May 6, 2009

TNR: Sailer Probably Right, But Still Evil

John McWhorter posts at The New Republic:
Saletan Responds: OK, Let's Try This

William Saletan has responded to my comment on his discomfort with No Child Left Behind data being tabulated by race.

I get where he's coming from. He makes many valid points. One of them is that while I argued that cultural differences determine why black people often don't do as well as white ones on tests, poor whites do significantly better than poor black ones, despite that we can assume that many of their cultural variables, such as a language culture focused on the oral rather than the printed page and direct-question exchanges like "What is the capital of South Dakota?", are similar to blacks'.

That question is not to be swatted away.

And to show that I mean it when I say that Saletan makes valid points, I am going to put my money where my mouth is.

Namely: I agree with Saletan that if it turns out that there are no genetic differences at all in intelligence between the races, it will be the unexpected case. At the very least, it is utterly plausible, given indisputable differences between races of other kinds, that intelligence may prove to be one of them. If intelligence is, even if only partly, traceable to configurations of neurons in the brain, then there is no a priori reason to suppose that those configurations are statistically identical between races while other physical configurations -- i.e. hair, color, etc. -- are not.

Yes, racial differences are a matter of probability--members will exhibit traits to varying degrees, a white individual may well be more X or Y than a black individual. Anyone reading this understands that. However, when issues such as this are brought up, this issue of statistics and probabilities is often brought to bear as if it somehow contradicted what I wrote in the previous paragraph. It does not.

The same goes for other facts such as that race is a squishy concept, that individuals within races differ genetically more than individuals of different races, and so on.

The fact remains that I have a certain complex of genetic factors that expresses itself as a degree of melanin, a kinkiness of hair, a nose shape, and so on, whose clustering typifies what we process as the black race, one which emerged in Africa.

Back to the point: sure, it may turn out that whites and/or Asians have higher intelligence than black people. It's not news I would love hearing, for all the same reasons few of us would. But it could happen.

However, to me, the evidence suggests that the difference in question, if it exists, would be quite small. Other factors are just as plausibly responsible for most or even all of the gap between poor white and poor black kids on tests like the NAEP.

Okay, but once again, what about the big differences nonpoor white and nonpoor black kids on the NAEP? What about that SAT study that found that whites in the lowest decile of family income outscored blacks in the top decile? Why do blacks about to graduate from college get an average score on the LSAT that would only fall at the 12th percentile of the white distribution?

Namely, education-wise, all evidence is that to be a poor white kid is different from being a poor black kid, and not just in the texture of your hair. Just for starters, most of us will spontaneously notice that the worst schools in the nation - the violent, understaffed, ramshackle inner-city disasters where little learning happens--don't have many white kids in them.

Yes, we must do better than that kind of impressionism, however, upon which: Poor black kids are routinely subject to less qualified teachers, who stick around for less time, than poor white kids. A classic study on the question by John Kain and Kraig Singleton addressed the situation in Texas.

Okay, but why do most of the better teachers do everything that can to eventually get themselves out of schools full of poor black kids? Could it have to do with the conduct of the kids? Could it have to do with their potential for learning? After all, the best teachers tend to like to teach the best students, the ones with the greatest capacity for learning. Nobody is surprised that the best golf swing instructors want to be hired by Tiger Woods rather than by me, even though they could shave more strokes off my average score than off Tiger's.

Or, the typical poor white child is surrounded by fewer poor people than the typical poor black child, and only about 1 in 20 poor white kids go to schools where almost all students are also poor (useful facts on this here).

Notice that I am not claiming (despite sources such as the one I linked because of its handy presentation of other data) that the problem is "segregation"--i.e. that poor black kids are done in by going to school with people the same color as them, a tragic distortion of the meaning and significance of the word segregation in our times which I deplore. "Segregated" KIPP academies are teaching poor black and brown kids brilliantly all over the country (which, itself, is further evidence that the problem is how such kids are taught more than how their brains are configured).

Okay, but how about the Shaker Heights Effect studied by John Ogbu -- all the affluent liberal integrated school districts across the country that got together in the early 2000s to study why blacks students from upper middle class homes performed poorly on average?

The issue is poverty rather than race, and the cultural baggage it often means kids are bringing to school--which the schools poor black kids attend are less adept at compensating for than those attended by the poor white kids. Plus, poor white kids are more likely to have more fortunate students around them to imitate and learn from.

We haven't seen yet whether addressing these things will close the gaps in question--or maybe narrow them to such an extent that whatever gap was left would be too small to interest anyone but obsessives of sinister motive.

"Obsessives of sinister motive" = citizens interested in finding out what the vast amount of data collected by the federal government for the purposes of enforcing affirmative action actually show.

McWhorter asserts "We haven't seen yet whether addressing these things will close the gaps in question." Look, these precise questions have been studied intensively for 45 years. The incentives for any social scientist to be the one who comes up with a breakthrough analytical idea making the race gap disappear are huge.

Now, I take it Saletan is still worried that just such people, such as Steve Sailer, are still a force to be feared. Respectfully, however, I am still not sure why.

Think about it: our public discourse is at a point where when Saletan even entertains the data that makes us so uncomfortable he is excoriated endlessly. Where is the space in this discourse for people like Sailer to acquire any kind of meaningful influence?

Indeed. Wielding Occam's Butterknife pays a lot better than Occam's Razor.

Really: we have to think about what we're proposing as a danger worthy of engagement. What legislation would have Steve Sailer's imprint? What steps can we imagine - and societal evolution happens generally in steps--via which we would get to a point where black people were routinely herded apart as mental deficients?

Because that is what I've routinely advocated? Where? When?

What I've routinely advocated are colorblind policies in contrast to the current race obsessed policies imposed by the government under the "disparate impact" theory.

Or whatever dystopian horror we are supposed to be worried about.

Other dystopian horrors I've advocated:

- Finally finishing the border fence, like Israel's border fence (just on our side of the border).

- Adopting a Canadian-style system for picking legal immigrants who will most benefit current American citizens as a whole.

- Paying unemployed illegal immigrants to go home.

- Eliminating the EEOC's four-fifths' rule.

The horror! The horror!

And if you have more imagination than I do, then specify: how would the steps to the scenario you envision initiate from the back-of-the-class mutterings of people like Steve Sailer, given the now deeply-rooted cultural revulsion towards open bigotry in our society?

Yes, it's still "out there"--but not to an extent that can keep a black man out of the White House, despite what I was repeatedly told all last year all the way up to the second Obama won the election. The issue is not "whether," but "how much" it's out there.

I'd much rather see how far we can get with addressing what kind of schools poor kids go to. My money is on poor black kids looking better decade by decade if we do the right things--but that will mean assessing how the kids are doing by race, and publishing the data for all to see including Big Bad Steve.

Well, you might want to start by looking at all the data that has already been published decade by decade...

As for the moral copout [huh] Sailer-types wait for, where we eliminate all efforts to help black people out of a conclusion that they are beyond assistance because of genetic inferiority, again, we'd have to spell out what kind of actual, plausible sociohistorical process we can imagine leading to it.

Yeah, right, because that's what I've always advocated, as opposed to advocating things like, when the fire truck pulls up at your house to save your loved ones' lives, the fire captain in charge should have been picked by a colorblind process.

And when we've done that, then we have to specify something else: why that rather studied possibility is more urgent for us to devote our mental energy to than, well, quite a few other more pressing matters in this world as we know it.

Well, clearly, John McWhorter hasn't been devoting much mental energy to this subject he keeps writing about, so he's got that going for him.


But certainly McWhorter is correct that one individual can hardly have much influence just by being right on the social science and by advocating commonsensical colorblind policies based on the social science, when he can be smeared as a "racist" and "bigot" precisely for being right on the social science?

Apparently, McWhorter's and Saletan's working definition of a "racist" is a pundit who knows what the hell he's talking about.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

125 comments:

Lucius Vorenus said...

A little off-topic [maybe], but John McWhorter can't write worth a damn.

I can barely even make sense of these excerpts.

Anonymous said...

The decade by decade results DO show black improvement in both IQ (both absolutely and relative to whites) and NAEP: see Flynn and Nisbett.

Anonymous said...

Man, Steve,

I hope that McWhorter starts reading your blog. I just can't believe he'd cast you in the light he does if he is a regular reader.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure Steve has a skin thick enough that anti-intellectual nincompoops like these 2 don't bother him.

I wonder how often they knock themselves silly with their own sticks and miss the straw man they've set up completely? Not that I'm saying platitudinous liberals as a group are shy on the stick-swinging accuracy gene Albert Pujols has...

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Saletan and McWhorter are keeping up with your posts here. I would guess that they are, but both are afraid to acknowledge it. If so, it evokes a humorous image - three people talking, but two of them refuse to directly respond to the third person.

The latter half of McWhorter's post seems like a sophisticated reductio ad Hitlerum. Sailer believes there are differences between races, so he is equivalent to Hitler. Therefore, we can infer that he supports subjugation of "inferior" races, or any other "dystopian horror" that could be attributed to someone like Hitler.

I think it's funny that McWhorter accepts that "if it turns out that there are no genetic differences at all in intelligence between the races, it will be the unexpected case." In other words, there are probably racial disparities in intelligence. But McWhorter is holding out hope that those differences are really, really small.

Anonymous said...

Nothing is going to help the educational malaise, nothing will help kids of any ethnicity, nothing, nothing, nothing will change on the large scale on which it needs to change in this country until stable families, families with moms and dads who feel THEY are responsible for raising their kids, replaces the dysfunction that we see all around us.

You can't tell me that a 45-50% stat of kids born out of wedlock in this country isn't a predictor of future failure of individuals, failures of the institutions that should serve the communities, and the inevitable failure of the communities in every way.

robert61 said...

Neither McWhorter nor Saletan is stupid. (Shooting from the hip, I'd guess you have a half-sigma of IQ on McWhorter; I don't read Saletan, so I won't venture a guess.) Both are in thrall to a whiggish belief in transcendent egalitarianism. It makes you seem evil to them. You seemed that way to me when I started reading you, too. When I began to engage more with your positions, my dread only increased. Being disabused of illusions that all the cool people hold dear is unnerving.

SKT said...

Has McWhorter wondered if the worst schools in the country *are* majority black, *because* they're majority black?

Laura said...

I don't understand why the top decile of blacks' children should do so poorly, if as you say 1/6 of blacks have above average intelligence. Why don't the kids of the top 10% fall into that sixth? Is regression to the mean more powerful among blacks, or is assortative mating less common?

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Asians and Whites score higher on the SATs than blacks because Asians and Whites on average prepare for the test longer periods whereas black students are more likely to take it blindly.

Anonymous said...

Steve wrote:

Other dystopian horrors I've advocated:

- Eliminating the EEOC's four-fifths' rule.

The horror! The horror
!

Hell, we could just eliminate the EEOC. As long as that agency exists it will always have the incentive to expand its powers and harass innocent people. The EEOC harassed a local restaurant chain about discriminating on religious grounds.

Really, it has no reason to exist.

Anonymous said...

Nicely detailed response. It is interesting. I've read the original McWhorter post on this stuff. He's somewhat in agreement with you, he just can't admit to it. I give him credit actually for going as far as he does. A black professor of linguistics isn't going to pay the bills fighting the system.

Anonymous said...

The peculiar thing is that what McWhorter and others are so very terrified of is ... colorblindness. Not racism, but non-racism. The racist in this debate is McWhorter. Even the honest liberals have to admit that much.

dorkus malorkus said...

I think you have to be realistic and accept that it will be generations and maybe a few civil wars before any public figure is willing to challenge the leftist fantasy of exact sameness. It's quite depressing, no wonder you work in your bathrobe.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait to read the fourteen VDare articles that come from this!

Thursday said...

"Obsessives of sinister motive" = citizens interested in finding out what the vast amount of data collected by the federal government for the purposes of enforcing affirmative action actually show.Right. Race realism is mostly defensive. If blacks and people of other races around the world did not constantly accuse whites of gross perfidy and ask for wealth to be transferred to them as compensation, there would be no need for race realism.

Saletan proposes that doing away with categorization by race will solve everything. It won't. Blacks, for example, will still notice that they are not doing as well as whites and will still make accusations of misconduct. The only real solution is to find out the real source of these difference in racial performance.

Anonymous said...

John McWhorter reads iSteve.

Reads it frequently enough such that he has bothered to mention you several times by name in his article. I would look at the glass half full and take this as a good thing.

Remember that there is no way anyone can be caught dead praising you in the mainstream media. So, negative comments about you can help you...if anyone checks out your blog expecting to find articles that are racist/evil/dumb, they will realize they were mistaken...and your ideas will gain more exposure.

Anonymous said...

Personally, I think much of the emotional content of the IQ debate centers on the fact that people of ethnicity X want other people of ethnicity X to succeed more than any other ethnicity does. So what. Few people want to live in the type of crazy quilt society liberal American politicians think we want. In Europe and elsewhere, that is, wherever Anglophilia is not, you will find people openly expressing their desire to live in homogeneous societies. Many people throughout history have taken up arms to preserve just that. In the USA, since the 1960's, the power of the federal government to enforce its will in distinction to the popular will in matters of this type has been unchallenged. But things could change.

Kevin Michael Grace said...

If mendacity were a criminal offence, John McWhorter would be subject to the death penalty.

El Caudillo said...

Its Official:

Steve E. Sailer is America's 21st Century H.L. Mencken!

Soul Searcher said...

You have to be encouraged though. McWhorter has to be one of the most intellectually honest black "thinkers" you've conversed with, like, ever. Public black conservatives have struck me, for a long time, as being uniformly more impressive than their leftist counterparts, probably in so small part due to the strength character needed to withstand the vituperative attacks by liberals whenever one of their favored constituencies dares to reject the standard dogma (e.g. Palin, Thomas).

I don't like the "horrors" construction you used. First, of all, it is a staple phrase of liberal arrogance, and secondly, McWhorter has a point - it's not like those policies you advocate are going to be enacted ex nihilo. They would require society to fully reject the egalitarian hypothesis, and alongside that much of the empty-headed activism that keeps many of our college post-graduates gainfully employed. There's virtually no liberal proscription that an admission doesn't touch upon; for example, can society really psychologically pull together and enact universal health care if the propensity to maintain proper health standards is genetically heritable and differentiated amongst groups? Can Bono continue to host rousing concerts for AIDS, and Apple continue to sell Red Ones, if it becomes tacitly acceptable to hypothesize that AIDS' disparate impact on Africans is a result of lower IQ? So many taken-for-granted truths would become foolish...the elitist liberal fetish for early education and targeted pre-K could now be acknowledged to have little empirical support. The number of teachers benefiting from public largesse would necessarily drop when the myth of "small class sizes" and high public spending were eliminated. Can one justify the job-perpetuating expenses of maintaining cultural "diversity" in higher education and the aesthetic but largely useless frills of elite liberal-arts universities accepting HBD's implications on IQ? I think the honest answer is "no"; yes, HBD doesn't threaten the core philosophical foundations of liberalism, but it sure does make them look ugly.

It's not irrational for the intelligent leftist who likes the various institutions that liberalism creates for their own sake, and to whom solving the stated social problems is un-admittedly secondary, to be as intransigent and intellectually slippery as possible addressing the evidence in support of "genetic hypothesis". This couples well with the amoral "means over process" philosophy that somewhat characterizes the liberal mindset. I get that feeling from Matt Yglesias, for example; he's amenable to subversive means of "tricking" the populace to enact favored social programs, which is one reason empirical behavioral psychology is so ticklish to the left. And though progressives will often categorically deny it, I believe many of them do secretly believe they can guide the lives of the less able better than they could by themselves. I subscribe to Jason Malloy's depressing view of humanity, where we unconsciously reason to a choice or decision, and then our higher levels of consciousness - including our abstract "philosophies" - create a plausible narrative to prime us for the upcoming one. You are not disregarded because you boldly speak the truth, or because the preponderance of evidence is against you, Steve, but more simply because you threaten the rationalization of the modern liberal's very way of life.

Anonymous said...

The real reason the PC left (which sounds like an archaic term; I think we need a new one) is even engaging in this debate is because they're scared. Not just by Ricci or by the data Steve accumulates, but by the nascent retribalism it portends. The more data we have about our differences, the more different we're going to appear to each other. That's why Mexico took race off the census, as Steve's pointed out. There's nothing scarier to the left than whites talking openly rather than obliquely about their "community" or "culture" the way every other group does.

Stopped Clock said...

[S]ure, it may turn out that whites and/or Asians have higher intelligence than black people. It's not news I would love hearing, for all the same reasons few of us would.

The "few" in that sentence bothers me, as if he's subtly calling attention to the fact that some people do find joy in believing in racial intelligence differences. So I have to ask: Is there really anyone here or anywhere who would love to hear that? Who? Why?

Is that the general public's perception of people like us? That we're just a bunch of losers huddling our computer screens rejoicing in the notion that even though we may be totally worthless in every other respect, at least we're smarter than black people! Because that strikes me as the kind of notion that could only be held by a person who keeps his circle of friends free from conservatives in general and HBD believers in particular.

We would love it if all races were of equal intelligence because then we could have a country and a world in which there is no poverty and no war, and without all the great social problems we have in even wealthy countries such as America today. Everyone would stand to gain so enormously from such a massive change that I can't say anyone who does rejoice in racial IQ differences is anything but evil. And since judging by the rest of his essay McWhorter seems to believe the same, I have to say he is simply projecting his vision of the greatest possible evil onto his greatest political enemy.

Max said...

You know, if they talk this much ABOUT you, they might as well talk TO you, as in respond to the points you bring up.

It seems a little rude otherwise.

Anonymous said...

McWhorter is claimed to have said:

The issue is poverty rather than race, and the cultural baggage it often means kids are bringing to school
Ahhh, the old ad-hoc explanation ...

Truly, the causative arrow goes in the other direction. Bad genes lead to poor performance in the IQ test of life that is modern civilization.

Unknown said...

From:

http://teachers.net/states/dc/topic360/1.05.09.19.43.39.html

Quote:

"I'm a NYC public school teacher who's been following your
chancellor Ms. Rhee (a product of our own tyrant, Joel
Klein) and I can't keep my outrage inside anymore. Apologies
in advance for the rant.

Ms Rhee is the latest of the holier-than-thou "education
reformers" in the mold of our own Millionaire Klein. Elitest
intellectuals who decide to enter the school system on a
lark and try to fix all of its ills. A wonderful, noble
endeavor.

Do they do this by tackling the greater social problems of
awful, neglectful parenting in low income areas? The
environments that so many under-performing students are
direct products of?

Hahaha, of course not. That would be far too complicated and
way too unpopular. These low-income kids exist as props to
be used in the media's heart-warming tales. If the tale is
pleasing, it will be retold; those who challenge it get
typecast as evil union hacks, villians out of a Dickens' novel.

Instead, these "education reformers" go about their holy
quest the easy, convenient way: by attacking teacher unions
and smearing teachers. Tenure!! That's the root of sociey's
problems! Teacher pensions and summers off, that's making
students not study!! Damn you, teacher unions! Big, bad,
teacher unions!! Who doesn't love attacking a faceless
entity that happens to have perks many Americans (especially
in bleak economic times) can only dream of.

There. Doesn't that feel better than tackling the original
problem? Of course it does.

The problem, as you likely know, is not the teachers. To
blame under-performing students on them is pure laziness,
and more than anything, it's that small-minded arrogance
expressed by people outside the system that does the most to
drive away qualified candidates.

Holy crusaders like Klein and Rhee are a dime a dozen...they
saunter into teaching ready to change the world one kid at a
time, get overwhelmed or bored within 2-3 years, then head
off to more lucrative pastures having done their good deed.
Most have no intention of making teaching a career. It's a
hobby.

Most teachers are in it for the long haul. They know they
won't get rich. They know they'll be forced to spend 20-30k
on a masters degree in order to keep their jobs. They know
they'll be kicked around often by students and
administrators alike. And now this...people like Klein and
Rhee and Bloomberg doing all they can to make life
unpleasant for teachers, for their own media image and long
term financial benefit.

What can we do? Vote King Bloomberg out of office this
November. And if you're in DC? Vote against Rhee's awful
proposal.

Fin."

McWhorter is good at playing mind games, on full display here.

Unknown said...

Ogbu was a strong believer in culture. He died in 2003. Check this out:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DXK/is_5_20/ai_101413765/

Anonymous said...

"And though progressives will often categorically deny it, I believe many of them do secretly believe they can guide the lives of the less able better than they could by themselves."

They might in fact deny it, but progressive theory rests on the notion that the intellectual class should run things for the benefit of all humanity, and that the mass of people are stupid swine not fit for self-governance.

If the masses do not fit that bill at present, then the progressives will work overtime to make their vision a reality.

Anonymous said...

"A little off-topic [maybe], but John McWhorter can't write worth a damn."That's just because he's struggling with the cognitive dissonance here. McWhorter is a virtuosic speaker and writer.

- Fred

Ron Guhname said...

At my blog, I present General Social Survey evidence that McWhorter's "oral tradition" hypothesis is incorrect.

http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2009/05/race-iq-and-culture-steve-sailer-has.html

Anonymous said...

I feel like I'm priviledged to watch what is probably a great moment in the History of Ideas - the liberal vision of universal equality being, at long last, put up for review.

Saletan's and McWhorter's admissions and their concessions to Steve are amazing. Its like their philosophy is being torn apart by a change in atmospheric pressure, and they are already defending the shell of it, the carcass of it.

Anonymous said...

The Simple View of Reading

R=DxC

R = Reading comprehension
D = Decoding skills and
C = Language comprehension

Anthony said...

Steve - you forgot to mention your support for National Health.

Reading McWhorter's arguments, I begin to think that the Mexican policy of "mestizaje" actually makes a bunch of sense. In Mexico, the PC line is "we're all Mexican", so when a Mexican of any background does well, he can be co-opted into the elite, and the masses can all be proud of him. It also encourages intermarriage, which leads to more communication between people of different racial backgrounds. If enough people intermarry, every Maya in Chiapas will have a nearly-white relative somewhere, and vice-versa, which will tighten social cohesion in the country.

There are countervailing forces, and Mexico has other problems, but the likelihood of significant racial conflict seems much lower there than here in the U.S.

Anonymous said...

I've read 3 of McWhorter's books (Losing The Race, Winning The Race, and Word on the Street) and have a very favorable impression of him. I've also read him in City Journal for some time. Losing The Race and Winning The Race were excellent books that I recommend highly. Much of his other stuff is about linguistics which isn't a topic that holds my interest.

He is a good writer contrary to the first comment and excellent at providing historical context to the topic at hand (reference to pop culture aplenty). While he rejects the liberal victimology canards, he has a penchant for throwing in lines that prove his black bona fides. That said, it's hard to know what he really thinks on this issue because 1) he's an optimist and egalitarian and 2) he understandably wants to be in good standing in the (black) academic community.

What I'd like to see is a Simon-Ehrlich type wager between Sailer and McWhorter/Saletan. Let's see them put their money where there mouth is.

KissTheGoat said...

Let's think about what would happen if human differences by race were admitted, and one was allowed to act according to them.

a) I think Whites would be free to move away from poor areas, and towns wouldn't bus their kids back to poor schools, or vice-versa. Ie, self-segregation would happen.

b) With schools' poor results being their own fault, who'd fight for equal funding for them? They'd fall right to the bottom, getting only the minimum amount of extra to reduce their nuisance factor, like homeless people get.

So equality would spiral downward. The degree we identify with other races, possibly with the country as a whole, would decrease; after all, it's now official that they're different. We might well become like a banana republic, with greater extremes of wealth and poverty, and gated communities.

Would we be able to form Whites-only / Blacks-only etc associations? Racial discrimination be allowed in hiring? I have a hard time figuring out just how far equal protection would unravel. Probably not that far.

We might well lose more compassion for our fellow man, falling back to a purer social darwinism. I think it's possible. I've heard that this has happened in Israel; that the Jews, having to withdraw their compassion wrt Palestinians, it truncates their own even wrt each other, and that they're rude and inconsiderate even to each other.

On the other hand, now that each region is a local Idaho, everyone being with their own kind, maybe trust and community locally goes up, America goes back to the 50s socially, and all is well, if somewhat parochial, except for the poor. Actually they're probably fine until they turn on the TV, as in the 3rd world, now. More truly multi-cultural, but less unified. Maybe the country breaks up.

I'm sure this is weak but, to me, to be a fully responsible thinker on the subject you have to think of the consequences.

Ian McWhorter said...

We already know McWhorter’s oral-over-direct-print-question culture theory is wrong. The achievement gap also shows up in oral tests such as the backward digit span test, and non-oral, non-written tests such as the Raven’s Matrices.

In fact, the gap actually shows up more strongly on the oral backward digit span test than on a written test such as the SAT.

... which brings us back to William of Occam.

Anonymous said...

These watered down Frankfurt Schoolers become more and more and more laughable every day.

Anonymous said...

"Being disabused of illusions that all the cool people hold dear is unnerving."

This is true. However, I got disabused of my illusions at the stereotypical for that kind of thing age of 30, so I tend to look down on those who're past 30 and are still leftists. I think this includes both Saletan and McWhorter. Steve has implied here in the past that he avoided the leftist phase completely. I'm jealous. Steve, if you ever want to talk about why you were able to resist leftist brainwashing in your youth, I'm sure I won't be the only person here who'll read that with interest. Having a conservative father usually isn't enough. Most kids want to rebel. Leftists (cause they're evil) give kids a perfect excuse to rebel - leftism.

Years ago I read 80% or 90% of a pop-sci book McWhorter wrote about language and linguistics. There were exactly zero new ideas in that book, but it was written well. He's not at all a boring writer. The most annoying thing about his thoughts on language is also, unsurprisingly, the most annoying piece of modern leftist conventional wisdom on language, namely the idea that prescriptivism is evil. I was reminded of that yesterday when I clicked through from your post to his argument with Saletan. He managed to insert an anti-prescriptivist rant into a post about IQ.

Anti-prescriptivism in linguistics comes from the very poisonous larger idea that all standards in life are arbitrary, oppressive and antiquated.

Standards in language are not arbitrary. William F. Buckley's English was objectively better than Eminem's or Snoop Doggy Dogg's English just like Cicero's Latin was better than Roman graffiti writers' Latin. Mr. Buckley's English could express finer shades of meaning. The standard grammar he used allows for less ambiguity than do non-standard grammars. This is because generations of prescriptivists like Fowler have thought deeply about what kind of grammar would be least ambiguous, and modern standard English grammar partly reflects their advice.

All normal people want their kids to talk and write like the smartest, best educated folks they know of. There's nothing wrong with that desire. McWhorter's parents probably wanted that for him. If so, he did not disappoint them. But now, as a writer on language, he wants to deny future parents that satisfaction. He wants prescriptivism gone from schools. Kind of churlish, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

"
Is that the general public's perception of people like us? That we're just a bunch of losers huddling our computer screens rejoicing in the notion that even though we may be totally worthless in every other respect, at least we're smarter than black people! "

This is the impression I have. A lot of guys here pour out their sexual frustration. I imagine they are losers and combined with the giddy way they bring up demerits of blacks and others, they probably are using hbd as a self esteem boost.

rob said...

Mark is right. Salatan and McWhorter are not just random, private individuals libeling Sailer on far-flung corners of the web.

They represent Slate and the New Republic. At minimum Sailer deserves the opportunity to respond in those publications.

Anonymous said...

Are any of these people actually familiar with true IQ tests, such as the WAIS-IV (just published)? About half the test loads on Verbal IQ; six primary subtests, and one supplemental test. Of those, only three load significantly on the Verbal Comprehension Index, which is the best measure of language-related IQ. The other three subtests load on working memory (such as Digit Span, which Steve discussed in a post about a month ago), or don't load on anything else (Comprehension).

That leaves the other half of the test pretty much language-free. Subtests like Block Design, Matrix Reasoning, etc. do not require any significant language ability, so the argument that gaps between various groups is simply due to language, eduction, etc. suggests those individuals don't really understand these concepts.

Interestingly, an excellent place to see this sort of effect is in prisons. Defendants and inmates routinely score more highly on non-verbal tests than on verbal subtests, for a variety of reasons. Still they score lower overall, including on tests they personally do better on (i.e. the nonverbal, or Performance, subtests), compared to the average population.

Anonymous said...

Everyone should go back into the history books to see how the fact that god does not exist became more popular among the elites. H-bd is similar in that it poses an existential threat to the system. We may not want to think through the implications, but they are likely to be far more profound than simple changes to EEOC statutes. We are talking about a development with world historical ramifications.

B322 said...

I think what McWhorter is really saying is, the time has come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of "benign neglect". Nobody ever got in trouble for expressing that point of view.

Lucius Vorenus said...

Anonymous: They might in fact deny it, but progressive theory rests on the notion that the intellectual class should run things for the benefit of all humanity, and that the mass of people are stupid swine not fit for self-governance.

Oh, that's not the half of it.

What motivates progressives lies much deeper than that, and is far more odious.

kudzu bob said...

Now that you're in danger of becoming famous thanks to your enemies, you'll need to update the slogan on your business card. I hereby suggest, "Steve Sailer, field tested and motherfucker approved."

Boo-yah!

(With a hat tip to Roissy, whose phrase I appropriated.)

Anonymous said...

Concerned makes important points about student performance being suppressed by factors such as parenting. I do not believe that poverty defined by annual income really makes that much difference. One of my best friends moved to the US with her mom and young son as refugees from a foreign war. Her son was on the honor role and she worked in fast food restaurants like 60 hrs a week. After ten years she now works in an office, remarried, has a house. Son is taking AP classes. The family is poor, not dysfunctional.

Anonymous said...

"This is the impression I have. A lot of guys here pour out their sexual frustration. I imagine they are losers and combined with the giddy way they bring up demerits of blacks and others, they probably are using hbd as a self esteem boost."

Meanies and sexually frustrated losers! I'm sure JournoList beat you to this one already. Those guys are nothing if not quick.

Mr. Anon said...

I would give credit to McWhorter for admitting a few things (or at least getting ready to admit a few things) that he would prefer not to. (Although he certainly is behaving like a jerk in talking past Steve like he's an ignorant peasant).

What McWhorter, Saletan, and others need to realize is that a lot of whites just don't give a flying f**k about black people and thier problems anymore. It's that simple. We've heard about them incessantly for forty-five years. We've seen thier issues take center stage, recieve a great deal of money, and constantly demand our attention. We've seen the very history of this country warped in such a way as to make it into little more than a passion play featuring black americans, with the rest of us just being reduced to walk-ons.

And yet, during that whole time, black behavior has grown worse, black culture has plumbed new depths of foulness and at the same time has come to define much of american popular culture. Many blacks have grown shameless in thier tolerance and promotion of crime - especially crimes committed upon whites. And whole cities have been taken over by blacks and have become blasted wastelands.

We just ain't buyin' it anymore.

Deal with it.

Anonymous said...

Strange to see McWhorter smear Sailer with this "moral copout" stuff, when I know he has more than once lamented the lack of fair treatment that Murray received for the Bell Curve. But I guess the returns on caricaturing Steve as the evil racist never cease for a pundit. What is a little intellectual dishonesty in discussing racial issues if it prods the reader into feeling you're on their side and not that of the "racist."

Speaking of the delicate (and absurd) dance pundits do in acknowleding Sailer's work, check out this little blogging head clip from today.

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/19516?in=30:32&out=30:45

Perhaps Continetti is just caught up in some train of thought of what he wants to dicuss, but it seems, at least to me, it is the mere mention of Steve's name which induces that tremor of panic in his voice as he suggests (pleads?) they move on to something else.

Anonymous said...

Stopped Clock said

as if he's subtly calling attention to the fact that some people do find joy in believing in racial intelligence differences. So I have to ask: Is there really anyone here or anywhere who would love to hear that? Who? Why?Incontrovertible proof of racial intelligence differences totally tickles ME pink, so there. There are plain old racists in the world, like me, who rejoice in scientific support of their views; that may make a lot of people uncomfortable, but facts are facts. And one fact is that unsavoury characters like me read Sailer. But he can't change that, and pointing it out isn't an argument.

testing99 said...

It is not about you Steve.

It is about a system that DOES INDEED pick Captains of the Fire Crew that pulls up to your house when it's burning by color/race/sexual orientation and everything else they can think of. Including Gender.

Because that gives power to a political class of connected, hereditary elite yuppies. And keeps the real enemy, the White working/middle class, suppressed.

In addition, women benefit. Greatly. Surely you picked up that McWhorter is appealing to women to label you a "bad person" because that's how female-dominated societies work: by emotion and pecking order not by results.

This fight is not about race. Blacks are only 12.5% of the population, they don't exert much political clout, on their own.

What this fight is about is class, and gender. Increasingly, higher income people of the media-elite class are deeply feminized. I see people in person or on TV and they come across as "Gay" even though they are married, so deep has the feminization and female-domination of certain sectors: education, marketing, media, advertising, and lower-level (not BigLAW) legal stuff.

You are not the issue, Steve, it's the threat of the idea, that real and repeatably measurable difference occur between races, and more importantly GENDER.

There are a hell of a lot more White women out there than Blacks. They are the ones driving this attempt to re-establish dogma ala the Catholic Church and Gallileo. Because they have the most at stake.

Bottom line most White women are better off mostly if Affirmative Action picks Fire Captains by race, sexual orientation, and gender to exclude White Men, most of the time. Since most of the time they won't need help and selection based on color-blind competence does not matter, versus getting their slice of the Affirmative Action pie.

Anonymous said...

"This is the impression I have. A lot of guys here pour out their sexual frustration. I imagine they are losers and combined with the giddy way they bring up demerits of blacks and others, they probably are using hbd as a self esteem boost."The overlap between some HBD enthusiasts and guys trying to learn pick up artist/"game" techniques offers some support for your theory.


"They represent Slate and the New Republic. At minimum Sailer deserves the opportunity to respond in those publications."Has Sailer asked for such an opportunity? Steve, have you e-mailed Saletan or McWhorter and asked for space on their sites to respond?

- Fred

Jun said...

Saletan and McWhorter are cowards -- intellectual cowards.

The fact that they have to resort to calling Steve "not nice" and pull out all the reductio ad Hitlerum rhetorical tactics demonstrates how cowardly they are.

If they were real MEN they would face up to these possible unpleasant facts of life and deal with them. Instead they cower in the corner with their skirts over their heads.

They should be ashamed.

They should be using the intellects that they have (neither of them seem stupid) in order to help other people. And there's no way that is going to happen without an honest discussion of what the problems are.

Anonymous said...

"H-bd is similar in that it poses an existential threat to the system. We may not want to think through the implications, but they are likely to be far more profound than simple changes to EEOC statutes. We are talking about a development with world historical ramifications."

That seems a bit overwrought. Up until fifty years ago basically everybody understood that the races were different. And even today most people get it, outside of certain progressive enclaves. And I suspect many of them know the truth as well.

So no, no "world historical" stuff, just humanity getting back to basics again.

Anonymous said...

"This is the impression I have. A lot of guys here pour out their sexual frustration."

Look, please stop picking on t99.

Ivy League Bastard said...

Steve,

McWhorter put forth an excellent question, that is so far unanswered by the HBD crowd:

What is an example of a policy where the grounds for (e.g.) Sailer advocating it specifically depend on *genetic* differences being a major factor in group performance gaps?

That is, a policy where the isteve/HBD crowd advocate it but would reverse their position if research convincingly showed that genetics had no substantial effect on the group differences.

Firefighter promotions, antidiscrimination laws, and immigration policy don't appear to be instances of this. Genetics are just a side discussion on policies that one would advocate for stronger non-genetic reasons.

By the way, a statistical point about the Ricci case: you appear to assume that the black and white firefighter populations have IQ distributions (or differences) similar to the black and white populations in general. That isn't necessarily the case. There are selection effects on who becomes a firefighter, that can differently affect blacks and whites, with some effects reducing the difference (whites having better connections to the fire departments), some magnifying it (affirmative action for blacks), and others having effects that are less clear (which segments of the black and white IQ curves seek out firefighting jobs).

Toadal said...

McWhorter preens ...
"Segregated" KIPP academies are teaching poor black and brown kids brilliantly all over the country (which, itself, is further evidence that the problem is how such kids are taught more than how their brains are configured).
....
"I'd much rather see how far we can get with addressing what kind of schools poor kids go to. My money is on poor black kids looking better decade by decade if we do the right things--but that will mean assessing how the kids are doing by race, and publishing the data for all to see including Big Bad Steve."
And how are the disadvantaged taught brilliantly? Our SF Bay Area KIPP schools require at least a 9 hour school day, 2-to 3-weeks of summer school, and 3 or more hours of Saturday school instruction every other week for middle schoolers. Students receive approximately 60 percent more instructional time than their peers in public middle schools. Obviously any middle schooler would benefit from this regiment and I know Caucasian and Asian parents whose middle schoolers excel academically by long hours of disciplined study. But what is the result promised by KIPP advisors to desperate NAM parents?

To bring the child up to grade level, of course. Should any manager hire a engineering\accounting\law firm candidate who promised to work 60% more hours than his peers to maintain an average level of productivity?

Anonymous said...

Bottom line most White women are better off mostly if Affirmative Action picks Fire Captains by race, sexual orientation, and gender to exclude White Men, most of the time. Since most of the time they won't need help and selection based on color-blind competence does not matter, versus getting their slice of the Affirmative Action pie."


Ah yes -- and whatever he is trying to say -- spoken and articulated as only "Mr.T" 99 can say it!

Anonymous said...

"A little off-topic [maybe], but John McWhorter can't write worth a damn.

I can barely even make sense of these excerpts."

I agree. What is this...

"Yes, we must do better than that kind of impressionism, however, upon which: Poor black kids are routinely subject to less qualified teachers, who stick around for less time, than poor white kids."

The suspicion that most black intellectuals tend to be blowhards trying to write above their level is another one of those stereotypes that is often confirmed by reality.

And Steve, spare us your holding up of Canada as what we should be imitating.

Kevin B said...

Saletan and McWhorter are rightfully concerned with the corrosion of progressive ideology by HBD. On the other hand, they may come to an optimistic conclusion that rationalizes why almost all progressive policy fails when it’s tested in the real world. With a solid, fact based biological construct to use as a defense, albeit one that came in through the back door, progressives can junk the old non functioning policies and head off into newfound, moonbat territory, whatever that may entail. Post modern academy training assures that this will be the case. But that’s another post entirely.

I think what these two are really worried about is a big picture type of dread. For fifty years, progressives have literally blamed whitey for the squalid state that “people of color” find themselves in. One progressive theory after another, hatched on a-priori egalitarianism, has been sluiced down the media feeding tube to the public. Entire generations have grown up on this diet of carcinogenic pap.

I live in Los Angeles and just observing from our microcosm alone, the media here have made racism the deciding factor in all things “socially unjust.” Thirty years or more of non-stop brow beating by elite opinion has worked its goal. The culture here is steeped in a combination of guilt and righteousness that makes for a lot of very angry, ordinary people. The most fervent believers are rabid. This is the end result of a social pendulum that has swung to its maximum leftward amplitude. The dread these two harbor is the realization that because the pendulum is so far out into lunacy, that the swing back will follow the standard oscillation pattern and end up somewhere out in the lunacy of an equidistant backlash.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to that. But at the same time, equal correction is the natural course of events, and conservatives certainly did not create the current climate of PC extremism. So I’ll shed no tears if a real backlash occurs. The white middle class may not take kindly to the idea that they have been suckered, robbed and abused for half a century or more. Saletan and McWhorter should focus some of their energy on just what that might entail.

Anonymous said...

"Asians lead in math IQ and that is all that matters and why Asia overall is a superior civilization. After all, the entire developed world has adopted Eastern Civilization nearly across the board and that is the proof of who really has the brainpower."

If U R an 'Asian' I can respect you wanting to believe this, that your 'tribe' is 'the best', blah blah, blah...

...but, if U R 'White', then you are just a neurotic fool. Guilt Geek.

How/why does this site seem to have so many weirdo's with an asian fetish? Sheesh!

Anonymous said...

"What is an example of a policy where the grounds for (e.g.) Sailer advocating it specifically depend on *genetic* differences being a major factor in group performance gaps?"

How about just overturning all the policies were enacted under the assumption that there are no group disparities?

There are any number of policies which might be implemented if group performance gaps were accepted as fact. Some of them might give special privileges to NAM, to mitigate the disparity, others might place restrictions on them, to mitigate the impact on the rest of us.

Obviously we'd need to find a balance between the interests of all groups. However, there are enough laws that depend on the current paradigm that merely repealing those, if the null hypothesis can be proven false, would have a profound effect on society.

Dennis Dale said...

I'm afraid this is what progress looks like--McWhorter's acknowledgement of reality nonetheless combined with gloating over the reigning orthodoxy's ability to crush dissent no matter how factual. Steve's got the facts behind him but we have the power. Neener-neener-neener (leaving aside his attribution to Sailer of opinions and goals that are not in evidence, resegregation etc). He should be embarrassed. But perhaps this is just the first hairline crack in the edifice.

As an accomplished linguist McWhorter should know better than his "oral culture" dodge. Speech, having such an ancient evoloutionary pedigree, is instinctual--children start babbling spontaneously and naming things in infancy. They still need to be taught to write. The ability to learn this "unnatural" talent is, of course, a function of intelligence. We can pretend it's an arbitrary measure of it, but like it or not writing is an essential skill in the modern world.

This all smacks of the "different not deficient" babblings of The Right Reverend Wright. Fast-twitch muscle mass, too, is a "difference" between whites, blacks and asians--that happens to translate into black dominance of sport. My relative lack of it might give me an advantage in another realm where it is a detriment, but we don't get to pick our worlds. In fact, I'm tired of seeing all the black guys get the glory on the basketball court, and demand that the game be retrofitted to my unique, er, abilities. Isn't this what the McWhorters of this world propose we do with education and the professions?

So even if we accept whole the oral/written theory, it translates into an advantage for some over others.

It wouldn't simply be that black kids learn better with more verbal instruction, but that throughout life they would trail in writing ability and abstract thought. Consider also: if his theory is correct and translated into educational reform, it is a deliberate denying of non-black children of educational methods suited to them, punishing them for their success--unless of course McWhorter will have us resegregate schools and schooling by race.
Perhaps we should simply do away with writing altogether.

He could stand a bit of evolutionary know-how too. The adoption of writing (when is writing estimated to have emerged? 4th millenium? 6600BC China?) was one hell of an evolutionary divergence, molding the geographically separate races in different ways. Once taken up, it spins off multitudes of other talents for abstraction and symbolization. I wonder if McWhorter realizes the argument he's making.

Of course we could just scrap the whole system. Then we'd all be equal in our wretched state.

Anonymous said...

"The decade by decade results DO show black improvement in both IQ (both absolutely and relative to whites) and NAEP: see Flynn and Nisbett."

Where do they say this? Jensen & Rushton commented on this in 2006:

Rushton, J. P., & Jensen, A. R. (2006). The totality of available evidence shows race-IQ gap still remains. Psychological Science, 17, 921-922.

Anonymous said...

I had never heard of Mr McWhorter until now and so can only judge him on the extracts posted by Steve. I have to agree that his written english is diabolically bad.

As for the perverse dishonesty and willful cowardice that is political correctness, I sometimes wonder what the great 18th social satirists would have made of it.

stari_momak said...

What is an example of a policy where the grounds for (e.g.) Sailer advocating it specifically depend on *genetic* differences being a major factor in group performance gaps?If you had read all the articles in this little saga, ILB, you'd have one. Saletan has excoriated Steve for his 'racism' in suggesting that maybe we should think about adding 100 million 'Latinos' to our population, when their average IQ is 1/2 sd less than EuroAmericans.

The ironic think is that Steve 'Citizenist' Sailer shies away from policies that would be benficial to the majority of his readers, aka white folks. The evidence from McWhorter (who is, I believe, half-black and I know is married to a white woman) and Saletan is that unless we organize politically as whites per se, we are going the way of the Mohicans. Anthony may relish the thought of yet another Mestizo country in the western hemisphere -- after all the ones we already have are so... vibrant -- but that's not what I want for my descendents. Time to rethink the political configuration of the land mass formerly known as the USA. McWhorter is absolutely right that in the short run Steve and folks that think like him can't do anything about our African president, or Karen Bass, or Antonio Villar, but in the long run, things do change. Ask Gorbachev.

Anonymous said...

McWhorter's IQ > Steve Sailer's.

Anonymous said...

The fact is that America will need to cultivate its brightest and best in order to remain competitive against a rapidly developing China; and to avoid a brain drain.

It may come to a point where the imposition of quotas in certain crucial areas of education becomes a luxury the country can ill afford.

Ivy said...

Haven't read this particular post or the comments, but I wanted to comment on the previous Saletan and McWhorter articles.

Saletan, in particular, advoctaes we just stop grouping any characteristic by race. He says it's unnecessary and only can cause detriment to social progress. OK, then Saletan, let's apply that principle to not only HBD, but other disparities apparent in our society.

So, the liberals should stop complaining about lack of blacks in g-loaded fields and executive positions, about the higher rate of blacks in jail, the lower income amongst blacks, the lower housing loan rates amongst blacks, the lower college educational attainment trends amongst blacks, etc.

I agree. Let's stop being so preoccupied by racial grouping. I think it's pretty obvious which side of the political spectrum will have the most difficulty with that.

Dennis Dale said...

Sailer's argument > McWhorter's

Bruce Charlton said...

testing99

I'd like to say a word in support of this commenter who comes in for a lot of flak.

I, for one, am interested in his views.

I think he may be onto something important, so I want him to carry-on developing his ideas and to keep-on posting comments!

Ivy said...

I have been carrying the HBD torch on the forum College Confidential for quite some time. Ironically (well not so much), I have been smeared with almost the exact same accusations that McWhorter uses in this article. He blatantly misrepresents Steve's thoughtful and rational ideas. He replaces these pragmatic and equitable solutions with what he "thinks" Steve actually thinks: ya know because it's clear Steve is such a racist.

You can see for yourself on the following thread (the entire thing is a great read, but see post #189 for an almost verbatim copy of McWhorter):
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe-election-politics/706525-oh-man-conservative-radio-host-really-stupid-13.html

My screen name is 'dontno'.

Anonymous said...

"---How/why does this site seem to have so many weirdo's with an asian fetish? Sheesh!---"

No sh-t!

Anonymous said...

Haldane's four stages of acceptance of a scientific theory:

i) this is worthless nonsense
ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view
iii) this is true, but quite unimportantiv) I always said so.
McWhorter is grudgingly acknowledging iii) -- "the differences are likely to exist but I hope they are small (= unimportant)".

McWhorter and Saletan attack Steve as evil for the same reason the Catholic Church lashes out at atheists as satanists.

If they allowed people to distinguish between "nonbeliever" and "evil person", their belief system would rapidly crumble. So all nonbelievers have to be evil. Or losers. Or sexually inadequate. Or whatever else people have thrown up in this thread.

But we are none of these. We just don't believe. Many of us want to believe in god, just like we want to believe that all groups have the same cognitive abilities. But all evidence points to the contrary.

Mr. Anon said...

"KissTheGoat said...

So equality would spiral downward. The degree we identify with other races, possibly with the country as a whole, would decrease; after all, it's now official that they're different. We might well become like a banana republic, with greater extremes of wealth and poverty, and gated communities."

And this is not happening now?

Anonymous said...

"I want [T99] to carry on developing his ideas."

Developing?

Anonymous said...

What is an example of a policy where the grounds for (e.g.) Sailer advocating it specifically depend on *genetic* differences being a major factor in group performance gaps?There isn't one, and that's precisely what folks like me are screaming at the computer monitor to thick-headed liberals who Just. Refuse. To get it. But let me lay it out there one more time:

If inequality of outcomes despite equality of inputs is a fact of life, then it makes no sense to spend billions of dollars and enact draconian laws to try and make reality come out different.

--Senor Doug

Hunsdon said...

To the anonymous who referenced Geronimo's post about Asian greatness:

Dude, don't you see the tongue he's got in his cheek there? (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)

Anonymous said...

If U R an 'Asian' I can respect you wanting to believe this, that your 'tribe' is 'the best', blah blah, blah...

...but, if U R 'White', then you are just a neurotic fool. Guilt Geek.

How/why does this site seem to have so many weirdo's with an asian fetish? Sheesh!
Interesting to note that the concept of irony is still alien to many.

Svigor said...

The degree we identify with other races, possibly with the country as a whole, would decrease;

I don't see that. Forcing the issue of propositional nationality erodes national sentiment, and allowing people their EGI reinforces it. Basically, if you make people choose their state over themselves, they'll choose themselves in the long run.

We might well become like a banana republic, with greater extremes of wealth and poverty, and gated communities.

We're on a vector toward banana republicanism now. Laying off the mass third world immigration, and deporting the illegitimate third world population we have now, would accelerate this how?

Would we be able to form Whites-only / Blacks-only etc associations? Racial discrimination be allowed in hiring? I have a hard time figuring out just how far equal protection would unravel. Probably not that far.

You're confused, I think. How in the holy hell are so-called "anti-discrimination" laws and equal protection synonymous? I mean, is this simply the kind of confusion you get when you let the left pick the euphemisms?

I just don't see how "anti-discrimination" laws are a good idea to anyone but a meddling statist.

We might well lose more compassion for our fellow man, falling back to a purer social darwinism. I think it's possible.

Maybe compassion for our fellow man could become more viable; I know I'd feel more sanguine about NAMs if I wasn't being pickpocketed to pay for their well-being, or race-replaced out of my heritage by mass immigration.

On the other hand, now that each region is a local Idaho, everyone being with their own kind, maybe trust and community locally goes up, America goes back to the 50s socially, and all is well, if somewhat parochial, except for the poor.

Your underlying assumption here is that the poor are a problem to someone other than themselves. Well, let these someones deal with the problem they perceive.

Maybe the country breaks up.I see two options:

1) We get freedom of association back. We get to choose our associates (of any kind) the way we get to choose our spouses. We get to create our communities as we see fit.

2) The country breaks up so we can have 1.

I'd be totally satisfied with 1, personally.

I'm sure this is weak but, to me, to be a fully responsible thinker on the subject you have to think of the consequences.

Which is what brought me to ethnic nationalism in the first place...

Unknown said...

"This is the impression I have. A lot of guys here pour out their sexual frustration. I imagine they are losers and combined with the giddy way they bring up demerits of blacks and others, they probably are using hbd as a self esteem boost."

Even if true, which I doubt, it's still an ad-hominem argument and so should be ignored.

Unknown said...

"After all, the entire developed world has adopted Eastern Civilization nearly across the board and that is the proof of who really has the brainpower."

If U R an 'Asian' I can respect you wanting to believe this, that your 'tribe' is 'the best', blah blah, blah..."

I think "Anonymous" has a weak irony detector. The world, especially including China and India, have adopted Western Civilization and pretty much abandoned their own.

...but, if U R 'White', then you are just a neurotic fool. Guilt Geek.

Anonymous said...

Okay, but why do most of the better teachers do everything that can to eventually get themselves out of schools full of poor black kids? Could it have to do with the conduct of the kids? Could it have to do with their potential for learning?
((((((((((




Negative.

It is bec of the poor urban blacks dendency towards VIOLENCE. Teachers want to teach. They want to make their students better. They don't want to get threatened or attacked while doing that.

Anonymous said...

The issue is poverty rather than race, and the cultural baggage it often means kids are bringing to school--
((((((((((



Ok......lets try THIS experiment: Make every poor black kids a millionaire. Boom! just like that. That'll make them do better in school! Easy.

Svigor said...

How/why does this site seem to have so many weirdo's with an asian fetish? Sheesh!

Erm, turn your sarcasm detector back on.

Svigor said...

McWhorter's IQ > Steve Sailer's.

Which, if true, only hammers home the point that being right trumps being smart.

Weezer said...

How/why does this site seem to have so many weirdo's [sic] with an asian fetish?Asian girls R hot. And smart.

So they really go for guys who know when to use an apostrophe to indicate possession or contraction, for example.

Plus, I think you missed the irony in Geronimo's "dastardly" post.

Ivy League Bastard said...

Advocating a reduction in the US Mexican (or "Latino") population is NOT an example of what was requested: a position that would would stop making sense if research showed the IQ differences to have no genetic basis.

That 100 million Latinos is a disaster in progress is already true for a multitude of reasons (crime rates, unemployment, etc) that require no genetic speculation. Those reasons would not go away if it turned out the Latinos are intrinsically just as smart as white Texans.

Reforming the discrimination laws is another case in point. Genetics are not required to make that argument; hard-wired intelligence differences would, if anything, be a reason for more racial preference, not less. Conservatives would agitate to end preferences no matter what the genetic facts turn out to be (if blacks are smart, they don't need the help, and if dumb, they can't make use of it).

McWhorter is raising this point when he asks "what legislation might bear Sailer's imprint". Where's the (genetic HBD) beef?

Anonymous said...

"Of course we could just scrap the whole system. Then we'd all be equal in our wretched state."

That is the ultimate end of neoliberal PC ideology. Dismantle every tenet of Western civilization. No free speech. No free market. No freedom, period. Concentrate all the wealth and power in the welfare state, then bleed it dry with ever increasing demands until it goes bankrupt, destabilizes, and is overthrown.

This resets the system, so the losers of history (the neoliberals) get a fresh start. Of course, they don't realize that when the dust settles the winner types will be on top again and the loser types will have to start the process all over.

Maximilian said...

"---How/why does this site seem to have so many weirdo's with an asian fetish? Sheesh!---"

No sh-t!
I'm afraid both you guys missed the point that Geronimo was being ironic. He must have thought this would be apparent since his point was based on the obviously untrue statement "the entire developed world has adopted Eastern Civilization nearly across the board" when in fact we all know that Western culture has taken over the world.

He must be one of the several commentors here who regularly point out that the things measured by IQ tests don't always correlate with true success in the world, e.g. Asians who are supposedly so smart don't have as much to show for the past 2,500 years of history as the supposedly less bright Westerners.

regularjoe said...

Starting with the premise that Saletan and Sailer agree on the facts, and McWhorter almost does with the held out hope that the inborn differances are very small...I think the future social effects of HBD issues are more interesting. McW dismisses Saletan's fears because, basically Obama got elected, and Sailer also basically dismisses them because he personally doesn't advocate for those feared things, and they don't logically follow.

But the animal spirits of society don't follow where logic necessites or bars. And Obama's election may be evidence of the build up of water behind the dam, not its absense. He is the Great Black Hope of guilty whites who in their dark inner thoughts wonder why the f***k Africa and New Orleans and Detroit never get better, their scores never improve etc. By voting for O they hope that the symbolic action can forestall the Saletan style coming clean, make the cognitive disonance last a while longer.

So i don't see the necessity of small gradual steps McW sees, i see more of a sudden shift, and I agree, eliminating EEOC rules would probably not be the extent of it. One needn't go all reductio ad Hitlerium to see such a possibility. And I applaud Saletan for coming clean on the facts to discuss their social implications, even if to do so he makes Sailer the Scape Goat bearing the guilt and shame of admitting the unwelcome facts.

Lucius Vorenus said...

KissTheGoat: Let's think about what would happen if human differences by race were admitted, and one was allowed to act according to them... We might well become like a banana republic, with greater extremes of wealth and poverty, and gated communities... Maybe the country breaks up...Keep at it - you're doing a good job.

Although I have to warn you that if you pursue this line of thought, then there is a great deal of [literal] insomnia waiting for you.

[Sleeplessness is not fun - trust me on that.]

And if you throw in the knowledge of some basic demographic & socio-political arithmetic, then - well, let's just say that it's not a pretty sight which you'll find staring back at you from within your crystal ball.

Anonymous said...

I think the "game theory" people have something interesting to say. Usually wrong, but interesting all the same.

T99 is correct that white women are the big winners under affirmative action, not blacks.


"the entire developed world has adopted Eastern Civilization nearly across the board and that is the proof of who really has the brainpower."

Huh?

Lucius Vorenus said...

Mr. Anon: ...a lot of whites just don't give a flying f**k about black people and thier problems anymore... whole cities have been taken over by blacks and have become blasted wastelands...

And my post about 1619 Jamestown/John Wilkes Booth got censored?

Yikes!

We gotta start a movement for equality of censorship in these here parts.

PS: Just in case you didn't notice, a whole COUNTRY was taken over by a black [or at least a certain Half Blood Prince] on Tuesday, January 20, 2009...

Eric said...

Look, these precise questions have been studied intensively for 45 years.

Yes, and not only that, actual policies involving real people and real money were put into place based on the assumption of a race-neutral IQ distribution. You'd think 45 years of failure would at least humble these people a bit.

Lucius Vorenus said...

Anonymous: Where do they say this? Jensen & Rushton commented on this in 2006...

The situation is probably worse than stasis - even as far back as the generational change circa 1979, black average IQ may have declined from 83.5-ish [in the parent generation] to 80-ish [in the child generation].

In which case the average IQ for young black children in this country could now be well down into the 70s.

stari_momak: Saletan has excoriated Steve for his 'racism' in suggesting that maybe we should think about adding 100 million 'Latinos' to our population, when their average IQ is 1/2 sd less than EuroAmericans.

Again, probably more like 1.5 standard deviations.

Average IQ of LEGAL immigrants to the USA from Mexico is 82; average IQ for Guatemala, as a nation, is 79.

God only knows the IQ of the illegal immigrants to the USA...

Anonymous said...

Everyone should go back into the history books to see how the fact that god does not exist became more popular among the elites.

You are committing a fallacy with your comment. Once god was removed from our elite they began to believe in other things with near faith like devotion, like diversity. The church attending Evangelicals were the only group to give a decisive margin of their votes to McCain, instead of voting for The One.

To put it simply, the rational society of man will have a basis that appears to outsiders to be irrational. So you have a choice of either having the majority of the White population being conservative Evangelicals, or having them believe in Equality.

Svigor said...

This is the impression I have. A lot of guys here pour out their sexual frustration. I imagine they are losers and combined with the giddy way they bring up demerits of blacks and others, they probably are using hbd as a self esteem boost.

An unfortunate projection - you can see no other motive than the one that would make sense for you...

Svigor said...

And I just have to wonder, if I acknowledge lower black IQ out of feelings of inferiority, does that mean I acknowledge higher yellow IQ out of feelings of inferiority, too? Or is that my superiority complex talking? So now I have multiple personality disorder too?

Anonymous said...

Re Flynn and Dicken's assertion of Black - White IQ convergence.

This has been discussed by Murray, Rushton and Jensen, as well as Steve here on his blog - check the archives. It is far from incontrovertible. Looking at the criticism, Flynn and Dickens seem to be cherry-picking data by selectively choosing IQ studies (some with dubious sample representativeness) and age groups. The problem is that there are only cross sectional, not longitudinal studies, so we don't know if the most recent cohort of blacks is actually doing a little better, or if they will fall behind as they grow older (and heritability increases). Some studies show no convergence or even greater divergence and in other studies convergence may be the result of test artifacts and not a narrowing of g.

Based on cross sectional data, Jensen (1998) estimates that the B-W gap is about 0.7 S.D for small children, increasing to 1.0 S.D. for elementary school children, and then stabilizing at about 1.2 S.D. by early adulthood. Roth and Bobko's meta-analysis point to a B-W gap amoung adults of about 1.1 S.D. Given the cross sectional nature of the data, it may be that there is convergence, but it is also well established that blacks mature quicker than whites (e.g., shorter gestation, more precocious early development - walking, talking, etc., earlier skeletal, dental, and sexual maturation, etc.), so it is possible that they reach full mental development earlier and the gap grows til adulthood as whites keep developing longer.

As Lucius has noted, Murray has pointed to evidence of growing divergence due to dysgenic breeding amoung blacks. In the NLSY sample (the basis for much of the Bell Curve), 58% of black births were to women below the black average, whereas only 50% of white births were to women below the white average. From the data available, it appears that the B-W gap among the children of the NLSY sample is greater than among the parents.

Anonymous said...

Asians who are supposedly so smart don't have as much to show for the past 2,500 years of history as the supposedly less bright Westerners.
You didn't let us in on your calculus of superiority.

regularjoe said...

re: Geronimo said on world adoption of Easter Culture..come on people, Irony Much? He's joking.

re:Stopped Clock- you contend that racial inequalities are the root of all war etc? That's why the Germans attacked into massively differant France, really?

re: kiss the goat- "I think Whites would be free to move away from poor areas, and towns wouldn't bus their kids back to poor schools, or vice-versa. Ie, self-segregation would happen. " How is that not a perfect description of de facto housing patterns? Or are you joking like Geronimo and I'm not getting it this time?

Anonymous said...

McWhorter says:

Poor black kids are routinely subject to less qualified teachers, who stick around for less time, than poor white kids.
Actually, the causality is the other way. Teachers are subjected to more grief by poor black kids than by poor white kids, so they consequently stick around for less time at schools with lots of poor black kids.

Deckin said...

Ivy League Bastard said:

McWhorter is raising this point when he asks "what legislation might bear Sailer's imprint". Where's the (genetic HBD) beef?Since you keep repeating it, I'm sorry to let you know that it's not a very good question at all. Indeed, it's a quite stupid one. By what criterion of adequacy must someone who is only pointing out facts that virtually no one else will put their name to (myself included) perform the additional task of stating some policy application that flows from those (again) facts? People who are interested in science and the facts would be perfectly happy if those interested in policy would actually keep those facts in mind when they make policy. That's Steve's job, as I take it.

You state that conservatives would be against AA no matter what the genetic facts are. OF COURSE. That's because it's inherently unfair. And no, AA wouldn't be more called for if it were determined that the group cognitive deficits were true. What Murray and Hernstein proposed was not AA, but other types of amelioration. Would you be happy to know your surgeon was an AA admit Med student, Resident, and Fellowship recipient, just because the difference between them and another non AA beneficiary were genetic?

Anonymous said...

"To the anonymous who referenced Geronimo's post about Asian greatness:

"Dude, don't you see the tongue he's got in his cheek there? (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)"

That would be me; and you all are totally right:

Geronimo was just being ironic (sorry bro)!

It was a real loong night and drank way too much coffee the day/evening before...

Thanks for pointing it all out to me. I learn something interesting from this site every day!

~Peace in the Middle East~

Anonymous said...

Mark Wethman said:

"I doubt very much the two generations of moderate dysgenic breeding is enough to lower average black IQ appreciably."

It depends what you mean by appreciably. You're right that you're not going to get huge changes (like 1/2 S.D. or something). Murray is talking about perhaps a 1 or 2 point drop per generation due to dysgenic breeding. In the Bell Curve he and Herrnstein discuss the effects on society of raising or dropig the mean IQ by just 3 points. It makes quite a large difference in average outcomes. If the black-white difference increases from 1.1 or 1.2 to 1.2 or 1.3 S.D., you will notice a significant aggregate effect in group outcomes.

Anonymous said...

RE: Mark Wethman's post.

Let's keep in mind that low IQ black women are almost certainly having more children than high IQ black women - and starting at a much earlier age. One reason that the illegitimacy rate in the black community went up so high is that married better educated middle class black women were having fewer children.

In my experience in the DC area, middle class black women, especially college educated women, are similar to middle class white women in their child-bearing. They usually had no more than one or two children and had them after they completed their education, often in their late 20's or even older. Many had no children.

What's "a generation"?

A college-educated black woman has 2 children starting at 28. She raises them in a traditional middle-class way and so isn't a grandmother until her late 50's. Around the time she's 65, there are 3 generations - her, 2 children, and maybe 4 grandchildren.

Meanwhile over in the projects, a 16-year-old with her first baby is still living with her 30-something mother and other siblings and across the court is her 50-something (or younger) grandmother. By the time this Grandma is 65, how many generations will there have been? And how many offspring? What does this do to average IQ if there is a bigger increase in lower IQ persons?

Svigor said...

Face it, you're just a complete screw-up.

I know! I'm so confuuuuuused!

Anonymous said...

Your logic and analysis don't faze these people, Steve, and they will attack you for it instead because their perspective is religious, not scientific. They are not about analyzing the data to see what it means: they are about fitting the data to fit their view of the world. See Galileo, et al.

Plane Ideas said...

This is a interesting subject matter as a Black activist I am enjoying every angle . I have issues with both McWhorter( a lousy writer) and Saletan ( A liberal bigot)... I do not as of yet think Sailer is a evil white person to be feared..I have no problem with uncensored speech and commentary..

My quick take on this issue:

I think standardized test and superior outcomes only reflect the ability to test well on standized tests.

I also think test results and outcomes are the last bastion of white supremacy in a global world where whites are in a cultural meltdown and no longer viewed as the center of the universe..

The superior test outcomes of Asian students are a trend that has broken down to a degree the foundation of white supremacy if one relies on test scores as the basis for measure of merit and intellectual superiority.

I do not support this position nor the value of tests and the defining proof of merit and superiority.

In part that is why I do not lose to much sleep over the NAEP findings or the national issue of Black students and our inferior test outcomes.

I have no problem with the inference that Black folks for whatever reason simply do not test well.

For me the real metric is reality and in 2009 it is obvious the influence and dominance of white folks simply is not only inflated but reveals a cultural that is in decay...

I use the BIG BEN RACE CLOCK to illustrate my reasoning ..for 23 hours and 45 minutes white folks have ruled and influence our nation from slavery to segregation, separate but equal, disparate treatment, racial profiling to now a global meltdown as a Black man I have 15 minutes to stop the meltdown and fix the decay created by white folks stewardship of our nation...My clock is ticking..tic , toc, tic, toc..lol,lol,lol

Eric said...

And I just have to wonder, if I acknowledge lower black IQ out of feelings of inferiority, does that mean I acknowledge higher yellow IQ out of feelings of inferiority, too? Or is that my superiority complex talking? So now I have multiple personality disorder too?

Of course the only rational explanation here is all you IQ fetish guys are actually Asians pretending to be white people. "Sailer's" picture is actually that of the genial white guy who grooms his dog.

Anonymous said...

Murray has pointed to evidence of growing divergence due to dysgenic breeding amoung blacks. In the NLSY sample (the basis for much of the Bell Curve), 58% of black births were to women below the black average,

This is where I lose my grip on genetical thingumy whatsits.

I thought that selective breeding could raise IQ. In the above case its selection for lower IQ.

Yet recently here on isteve its been noted that the offspring of well off black middle class couples perform no better (worse in fact) than poor whites. Im told thats regression to the mean, these high IQ blacks remain outliers because their offspring will be closer to the black average. Why does this effect not apply to low IQ black women (in reverse)?

I not trying to through a liberal spanner in the works here, I just wish someone would explain it. Im sure Im just missing a piece of the puzzle.

beowulf said...

Well McWhorter has written in TNR about Direct Instruction and how it blew away every other teaching method in the Project Follow Through study.
http://tinyurl.com/7b8ehf

When someone as brilliant and well read as Charles Murray was ignorant of Project Follow Through when he published his education book, I'd say McWhorter is definitely smarter than the average bear.
http://tinyurl.com/ophshh

If, in fact, someday its widely accepted that blacks are genetically doomed to have lower average IQs than whites, it would make the case for affirmative action stronger, not weaker.

Federal laws protecting the disabled require that employer and schools make "reasonable accommodations" for the person's disability. Since a low IQ citizen can no more choose his immutable condition than a paraplegic citizen, well, that opens the door to far more sweeping social engineering than exists today (i.e. hard quotas).

Ivy League Bastard said...

McWhorter's question is obviously
important: supporters of HBD-positive (to coin a term) Ethnic Studies claim it's all-important to everything, but if no policy does (or can) depend on the genetics, then the HBD is an academic parlor game. Interesting conversation fodder for the internet, but ultimately a lot of sound and fury summing to zero.

If the assumed genetic differences have no application other than to discussion of assumed genetic differences, they don't matter much.

OK, there is one application domain of HBD ideas: human mate selection. The policy implications were tried out last century with, um, "mixed" success.

Lucius Vorenus said...

Anonymous: It depends what you mean by appreciably. You're right that you're not going to get huge changes (like 1/2 S.D. or something). Murray is talking about perhaps a 1 or 2 point drop per generation due to dysgenic breeding.

No, actually what Murray saw was a 3.5 point drop in IQ [from 83.7 to 80.2 - see footnote #44] within just a generation.

And remember that a "generation" in the black community can be as little as 15 years.

By my calculations, this means that in just the two decades from circa 1979 to circa 1999 [or, even worse - was it the two decades from 1959 to 1979 ???], American Blacks may have lost upwards of three millenia's worth of selective breeding for intelligence [my gut feeling is that it takes at least 750 years to breed just a one point IQ increase into a population].


******************************
******************************


beowulf: If, in fact, someday its widely accepted that blacks are genetically doomed to have lower average IQs than whites, it would make the case for affirmative action stronger, not weaker. Federal laws protecting the disabled require that employer and schools make "reasonable accommodations" for the person's disability. Since a low IQ citizen can no more choose his immutable condition than a paraplegic citizen, well, that opens the door to far more sweeping social engineering than exists today (i.e. hard quotas).

Exactly.

Which is why so many of us are thinking so seriously about secession - it is a mathematical certainty that the USA, as it is currently structured, cannot withstand this new tidal wave of - ah, what term would Komment Kontrol allow here? - "disfunctionality"?

And, quite frankly, we have no desire to go down with the ship.

B322 said...

I think standardized test and superior outcomes only reflect the ability to test well on standized tests. - Thrasher

Are the higher dropout rates, higher crime rates, lower average SAT scores, and lower IQ test scores among blacks all a matter of pure coincidence?

What sort of Pearson's r would be your minimum to accept that there is a correlation between IQ test scores and crime rates?

What sort of Pearson's r would be your minimum to accept that there is a correlation between, say, SAT scores and dropout rates?

If the currently measured r exceeds this, does this imply that graduating from college only reflects the ability to test well on standardized tests?

Is there any life outcome which is inherently important, or would any life outcome which correlates strongly with a standardized test be unimportant for that reason?

ben tillman said...

Yet recently here on isteve its been noted that the offspring of well off black middle class couples perform no better (worse in fact) than poor whites. Im told thats regression to the mean, these high IQ blacks remain outliers because their offspring will be closer to the black average. Why does this effect not apply to low IQ black women (in reverse)?

I not trying to through a liberal spanner in the works here, I just wish someone would explain it. Im sure Im just missing a piece of the puzzle.
No, it's a very good question. I was just wondering the same thing myself.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous asks:

"This is where I lose my grip on genetical thingumy whatsits. I thought that selective breeding could raise IQ. In the above case its selection for lower IQ."

It can work both ways - you can breed for more or less of a trait (such as g). The problem we have in all modern societies is that we extend adolesence through a long education period for the more intelligent and make it very expensive to properly raise children in the matter expected for high SES families. Additionally, their jobs often demand a lot of time and can discourage childrearing (especially for women). This encourages them to have fewer kids and at older ages. At the same time, social welfare programs and trasfers subsidize the least able women and allow them to have large families at young ages that survive to adulthood without paternal support. They also have little oppurtinity cost for not being in the workforce.

Before the 19th century, the opposite was true. The wealthy outbread the poor, who without being subsidized generally did not replace themselves and gradually exited the gene pool. (See Gregoy Clarke's work).

"Yet recently here on isteve its been noted that the offspring of well off black middle class couples perform no better (worse in fact) than poor whites. Im told thats regression to the mean, these high IQ blacks remain outliers because their offspring will be closer to the black average. Why does this effect not apply to low IQ black women (in reverse)?"

It does, but the overall mean of the black population, to which they regress, is lower in succeeding generations as the mean drops. Also, this is not the only reason why the children of high SES blacks perform poorly on measures of g. Among others is the fact that success in attaining a high SES is not purely based on g
and there is some evidence that blacks have outgoing personal qualities that are advantageous in some settings. Also, high SES blacks may be credentialized, but how good are they really on average. We've had AA for a long time now education, hiring and promotions and just remember that whatever degree they have have from a University, they've been spoted ca. 200 SAT points, 12 LSAT points, etc. If the same standards were applied to them as whites or Asians, they may not be in the position they are in.

Anonymous said...

Ivy League Bastard said:

"If the assumed genetic differences have no application other than to discussion of assumed genetic differences, they don't matter much."

True, but it is important to know such things because eventually they will matter. It appears that diverse America is doomed to be dominated by a racial spoils system for allocating goodies. At the moment, whites are brow beat that they and they alone are guilty for all of NAMs problems and that they should help them. They should understand other causative factors as well, as this will help them approach the bargaining table with more rational, less guilty disposition. Also, while they are generally aware that NAMs get preferences at their expense and that they behave badly (crime, etc.), the media/entertainment industry/education system does a pretty good job of obfuscating the truly mindboggling scale of preferences, transfers and misbehavior to the average white person (especially women struck by appeals to emotion). It is important that whites know both the performance and behavioral stats, scale of preferences, and the causative factors so that they can come to the table and effectively bargain in their own interests. This doesn't mean that blacks don't get some special treatment due to their history of slavery, but everthing should be on the table and open to bargaining. Whites should make informed decisions on how much "Danegeld" they are willing to pay.

Ivy League Bastard said...

"It is important that whites know both the performance and behavioral stats, scale of preferences, and the causative factors so that they can come to the table and effectively bargain in their own interests."

But none of that requires any assumptions about genetics. Non-genetically-construed IQ, non-genetic poverty, non-genetic crime rates, etc can be quite hereditary (in the way that religion or literacy are), so one is in no way debarred from arguing about group characteristics without speculating on genetics. At what point do Sailer/HDB/iSteve types gain anything, anything at all, from adding a (disputed) genetic element to arguments that rest only on measured (undisputable) group differences?

Sailer's FAQs on race and on IQ don't address this point (i.e., this question of McWhorter's).

Anonymous said...

Ivy League Bastard said:

"But none of that requires any assumptions about genetics. Non-genetically-construed IQ, non-genetic poverty, non-genetic crime rates, etc can be quite hereditary (in the way that religion or literacy are), so one is in no way debarred from arguing about group characteristics without speculating on genetics. At what point do Sailer/HDB/iSteve types gain anything, anything at all, from adding a (disputed) genetic element to arguments that rest only on measured (undisputable) group differences?"

It really has to do with the politics of guilt. You are correct that group differences exist and can be passed on with or without gentics playing a role. However, it is important to determine causality. We can note differences, but if we don't know why they exist, this leaves a lot of room for wrong-headed and costly social policy that is bound to fail. If we don't determine the genetic and environmental causation of group differences, then that allows the AA crowd to blame everthing on racism. Whites must know what role, if any, they play in ethic differences in performance and behavior. Right know many believe, or are browbeaten into professing that they believe, that they are the sole problem. This prevents them from bargaining effectively in their own interests.

Evil Sandmich said...

"How/why does this site seem to have so many weirdo's with an asian fetish? Sheesh!"

It's so that guys can justify being cowed by their Asian wives. :)

Anyway, for example Japan is a country full of people with a lot on the ball IQ-wise, but if it weren't for White Power they would still be spending their time beating themselves over the heads with clubs. The finest, sharpest clubs known to man, but clubs nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

John McWhorter is a very smart guy but could it be because he's more white than black? He should kick that issue around a bit. Indeed, most of the intelligent 'blacks' tend to be more white than black genetically. Just look at the black scholar line-up. Musically, it doesn't seem to matter. Smartest blacks of all tend to have Jewish genes.

And, when it comes to physical strength, black genes are most useful. Could Brian Clay won the decathalon if he only had Japanese genes and no black genes? Or, how about that Pittsburgh Steelers football player who's half Korean and half black. I think it was the black part of him that made him a great athlete. After all, there are many all-black players in the NFL but no all-Asian players.

trey said...

Ivy League Bastard, I'm not an Ivy League Bastard so your question appears oddly framed to me but my understanding is you are asking what policy position are some HBDers now advocating that they would not advocate for or advocate less for if further research revealed that intelligence, etc. were equally distributed among the varying ethnic groups? I can't speak for all but I would be less passionate against illegal Mexican immigration if it turns out group IQ's are naturally equal. The fear is that descendants of illegals who can't make as much money in the market because of lower natural IQ will use polical means to force redistibutions.

Anonymous said...

I am stunned by your (Mr. Sailer's) self-satisfaction, defensiveness, and seeming inability to reflect. Were you always this headstrong? Was there ever a time in your life when you weren't such a crusader for racial difference? Is there any way for an intelligent person to criticize your premises or argumentation and actually get you to listen to his or her arguments?

Speaking of statistics, I'd be interested to find out what percentage of your regular readers are skinheads or members of the KKK. I would wager that the average IQ of Saletan's readership is significantly higher than that of your readership. I would then be curious to find out what kind of analysis you would apply to such a statistical outcome.