Andrew Sullivan, who published a symposium on The Bell Curve when he edited The New Republic in 1994, has bravely returned to the fray of defending Herrnstein and Murray, exciting many lowbrow denunciations from the likes of Gawker.
Yet, clearly, stunning new developments in the real world over the last 17 years have proven Herrnstein and Murray wrong. For example, there are all those countless black Silicon Valley start-up founders who have made so much money in high-tech. And, we constantly read articles in the newspaper these days about how the Test Score Gap has vanished in one school district after another, which is why the No Child Left Behind act is right on schedule to make everybody proficient within 2.5 years.
Today, everything is completely different than when I started following social science statistics in 1972 (see here for my first letter to the editor back in 1973 when I was 14, which was on sociologist Christopher Jencks' book Inequality, a re-analysis of the data in the 1966 Coleman Report).
In 1972, it looked like the rank order of average intelligence was Oriental, Caucasian, Chicano, and black. But, in 2011, of course, we now see from endless studies and real world examples that the actual rank ordering appears to be Asian, non-Hispanic white, Latino, and African-American. So, everything has changed!
In 1972, it looked like the rank order of average intelligence was Oriental, Caucasian, Chicano, and black. But, in 2011, of course, we now see from endless studies and real world examples that the actual rank ordering appears to be Asian, non-Hispanic white, Latino, and African-American. So, everything has changed!
Posts
145 comments:
White people and black people are exactly the same. Except blacks are better athletes, dancers, and musicians. The only thing white people are better at is stealing from black people.
The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates is going back and forth with Sullivan on this, basically asking to see the evidence that "p.c. egalitarianism" has shut-down the discourse on Race and IQ.
I'd think that the blog host here could tell all of us something about that. As could Dr. Steven Hsu whose up-coming Harvard seminar on Intelligence Variation Among Groups was recently cancelled (though Hsu refuses to say why, I am going to assume it was a p.c. smackdown until I hear otherwise).
Also, Sullivan was responding to an article at *Alternet* of all places which showed exactly why academicians and researchers are afraid to tackle the issue of IQ and Race.
In short, the reason that Sullivan was right in his initial piece is on display now as lefty/blank slate journalists are jumping down his throat for writing about it.
I used to be a TNR subscriber. I still have the "rebuttal" issue in which all the chattering class libs of the time registered their outrage. If you read between the lines, the common theme was, "this just needlessly hurts black folks' feelings." A year or so later began the surge of black actors in TV commercials, and now of course all the physicians and smart cops on TV are black. I wouldn't be surprised if after "The Bell Curve," the media types all got together and decided, "we've got to change this perception."
I'd also like to add, a few people writing against Sullivan's stance seem to be opposing the view because eugenicists, slave holders, and racists believed in blacks' group intellectual inferiority.
But why should Sullivan or Sailer or anyone be held to account for the reasons that past groups embraced certain beliefs? Most of the people outraged by Sullivan and Murray and Hernstein are probably also in favor of unions. But we know that unions were once tools of racism as well, often being used to crowd out black labor. So does that side drop support for unions? I'm willing to negotiate on this.
Ta-Nehisi says that censorship due to political correctness isn't the problem, yet he banned someone on his forum for saying this:
. . . I'm seeing a lot of straw-manning of Andrew's argument. I think people are projecting their own notions of what constitutes a "superior" or "inferior" human onto his argument. Blacks are, on average, better athletes than whites. Does this make them superior or inferior in general? Andrew never said that blacks are "inferior" to whites or that whites are "inferior" to Asians. He simply pointed out the fact that Asians, on average, perform better than whites on a certain kind of test, and whites perform better, on average, than blacks on a certain kind of test. . .
TNC's Response:
"Banned for loudly insisting that tennis, wrestling, swimming, heavy-weight boxing weight-lifting, and cross-country aren't athletics."
HA!
I'd like to pick up on the prior thread about Democrats abandoning the white working class. The only chance for whites in America now is for several states to secede and for it to be ratified by a sympathetic president. But if you're interested in saving the Republican party instead, there is another strategy. The Democrats are going for the feminists, meterosexuals, and gays. That leaves a huge demographic for the Repubs: men and women who like men. The Repubs could try to appeal to the hyper masculinity of latino and african-american males and portray the dems as wusses, and the government as an emasculating force. Instead the repubs would appeal to men by standing for independence, self-sufficiency, freedom from subservience. Of course, they would have to adopt economic policies that actually allowed people to be independent and free from subservience to the state by creating decent blue-collar jobs.
This is a lame, cherry-picked approach to the issue of IQ. When is the person who wrote this entry into Sailer's blog going to be much more specific about what it is that makes the ranking of groups by a general and average IQ score valid? Probably never since he/she doesn't actually know anything about intelligence other than the limited perspective offered by Herrnstein and Murray.
Do you toe the line in order to keep getting money from the pioneer fund or something, cause this is getting so old.
The unsigned Gawker article is characterized by a tone and wit that sounds distinctively Sailerian. (I am serious!) Is there an anti-Steve out there, or is Steve secretly advancing the other side of the Bell Curve argument? Where was Steve immediately before the article was posted on Gawker? Steve, from where I stand, it is just possible that you moonlight as a left-wing P.C. sock puppet, writing for Gawker!
--Morgan C
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Sullivan has for years been a unusually crude bully for the left, but now he sees it's more fun to enforce political correctness against others than have it enforced on you.
I think we have an example here of gays over blacks, as TNC is dropping it and affirming his love of Sullivan.
Wow, that Gawker piece borders on self-parody. No wonder it's unsigned.
BLacks have more babies than whites.
By definition blacks are superior because they will survive.
But how many of those babies will survive? Because of black crime and bad parenting, black children are generally more likely to die young than are children of other racial backgrounds.
edgy gurl:
This is a lame, cherry-picked approach to the issue of IQ.
How so? Please be more specific.
When is the person who wrote this entry into Sailer's blog going to be much more specific about what it is that makes the ranking of groups by a general and average IQ score valid?
If you look at the shape of a bell curve it should be obvious that most participants will cluster near the average point.
Probably never since he/she doesn't actually know anything about intelligence other than the limited perspective offered by Herrnstein and Murray.
Their perspective was only "limited" in the sense that they limited their book to known facts rather than politically-correct wishes.
Do you toe the line in order to keep getting money from the pioneer fund or something, cause this is getting so old.
When I find something to be old, I usually ignore it and find something fresher to read. Maybe you should do the same.
How would we get solid evidence that could be shown around wrt suppression of research into racial IQ differences, assuming it is happening? This, like the black/white IQ difference, is a question of fact--it can in principle be resolved to most everyone's satisfaction, one way or another. It's worth resolving the question--if research into racial IQ differences is a career ender, if even citing some research in that direction is a career ender, that's very important to know. If it's more of a "do this and you won't be invited to many parties" problem, that's also important to know', but it's probably less important.
I'm a fan and semi-regular reader of both TNC and Andrew, and feel like I learn a lot from both men. I'd second TNC's comment about Andrew, and make a similar one about him--even when you fundamentally disagree or are offended by something one or the other says, there's a lot worth reading from both. In particular, TNC's discussions of black/white racial issues are very good, very informative, and orders of magnitude more interesting than the flavorless MSM diversity-is-strength / Saint MLK crap you get from big US media most of the time.
-re "Helene Edwards" .."change the
perception"
-re 'G. L. Piggy" slave holders and racists believed..
It is scary how the composite of Black appearance and behavior differs between (a) what a random video taping of Blacks entering THE major American 24-hour retailer, would reveal as compared to (b) what a random video recording of Blacks on American MSM "reveals" It amounts to mass mesmerism about a topic that cries out for timely realism.
as to slave-owners "believing"...---candor about the mental limits of their valuable (chattel) property came merely from stark self-interest. The accident-rife, injury-laden world of motor-performance (loading wagons, harnessing mules, etc ) demanded the starkest candor about Black mental limitations in the interest of protecting the "property". It is a pathetic error indeed to project upon this
from some Prufrock complex within a faculty lounge martini gathering that the property was devalued in order to justify slavery at a time circa 1860 at which any brute but bright slave owner realized that his bank balance would be better having throw-away (Chinese, Irish ) labor than having to care for and protect slaves.
Even after all that's happened, even after the roid rage and Trig truthing, I doubt Sullivan has so far come down in the world that he must deign to answer a Denton/Wonkette blog (so cute when they act pundity). Problem with reviving this now is the Coateses of the world: above-average IQ blacks who emotionally react to this subject as if it were an underhanded 4th quintile vs. 3rd skirmish. You don't want to be isolated; safer to proclaim fake solidarity with your less-bright brethren.
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. ..."
John Adams
Andrew Sullivan is only free to talk about this because he belongs to the fashionably oppressed minority group of the moment.
I think we have an example here of gays over blacks, as TNC is dropping it and affirming his love of Sullivan -- not sure I follow you. Despite his mod metro look & lifestyle of domesticity Ta is undoubtedly closer w/ the 2nd group?
"...heavy-weight boxing"
What amazing bad faith by Coates. Presumably he's referring to the relatively recent emergence of the (likely steriodal) Klitschkos. But before Vitaly won his title in 1999boxing fans, and blacks in general, considered whites to be a fighting joke. In fact it would probably be accurate to say that the main pillar of late-20th century black pride was the consistent ability of almost any black boxer to beat any white one. I doubt Coates knows a single black person who would back down from any white person in any street encounter.
Stand by to get Watsoned.
Slight digression: liberals reaction to the entire discussion of IQ reminded me of this quote from H.P. Lovecraft:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
The Gawker article is hilarious. Lots of heavy sputtering snark about ALL THE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT THE BELL CURVE EVEN THOUGH I'VE NEVER READ IT. Sully trolled them pretty good.
Just look at all the black scientists you see on TV reflecting the scientific ability of blacks yo get on when racism was banished!
A year or so later began the surge of black actors in TV commercials, and now of course all the physicians and smart cops on TV are black.
Check out Abrams' "Super 8".
The hero? Black school teacher.
"He teaches Biology", says one kid.
"Honors Biology", says another kid, correcting the first.
Fortunately, there are neocons like Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds to keep beating the drums for pc opinion on race. Reynolds links to the Sullivan brouhaha (Posted 11/29/11):
"THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D SEE A RETURN TO RACIAL THEORIES OF INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. And they were right!
Posted at 6:48 pm by Glenn Reynolds"
"this just needlessly hurts black folks' feelings."
Because leftoids can't be leftoids if they think at all. If you take one part of The Narrative and compare it to another part and find a contradiction, you've just strayed from leftoidism. They're supposed to just follow The Narrative and STFU like good little sheep.
Which is why none of them can put 1 and 1 together; it never occurs to them, without being told, that they should've considered the sleeping dog's feelings before waking him up: THEY are the ones who blamed all "Black failure" on Whites.
A lot of criticism of IQ realism is based on the purported link with racism. If IQ realists are more prone to racism, could this be the 'stereotype effect'?
Gilberto Peenfold.
'Stereotype threat', I guess that should read.
GP.
In 1972, it looked like the rank order of average intelligence was Oriental, Caucasian, Chicano, and black. But, in 2011, of course, we now see from endless studies and real world examples that the real rank ordering appears to be Asian, non-Hispanic white, Latino, and African-American. So, everything has changed!
THIS kind of stuff is exactly why I send money to Steve!
Anyone who even chuckled at this paragraph should send at least $10 to Steve right now.
Rod Dreher at The American Conservative website had the best take on this: so what? To what use will this research be put? Also, how can anyone possibly say with a straight face that "black people are stupider than white people" is NOT a claim of white superiority? In what world is dumb a good trait, and how do I stay away from that world?
I've been following the comments on TNC. They're awful. People say things like "the score gaps vary significantly and are only present for some tests" and "race is so much less important to test scores than other factors, like parental education." Oh, and "race isn't a real thing." When these people hear "black-white test score gap" - which you have to, if you follow any of the discussions on charters, NCLB, TFA, early childhood education, etc. - what do they think we're talking about? Do they think we're talking about set of tests that doesn't actually mean anything or have any relevance for educational or life success? And if so, why aren't they a) saying so when those topics come up and b) making decisions about where they send their kids to school based on the idea that test scores don't matter?
These are bright, educated folk and they know perfectly well that the abilities they malign as "just IQ" are abilities that a) they possess, b) that the possession of has been very helpful for succeeding in school and work, and c) they are going to do their best to make sure their kids possess. But it's like part of their brains just turn off when we start talking about this.
Rand Simberg has a robust defense of Sullivan here.
Some black guy with a really weird name seems to be taking the lead role in making the psychometric case against a significant innate component to human intelligence/IQ. Apparently, along the way he's admitted he doesn't actually know the meaning of "standard deviation": "My response is that I know very little about the field, and would struggle to even define a phrase like 'standard deviation.'"
I wonder if this whole thing is really just a hoax dreamed up by The Onion...
Yeah...only the names have changed. Clever.
OT/ iSteve should consider endoring Buddy Roemer for president. Apparently he is campaigning despite not having been featured in any debates and has a strong stance against illegal immigration (not strong enough against legal immigration) and free trade
"The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates is going back and forth with Sullivan on this, basically asking to see the evidence that 'p.c. egalitarianism' has shut-down the discourse on Race and IQ."
That's funny, because when I tried to comment on Coates's latest article on The Atlantic, comments were closed.
Nope, no irony there.
I've been struck how Coates, whom I used to read fairly regularly, has tried to play both sides on this. He claims to agree with the pursuit of IQ research, wherever it may lead, (or at least not to oppose it), but then pulls out some rhetorical flourishes that essentially amount to "don't touch my belief system, it hurts."
2009 SAT Average Scores.
White 1034
Jewish 1027
East Asian 1004
Hispanic 884
Black 836
Note: The White category included Whites, Jewish, Arab, Central Asian, the majority of Hispanics, and all Mixed Race students who identified themselves as White and another Race/Ethnicity. Counting only Whites as White would yield a significantly higher average. The Federal Government did not release the data for Whites only.
By definition blacks are superior because they will survive.
It certainly will be interesting to see who's still standing after this current round of nihilism-induced self-extinction runs its course throughout the civilized world.
"I'd think that the blog host here could tell all of us something about that. As could Dr. Steven Hsu whose up-coming Harvard seminar on Intelligence Variation Among Groups was recently cancelled (though Hsu refuses to say why, I am going to assume it was a p.c. smackdown until I hear otherwise)."
Steve said it was complicated, yet a "pc smackdown" is uncomplicated so using this logic, I held onto a teeny grain of hope that there was another, less sinister reason for the cancellation. However, when I get real with myself, I have to conclude it is indeed a pc smackdown.
"the No Child Left Behind act is right on schedule to make everybody proficient within 2.5 years."
Good one. Doesn't proficient mean above average? So by definition around half of all people are always below average, or not proficient.
"By definition blacks are superior because they will survive."
Yeah, as long as libs pay them to keep havin' 'em.
The Daily Kos, that bastion of the Left, the Left that fancies itself educated, cosmopolitan, scientifically literate?
What a joke the Left think themselves any of these things. They are buffoons.
I always wonder why people without kids would be so interested in something that is biologically inherited.
"A year or so later began the surge of black actors in TV commercials, and now of course all the physicians and smart cops on TV are black."
But not with all shows. You could watch 50 episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" without ever coming across a single black or Hispanic physicist or engineer. The show's characters, even the minor ones, all seem to fit the (accurate) racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes of their professions. Female professionals on the show, like Amy and Bernardette, are mostly all in the biological sciences.
Not every television show is as PC as Grey's Anatomy.
" A year or so later began the surge of black actors in TV commercials, and now of course all the physicians and smart cops on TV are black. "
If you went by TV you would think that 50% of the judges in the US are black women.
Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds me of those black pundits on TV ... the "African-American studies" professors who use a lot of fancy sounding words but basically say nothing.
I swore off his blog once already because I could never figure out what his point was.
One major difference between now and 1994 is that the internet and increased globalization has made people even more aware (more than in just a "children are starving in Africa" kind of way) of the massive disparities in development and human behavior across the globe.
Perhaps 17 years ago the public could buy the notion that American blacks did worse than American whites due to 'the legacy of slavery Jim Crow.' When these disparities repeat themselves across one national boundary after another, however, the hypothesis (already deemed a law in Leftist circles) becomes a little difficult to defend. If Nigeria looked even a little like Germany, or Kenya looked like Japan, even I could believe that racism is responsible for a large share of the disparity in the US.
Of the 30 richest countries in the world, 25 are majority white. Of the 30 poorest, 26 are majority black, with the richest "large" black country (Botswana, 74th)finishing well behind nearly every major country in Europe except Belarus (81st) and Bulgaria (77th).
When the economic and educational gaps between Europe and Africa are even larger than those between whites and blacks in the United States, it suggests it is biology, not policy and culture, that is at work.
Coates is banning people from commenting on the entire Atlantic site due to some very tame comments on his articles.
Wow.
Wanna fire this guy now, or do you just hate free debate, Atlantic? Your move.
Scott - everbody is the same except when non-whites are better at something. Or when its whites being racist.
See, thats the odd thing about racial flat earthers. They believe we are all the same but at the same time whites are more racist. Which in itself is a racial difference - which dont exist - except they do!
"But we know that unions were once tools of racism as well, often being used to crowd out black labor. So does that side drop support for unions? I'm willing to negotiate on this."
They don't really love unions. They love the dues that union members pay, that get siphoned off to contribute to Democratic Party coffers. And there's nothing the modern leftist hates quite as much as a white union worker, to judge by the actions they've taken to screw blue-collar whites.
A better comeback to the guilt-by-association attack is that plenty of leftists were cool with the Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and a gaggle of other now-disreputable figures despite their often heinous crimes because these people professed the right ideology, namely that all people are (or ought to be) equal, and if they're not, they must be made equal.
In 1972, it looked like the rank order of average intelligence was Oriental, Caucasian, Chicano, and black. But, in 2011, of course, we now see from endless studies and real world examples that the real rank ordering appears to be Asian, non-Hispanic white, Latino, and African-American. So, everything has changed!
That joke is way too good for the likes of gawker. I guess that's why you're not really telling it for gawker.
@Karen:
The use to which the research will be put is to stop spending billions in tax dollars attempting to bridge an unbridgeable gap.
Count on an emasculated 'conservative' like Dreher not to get this.
basically asking to see the evidence that "p.c. egalitarianism" has shut-down the discourse on Race and IQ.
...while she (he, it?) starts an email campaign to get AS to recant or be fired..
"Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds me of those black pundits on TV ... I could never figure out what his point was."
You aren't missing a thing. He's as pedestrian as they come.
In fact it would probably be accurate to say that the main pillar of late-20th century black pride was the consistent ability of almost any black boxer to beat any white one.
lengthen the rounds and that would change, really quick, just like stopping timeouts and subs in football.
I'd also like to add, a few people writing against Sullivan's stance seem to be opposing the view because eugenicists, slave holders, and racists believed in blacks' group intellectual inferiority.
But why should Sullivan or Sailer or anyone be held to account for the reasons that past groups embraced certain beliefs?
Its safe to say that those "past groups" held their beliefs about
blacks' intelligence for the same reasons we do: those neliefs are evidently true!
whilst looking on the atlatnic site i stumbled on this gem:
Netanyahu Government Suggests Israelis Avoid Marrying American Jews
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/netanyahu-government-suggests-israelis-avoid-marrying-american-jews/249166/
funny how only one racial group difference is controversial to our betters: black-white.
asian-white or jewish-white test score differences are entirely uncontroversial to these same folks but the same sorts of stubborn test score differences persist at the group level.
so certain group differences are a yawn and other group differences are taboo.
taboo = political weapon
Businesses are making the stark market driven calculus that minorities aren't some underutilized source of skilled labor in refusing to invest some of the gigantic piles of cash they are sitting on towards that end.
Do businesses not like cheap labor? or do they think there is little gain to be had?
A lot of criticism of IQ realism is based on the purported link with racism.
There's no "link". It's a tautology or a matter of definition. An IQ realist *is* a racist.
Also, how can anyone possibly say with a straight face that "black people are stupider than white people" is NOT a claim of white superiority?
It's not a claim of white superiority unless one holds the racist belief that an "objective" assessment of good and bad, inferior and superior, is to be made according to your non-black race's subjective values.
You hold that racist belief. Those who do not can easily make the statement you asked about with a straight face.
"Also, how can anyone possibly say with a straight face that "black people are stupider than white people" is NOT a claim of white superiority? In what world is dumb a good trait, and how do I stay away from"
How about we try leading with, northern Asians kick every other race's butt in math intelligence, whites kick butt in verbal intelligence and the two rank 1 and 2 in overall intelligence?
Why are "whites" the first group people refer to in these studies when a subset of Asians rank #1?
Andrew Sullivan is only free to talk about this because he belongs to the fashionably oppressed minority group of the moment.
So what? Any allies we can get regarding HBD are welcome. Remember plenty of gay men are unabashed elitists in contrast to lesbians who are almost fanatically egalitarian as Steve pointed out years ago. Andrew Sullivan can't be ignored because of his card carrying establishment credentials. Additionally like Starkey in the UK, he might be able to successfully fight off a PC Inquisition against his career precisely because he is gay. The fact that he is still willing to debate the topic after the Chernobyl like meltdown by the staff of the New Republic after he agreed to publish excerpts from the book only reinforces my view that he not only has intelligence, but guts as well.
Rod Dreher at The American Conservative website had the best take on this: so what?"
Until the State stops setting policy, and Hollywood stops making propaganda, based on blank slate assumptions (and thereby slandering white America with the attendant implication of responsibility for black pathologies and failure) "so what" is not an acceptable response.
The list of what is as long as any given piece of civil rights legislation.
Whats the matter Steve, afraid the 2009 SAT data will harm your 'Respectability'?
Ben Tillman, you may have missed the point of my little quip. IQ realists turn into racists because of stereotype threat; you know the soft discrimination of low expectations, etc.
GP.
Steve "Please master, if you let me point out racial differences in intelligence, I'll lie and say Asians are on top instead of Whites"
Marxists Master "Well..yes..yes I see how this could work to our advantage. It would make it appear as though anyone who told the truth about Whites higher IQs was denying 'scientific fact'. We could say they aren't being racial realist, and ridicule them.I'll allow it. Steven you are Respectable."
Steve "Thank you master"
I know the facts, and I have every right and reason to be proud. You on the other hand fib just enough to remain 'respectable'.
You've been making the same argument for decades and losing. What good have you done. What good is telling only part of the truth, just to lie about the other part. It doesn't work Steve.
We've been targeted for Genocide. We should oppose Genocide, and concede nothing. Screw respectability. This Asian supremecist garbage has only worked against us.
Maybe you should pull up Whitakeronline.org/blog and see something that actually works.
All races are exactly the same as each other - no smarter or dumber, no better or worse, no more moral or immoral. Oh, except that most whites are vicious, mean, nasty racists.
"Andrew Sullivan is only free to talk about this because he belongs to the fashionably oppressed minority group of the moment."
I had no idea Sullivan was Jewish. I guess it's the surname that fooled me.
"Rod Dreher at The American Conservative website had the best take on this: so what? To what use will this research be put?"
To what use has the belief that black underperformance is the result of racism been put? Oh yeah - lots.
Acknowledging the reality that racial differences in intelligence are real and biological will help put an end to white guilt - think welfare, affirmative action, quotas, set-asides, immigration, ad infinitum. Sounds pretty effing useful to me.
"Also, how can anyone possibly say with a straight face that "black people are stupider than white people" is NOT a claim of white superiority?"
Intelligence is a single metric. Higher intelligence does not imply overall "superiority," unless you think intelligence is the only thing that counts. That's your bias, not mine or everyone elses.
Also, I guess it's odd that Lefties aren't generally known for being particularly sympathetic to the feelings of vast swaths of humanity - like middle class whites, suburbanites, devout Christians, etc. - but object to discussing certain realities based on the notion of 'protecting their feelings.'
This is off topic, but iSteve readers will love it. It is Adam Carolla going on a rant about the OWS protesters.
"White 1034
East Asian 1004"
"Whats the matter Steve, afraid the 2009 SAT data will harm your 'Respectability'?"
Vivaldi, I don't think the 2009 data says what you think it says. According to, you know, the actual 2009 College Board Group Profile report the numbers are:
Asian, Asian-American and Pacific Islander 1103
White 1064
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/cbs-2009-national-TOTAL-GROUP.pdf
See table 8.
I think you forgot to carry the one. Further, the White category doesn't include Hispanics, who are in several other categories: "Mexican or Mexican-American", "Puerto Rican", "Other Hispanic, Latino or Latin American". And of course, that Asian category includes Tongans, Filipinos, etc. So, except for every detail, your posts were spot on!
But, then, since you are probably not Asian, I wouldn't expect your math to be that good. Note in Table 17, those with course work or experience with Chinese have a mean score in math of 610 and in Korean? 600. Being Korean or Chinese is apparently better for your math performance on the SAT than AP/Honors Math courses (594). Chinese subject exam takers got a 671 math, Korean- 667 and Japanese 658. And if you think these might not be East Asians taking these tests, well, according to table 23, about 80% of these test takers get above a 750, indicating fluency. In contrast, only 13% of Latin test takers score that high and only 28% of Spanish test takers score that high, indicating that most of these are not native.
RE: IQ realism and racism
The essential principle is: Nothing factual and scientific can be racist; nothing racist can be factual and scientific. By any
reasonable standard of careful word
usage and rational discourse, the
term "racism" is simply useless in
the contemporary MSM-saturated world because it is pervasively used indirect violation of this principle. Perhaps it can be stipulated that the word will have
core relevance WHEN/IF/ the general consensus of scientific experts is given due cognizance in the society at large. THEN, racism will be the sentiments and values ( vis a vis the science ) that are deemed by general consensus to be "beyond the pale".
Also one need only look at eg UCLA ('University of Caucasians Lost among Asians') or Berkeley (where walking across campus you see far fewer white faces than a generation ago) to see how immigration has imported millions of Asians whose kids are out-competing Whites for places at top universities. This is a change that is seldom mentioned. In polite company anyway.
.Rod Dreher at The American Conservative website had the best take on this: so what?"
like a dozen other posters have said here, - it SHOULD mean anyone with any common sense will stop disparate impact rulings that hurt whites (and 90% only whites, and only whites that aren't more equal than others)
of course the left never lets reality get in the way of ideology.
ben tillman,
Depends on what meaning of "racist" you intend. Yes, in the sense of "believing in the reality of race." No, in the sense of "irrationally and murderously hating minorities>'
-bb
I won't lie. I hate that book The Bell Curve. It does not help ME. I am in college getting a degree, so The Bell Curve doesn't help ME at all. If I believed everything Bell Curve said, I would have given up on life and settled for being a janitor, which I do not want to do. Here is a question: How does it help ME?? At the end of the day, I have to live with myself. How does any of this stuff make any account for the INDIVIDUAL?
"M Schwartz said...
Rand Simberg has a robust defense of Sullivan here."
That's not a robust defence. It's a disingenuous admission: "HBD is real, but it has no consequences." Nonsense. If it is real, then it has real consequences.
It's funny how Simberg derides "collectivists", as if any kind of collective action is evil. Does he engage in evil if he plays a game of doubles tennis? Nothing but us rugged individualists here in Objectivist-land! Randians truly are amusing.
I thought the Germans were 107; the Dutch were 106. The European Jews were 115.
I'm not any of those. I'm with
"At least we're smarter than the french."
goatweed
The Israeli government ad is rather revealing.
Some here seem to believe there's some grand, calculated Jewish conspiracy to push "diversity" and equality among all peoples in the US, while hypocritically supporting ethnocentrism in Israel.
But the very existence of this ad pretty well demonstrates the utter incompetence of that supposed conspiracy, should it actually exist. Problem is, if Jews have been pushing diversity and equality and assimilation, then guess who's been listening to them, and taking them at their word? Their children, would you believe it -- who are intermarrying (and mostly losing the hardcore Jewish identity of their own children) at a stupendously high rate.
Boy, that's one grand conspiracy that didn't turn out the way it was supposedly intended.
the only reason this research is so critically important is because it delegitimizes all the BS defenses of affirmative action, a k a "the Barry Obama get into Harvard with an average IQ card"
"Also one need only look at eg UCLA ('University of Caucasians Lost among Asians') or Berkeley (where walking across campus you see far fewer white faces than a generation ago) to see how immigration has imported millions of Asians whose kids are out-competing Whites for places at top universities. This is a change that is seldom mentioned. In polite company anyway."
Outcompeted with the help of a university system that wanted fewer whites, and changed the standards to achieve that, in any event. That said, asians were the wrong kind of diversity(tm), and they are going to keep at it.
"The Bell Curve" was a terrible book that actively distorted clear scientific evidence in order to push a false these about race, IQ, and success. The issue is not whether there is some genetic component to IQ. It's pretty clear there is. That is easy enough to show. But the problem Herrnstein and Murray had to get around is that A) IQ alone has only a small connection to adult success, B) IQ clearly has a significant environmental as well as genetic component. Both of those facts have enormous scientific evidence behind them, just as much as any IQ/genetic or IQ/race connection. When you add both of those facts together, they clearly imply that genetic IQ differences CANNOT, repeat CANNOT, be the major source of the vast differences we see in racial outcomes.
Herrnstein and Murray could not handle this. So what they did was manipulate and distort their data to make it appear as though A) they had eliminated the possibility of strong environmental contributions to IQ, and B) IQ had a strong effect on adult earnings (they basically did this by falsely equating IQ and education and dropping education from their earnings regressions; that is basically forgery). Jim Heckman -- a Republican Nobel prize-winning economist -- politely but thoroughly demolished their book in the pages of Reason on the basis of these problems.
Boy, that's one grand conspiracy that didn't turn out the way it was supposedly intended.
Someone forgot to disable the Golem.
I'd also like to add, a few people writing against Sullivan's stance seem to be opposing the view because eugenicists, slave holders, and racists believed in blacks' group intellectual inferiority.
Not so. They believed in black peoples moral inferiority, that they were worth less as people. The great advance in human thought lay in deciding that a humans worth has nothing to do with his intelligence.
not sure if you've seen this already:
"One memory particularly troubles Theckston. He says that some account executives earned a commission seven times higher from subprime loans, rather than prime mortgages. So they looked for less savvy borrowers — those with less education, without previous mortgage experience, or without fluent English — and nudged them toward subprime loans.
These less savvy borrowers were disproportionately blacks and Latinos, he said, and they ended up paying a higher rate so that they were more likely to lose their homes. Senior executives seemed aware of this racial mismatch, he recalled, and frantically tried to cover it up. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/kristof-a-banker-speaks-with-regret.html?_r=2
To what use has the belief that black underperformance is the result of racism been put? Oh yeah - lots.
Acknowledging the reality that racial differences in intelligence are real and biological will help put an end to white guilt - think welfare, affirmative action, quotas, set-asides, immigration, ad infinitum. Sounds pretty effing useful to me.
That's wishful thinking on your part. If racial differences in intelligence were accepted by everybody in America, nothing would change. In fact I suspect that most liberals already accept that racial differences in intelligence exist - they just don't see the point in mentioning it.
MQ,
You should make an attempt to find from Heckman ANY kind of defense these days of the notion that IQ is not mostly genetic in its basis, even between races.
One would think that if Heckman really believed that his criticisms of The Bell Curve really held up well over time, he would be eager to point out all the evidence that has transpired over the last 16 years or so that undermines the thesis of The Bell Curve.
Instead, what do we get out of Heckman? Only studies that seem to show that conscientiousness (or some personality cognate) can be increased by good schooling. What we DON'T get out of him are studies demonstrating that the IQ gap can be remedied by a particular environmental intervention.
And why don't we get such studies? Because those interventions don't exist, not even remotely, and no one is more keenly aware of that fact than James Heckman.
I doubt Coates knows a single black person who would back down from any white person in any street encounter.
There are some very odd people commenting on this site. Not just stupid - stupidity is common enough. But they're stupid in a peculiar way.
MQ writes: "'The Bell Curve' was a terrible book that actively distorted clear scientific evidence in order to push a false these[sic] about race, IQ, and success. The issue is not whether there is some genetic component to IQ. It's pretty clear there is. That is easy enough to show. But the problem Herrnstein and Murray had to get around is that A) IQ alone has only a small connection to adult success, B) IQ clearly has a significant environmental as well as genetic component. Both of those facts have enormous scientific evidence behind them, just as much as any IQ/genetic or IQ/race connection. When you add both of those facts together, they clearly imply that genetic IQ differences CANNOT, repeat CANNOT, be the major source of the vast differences we see in racial outcomes."
If the heritability of intelligence is only minor, then how does one explain the fact that blacks worldwide--in the arts, sciences, and business--have not produced 1 towering genius? Why no great black entrepreneurs?
Think about it. Blacks can only point to pop and jazz artists as proof of the race's superiority--but Duke Ellington is no Bach!
Black "successes" are invariably affirmative action lightweights like Obama, or athletes/rappers. How much more proof do you need, MQ?
It's not a claim of white superiority unless one holds the racist belief that an "objective" assessment of good and bad, inferior and superior, is to be made according to your non-black race's subjective values.
You hold that racist belief. Those who do not can easily make the statement you asked about with a straight face.
The way I think about supremacy is that it is basically a form of compression - supremacy is the idea that we can compress all human qualities to a single axis, and then we can have superior or inferior rankings on this single axis.
Now, we can do this. This is what we do with scores on various intelligence tests (totalled up to create an IQ score) to generate g.
The question is how lossy it is? In the case of g, basically not very lossy. In the case of all human qualities - I think it's quite lossy.
Plus, because there is a subjective weighting involved - how much weight you put depends on the weight you put on each category - there isn't ever going to be an "objective" supremacy.
MQ wrote :
[QUOTE] … But the problem Herrnstein and Murray had to get around is that A) IQ alone has only a small connection to adult success, [/QUOTE]
(A) Then I’ll be forced to assume by “adult success” you refer to rappers or drug-traffickers, since neither of them need a high IQ, or any for that matter, as we all know.
[QUOTE] B) IQ clearly has a significant environmental as well as genetic component. [/QUOTE]
(B) Then ship, say a domestic donkey, to the White House right now , and wait for 4 years until clear and significant Numero Uno environmental effects to take place for its IQ to advance into double-digit territory, then perhaps you might then want to vote it as your “President”?
[QUOTE] Both of those facts have enormous scientific evidence behind them, just as much as any IQ/genetic or IQ/race connection. [/QUOTE]
“Both”? “Facts”? … I must admit that you are a very creative person.
[QUOTE] When you add both of those facts together, they clearly imply that genetic IQ differences CANNOT, repeat CANNOT, be the major source of the vast differences we see in racial outcomes. [/QUOTE]
Now, if you kindly enough to add my (A) and (B) two facts together, you must also agree in your own logic that genetic IQ differences CANNOT, repeat CANNOT, be the major source of the vast differences we see among rappers/drug-traffickers and donkeys, yes?
Double cheers!
A Han Chinese
I don't mind a little well intentioned hypocrisy. There things which are true which should not be published on the front pages of our newspapers. The real struggle is for the minds of our ruling elites who decided public policy. If they understand HBD and are well intentioned, they will desist from destructive policies like replacing the native born white population with low IQ immigrants or wreaking the public schools in a vain attempt to make silk purses out of sows' ears. If they are not well intentioned, that is another matter. It may be that social upheaval is what they want and that is exactly what they will get.
MQ,
It's interesting that Black Harvard psychologist Ronald Fryer largely replicated the results of the Bell Curve in a recent paper, "Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination (2011)." You cite come early critiques of the BC, from 1995, but the IQ-outcome relations, and the genetic mediation (at least within populations), have been replicated since over and over again. You make is sound as if this was the only study on IQ and outcome. Read through
this addition of 'Human Performance', published 8 years after the BC. The data has only compiled since. All of the critiques that you mention are outdated or void.
"What amazing bad faith by Coates. Presumably he's referring to the relatively recent emergence of the (likely steriodal) Klitschkos. But before Vitaly won his title in 1999boxing fans, and blacks in general, considered whites to be a fighting joke. In fact it would probably be accurate to say that the main pillar of late-20th century black pride was the consistent ability of almost any black boxer to beat any white one. I doubt Coates knows a single black person who would back down from any white person in any street encounter."
Is this that freak troll Andrea/asdf etc. again?
@MQ
> IQ alone has only a small connection to adult success,
Depends how small, small is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ#Income
At higher levels it may be that there are diminishing returns but, the bulk of peopel are at lower levels, and too, lower levels are associated with crime (elsewhere in that article). IQ gaps between races are large where it matters to society.
At higher levels it may be that there are diminishing returns but, the bulk of peopel are at lower levels
The bulk of people are, by definition, not at "lower levels" but at average levels.
You make is sound as if this was the only study on IQ and outcome. Read through this addition of 'Human Performance', published 8 years after the BC.
That's not a study of IQ. It's a discussion of studies relating to IQ, some of which go back to the 1920's.
If the heritability of intelligence is only minor, then how does one explain the fact that blacks worldwide--in the arts, sciences, and business--have not produced 1 towering genius?
MQ never claimed that "the heritability of intelligence is only minor", so that's a strawman.
"I doubt Coates knows a single black person who would back down from any white person in any street encounter."
From what I've seen in Britain, black men seem to be very good at street-level threat assessment - better than white men are - and black men would be *more* ready to back down from a confrontation with a large, drunken white east-European or shaven-headed Brit.
If there is black physical triumphalism in the US that leads to 'Epic Beard Guy' type behaviour, it seems to be the product of certain cities in the north & coasts where whites have adopted a fearful cringe position re blacks.
My impression is that in terms of threat assessment, black men are the opposite of women, especially white women, who are *terrible* at threat assessment, at evaluating whether a situation is dangerous and should be avoided. I suspect there are evolutionary reasons for this - white women may have been less likely to get themselves killed when they made mistakes, perhaps white men were relatively effective protectors. Whereas the survival of a black man's male ancestors may have frequently depended on knowing when to fight and when to back down.
People seem to think individual variation in IQ renders group differences trivial or nonexistent, but in fact any variation between individuals combined with any heritability in intelligence means there must be some variation between groups.
That's why would-be debunkers like Gould had to settle on the idea that IQ and race are not "real". As this becomes less and less plausible, we'll see more of such calls to polite ignorance as Dreher's "so what" dodge.
"If the heritability of intelligence is only minor, then how does one explain the fact that blacks worldwide--in the arts, sciences, and business--have not produced 1 towering genius? Why no great black entrepreneurs?
Think about it. Blacks can only point to pop and jazz artists as proof of the race's superiority--but Duke Ellington is no Bach!
Black "successes" are invariably affirmative action lightweights like Obama, or athletes/rappers. How much more proof do you need, MQ?"
You're right. Not a one. Anywhere. There are more illustrious black scientists in the movies than in reality. And who is the most famous astrophysicist in the world--after Stephen Hawking? The black Neal deGrasse Tyson. Yet what precisely is his achievement in the field other than being black? Nothing against him, I'm sure he's a very smart guy, but I think you get my point.
1. There have been many subsequent twin and adoption studies which show that variation in mental abilities is significantly due to variation in genes (Steven Pinker ‘My Genome’ New York Times Jan 2009)
2. There are group ethnic differences in g – a 1 standard deviation b-w average difference (see Philip L Roth’s 2001 meta analysis in Personal Psychology, Volume 54, Issue 2, pages 297–330, June 2001).
3. The hard question is what causes these differences. When privately polled in the 1980′s relatively few academics seemed to think these were purely environmental, compared to those who thought they are due to both environmental and genetic variation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IQ_Controversy,_the_Media_and_Public_Policy_%28book%29
4. Is there any plausible reason why different geographic and cultural environments would favor the exact same distribution of mental and physical traits?
5. Professor Robert A. Weinberg, winner of the 1997 National Medal of Science. Weinberg delivers the final lecture in Biology 7.012 at MIT (2004):
Weinberg (@ 32:40): … And what happens if one of these days people discover alleles for certain aspects of cognitive function? Chess playing ability. The ability to learn five different languages. The ability to remember strings of numbers. The ability to speak extemporaneously in front of a class, for what it’s worth, for 50 minutes several times a week. Whatever ability you want, valued or not so valued, what if those alleles begin to come out? And here’s the worse part. What if somebody begins to look for the frequency of those alleles in different ethnic groups scattered across this planet? Now, you will say to me, well, God has made all his children equal. But the fact is if you look at the details of human evolution, some of which I discussed with you a week ago, last week, you’ll come to realize that most populations in humanity are the modern descendents of very small founder groups…. So the fact is it’s inescapable that different alleles are going to be present with different frequencies in different inbreeding populations of humanity or populations of humanity that traditionally have been genetically isolated from one another.”
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-012-introduction-to-biology-fall-2004/index.htm
Though 'racial superiority' is out, a revamped politically correct 'natonal superiority' is in, something both Clinton and Bush agree with.
US is 'exceptionally' superior to other nations, and why? Because we are more 'inclusive'. We are 'exceptionally inclusive', and that makes us nationally superior. But if everybody around the world is a prospective American, how do we formulate 'we' vs 'them'?
'Exceptional because America is the world' sounds nonsensical. It's like saying 'we are exceptional for being least exceptional in terms of the riff raff we take in from the world.'
anon 1:07:
What do you think the intellectual elite look like? Plenty of very smart people take their understanding of issues they don't know much about from the default respectable sources of information--the New York Times, stuff they learned in colllege, popular books like the stuff Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell crank out, etc. I deal with folks who are, by most any measure, among the intellectual elite of the country on a pretty regular basis. There is no shortage of people in that class who have the default worldview of educated people in the US--the background assmptions for NYT and NPR and CNN stories, or who "know" IQ is meaningless and racist because they read this one book by Gould in college.
There isn't some special channel of information that contains only the unvarnished truth distributed to the people making decisions, or the intellectual leaders. That's one reason it's so important to push back on places where journalists or scientists or anyone else decides there are some things we're better off not knowing, or that it's more responsible to mislead their readers than tell them the trurh. Nobody is smart enough to know all the people who will read what he writes and act on it, or what those people will do based on his information. But you dont have to know that to know that, in general, people will make much worse decisions when they base them on lies than on the truth.
mr_evergreen said...
I won't lie. I hate that book The Bell Curve. It does not help ME. I am in college getting a degree, so The Bell Curve doesn't help ME at all. If I believed everything Bell Curve said, I would have given up on life and settled for being a janitor, which I do not want to do. Here is a question: How does it help ME?? At the end of the day, I have to live with myself. How does any of this stuff make any account for the INDIVIDUAL?
Good question and there's a good answer, but it's complicated: Averages are not destiny. A big central lump still leaves some clay left over for the tails on the sides. You see the tails on the sides yes? Most individuals are not very individuated, but some are. Some REALLY are.
If you're in college you're off on the high side of the curve for humans, not just black people. Heck there are plenty of "white Injun" hillbillies in this country who are just as the jokes and stereotypes and averages would suggest, and there are a few who are on the high side of the human curve. Shrug.
The simple answer will always be racist/hateful/white supremacist vs head-in-the-sand/equality of outcomes/wishful thinking. "One drop makes you duh and vilunt" vs "Happy thoughts, happy thoughts." Whites who are really supreme can handle more than just a simple answer... be a supreme black guy and take heart in the depth of the data. ;)
In fact it would probably be accurate to say that the main pillar of late-20th century black pride was the consistent ability of almost any black boxer to beat any white one. I doubt Coates knows a single black person who would back down from any white person in any street encounter."
Is this that freak troll Andrea/asdf etc. again?
Yeah I must be imagining all those times I got black dudes to back down. It's not a sign of intelligence to be so innumerate, whoever wrote it; that the top 1% (or whatever) of black boxers beat up on the top 1% of white boxers has little to no bearing on whether some black dude in the ?%-tile can beat up some white dude in the ?%-tile. It's a pretty flimsy leap in logic. Do black guys assess white guys a bit lower than they assess black guys (and vice-versa)? Probably, because that would make sense because blacks probably do have a boxing edge. Then there's the problem with equating boxing to street fighting (they still won't allow headbutting or choke holds in boxing, darnit).
Whoever it was probably thinks the bookies decide who wins the games, and they just play them as a formality.
I thought the Germans were 107; the Dutch were 106. The European Jews were 115.
Nope. Ashkenazis in America are around 110-112 (according to some sources; this is neither the high or the low estimate), but Ashkenazis in Israel are around 104 IIRC. The average of the two is ballpark 108.
Jewish identity has nothing to do with genes and everything to do with ideology.
Hyperbole, I think. Behavioral genetics is still in its infancy. And I see some significant behavioral differences (beyond just IQ differences) between Ashkenazis and other groups. If ethnocentrism doesn't have a gene or gene-pattern, it's entirely possible that feeder traits (that do have gene-patterns) do.
Some here seem to believe there's some grand, calculated Jewish conspiracy to push "diversity" and equality among all peoples in the US, while hypocritically supporting ethnocentrism in Israel.
But the very existence of this ad pretty well demonstrates the utter incompetence of that supposed conspiracy, should it actually exist.
Your straw man is down for the count. Congratulations.
Their children, would you believe it -- who are intermarrying (and mostly losing the hardcore Jewish identity of their own children) at a stupendously high rate.
Wow, never heard that one before. What exactly is "a stupendously high rate"? I mean, don't you need something to compare it to? AFAIK compared to Whites, the Jewish intermarriage rate is quite low.
P.S., are you going to be the first person, ever, to actually tell me how many American Jews marry blacks? Or is that some kind of state secret?
Yeah I must be imagining all those times I got black dudes to back down. It's not a sign of intelligence to be so innumerate, whoever wrote it; that the top 1% (or whatever) of black boxers beat up on the top 1% of white boxers has little to no bearing on whether some black dude in the ?%-tile can beat up some white dude in the ?%-tile. It's a pretty flimsy leap in logic.
Svigor, he must've missed the Amber Lamps incident on YouTube.
Simon in London:
Here on the U.S. west coast, I've had young black men engage in explicit threat assessment with me. It goes like this: "you a cop?" It is so far outside their experience to be confronted by an unterrified white man, that any such person must, ipso facto, be armed by the state.
"Anonymous said..That's not a study of IQ. It's a discussion of studies relating to IQ, some of which go back to the 1920's...."
Yes, and all those studies converge on same fact as do the numerous studies in the last decade. So it's not enough to criticize the BC. If you want to dispute the findings, you have to dispute the whole body of research.
"Anonymous said...
MQ never claimed that "the heritability of intelligence is only minor", so that's a strawman."
MQ's fallacy was to claim that a low within-popultion heritability implied a low between population heritability. And that low within population IQ-outcome effects implied low between population effects. They don't. Just imagine an anti-Lewontin and then go read Robert Gordon's "Everyday Life as an Intelligence Test: Effects of Intelligence and Intelligence Context." To quote:
"The second level of analysis, the contextual, illustrated how probabilities of error (or success) are further modulated by the intelligence level of one’s near context, particularly family and peers. Explanations of differences in g-related individual behavior must thus take account not only of individuals’ own levels of g, but also the levels of the individuals who form their proximal environment. Functional advantages go not only to individuals who are brighter, but also to those who are fortunate enough to live among brighter individuals and, especially, to participate in the fraternite’ of acceptable reciprocal exchange with those individuals….
…If g is not to be sold short, care must be taken, when considering its effects, to qualify certain forms of intelligence data as applying only to the individual g of probands (as distinct from data reflecting, in addition, the local intelligence text, or, ultimately, the potential full effects of g in the probands’ population on prevalence of the outcome concerned). For example, the phrase supplied in brackets needs to be added to statements such as the following, which summed up the fact that Hermstein and Murray (1994) had reported unexplained residual differences between races in certain undesirable outcomes after controlling for individual IQ: “Given that IQ was equated for Blacks and Whites, it is clear that much more is contributing to differences in societal outcomes than just IQ [of the proband” (Sternberg, 1996, p. 15). Most of the residual differences that prompted this critical comment, when portrayed as percentage differences instead of ratios of two, three, or five to one, were in fact rather small, 8% or less. The largest percentage difference (and source of the 5: 1 ratio), 41% for out-of-wedlock births, obviously involved partners, not to mention wider contexts, whose IQs were not controlled (e.g., Dearden, Hale, & Woolley, 1995)."
By my estimates -- which I have not posted yet -- after factoring in the population factor, most of the disparity is now reversed.
"Good question and there's a good answer, but it's complicated: Averages are not destiny. A big central lump still leaves some clay left over for the tails on the sides. You see the tails on the sides yes? Most individuals are not very individuated, but some are. Some REALLY are.
If you're in college you're off on the high side of the curve for humans, not just black people. Heck there are plenty of "white Injun" hillbillies in this country who are just as the jokes and stereotypes and averages would suggest, and there are a few who are on the high side of the human curve. Shrug.
The simple answer will always be racist/hateful/white supremacist vs head-in-the-sand/equality of outcomes/wishful thinking. "One drop makes you duh and vilunt" vs "Happy thoughts, happy thoughts." Whites who are really supreme can handle more than just a simple answer... be a supreme black guy and take heart in the depth of the data. ;)"
I know that averages are not destiny. However, there are people who will take those averages, and try to push it as an agenda. The best I can do is be an individual and be me. However, if enough people take The Bell Curve seriously, then being an individual will be much harder. I don't believe that IQ plays a big part or biology for that matter. I think that a large part is structural, and a matter of personal responsibility. To say that it is biological and genetic is to say that there is nothing that can be done, and then that will lead to defeatist thinking.
I recall in "The Blank Slate" Steve Pinker quoted The Bell Curve estimating that IQ was half genetic, so MQ would seem to be setting up a strawman.
mr_evergreen said...
I know that averages are not destiny. However, there are people who will take those averages, and try to push it as an agenda. The best I can do is be an individual and be me. However, if enough people take The Bell Curve seriously, then being an individual will be much harder.
Yes Virginia, there will be asses. White people with bad self esteem will happen. It is what it is.
I don't believe that IQ plays a big part or biology for that matter.
Bzzzt.
Stand by to get Watsoned. --Thomas
I imagine that Killer Muscle Andy would prefer to be Wilded.
I've met Ta-Nehisi Coates. He's a very bright guy with a lot of nerdy interests (the Civil War, comic books, Dungeons and Dragons) who also happens to be a: the son of a Black Panther who raised him in a semi-communal home in inner city Baltimore, and b: a quite tall, powerfully built black guy, which draws a lot of negative attention despite the fact that he usually dresses quite conservatively and has a pretty open, friendly manner. I can see how a smart, genuinely accomplished black guy wouldn't take kindly to being called a member of an inferior race.
Re: Jews and intermarriage. Among my current Jewish friends and acquaintances, nearly all of them are "mixed" - mostly half-Jews.
I recall in "The Blank Slate" Steve Pinker quoted The Bell Curve estimating that IQ was half genetic, so MQ would seem to be setting up a strawman.
No, he's not. Pinker's estimate is ludicrously low.
Except in rare cases of extreme neglect, IQ is almost entirely a function of genes. Genes establish an upper bound on IQ, and it's safe to say that more than 95% of Americans have IQ's that exceed 95% of their personal upper limit.
"Anonymous said..That's not a study of IQ. It's a discussion of studies relating to IQ, some of which go back to the 1920's...."
Yes, and all those studies converge on same fact as do the numerous studies in the last decade.
You're supposed to cite and/or link to those alleged "numerous studies in the last decade", not make yet another vague reference to them.
NOTA said .. What do you think the intellectual elite look like? Plenty of very smart people take their understanding of issues they don't know much about from the default respectable sources of information--the New York Times, stuff they learned in colllege, popular books like the stuff Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell crank out, etc. I deal with folks who are, by most any measure, among the intellectual elite of the country on a pretty regular basis. There is no shortage of people in that class who have the default worldview of educated people in the US--the background assmptions for NYT and NPR and CNN stories, or who "know" IQ is meaningless and racist because they read this one book by Gould in college.
So you are basically telling me that "the high IQ elite are stupid"?
They are stupid, of course, but that just raises questions which the IQ fetishists would rather not address, such as "Why do so many high IQ people do so many stupid and destructive things?" or even "Has the rise of the high IQ elite been a good thing for America?"
"Anonymous said...
You're supposed to cite and/or link to those alleged "numerous studies in the last decade", not make yet another vague reference to them."
Not difficult. The citations are cited in the linked series of articles. For a more recent meta-analysis look up Strenze (2007) "Intelligence and socioeconomic success A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research." Correlations between IQ at 19 and education, occupation, and income: .56, .45, .23. Now factor in the population effect (i.e. being educated with, working around, and being employed by people with a similar IQ). A 1 SD difference in IQ explains more than the whole respective gaps.
" He's a very bright guy with a lot of nerdy interests (the Civil War, comic books, Dungeons and Dragons)..."
A black guy with an interest in the Civil War wouldn't be too unusual. Furthermore, I'm perplexed by your association of nerdy interests in mostly childish things with high IQ. Let's mail Ta-neishi a bag of legos and see what he can make with them just to confirm your belief that the guy's a genius; and that genius, as defined by you and your ilk, is such a great thing.
"A 1 SD difference in IQ explains more than the whole respective gaps."
Hey, brainiac, you need to rework this sentence.
Coates saying there is no suppression of debate on IQ is like Ahmadinejad saying there are no homosexuals in Iran.
He doesn't see any, therefore...
"Yes Virginia, there will be asses. White people with bad self esteem will happen. It is what it is.
Bzzzt."
I don't know whether to take this statement as what it is or to take is as sarcasm. I need to know.
What does Bzzzt mean?
Correlations between IQ at 19 and education, occupation, and income: .56, .45, .23. Now factor in the population effect (i.e. being educated with, working around, and being employed by people with a similar IQ). A 1 SD difference in IQ explains more than the whole respective gaps.
"Whole respective gaps" in what? For a guy extolling the virtues of IQ you're a rather poor writer.
Correlation <> causation. If we make education, income etc contingent on doing well on IQ tests, people who do well on IQ tests will be overrepresented among the highly educated and high income earners.
mr_evergreen said...
I don't know whether to take this statement as what it is or to take is as sarcasm. I need to know.
What does Bzzzt mean?
Sorry, it was an unhelpful way of responding to this:
I don't believe that IQ plays a big part or biology for that matter.
I was trying to say I entirely disagree. Dramatically disagree. I think the data's clear on that. I don't think there's any way your belief can fit with the numbers.
I used to believe in intra-group variation but no inter-group variation - that's how a nicey-nicey lefty guy interprets biology. (The plain facts could never fit with, no differences at all, "biology doesn't matter". That has no place in science.)
Thing is, the two don't work together. Biology just doesn't fit with the idea of identical populations. Inter-group variation turns out to be the only explanation for the data we have - and the only result you could EVER get out of an evolutionary process. Change happens. Differences happen.
Jacob:
Differences in groups that were separated for a long time are pretty much inevitable, and also are visible and undeniable. But I dont think there was anything inevitable about differences in intelligence that are big enough to matter. A lot of that is about our society and tech level--I suspect that IQ difference would have mattered enormously less in, say, 1811. But in 2011, a lot of your value to an employer is about how smart you are. Even worse, a lot of the ways people climb the ladder of importance ad respectability in US society is heavily dependent on intelligence--to a first approximation, your kids succeed by going to a good school, and becoming doctors and engineers and accountants and lawyers and dentists and such. For those things, IQ differences of one standard deviation matter.
edgy:
Ta-Nehisi is a blogger. If you want to evaluate how interesting he is to read, surely the best way to go about that is to go read through some of his articles, ideally ones not focused on the black/white IQ differnce, where you're starting out in fundamental disagreement with him. Google is your friend. I find him very much worth reading.
Anonymous:
High IQ people, at least the ones I know and work with, are very knowledgeable about stuff that interests them. But on stuff that doesn't interest them that much, they tend to take the default views of their family, community, social class, and country. Most of the time, this isn't an unreasonable thing to do.
Also, the mental bugs that make you susceptible to partisan and nationalistic blindness (where you take a story about how Democrats are way smarter than Republicans at face value, because it fits with what you want to believe or what you kind of think ought to br true) don't go away when ou become smart and specialized in some hard field of study. Propaganda can work just as well on smart people as dumb ones, if it's targeted at them. (Note how effective this was i convinving a generation or so of smart well-meaning people that Stalin and Lenin were humanitarians ushering in a new and wonderful era.).
To my mind, the problem isn't a high-IQ elite, it's having a elite making so many decisions from the top. If you're going to concentrate power at the top like that, a high IQ and degree from a top school probably doesn't hurt, but even a very smart person with a first rate education can't be an expert on very much. On other stuff, he will find someoe else to trust. And in practice, the guy at the top will be selected by some process that filters more for ruthless determination to be on top than anything else, and his advisors (whether they write for the NYT or serve on his cabinet) will bring an agenda of their own to every article, explanation, and briefing.
"Whole respective gaps" in what? For a guy extolling the virtues of IQ you're a rather poor writer.
May I guess at Coates' IQ based on his facility with English, too? Just wondering...
mr evergreen:
Anytime you study reality, there's a risk that you will learn stuff that you wish weren't true. But day in and day out, basing your actions on reality, as best you can understand it, will probably give you better results than anty other strategy.
Look, people from my race ethnically cleansed and massacred a whole bunch of the original population of this continent, and hauled a bunch of people over here from Africa to work for us at whip-point. This isn't something calculated to make me swell up with pride. But it's the truth. I'd rather know the truth than hear stories that make me feel good.
TNC correctly skewers historical revisionism calculated to let white confederates keep a certain amount of pride in their ancestors. Who, as it turns out, were fighting ultimately to make sure they could go on owning people. I think the principle he's pushing there is a really important one.
Now, what does something like the bell curve do for you? One thing it might do is help you see something broken about rhe direction our society has moved in over the last couple generations--toward having more and more of the society optimized for the smart people at the top, and toward having smart people mostly associate with each other so they don't even notice the people who just lost the genetics-and-environment lottery, and are never going to be doctors or financiers or lawyers or journalists.
I have no idea how to fix that brokenness. (Most of the people who might have tried got so wrapped around the axle about the race/IQ discussion in that book that they never noticed the cognitive stratification discussion.). But it seems to be a real phenomenon. and I think knowing about it helps me understand the world I live in. Look at the common media discussions about immigration, and you'll see a huge hole where there should be a discussion of what happens to te folks who used to do the construction jobs immigrants took. That's kind of invisible. The folks writing and reading those stories mostly don't know any of those people.
High IQ people, at least the ones I know and work with, are very knowledgeable about stuff that interests them. But on stuff that doesn't interest them that much, they tend to take the default views of their family, community, social class, and country.
I repeat, this doesn't say much for their alleged intelligence. Intelligence is something different from IQ. Intelligent people do not take the default views of their social class.
the mental bugs that make you susceptible to partisan and nationalistic blindness (where you take a story about how Democrats are way smarter than Republicans at face value, because it fits with what you want to believe or what you kind of think ought to br true)
You're projecting like crazy. I'm not susceptible to partisan or nationalistic blindness. I'm accurately observing that the people responsible for "PC", the people who are regularly castigated on this blog, are for the most part the high IQ elite.
I'm commenting on the absurdity of the general tone of commenting on this blog, which consists of remarks extolling the wonderfulness of high IQ in the abstract, interspersed with remarks bemoaning the fact that the actual flesh-and-blood high IQ elite believes pretty much the exact opposite of what the typical iSteve commenter does.
To my mind, the problem isn't a high-IQ elite, it's having a elite making so many decisions from the top.
The two things are not separable. Power always craves centralization.
I'm accurately observing that the people responsible for "PC", the people who are regularly castigated on this blog, are for the most part the high IQ elite.-- Anonymous the Brave
The Calvinists, crazy but smart, had the answer to this: the total depravity of man. If the ultra-smart believe this stuff, they're fools. If they only pretend to believe it, they're knaves.
Genius-fools are more foolish than average fools, and genius-knaves more knavish than ordinary knaves. That's why Hitler (and his followers) were a bigger danger than Idi Amin.
Garbage. Perhaps that's your personal opinion but it has no basis in science.
That's hardly a compelling criticism from someone expressing a personal opinion with no basis in science.
Anon:
You're engaging in the no true Scottsman fallacy. Many people who are very intelligent in the sense that they are successful in intellectually demanding fields do, in fact, take a lot of their worldview from the surrounding society.
Now, there are people who try to think through more of their society's default assumptions. But you can only do so much of this, if you want to have time to do other stuff, like doing interesting scientific research, teaching students, or keeping up with research in your field. Or pursuing your other interests, or raising s family, or doing the boring but necessary parts of your job, like filling out paperwork or applying for grants or reviewing papers for a journal or....
And not everyone is cut out to be a Robin Hansen or Noam Chomsky or Edward Wilson. Nor is it clear you're going to do better than your society's consensus view most of the time. Personally, I try to notice societal blind spots--places where otherwise smart people say dumb things, but even there, it's a lot more common to realize the common view is screwy than to know how to fix it.
You're engaging in the no true Scottsman fallacy.
No, I am not. (And one of the more irritating sorts of people are the ones who invoke logical fallacy's without understanding them)
Many people who are very intelligent in the sense that they are successful in intellectually demanding fields do, in fact, take a lot of their worldview from the surrounding society.
What you are trying to say, but saying it badly, is that many successful people are not especially intelligent.
there are people who try to think through more of their society's default assumptions. But you can only do so much of this, if you want to have time to do other stuff, like doing interesting scientific research, teaching students, or keeping up with research in your field.
You are being idiotic. Nobody is demanding that, in addition to solving difficult problems in the field of medicine, Professor Jones also master the arcane field of string theory. The point is that these supposedly highly intelligent people lack the most basic and banal knowledge about people and society.
The problem here is not "societies" default assumptions. Society does not think the stupid things in question. Only a small subset of society thinks the stupid things in question - the subset made up of high IQ people.
The point which you are stubbornly refusing to admit is that the stupid beliefs in question originated and still reside in the the sort of people who you imagine to be the "intellectual elite".
The point which you are stubbornly refusing to admit is that blue-collar workers without a college degree have a much better grasp of racial and ethnic differences than do people with sky-high IQ's and Ivy League degrees.
This is throwing good time after bad, but when pretty much everyone other than you talks about intelligence, we mean something that is notably present in working scientists and mathematicians, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc, relative to the rest of the population. So when you try to redefine intelligence so that no true Scottsman, or rather intelligent person, fails to see their society's blind spots on race and resolve them in the same way you do, with the goal of showing that all those allegedly smart people aren't really very smart, you are supremely unconvincing.
"High IQ people, at least the ones I know and work with, are very knowledgeable about stuff that interests them. But on stuff that doesn't interest them that much, they tend to take the default views of their family, community, social class, and country."
You could be right. I've always had a strong interest in geography, history, and languages. It interests me how it all works. At a time I was interested in astronomy and weather. I want to get back to it again. All of them are hobbies for me. I'm not that interested in mathematics because it's only numbers to me. I wasn't particularly interested in alot of things being covered in my literature classes in school. I picked up a book by Richard Wright and it was of interest to me. I spent ALL day reading it from beginning to end. It was of interest to ME.
"I think the data's clear on that. I don't think there's any way your belief can fit with the numbers."
It isn't clear to me, because with all tests, there is bias, and bias is often a matter of culture and what a person's environment is. At home, there were so many books in my home and my parents encouraged me to read them. Contrast that with a kid my old neighborhood who was always out hunting, another kid who played basketball all the time, or someone whose parents couldn't have cared less. For me, race had nothing to do with it. I just did what I wanted.
MQ,
Your lips are moving again, I see. tsk tsk.
How the "no true Scotsman" logical fallacy works.
Alice: All Scotsmen enjoy haggis.
Bob: My uncle is a Scotsman, and he doesn't like haggis!
Alice: Well, all true Scotsmen like haggis.
NOTA, you do not understand logical fallacies. Please stop pretending that you do.
when you try to redefine intelligence so that no .. intelligent person, fails to see their society's blind spots on race and resolve them in the same way you do
You are either incapable of understanding simple written English, or, more likely, too stubborn to admit the obvious.
I make no claim that "intelligent person(s)" must "see" what I do.
I am pointing out that this blog and its commenters constantly extoll the virtues of high IQ in the abstract, while at the same time constantly criticizing the beliefs and actions of the majority of actual high IQ people.
If you were an intelligent person who disagreed with me you should then respond by taking issue with one of those two contentions. You might argue that this site and its cmmenters actually take a much more nuanced view of IQ than I am asserting. You might argue that high IQ people do not in fact hold views contrary to those of Steve and his readers. You might even argue that high IQ people do hold views contrary to those of this site, but only because they are more intelligent. You might argue that if this sites readers were more intelligent they would think as the high IQ crowd do.
But you are not doing any of those things. Instead you keep repeating the same inane twaddle about "no true Scotsman", apparently in the belief that doing so makes you sound .... intelligent.
when pretty much everyone other than you talks about intelligence, we mean something that is notably present in working scientists and mathematicians, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc, relative to the rest of the population.
Well, there's your problem! As a leftist you take it for granted that the New Class is de facto wonderfully smart. You are oblivious to the immense body of conservatism criticism - from Burke to Hayek - of the New Class as being ignorant.
That's the core of your problem. The fact that you're engaging in the logical fallacy known as Argumentum Ad Populum is just an amusing side note.
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