Africans are less intelligent than Westerners

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

No, but there are specific genetic differences between populations, which can lead to genetic differences between races when the population is comprised of one race - see: sickle-cell anemia - so writing the concept off on these grounds is specious and ultimately a negative for the conversation, because there are other, more pressing issues with Watson's point(s).

The implied causation/correlation problems are really the least of my concerns.

No, but it's the first place I'd start to write off Watson's argument. He makes a comparison between "Africans" and "black employees." Those are seperate populations which leads me to believe his comments are based on bias, not science. I cannot think an experiment that could be done that would remove the cultural factors from consideration and provide some sort of "accurate" IQ test. At least, I can't think of an ethical one.

Originally Posted by madmax

No genetic difference? Is color a genetic difference? I guess you think every race has the same athletic ability also.


Do intelligence tests exist? How do blacks score on those tests?
If I let you design an Afrocentric ebonic million man march intelligence test and Asians would still kick the chit out of blacks on the test. That is life.

There is more difference within racial groups than there are between the groups. As an example, a random black man and a random white man are more genetically similar than two random black or two random white men. Watson is a geneticist, he should know this. I do know that specific populations have shown more fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscles, but there's a lot of cultural pressure in athletics too. When all the best "insert sport here" come from a certain area of the world or population, there's pressure for athletically talented kids in that population to succeed in THAT sport.

Intelligence tests exist... they're generally designed for literate white people. I don't have any data for you, but generally minorities do poorer on IQ tests, this includes women, poor people, and non-whites.

IQ tests shouldn't be designed around specific populations, so you're missing the point.

Edit: And also, this is a man who promotes genetic screening and modifications that IMO are of a disturbing eugenics quality.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

There is more difference within racial groups than there are between the groups. As an example, a random black man and a random white man are more genetically similar than two random black or two random white men.

This definitely requires citation - it violates any sort of transitive quality, which may or may not exist but certainly makes the claim beyond counterintuitive.

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Intelligence tests exist... they're generally designed for literate white people. I don't have any data for you, but generally minorities do poorer on IQ tests, this includes women, poor people, and non-whites.

You don't have data because both the positive and negative forms of this type of study are grossly bad science. It should be easier to confirm racial bias than deny it, but conclusive studies of control groups get bogged down in politics - for instance, the easiest way to show "cultural" bias would be to take middle-class groups from the same neighborhood across multiple cultures and test them, normalize, test again. The definition of "cultural" makes this subjective, therefore trash. However, it is a plausible explanation why minorities underperform on standardized tests - inherently, it is nearly impossible to prove this concept. There are other plausible explanations that are just as impossible to prove. That's why it's a crappy point to put into argument.

[AKA_Monet]

Okey, whatever, good luck with that!!!

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

This definitely requires citation - it violates any sort of transitive quality, which may or may not exist but certainly makes the claim beyond counterintuitive.

Essentially humans are too young evolutionarily and have mixed too much to make race meaningful as a biological construct. Skin color or eye shape are very tiny variables within a much broader diversity of genes. Would you assume that a black man from South Africa, a black man from Northern Africa, an indigenous Australian and an African-American are necessarily more similar than four people of different races from the same geographic area? Had Europe and Africa branched off many millions of years before they did, and then stayed separated due to continental shift or some other reason, we might have two different human subspecies today.

It's quite possible I may have explained it wrong but I'll try to do this anyhow. Essentially 85% of genetic variation occurs within a population, whether that is Japanese people, British, whatever. This number has been very consistent over the years. About 6-9 percent is between different groups within the same race. Japanese and Chinese, British and French. The rest is between populations.

And for the record, I'm not saying race isn't a real social construct. But it's one that can be traced to our desire to classify people like we did with animals, atoms, plants, etc. during the scientific revolution. Race isn't completely useless as a way to distinguish people, it's just not genetically accurate.

I pulled these sources out of Wiki articles on race because the articles themselves are huge and provide more than anyone here probably wants to read. However they do contain some of the actual data to back up the other articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race
See particularly the footnotes for these and other articles. The most interesting were pdfs but I can't link them because I'm on a Mac at the moment and I can't figure out how to capture the link.
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/ Lewontin is big in this area.
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Goodman/

You don't have data because both the positive and negative forms of this type of study are grossly bad science. It should be easier to confirm racial bias than deny it, but conclusive studies of control groups get bogged down in politics - for instance, the easiest way to show "cultural" bias would be to take middle-class groups from the same neighborhood across multiple cultures and test them, normalize, test again. The definition of "cultural" makes this subjective, therefore trash. However, it is a plausible explanation why minorities underperform on standardized tests - inherently, it is nearly impossible to prove this concept. There are other plausible explanations that are just as impossible to prove. That's why it's a crappy point to put into argument.

I know it's bad science. But the fact is that there are IQ tests and that historically minorities do not perform as well on them as the majority does. There is data out there that backs that up even though I do not have it. I wasn't talking about data that discusses WHY this is the case.

The one way to do it would be to take X number of kids of different races and raise them in a completely neutral, closed, environment. That will never ever happen.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Essentially humans are too young evolutionarily and have mixed too much to make race meaningful as a biological construct. Skin color or eye shape are very tiny variables within a much broader diversity of genes. Would you assume that a black man from South Africa, a black man from Northern Africa, an indigenous Australian and an African-American are necessarily more similar than four people of different races from the same geographic area? Had Europe and Africa branched off many millions of years before they did, and then stayed separated due to continental shift or some other reason, we might have two different human subspecies today.

It's quite possible I may have explained it wrong but I'll try to do this anyhow. Essentially 85% of genetic variation occurs within a population, whether that is Japanese people, British, whatever. This number has been very consistent over the years. About 6-9 percent is between different groups within the same race. Japanese and Chinese, British and French. The rest is between populations.

And for the record, I'm not saying race isn't a real social construct. But it's one that can be traced to our desire to classify people like we did with animals, atoms, plants, etc. during the scientific revolution. Race isn't completely useless as a way to distinguish people, it's just not genetically accurate.

I pulled these sources out of Wiki articles on race because the articles themselves are huge and provide more than anyone here probably wants to read. However they do contain some of the actual data to back up the other articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race
See particularly the footnotes for these and other articles. The most interesting were pdfs but I can't link them because I'm on a Mac at the moment and I can't figure out how to capture the link.
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/ Lewontin is big in this area.
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Goodman/

I agree with all of this, but this does not really support your counterintuitive claim that "random white/black comparisons will be more similar than random white/white comparisons" - since the variation is within populations, and it is more likely the person (regardless of race) will be outside of your population, there seems to be no reason why there would be any difference in variation. Scanning the Lewontin article yields no support for your claim, and seems instead to back up my intuition.

Do you have a specific citation that says different racial groups are more likely similar than within a racial group? Or was that misstated?

I understand completely the social construct model of race - I don't understand the specific "fact" you quoted.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

I agree with all of this, but this does not really support your counterintuitive claim that "random white/black comparisons will be more similar than random white/white comparisons" - since the variation is within populations, and it is more likely the person (regardless of race) will be outside of your population, there seems to be no reason why there would be any difference in variation. Scanning the Lewontin article yields no support for your claim, and seems instead to back up my intuition.

Do you have a specific citation that says different racial groups are more likely similar than within a racial group? Or was that misstated?

I understand completely the social construct model of race - I don't understand the specific "fact" you quoted.

Alas, at the moment, I've found it quoted multiple places but haven't been able to trace it back to its source. Perhaps my example wasn't what I intended it to be, but i'll try to find more primary sources for you.

[DaemonSeid]

Nobel prize winner apologizes for 'misconstrued' remarks

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe...ogy/index.html

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Essentially humans are too young evolutionarily and have mixed too much to make race meaningful as a biological construct. Skin color or eye shape are very tiny variables within a much broader diversity of genes.

Exactly. People give me the look when I discuss race as societal and cultural rather that biological. People genuinely think that racial differences are by birth, which is a self fulfilling prophecy if people think they interact with smarter whites than blacks.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Exactly. People give me the look when I discuss race as societal and cultural rather that biological. People genuinely think that racial differences are by birth, which is a self fulfilling prophecy if people think they interact with smarter whites than blacks.

This is spot-on - it's not surprising that confirmation bias is the strongest force in most people's impressions of race.

Besides this, I think there's a strong tendency among the general population to write off things they don't understand as "genetic" which is clearly incredibly dangerous.

Also LOL at "my comments were misconstrued" - not hard to parse something like "anyone who has worked with a black person knows what I'm talking about," you senile douche.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

This is spot-on - it's not surprising that confirmation bias is the strongest force in most people's impressions of race.

Besides this, I think there's a strong tendency among the general population to write off things they don't understand as "genetic" which is clearly incredibly dangerous.

I completely agree.

And when people start to experience things that counter their preconceived notions, they write it off as "exceptions."

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Also LOL at "my comments were misconstrued" - not hard to parse something like "anyone who has worked with a black person knows what I'm talking about," you senile douche.

LOL.

It's the typical "damn...I said that...time for damage control."

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

I completely agree.

And when people start to experience things that counter their preconceived notions, they write it off as "exceptions."



LOL.

It's the typical "damn...I said that...time for damage control."

I think it's more... Damn, please buy my book still.

[RACooper]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

It's the typical "damn...I said that...time for damage control."

He should be used to that by now the ignorant old f*ck - I mean seriously this guy has uttered stupid crap like this in the past (differences in sexes, race linked to libido, homosexuality being an abomination, obese people being stupid, etc.). Just because someone is intelligent doesn't mean they can't also be an ignorant bigot afterall - and I wish people would realize this and stop giving this guy a podium.