Shame, sanity, and boredom finally triumph in Omar Thornton story

The highlight of press coverage of Omar Thornton's racist rampage a week ago Tuesday was this AP non-story from 3.5 days later desperately trying to keep alive the white-racism-is-to-blame paint-by-numbers storyline, "Cops mum on probe of Conn. shooter's racism claim," which frantically concluded:

Messages seeking comment about a potential investigation into Thornton's racism claims were left Friday for the Hartford State's Attorney's Office, the FBI's New Haven office, the chairman of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, and for the president of the Connecticut NAACP.

On the federal side, a spokesman for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the agency is barred by law from confirming or denying the existence of any discrimination investigation.

And the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which investigates whenever workplace fatalities occur, reviews compliance with federal workplace law, a spokesman said. Though it is investigating the shootings, OHSA'S jurisdiction is safety and health issues, not personnel issues, spokesman Edmund Fitzgerald said Friday.

Here it is, five days later, though, and everybody is still mum. It's a conspiracy, I tell you! It goes right to the top.

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

Slate: All We Have To Do is fire 2.8 million out of 3.5 million teachers

Columbia Business School professor Ray Fisman explains in Slate in "Is firing (a lot of) teachers the only way to improve public schools?" that All We Have To Do to fix the public schools is to get rid of the bottom 80 percent of teachers (2.8 million) and replace them with a different 2.8 million who are just as effective at raising test scores as the top 0.7 million teachers currently are:

How many teachers would school reformers have to fire in order to get American schools performing at their best? That's the question researchers Doug Staiger and Jonah Rockoff set out to answer in a study they presented at the Columbia conference.

The researchers went through a simulation exercise, building on prior findings about the impact that great teachers have on their students, the fraction of incoming teachers who turn out to be strong performers in the classroom, and the "signal-to-noise" ratio in a teacher's performance during her first couple of years (i.e., how hard it is to tell whether a teacher is bad or just unlucky).

When they ran the numbers, the answer their computer spat out had them reviewing their work looking for programming errors. The optimal rate of firing produced by the simulation simply seemed too high: Maximizing teacher performance required that 80 percent of new teachers be fired after two years' probation.

After checking and rechecking their analyses, Staiger and Rockoff came to understand why a thick stack of pink slips are needed to improve schools. There are enormous costs to having mediocre teachers burdening the school system, and once they get their union cards, we're stuck with them for decades. The benefits of keeping only the superstars is enormous, such that it's better to risk accidentally losing some of the good ones than to have deadwood sticking around forever.

Is an 80 percent dismissal rate practical? One issue is whether there would be enough new recruits to replace all the teachers you'd be firing. Teach for America has been able to fill its ranks with Ivy League graduates year after year, so we know there are lots of college grads who are willing to devote at least a couple of years of their lives to teaching, and 63 percent of TFA alumni remain in the field of education afterward.

Similarly, think how good the LA Lakers would be if they fired all their players besides Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol and replaced them with guys who are just as good as Kobe and Pau. They'd be epic! Speaking of firing all the deadwood, why do they let idiots like Phil Jackson and Mitch Kupchak run the Lakers when they could just hire some economists who are good with SAS to figure it all out?

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

Black people like being black

Farhad Manjoo in Slate gingerly considers why blacks play such a large role on Twitter in pushing certain "hashtags" to popularity in How Black People Use Twitter:

Instead, the ones that seem to hit big are those that comment on race, love, sex, and stereotypes about black culture. Many read like Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck …" routine applied to black people—for instance, last December's #ifsantawasblack (among the tamer contributions: "#ifsantawasblack he wouldnt say ho ho ho, he would say yo yo yo") or July's #ghettobabynames (e.g., "#ghettobabynames Weavequisha.") The bigger reason why the Dozens theory isn't a silver bullet is that a lot of people of all races insult one another online generally, and on Twitter specifically. We don't usually see those trends hit the top spot. Why do only black people's tweets get popular? ...

Now for the caveats. There is an obvious problem with talking about how black people use Twitter, as many of the black Twitter users I spoke to took pains to point out: Not all black people on the service are participating in these hashtags, and there are probably a great many who are indifferent to or actively dislike the tags. "It's the same issue I have with certain black comedy shows," says Elon James White, a comedian who runs the site This Week in Blackness. "They put out these ideas of blackness that—if it were someone of another race saying them—you'd go, 'Whoa, that's racist!'" ...

Given that these hashtags are occurring in a subgroup of black people online, it is probably a mistake to take them as representative of anything larger about black culture. "For people who aren't on the inside, it's sort of an inside look at a slice of the black American modes of thought," says Jonathan Pitts-Wiley, also a former writer at The Root. "I want to be particular about that—it's just a slice of it. Unfortunately, it may be a slice that confirms what many people already think they know about black culture." 

Whenever I read the conventional wisdom about how the solution for black misery is to send black youth a bunch of Teach for America Ivy Leaguers so that the immiserated black youth of America can learn "middle class" (i.e., white) culture, I have to wonder about the basic premises behind this widespread white assumption.

For one thing, how much do blacks want to act white?

As far as I can tell, blacks, on the whole, have a blast being black.

They not only like being black, they like to talk about being black with other blacks. They have one of the more homogeneous cultures in the world, in part because they are constantly discussing being black with each other.

The assumption that black students will look at their workaholic white Teach for America teacher and say, "Man, that's the life for me!" seems a tad naive.

The reigning theory is that white culture will rub off on blacks by osmosis, but there is precious little evidence to back it up. Indeed, exposure to white people just makes blacks focus more on their blackness.

I've had this discussion with New Zealand professor James Flynn (of The Flynn Effect), who provides the conventional wisdom with whatever social science heft it has. If, like Flynn, you really want to change the environment for blacks enough to raise their IQ scores, well, then, you would have to make them embarrassed about acting black. You would have to make them want to compete for the regard of white people by acting white, the way Berry Gordy had his Motown stars, like The Supremes, take lessons in proper decorum.

And, these days, which whites, exactly, are volunteering for the job of making blacks feel ashamed that they aren't acting white? How much prestige and social approval would you receive for taking on that onerous task?

Instead of blacks competing for white approval, whites today compete with each other over how much they approve of blacks.

Not surprisingly, that doesn't do much to improve black behavior.

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

In Defense of the Hard Sciences

In the comments, Noah responds to my complaints that physicists haven't done any better than social scientists at delivering the impossible:

Whine whine whine.

Your teleporter and your faster-than-light starship are too expensive. Your time machine was always impossible, we told you that.

As for your antigravity device, we're working on it, but you wouldn't want to use it because it would cause you to be flung out of the Earth's orbit.

Come on, man, we gave you lasers, pain rays, moon rockets, flying cars (if the govt. would let you buy one), jet packs, and absurdly good data storage, not to mention the aforementioned city-vaporizing asskickery. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT???

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

Teachers' Pay

Over at Your Lying Eyes, Ziel has some scatter charts up correlating, for all 50 states, teacher's pay (relative to the state's median income and the state's median white income to account for the sizable cost of living adjustments of today) with NAEP 8th grade reading scores for white students (to take the whole race thing out of play for once in educational statistics.) 

The correlation between teacher pay and student performance is fairly low. And it's negative. (Click on the graph to see it readably large.)

Oddly enough, the best bargains would appear to be found in four unionized Atlantic seaboard states: Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. (It could be that unionized states spend more on pensions and benefits: I don't know.) Of course, those are states containing suburbs of three high income / high IQ metropolises: DC, NYC, and Boston. The worst pay-performance bargain, by far, is in West Virginia. In other words, we see the Lucky Jim Rule in action again: "There was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones." If you have a lot of smart, highly paid people in your state, life is good.

If you look at teacher's pay relative to overall income, California looks like it's getting a bad deal, with mediocre white student performance and teacher's pay the third highest relative to the state's median income. But California's median income is very low relative to its cost of living due to all the fast food workers the federal government, in its infinite wisdom, has allowed into California over the years. If you compare teacher's pay to the median income of white households (which I think is a more reasonable comparison for a college grad's job -- granted, not always the hardest major to degree in), then California is merely mediocre, although Texas is still getting a better deal.

California's essential problem is that a huge fraction of Californians can't afford to live in California.

In general, I think much of the hoopla over the educational impact of teachers' unions is overstated. Are teachers' unions really keeping NAM students from living up to their unlimited potential? I dunno ...

The whole teachers' union topic is so popular to argue about in part because it gives white people something to blame each other for without mentioning the quality of the students.

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

Whistling Straits

With the PGA Championship returning this week to Whistling Straits, a spectacular pseuo-Irish Pete Dye golf course on Lake Michigan north of Milwaukee, I thought I'd link to this review I wrote of the course when it was new in 1999.

(For my 2005 magnum opus on the art of golf course architecture, see here.)

Also, Michael Agger is writing a long series this week in Slate on innovations in the study of golf statistics, which looks pretty good.

For example, one finding is that tour players are more risk averse in their tactics than is optimal. They try harder to avoid a bogey than to make a birdie, but they get paid by the total strokes for the week, so that doesn't make much sense.

In terms of the applicability of moneyball techniques, one issue that distinguishes team sports, such as baseball, from individual sports, such as golf, is that baseball teams can have both statistics-driven training and selection techniques available to them, while individual golfers have only training. Touring pros can't deselect themselves, without taking up an exciting new career in giving golf lessons at the country club.

For example, the Bill James revolution in baseball encouraged teams to start asking their players to try to walk more and hit more home runs, even at the cost of additional strikeouts. Sometimes hitters could change their style, sometimes they couldn't. If they couldn't, teams became more likely to get rid of them. (See the career of Raul Mondesi, who was worshiped as a god of the diamond until more sophisticated baseball stats came into fashion.)

Golf moneyball could, theoretically, be very useful for that fraction of players whose personalities are amenable to changing approaches. In baseball, we've seen some players adapt to the new statistics by getting more walks, but we've seen a lot of other players fail to do that. I suspect that the current aversion of pro golfers to statistical analysis is not wholly obscurantist. When advanced statistics do become fashionable in golf, we will likely see some pretty good golfers fall apart as they attempt to incorporate the insights of the new golf statistics and, in the process, ruin the delicate balance of their games and psyches.

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

In Defense of the Social Sciences

Allow me to refer once again to Jim Manzi's article in City Journal:

What Social Science Does—and Doesn’t—Know
Our scientific ignorance of the human condition remains profound

Manzi complains that the social sciences never come up with anything useful and "nonintuitive" compared to physics and other hard sciences. That's because, according to Manzi, social scientists don't use the right methodology: experimentation. (By the way, Manzi's company, Applied Predictive Technologies, will sell you the right methodology. Just dial 1-877-400-2559.)

And, indeed, physicists get a lot of respect, especially since they built the atomic bomb. (Nothing makes people respect you more than the ability to vaporize them en masse.)

In reality, though, the social sciences have uncovered a huge amount of useful knowledge about humanity. The vast field of cognitive testing, for example, which has, for better or worse, greatly altered American life over the last century, is a triumph of the social sciences.

Or consider hydrogen bomb-designer Stanislaw Ulam's challenge to economist Paul Samuelson: Tell me something you econ fellows have come up with that is both true and non-trivial. Samuelson puzzled over that one for years, then finally came up with Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. But Spearman's g-Factor theory of 1904 is worth comparing to comparative advantage in  nontriviality.

What social scientists can't do is the same thing as physicists can't do: the impossible.

Just as social scientists have failed to figure out how to eliminate many social and racial disparities, physicists have failed to make possible many desirable technologies lovingly imagined in the science fiction novels of my youth.

Where's my teleporter? Where's my faster-than-light starship? Where's my anti-gravity device? Where's my time machine? 

C'mon, physicists, there must be something wrong with your methodologies!

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

Obama's Affordable College Speech & Bush's Affordable Housing Speech

Barack Obama went to Austin today and gave a speech demanding the country increase the number of college graduates by eight million that is eerily similar to the one George W. Bush gave at a similar point in his first term (October 15, 2002) demanding the country increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million.

Obama's rhetorical spin is more conservative than Bush's (compare the emphasis on race), but the political intention is similar: a payoff to constituencies, a plan for increasing costs in the name of "affordability."

Obama said:

That’s why I’ve set some ambitious goals for this country. ... And producing 8 million more college graduates by 2020 so we can have a higher share of graduates than any other nation on earth.

In a single generation, we’ve fallen from first to twelfth in college graduation rates for young adults. That’s unacceptable, but not irreversible. We need to retake the lead. If we’re serious about making sure America’s workers – and America itself – succeed in the 21st century, the single most important step we can take is to offer all our kids – here in Austin, here in Texas, and across this country – the best education the world has to offer. ...

But we also know that in the coming decades, a person’s success in life will depend more and more not on a high school diploma, but on a college degree, on workforce training, on a higher education. And so, today, I’d like to talk about the higher education strategy we’re pursuing not only to lead the world once more in college graduation rates, but to make sure our graduates are ready for a career; ready to meet the challenges of a 21st century economy.

The first part of our strategy has been making college more affordable. I don’t have to tell you why this is so important – many of you are living each day with worries about how you’re going to pay off your student loans. We all know why. Even as family incomes have essentially flat-lined over the past thirty years, college costs have grown higher and higher. Over the past decade, they’ve shot up faster than housing, faster than transportation, even faster than health care costs. No wonder the amount student borrowers owe has risen almost 25 percent over the past five years.

So, how exactly is the government massively stimulating demand for college going to reduce the price of college? Similarly, the Bush Administration's 2002 campaign to reduce the downpayment required for homes in the name of fighting racism helped drive home prices to stratospheric heights.

This isn’t some abstract policy matter to me; I understand it personally. Michelle and I had big loans to pay off when we graduated – and I remember what that burden felt like. That’s why I’m absolutely committed to making sure that here, in America, no one is denied a chance to go to college, no one is denied a chance to pursue their dreams, no one is denied a chance to make the most of their lives because they can’t afford it. We are a better country than that, and we need to act like it.

And that no one is denied an opportunity to accumulate massive tuition debts.

...The third part of our higher education strategy is making sure every student completes their course of studies. Over a third of America’s college students, and over half our minority students, don’t earn a degree, even after six years. So, we don’t just need to open the doors of college to more Americans; we need to make sure they stick with it through graduation. Community colleges like Tennessee’s Cleveland State are redesigning remedial math courses, boosting not only student achievement, but graduation rates. And we ought to make a significant investment to help other states do the same.

Because the Chinese are quaking in their boots over what inspired engineering marvels Cleveland State Community College of Tennessee's remedial math students are going to invent.

Here are excerpts from Bush's speech at the 10/15/2002 White House Conference on Minority Homeownership. You'll notice from the garbled syntax that Bush, unlike Obama, isn't just reading off the teleprompter. He's winging this one from his heart:

President George W. Bush addresses the White House Conference on Increasing Minority Homeownership at The George Washington University Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2002

THE PRESIDENT: …. I appreciate your attendance to this very important conference. You see, we want everybody in America to own their own home. That's what we want. This is -- an ownership society is a compassionate society.

More and more people own their homes in America today. Two-thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because few than half of the Hispanics and half the African Americans own the home. That's a homeownership gap. It's a -- it's a gap that we've got to work together to close for the good of our country, for the sake of a more hopeful future.

We've got to work to knock down the barriers that have created a homeownership gap.

I set an ambitious goal. It's one that I believe we can achieve. It's a clear goal, that by the end of this decade we'll increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families. (Applause.) … And it's going to require a strong commitment from those of you involved in the housing industry. …

I appreciate so very much the home owners who are with us today, the Arias family, newly arrived from Peru. They live in Baltimore. Thanks to the Association of Real Estate Brokers, the help of some good folks in Baltimore, they figured out how to purchase their own home. Imagine to be coming to our country without a home, with a simple dream. And now they're on stage here at this conference being one of the new home owners in the greatest land on the face of the Earth. I appreciate the Arias family coming. (Applause.) ...

All of us here in America should believe, and I think we do, that we should be, as I mentioned, a nation of owners. Owning something is freedom, as far as I'm concerned. It's part of a free society. And ownership of a home helps bring stability to neighborhoods. You own your home in a neighborhood, you have more interest in how your neighborhood feels, looks, whether it's safe or not. It brings pride to people, it's a part of an asset-based to society. It helps people build up their own individual portfolio, provides an opportunity, if need be, for a mom or a dad to leave something to their child. It's a part of -- it's of being a -- it's a part of -- an important part of America.

Homeownership is also an important part of our economic vitality. If -- when we meet this project, this goal, according to our Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, we will have added an additional $256 billion to the economy by encouraging 5.5 million new home owners in America; …

To open up the doors of homeownership there are some barriers, and I want to talk about four that need to be overcome. First, down payments. A lot of folks can't make a down payment. They may be qualified. They may desire to buy a home, but they don't have the money to make a down payment. I think if you were to talk to a lot of families that are desirous to have a home, they would tell you that the down payment is the hurdle that they can't cross.....

Secondly, affordable housing is a problem in many neighborhoods, particularly inner-city neighborhoods. … I'm doing is proposing a single-family affordable housing credit to encourage the construction of single-family homes in neighborhoods where affordable housing is scarce. (Applause.)

Another obstacle to minority homeownership is the lack of information. You know, getting into your own home can be complicated. It can be a difficult process. I had that very same problem. (Laughter and applause.) ...

And, of course, one of the larger obstacles to minority homeownership is financing, is the ability to have their dream financed. Right now, we have a program that all of you are familiar with, maybe our fellow Americans are, and that's what they call a Section 8 housing program, that provides billions of dollars in vouchers to help low-income Americans with their rent. It encourages leasing. We think it's important that we use those vouchers, that federal money to help low-income Americans go from being somebody who leases to somebody who owns; that we use the Section 8 program to not only help with down payment, but to help with continuing monthly mortgage payments after they're into their new home. It is a -- it is a way to help us meet this dream of 5.5 million additional families owning their home.

I'm also going to encourage the lending industry to develop a mortgage market so that this script, these vouchers, can regularly be used as a source of payment to provide more capital to lenders, who can then help more families move from rental housing into houses of their own. …

Last June, I issued a challenge to everyone involved in the housing industry to help increase the number of minority families to be home owners. And what I'm talking about, I'm talking about your bankers and your brokers and developers, as well as members of faith-based community and community programs. And the response to the home owners challenge has been very strong and very gratifying. Twenty-two public and private partners have signed up to help meet our national goal. Partners in the mortgage finance industry are encouraging homeownership by purchasing more loans made by banks to African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.

Representatives of the real estate and homebuilding industries, through their nationwide networks or affiliates, are committed to broadening homeownership. ...

The other thing Kirbyjon told me, which I really appreciate, is you don't have to have a lousy home for first-time home buyers. If you put your mind to it, the first-time home buyer, the low-income home buyer can have just as nice a house as anybody else.

For awhile, at least.

 

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

Carbon Emissions and Immigration Reduction

From my new VDARE.com column:

Of the millions who claim to be deadly serious about Saving the World from global warming by limiting carbon emissions, how many are truly sincere?

There’s one surefire test: Do they demand reductions in immigration to the U.S.?

Answer: almost none of them do.

A Google search for “carbon emissions” brings up 3,680,000 web pages. (August 8, 2010). Add “immigration reduction” to the search, however, and the hit count falls to 114. [Try it yourself now by clicking here.]

The causes of global warning are disputed, but let’s assume for the sake of analysis that human output of “greenhouse gases” does indeed cause global warming. It ought to be close to self-evident that immigration to America increases this country’s—and the world’s—output of those gases.

The logic is very simple: If immigrants from poor countries successfully assimilate to American norms of earning and consuming, they, and their descendants, will emit vastly more carbon than if they had stayed home.

According to the UN’s International Energy Agency, residents of America in 2007 put out an average of 19.1 tons of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, by fossil fuel combustion—e.g., by driving around, by being warm in winter and cool in summer, and by watching TV.

In contrast, the residents of, say, Mexico each emit 4.1 tons per year. In other words, the typical inhabitant of America churns out 4.6 times as much carbon dioxide as the typical inhabitant of Mexico.

So, if an average Mexican immigrates to the U.S. and fully assimilates to average American patterns of earning and spending, he will emit 4.6 times as much carbon dioxide as if he stayed home in his own country. (Even more important are the impact of his descendants, which we’ll get to below).

This table gives a sampling of the carbon emissions per capita of immigrant importing and exporting countries.

 

... So let’s examine some logical objections to my argument for the benefit of global warming worriers.

Consider a very simplified model in which an immigrant from Mexico will either succeed or fail at assimilating to American norms on two dimensions: Earning and Consuming.

 

Let’s start with the upper left hand corner of this quadrant: American Dream. In this scenario, the typical Mexican who immigrates to the U.S. achieves the American Dream. He succeeds at consuming like an American (e.g., big SUV, big air-conditioned house in the suburbs, big TV, and so forth) and also (this is important) earning like an American. Therefore, his contribution to global greenhouse gas emission will be vastly greater than if he stayed home in Mexico. Even more importantly, so will his descendants’ carbon emissions. ...

In the lower left corner is the unspoken liberal assumption about the impact of Mexican immigration: Ecotopia. This logical possibility is the favorite of the sort of white liberals who have farm simulators on their iPhones. Of course, it is the least logical or possible.

They assume Mexican immigrants rapidly achieve American levels of income to pay the taxes for all the social programs that progressives favor. Yet, for unexplained reasons, the Mexican immigrants and their progeny choose to live like Portland trustfunders whose hobby is a “sustainable” lifestyle based on driving their vegetable oil-powered Toyota Prius hybrid to Whole Foods for heirloom tomatoes.

The Ecotopia assumption is the only logical way to square enthusiasm about immigration with alarmism about greenhouse gases.

Of course, ...

Read the whole thing there (including data on the burning question of how many Priuses do Mexicans buy) and comment upon it here.

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

Rushton & Jensen v. Flynn on Flynn Effect

Here are the abstract of papers in Intelligence debating the relevance of the Flynn Effect to the white-black IQ gap. J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur R. Jensen write:

In this Editorial we correct the false claim that g loadings and inbreeding depression scores correlate with the secular gains in IQ. This claim has been used to render the logic of heritable g a “red herring” and an “absurdity” as an explanation of Black–White differences because secular gains are environmental in origin. In point of fact, while g loadings and inbreeding depression scores on the 11 subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children correlate significantly positively with Black–White differences (0.61 and 0.48, Pb0.001), they correlate significantly negatively (or not at all) with the secular gains (mean r=−0.33, Pb0.001; and 0.13, ns, respectively). Moreover, heritabilities calculated from twins also correlate with the g loadings (r=0.99, Pb0.001 for the estimated true correlation), providing biological evidence for a true genetic g, as opposed to a mere statistical g. While the secular gains are on g-loaded tests (such as the Wechsler), they are negatively correlated with the most g-loaded components of those tests. Also, the tests lose their g loadedness over time with training, retesting, and familiarity. In an analysis of mathematics and reading scores from tests such as the NAEP and Coleman Report over the last 54 years, we show that there has been no narrowing of the gap in either IQ scores or in educational achievement. From 1954 to 2008, Black 17-year-olds have consistently scored at about the level of White 14-year-olds, yielding IQ equivalents of 85 for 1954, 82 for 1965, 70 for 1975, and 81 for 2008. We conclude that predictions about the Black–White IQ gap narrowing as a result of the secular rise are unsupported. The (mostly heritable) cause of the one is not the (mostly environmental) cause of the other. The Flynn Effect (the secular rise in IQ) is not a Jensen Effect (because it does not occur on g).

Here's Rushton's VDARE.com article on his latest paper with Jensen.

Flynn responds:

The ranking of Wechsler subtests in terms of their g loadings is equivalent to ranking them in terms of the cognitive complexity of the tasks measured. Lower performing groups do not always fall behind higher performing groups the more complex the task. But that is the general rule, no matter whether the cause of the lower performance is genetic or environmental. Complex tasks tend to be more affected by genetic differences in inherited traits, have higher heritability, and be more sensitive to inbreeding depression. Therefore, the method of correlated vectors sheds no light on the race and IQ debate. It is irrelevant that black/white score differences on Wechsler subtests rise as their g loading, heritability, and inbreeding sensitivity rise.

Here's my review of Flynn's book on the Flynn Effect on VDARE, which Flynn thought did a pretty good job of making Flynn's thinking accessible.

Flynn always uses basketball analogies in arguing against the necessity of genetic causes in IQ differences, but that obviously raises issues unhelpful to Flynn's cause. Other sports can provide better examples. For example, in golf, it's widely acknowledged that the hardest clubs to hit well are the long irons. And the long irons are precisely where Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, the two greatest golfers, distanced themselves from the field, by reaching par-5 greens accurately in two to give themselves putts for eagles. Nature or nurture? Well, certainly a lot of both, but the exact balance is hard to say.

Flynn sums up that he doesn't believe either his own Flynn Effect or Jensen's g-factor analysis is very persuasive in determining the nature-nurture breakdown in the racial IQ gap:

American blacks are not in a time warp so that the environmental causes of their IQ gap with whites are identical to the environmental causes of the IQ gap between the generations. The race and IQ debate should focus on testing the relevant environmental hypotheses. The Flynn Effect is no shortcut; correlations offered by Rushton and Jensen are no shortcut. There are no shortcuts at all.

Flynn has a Blind Side / Stolen Generation-style theory that black culture doesn't lead to strong cognitive demands, although he's leery about spelling out the policy implications, although you can see it made a little more explicit in the increasing enthusiasm in, say, the New York Times Sunday Magazine for taking black children away from their mothers as many hours per day as possible and turning them over to Ivy League Teach for America workers to raise in a white-run world.

Maybe it will work, I dunno. Yet, I suspect we'll just be seeing in a few decades a replay of the Australian experience, with whites issuing an apology to blacks for the "Borrowed Generation."

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

Gallup: "Young, Less Educated Yearn to Migrate to the U.S"

From an April 30, 2010 posting on Gallup.com:

Young, Less Educated Yearn to Migrate to the U.S.
Canada more attractive to older, more educated adults
 

by Neli Esipova, Julie Ray, and Rajesh Srinivasan

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Fifteen countries attract about 500 million of the roughly 700 million adults worldwide who say they would like to relocate permanently to another country if they could. Gallup finds the U.S. is clearly the No. 1 desired destination among these potential migrants, with more than 165 million saying they would like to move there, and neighboring Canada is a distant second with 45 million.

Gallup's findings on adults' desire to move to other countries are based on interviews with 347,713 adults across multiple surveys in 148 countries between 2007 and 2009. The 148 countries represent more than 95% of the world's adult population.

Together, the number of potential migrants who would like to move to the United States, which represents 24% of adults who would like to move overall, and Canada, which represents 7%, make Northern America the most desired region to move to in the world. But individually, both countries appeal to people from different parts of the world. Gallup finds the U.S. appeals more to the youngest and least educated adults, while those who choose Canada are on average slightly older and more educated.

These differences may partly reflect the emphasis each country's immigration policy places on different categories of migrants.

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

The Tyranny of Guilt

From a review by Eric Kaufman in the fine British magazine Prospect of French intellectual Pascal Bruckner's The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism:

There is more, too, to be said about guilt itself. Could it be that making guilty noises signals sophistication and status, with the high priests of the left earning psychic wages equivalent to bankers’ bonuses? Or, given the collapse of ideology, are we witnessing a new form of spontaneous guilt, where ideas such as socialism give way to knee-jerk impulses like “my comfort makes me guilty.”

Personally, I don't think we need particularly sophisticated psychological theories about "white guilt." I haven't noticed many people particularly wracked by personal guilt over race. Instead, it's more an effective tool for people to get what they want from other people, money, power, admiration, or to reassure themselves that they are better than other people. For lots of people, the mentality of white guilt is simply the substance in which they swim, and they are no more inclined to stop and think about it than a fish thinks about water.

Which brings us to yet another Associated Press article, this one from mid-day Saturday, carefully sifting for evidence for the role of white racism in causing the Manchester Massacre.

The Associated Press delivers to its subscribers plain-vanilla news reporting from its reporters across the country, so these articles represent how plain vanilla journalists perceive how they are supposed to think in 21st Century America. These articles display the conceptual water in which these fish thoughtlessly swim.

Although the evidence dredged up so far appears to have been in the stupid and resentful mind of a thieving mass murderer, he was a black stupid and resentful thieving mass murderer, so attention must be paid. 

Beer warehouse shooter long complained of racism

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN (AP) – 4 hours ago

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — To those closest to him, Omar Thornton was caring, quiet and soft-spoken. He was excited to land a well-paying job at a beer delivery company a few years ago and his longtime girlfriend says they talked of marrying and having children.

But underneath, Thornton seethed with a sense of racial injustice for years that culminated in a shooting rampage Tuesday in which the Connecticut man killed eight and wounded two others at his job at Hartford Distributors in Manchester before killing himself.

"I know what pushed him over the edge was all the racial stuff that was happening at work," said his girlfriend, Kristi Hannah. ...

Thornton, who grew up in the Hartford area, complained about racial troubles on the job long before he worked at Hartford Distributors.

"He always felt like he was being discriminated (against) because he was black," said Jessica Anne Brocuglio, his former girlfriend. "Basically they wouldn't give him pay raises. He never felt like they accepted him as a hard working person."

One time Thornton had a confrontation with a white co-worker who used a racial slur against him, she said. Thornton changed jobs a few times because he was not getting raises, Brocuglio said.

"I'm sick of having to quit jobs and get another job because they can't accept me," she said he told her.

Brocuglia, who said she dated Thornton until eight years ago, said Thornton helped her become a certified nursing aide. She said he never drank or smoked and remained calm, even when she would yell or grab him.

"He was such a caring person," said Brocuglia, who is white. "He showed me so much love. He was like a teddy bear."

Brocuglio's sister, Toni, said Thornton would come home and say co-workers called him racial slurs. He was also upset by comments made by passers-by about the interracial couple, she said.

"He just didn't understand why people had so much hatred in their lives," Toni Brocuglio said.

Brocuglio said Thornton put her family up in a hotel after a fire at her house and was "like a second dad" to her children.

"Omar was the best man I ever met in my life," Brocuglio said.

Thornton ran into his own troubles a decade ago when he filed for bankruptcy protection.

His debts were discharged in 2001 and the case was closed.

Around that time, Thornton was hired as a driver with Chemstation New England, a chemical company in South Windsor. But he was let go after 10 months, unable to master the mechanical skills involved handling the equipment, said Bruce LeFebvre, the owner.

"He was a real nice kid when he was with us," LeFebvre said. "Certainly I would never have expected anything like this from him."

... Thornton and his mother were especially excited when Barack Obama was elected the first African American president, Hannah said. He listed Obama and the gun range among his interests on his Facebook page.

But Hannah said he showed her cell phone photos of racist graffiti in the bathroom at the beer company and overheard a company official using a racial epithet in reference to him, but a union representative did not return his phone calls. Police said they recovered the phone and forensics experts would examine it.

"Nothing else bothered him except these comments he would make about them doing the racial things to him," Hannah said. 

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

Attention Must Be Paid, Part VI

It's not over until the press says it's over. From the Associated Press on Friday afternoon:

Cops mum on probe of Conn. shooter's racism claim

By STEPHANIE REITZ (AP) – 11 hours ago

HARTFORD, Conn. — The man who fatally shot eight co-workers at a Connecticut beer distributor told a 911 operator before he killed himself that he was avenging racism.

Omar Thornton's employer, his union and the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities all say there has never been a formal racism complaint against the Manchester company — from Thornton or anyone else.

State and Manchester police will not say whether Thornton's racism claims are figuring into their investigation of the shootings, which occurred early Tuesday when Thornton was confronted with video evidence he had stolen beer and was forced to resign.

Manchester police say they plan to have experts examine his cell phone, which was found in his car outside the Hartford Distributors warehouse.

His girlfriend, Kristi Hannah, said Thornton used his phone to photograph slurs and a noose scrawled in a company bathroom, though police will not say whether they are searching the phone specifically for those purported images. ...

The allegations have upset many friends and family members of the victims and the Hollander family, which owns Hartford Distributors and is well-regarded in greater Hartford.

... Some experts said Friday that, although nothing justifies Thornton's killing spree, the allegations of workplace racism should be investigated so they can either be dealt with or laid to rest.

"You have to investigate it," said employment lawyer Kelly Scott, adding that racial harassment in the workplace is often a crime.

"Any chance you have to make your workplace a better place, a safer place, you have to take it," Scott said. "If there are people who have these attitude problems or a problem dealing with other races, they should lose their jobs."

Dig 'em up and fire 'em is what I say. Shooting's not good enough for the likes of them.

Sharon Toomer, founder of the website blackandbrownnews.com, called it "an accountability issue."

"If he didn't (report harassment), that's great. He's just a nut case," she said. "If he did go and nobody did anything, then the company's hands are not clean."

Messages seeking comment about a potential investigation into Thornton's racism claims were left Friday for the Hartford State's Attorney's Office, the FBI's New Haven office, the chairman of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, and for the president of the Connecticut NAACP.

On the federal side, a spokesman for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the agency is barred by law from confirming or denying the existence of any discrimination investigation.

And the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which investigates whenever workplace fatalities occur, reviews compliance with federal workplace law, a spokesman said. Though it is investigating the shootings, OHSA'S jurisdiction is safety and health issues, not personnel issues, spokesman Edmund Fitzgerald said Friday.

Associated Press National Writer Jesse Washington in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

It sounds like there is zero news here, but the reporters are furiously dialing numbers of random agencies ("Hello Occupational Health and Safety Administration, wouldn't you say that white racism is bad for occupational health and safety?"), trying to keep the white racism story alive. Because that's what they are built to do. They are unstoppable white racism-sniffing out cyborgs from the future.

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

Morris Dees' Poverty Palace

The Montgomery Advertiser has a 60-photo lifestyle spread on "The home of Morris Dees and Susan Starr in Montgomery, Ala." Mr. Dees is, of course, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and poverty has been very, very good to him, judging by the staggering amount of expensive bric-a-brac he and Ms. Starr have accumulated.

I'm not precisely sure what Morris' wife is wearing in this photo (Barbarella's coronation gown? Or, as a reader suggests, a shower curtain trimmed with fake fur?), but the caption reads "Susan Starr models a jacket she made in her studio at her home in Montgomery, Ala."

This shiny thing-a-mabob with the #20 on it is described as "A poolside rickshaw at the home of Morris Dees and Susan Starr in Montgomery, Ala," because nothing screams Equality! like a fancy rickshaw.

It would probably not occur to you to acquire what might possibly be a matador's outfit to hang next to the washstand in an office bathroom of your compound, but then you aren't the main man behind America's most lucrative poverty organization, now are you?

This white and beigeish picture is described as "Guest house living area at the home of Morris Dees and Susan Starr in Montgomery, Ala.," but the contents remain enigmatic. What exactly is on the coffee table? A nest of writhing snakes? A ton of old horseshoes? And what's that spherical object behind the fuzzy couch? A giant ball of twine?

And then there's this objet d'art. I wonder how much hate Morris had to spew and foment to get the donations to pour in to pay for that?

For some reason, the article accompanying the 60 pictures seems to have largely vanished, but it began:

Mediterranean living: Couple’s renovated showplace reflects owners’ world travels, varied tastes

It is hard to believe the home Susan Starr and Morris Dees purchased upon their marriage 11 years ago was once a very small cottage originally built in 1923.

Nah, by this point, I can believe anything about Morris.

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

"Attention Must Be Paid"

I have a post up on the VDARE.com blog that begins:

In various blog posts about the Connecticut Massacre (here, here, here, and here), I’ve quoted at length from a half dozen news articles giving the “he said / she said” two sides of the story about whether the nine middle-aged white men murdered by Omar Thornton, the Connecticut truckdriver who went on a racial rampage after being fired for stealing and selling his deliveries, were white racists.

The press has industriously reported both sides of the story, graciously allowing the white survivors chances to defend their murdered friends and relatives from charges of racism. For example, the AP made sure to include quotes from friends of the murder victims defending the murder victims:

“Craig, who was active as a coach in town with all kids — all races of kids — for years, he didn’t care. He just worked with the kids,” Ted Jenny said. “There was no way Craig Pepin was racist.”

Of course, in 21st Century America, who would believe the friend of an accused white racist? What kind of sick, twisted person is this Ted Jenny, who was friends with a man accused of white racism?

Granted, in this particular allegation, the accuser was a thieving mass murderer. But, as we can see from all the column inches devoted to Thornton’s allegations, the point is that he was a black thieving mass murderer. So, attention must be paid.

Sure, Omar Thornton was the worst black person in America, but ... he was black! Hence, this media inquiry and hence the very earnest responses to Thornton's charges by the white survivors.

And that’s one major lesson of the bizarre news coverage of the Connecticut Massacre ...

Read the whole thing there and comment upon it here.

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

What's a hate crime?

Here's the beginning of the transcript of Omar Thornton's 911 call:

Dispatcher: State Police.

Thornton: Yeah, this 911?

Dispatcher: Yeah, can I help you?

Thornton: This is Omar Thornton, the, uh, the shooter over in Manchester.

Dispatcher: Yes, where are you, sir?

Thornton: I'm in the building. Uh, you probably want to know the reason why I shot this place up. This place here is a racist place.

Dispatcher: Yup, I understand that

Thornton: They treat me bad over here, and they treat all the other black employees bad over here too, so I just take it into my own hands and I handled the problem — I wish I coulda got more of the people.

If you go to Google News and type in:

"hate crime" 

you get this busy page and at least nine more like it

But, if you go to Google News and type in:

"hate crime" thornton

or 

"hate crime" hartford

You get crickets chirping. To be exact, you get two links back, but both to public comments, not to reporting. If you type in:

"hate crime" manchester

You get those two comments, plus three more miscellaneous webpages that don't have anything to do with Omar Thorton shooting ten middle-aged white men and then explaining "the reason why I shot this place up. This place here is a racist place." After all, that can't be a hate crime. The first question that must be asked about whether something is a hate crime is always "Who? Whom?"

From the Associated Press:

911 call on Conn. shooting shows racial disparity

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN (AP) – 16 hours ago

ENFIELD, Conn. — A woman hiding under her desk tells an emergency dispatcher that a co-worker is in the midst of a shooting spree. The dispatcher presses for any information about the man.

"I don't know anything," the woman says, according to a 911 tape released Wednesday. "He's a tall black guy. He's like the only black guy that works here."

Family and friends say Omar Thornton was only too painfully aware of that distinction, as he claimed he was subjected to racial discrimination while working as a union driver at Hartford Distributors in Manchester. ...

A union official described Thornton as a dissatisfied worker whose first targets were the three people in his disciplinary meeting: Steve Hollander, 50, a member of the family that owns the company, who was shot twice but survived; Bryan Cirigliano, 51, president of Teamsters 1035 and Thornton's representative at the hearing; and Louis Felder, 50, who news reports described as the company's operations director.

Other victims were Doug Scruton, 56; Bill Ackerman, 51; Francis Fazio Jr., 57; Edwin Kennison, 49; Craig Pepin, 60; and Victor James, 60. Jerome Rosenstein, 77, was wounded and was in serious condition Wednesday at Hartford Hospital.

Friends and family of those who died said they couldn't imagine their loved ones discriminating against Thornton.

One driver who was killed, Kennison, had mentioned Thornton before but never in a derogatory way, said Mark McCorrison, a close friend. Kennison was not the type to make bigoted remarks, he said.

"I can tell you right now: Eddie is not that person," McCorrison said.

Pepin, also a driver, was never angry, let alone someone who showed any hint of racism or bigotry, said a neighbor who knew him for 25 years.

"Craig, who was active as a coach in town with all kids -- all races of kids -- for years, he didn't care. He just worked with the kids," Ted Jenny said. "There was no way Craig Pepin was racist."

The only complaint Thornton ever made to the union was when he asked to be promoted from an entry-level job to a driver, said Gregg Adler, a union lawyer. The union explained to him that because of seniority rules, he would have to wait his turn until a job opened up. Eventually it did, and he was promoted about a year ago, Adler said.

Michelle T. Johnson, a diversity consultant and former employment lawyer, said workers who face discrimination are often reluctant to file a formal complaint, even if the misconduct is serious.

"Once a person of color raises an issue of discrimination, the reaction they can get just makes it very stressful," she said.

It's never too early to discuss what should be done if evidence of white racism emerges in this investigation. Should the dead white racists be dug up and shot again? Or perhaps the grieving relatives of the late Mr. Thornton should get to shoot some of the relatives of the dead white racists who weren't nice to Mr. Thornton?

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

Breaking News!

More stunning revelations today from the ongoing investigation into white racism that is galvanizing the mainstream media. From the Associated Press:

Shooter in Conn. massacre claimed racism in call

By STEPHEN SINGER (AP) – 49 minutes ago

HARTFORD, Conn. — The man who went on a shooting rampage at a beer distributor calmly told a 911 operator that it was "a racist place" and that he had taken matters into his own hands to "handle the problem."

Omar Thornton, 34, called 911 after shooting 10 co-workers — eight fatally — on Tuesday morning at Hartford Distributors. He introduced himself as "the shooter over in Manchester" and said he was hiding in the building, but would not say where.

"You probably want to know the reason why I shot this place up," he said, his voice steady. "This place is a racist place. They treat me bad over here. They treat all the black employees bad over here, too.

"So I took into my own hands and handled the problem," he said. "I wish I could have got more of the people."

Connecticut State Police released the audio of the 911 call on Thursday, the same day company and union officials rebutted suggestions that the company had ignored Thornton's complaints of racism.

Thornton went on his rampage moments after he was forced to resign when confronted with videotaped evidence that he had been stealing beer and selling it.

His relatives and girlfriend had suggested his anger was fueled by racial bias in the workplace, but the 911 call confirmed Thornton believed he was avenging racist treatment.

Hartford Distributors president Ross Hollander said there was no record to support claims of "racial insensitivity" made through the internal anti-harassment policy, the union grievance process or state or federal agencies.

"Nonetheless, these ugly allegations have been raised and the company will cooperate with any investigation," Hollander said.

The union said 14 of 69 dock workers, or 20 percent, were racial minorities — four black, nine Hispanic, one Asian.

Clearly, we must drop everything and investigate these allegations of racism. The EEOC, for a start, should calculate whether this employment pattern violates their Four-Fifths Rule. If only Hartford Distributors had hired more blacks, this whole inappropriate event could have been avoided.

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

More Pavlovian News Analysis

From ABCNews.com: 

Hartford Shooter: Clues in Workplace Violence Sprees
Humiliation Can Trigger Rage, Experts Say; Gunman Believed Racists Were Targeting Him
By KIM CAROLLO and EMILY FRIEDMAN

Aug. 4, 2010

The allegations of racial harassment that Omar Thornton told his family about may have been what finally sent him over the edge and on his fatal rampage, according to mental health experts. 

From NECN, a ComCast Network:

Shooter's girlfriend: Company should be held accountable for racism

(NECN) - Kristi Hannah, says her boyfriend Omar Thornton was harassed at work prior to this week's shootings.

Kristi spoke with NECN's Brian Burnell Thursday, but did not want her face shown.

"There were racial things being said to him, and there was drawings on the bathroom walls," says Hannah.

She said the drawings included a stick figure hanging, and racial slurs. She says he had called his union rep two times, and never got a call back. ...

She said she is speaking out because, she wants, "everybody to know that Budweiser should be held accountable for the racism stuff.

I'm not just cherrypicking absurd news stories. This is a sizable theme of the coverage. The MSM is trying to get to the bottom of this pressing issue of whether white racism led this guy to shoot eight people. From CNN just one hour ago on Thursday afternoon, we learn that the answer to the burning question of whether we can blame this unfortunate incident on the scourge of white racism is, so far, no:

Company says Connecticut gunman never filed race complaint
By the CNN Wire Staff

Story Highlights:
    * NEW: Company president said no racial complaints were filed
    * Omar Thornton brought two guns with him in a lunch box, police say
    * Authorities believe at least some of the victims were targeted
    * Thornton's girlfriend says he was racially harassed at work

(CNN) -- The president of a Connecticut beverage distributor said Thursday a man who went on a shooting rampage this week never filed a claim alleging racial discrimination.

The girlfriend of Omar Thornton, who killed eight people and then himself, told CNN that he was being racially harassed at work.

But Ross Hollander, whose family owns Hartford Distributors, said there were no grievances filed with the company or Thornton's union.

"I can state to you unequivocally no racism claim was ever alleged," Hollander said at a news conference. "Nevertheless, these ugly allegations have been raised and the company will cooperate with any investigation."

Kristi Hannah, Omar Thornton's girlfriend, said he first told her about racial harassment at work last summer.

Hannah said her mother told Thornton to take pictures of the alleged harassment with his cell phone. He took two pictures in the men's bathroom at work, she said. She described one as his name written on a cartoon, and the other as a drawing of a hangman with a noose around its neck. Connecticut state police have the phone.

Hannah's mother, Joanne Hannah, said she had heard of the cell phone photos. She said Thornton heard a co-worker say he "wanted that n****r out of there." She said Thornton told his girlfriend he had reported harassment to a company supervisor and a union representative, but nothing was done about it.

"There is nothing on record of any complaints from Omar, and there had been no disciplinary actions with him prior to this," said Chris Roos, secretary and treasurer of Teamsters Local 1035.

Manchester, Connecticut, police have said they have found no evidence of racial discrimination.

While I'm glad to see that the police are devoting time to this crucial question, we must always ask: Is absence of evidence truly evidence of absence of white racism as the cause of the recent unpleasantness?

P.S. I can't find from "Google News" any references to:

Hartford "hate crime"

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