matter (hence appearance of such concepts as emotional intelligence).

Additionally, much of the work done on IQ was prior to neurology breakthrough the scale of which is hard to overstate - neuroplasticity. You mentioned earlier 'The Bell Curve' which I believe came out in the early 90's (correct me if I'm wrong). This is simultaneous to the shift from believing that after a certain age the brain could not develop further to an understanding that the brain constantly develops and changes, constantly adapts. It would simply have been impossible for such authors to utilise at that time the information we have learned after this paradigm shift, utterly impossible. Now, there's another interesting detail which starts to arise, IQ is statistically stable over a lifetime, and believed roughly 60% to be determined by genes, yet we know that the human brain and functioning is NOT stable, that it changes, that London taxi drivers who've been driving for a long time have visibly changed brains. In other words we KNOW that the 'work' a brain is able to do changes according to environment and learning, we know a taxi driver gains in terms of navigation skills, is more able over time to draw, store and USE a map of the tangled streets of London. So IQ remains largely stable but the function of the brain does not, IQ has a strong tie to genes and is a cultural construct with culturally driven measures of validity and reliability. We know with certainty that practice and learning changes what a brain is able to do, it's ability to function in a specific task, yet IQ remains stable. For IQ to continue through this next century as a measure of brain functioning this problem needs resolving and yet the most tenacious adherents of the validity of IQ tests as a measure of intelligence are still using it's static quality to validate it as a measure.

I believe IQ measures a static quality that has arisen out of our westernised culture, is beneficial to individuals within that culture and (because it is so static) has a higher dependence on genetic input than a true measure of mind function would.

References:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/rese ... igence.pdf
https://camcom.ngu.edu/Science/PSYC/PSY ... uccess.pdf
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322 ... d=11290633
This is a book but there's plenty interesting reading for free and it's very topic relevant:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&l ... ce&f=false

If you have journal access I'll include abstracts as whole articles are hard to find.

Have you finally got what it is I'm standing against? There are people deeply disturbed by racial differences in IQ but I'm not one of them, IQ is not a measure of the mind's function. Moreover, and this is a personal view not yet addressed here, IF in the future we found the ultimate measure of the work each individual's brain is capable of, and IF such a measure showed even 100% correlation with genes (something with current knowledge I believe is impossible), and IF the genetic separation of groups by that time was still such as to make differences evident, for me personally it would still fail to trump the benefits of diversity. We NEED a wide and diverse gene pool, from fighting infections to adapting to climate change we need diversity as human beings and therefore no part of that diversity is less valuable. That's the physical side, on the life enriching side, the pure pleasure, the quality as opposed to quantity of life, I need diversity, it enriches my life and gives me pleasure. As a child did I wish my very different brother was 'normal', now I wish he had an easier time of it and I wish more people would understand the world's better with him and other like him in it. In other words I'm not in the least bit philosophically challenged by the 'thought' of groups having differing brain function - I just think that from where we are now it's crap science and reasoning.

[Trolldor]

Reviving out of curiosity:

As I udnerstand IQ it changes throughout a person's life, and many factors about their environment influence it. Doesn't it stand to reason, then , that people within a common culture would score largely the same?

[Toussaint]

Reviving out of curiosity:

As I udnerstand IQ it changes throughout a person's life, and many factors about their environment influence it. Doesn't it stand to reason, then , that people within a common culture would score largely the same?

Not only does IQ temporally dependent, it also is situationally and culturally variable. Ergo, any measurements or recording of these values is about as useful as trying to measure beauty. Hellenometer, anybody...?