Thread 2 In February this year, the Department for Education and Skills issued a report on the comparative achievements of various ethnic minorities in UK schools. The report found that Afro-Caribbean children in particular were notably underachieving, as compared with whites and East Asians; in this finding the report echoed all previous findings ..Responses to the report mentioned as a possible cause ‘institutional racism’ in schools; they did not offer any deeper explanations
Don't think so. The Blacks have covered the tv shows and commerials, covered the sport fields, been put first in all jobs, and the Government is foolish enough to go along with them, so maybe they are more clever that whites.
Reminds me of the Spacial Studies tests I took in high school for the University of Wisconsin. There were three levels of tests. There were but three girls (out of 22) in the second level of tests and none in the third (7). The tests started with 100 students - 50/50 mix. I bet NO one has heard about those very interesting and enlightening tests either!
This very point of diction was discussed in Thread 1 (although my dictionary and I disagree and think "cleverer" is fine). There were also many responses to the type of argument set forth in Post #1 here. I suggest reading that thread before getting into it here, although it's unfortunately not linked.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Clark Petrie, 5/23/2003 6:19:52 PM
One might question the thesis seeing the way blacks are getting over on whites. Whites must be pretty stupid to let 'em get away with some of the things they pull.
Good treatment of this subject. So much academuic research has been scared off on this subject - that were are at a very early stage of the debate.
The comments about the average IQ in the sub-Saharan Africa is scary - imagine interaction with your average fast-food worker in that neck of the woods! Ugh!
They are talking about kids in school. A very high IQ is not what is needed for kids in school. It's the parents, the home life, the culture, the expectations that make a difference. A well-brought up kid can learn anything the school teaches. But if Dad disappeared years ago and Mom is smoking crack cocaine and the kid stays out with a gang half the night and lives on a diet of chocolate and soft drinks, the school work suffers. Not because of the color of the skin.
Well no one suggests that IQ is the be all
and end of all of human interaction. Maybe
a very small component of that. I think the
term in vogue is "emotional IQ" and there is
no evidence blacks lack that in relation to
whites or Asians.
The 'problem' is that, because an increasing
number of occupations and jobs require a
different form of intelligence as the price
of admission. Doesn't mean that the highest
IQ will be the most successful but being able
to solve a polynomial equation,e.g., is
necessary to compete at all.
It is this form of intelligence that blacks
appear to not possess in as great a degree
as other ethnic groups. It is tremendous
obstacle for all because it conflicts with
our philosophical beliefs and it threatens
to undermine the social peace.
No one seems to have an answer and what is
worse many deny the problem even exists or
exists only because of some human causation
which they cannot define or ameliorate.
Assuming for a second that these racial IQ differences are real. Ashkenazi Jews are statistically as far above the average white boy like me as I am--according to the theory--above the average black person. Well maybe so. But I don't expect Jews to start making the obscenely racist remarks about whites being stupid, violent (we whites are also more violent than Jews, and we produce more child-molesters per capita than Jews OR blacks) or inferior.
IQ is but one of the constellation of attributes that make us human. Black people have contributed a great deal to this nation. The only truly American musical forms (Jazz, Blues - and the derivative Rock & Roll) all originated in black culture. And does anyone need to point out the fact that blacks are athletically superior to whites and Asians?
Differences among races is not necessarily a bad thing. Everyone makes their contribution differently. In any case IQ differences alone do not warrant racism. Unlike the less-intelligent among us, the racist truly is an inferior--nay, evil--person and should be shunned by Republicans for the vile trash they are.
Another point to bear in mind is demonstrated in the above diagram. Even if the average IQ for blacks is lower than whites, there is still huge overlap among the two groups. In fact, a substantiall portion of the "less intelligent" group (shaded curve) is in fact more intelligence than a goodly chunk of the "more intelligent" group.
We would expect few black Albert Einsteins under the Bell Curve theory, but otherwise it tells you little in dealing with individuals. For everyone on this board there is a more intelligent black person than you out there somewhere (unless you are a 170 IQ or so).
Reply 14 - Posted by:
al gephart, 5/23/2003 7:08:53 PM
The Left has a problem with the idea (outside of the nasty history of eugenics) because genetic based intelligence obliterates environmental factors as the primary causation of "underprivileged" groups. And when there's no environment to engineer, there's no authoritarian way to obtain equality of outcome.
I believe the Right has a problem with the idea because it strikes at the notion of a just God. It's one thing for individuals to have differing capabilities--you make the best of what your given in the Cosmic lottery, but differences based on genetics that give an advantage to one group over another suggest a basic unfairness that precedes conception.
The reconciliation of genetics with modern humanism will be more difficult than the marriage of religion and astronomy at the time when science first held the Earth to circle the Sun-- and not the other way around. That revelation caused widespread rioting throughout the urban west. Genetic science has just begun and research should be freed from any hint of a modern day PC inquisition. People don’t work well under the threat of a hot steak.
Excellant observation and likely true. At
least everything except the last line.
'People don’t work well under the threat of a hot steak.'
I sure do.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Emma Sansom, 5/23/2003 7:29:30 PM
I suggest a simple empirical test of whether low performance among blacks is due to "institutional racism."
Compare test scores of blacks in black-controlled nations with those of whites and Asians in those same nations. If institutional racism is the culprit, blacks there should excel, while others should do relatively more poorly.
The gene pool of the underclass produces less intelligent offspring. That is a fact. Interact with them and you will have to acknowledge that as truth. It is not a racist statement but in the USA if one espouses such a view he is deemed racist.
"The gene pool of the underclass produces less intelligent offspring"
Aside from the fact that remarks like these are uncomfortably close to what was routinely printed in Der Sturmer Verlag, many extremely successful Americans have emerged from the "underclass". IQ is no guarantee of success. I know a number of very smart people who basically contribute nada to society. I know some other people who are not that smart in the "chess master" sense, but who are honest, hardworking and now own their own expensive homes, several cars, etc.
There are plenty of dumb people of all races. Just look at the Democratic Party. But all of this talk of genetics, inferiority, underclass, etc. is going to get us in hot water fast. Not because we should not be interested in the truth, but because there are too many evil people in this country who are just looking for a an excuse--any excuse--to justify their bigotry.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Robin Scott, 5/23/2003 8:03:55 PM
I don't care if you're white , black, green or purple, high iq or just average , you have to do some work to succeed and if you don't, no reason to expect people who do to carry your load. I didn't prepare myself to be a rocket scientest or a brain surgeon so am I suppossed to hate all RS or BS. I don't think so.
I am so tired of the discussions by people trying to figure it out when there is only one answer. YOU HAVE TO CARE .... YOU HAVE TO TRY.
The art or practice of cultivating young American minds [presumably after identifying them via some imperfect exam] ain't what it used to be either.
The society we live in today is mostly built (industry-wise) on the backs of (mostly) men who were matriculating to universities *at the time when* IQ was used; smart young men (mostly) were spotted and nabbed.
I do wonder what the "unintended" (perhaps) consequence(s) will be of diverging from this long-held model over the past twenty years or so as we have in order to favor a model less geared toward raw intellectual talent/potential.
It is my impression (and I'm happy to be properly disabused of this notion, as appropriate) that we currently (and have for at least 20 years back) live in a far more meritocratous society than Americans lived in in the early 1950s, for example (a time when positions at Ivy League schools were far more likely to be granted on the basis of legacy than intellectual aptitude as there was not really a commonly accepted test to measure the same et al.). In fact during the 50s is when this pendulum swung (toward cultivating "the best young minds").
So that is to say there are eons more wealth creation opportunities now for "the average Joe" (and, again, there have been for at least 2 decades) than there were in the 40s, 50s, etc.
So that is to say that the "underclass" today may indeed be to a larger extent an intellectual/capabilities underclass and less a birthright underclass in comparison to decades past, as cited.
[mandatory disclaimer: these are general observations; of course there are, will be exceptions ad infinitum].
The general premise by the authors of The Bell Curve was that, unfortunately, some people are born with less intelligence than others. In today's high tech society, there is less opportunity for people of limited intelligence to have a productive, rewarding work career. 100 years ago people could be craftsmen, farmers, blacksmiths, draymen, whatever, and still have decent worth and self-esteem. Now these people draw a check or resort to crime. Not a good situation but it's one shamelessly exploited by the Dems and the entilement community.
I concur, the divide between the upper and
lower class today is less a social construct
and more a division between peoples of
truly different abilities and behaviors.
That was a large part of Hernnstein's and
Murray's message. We are self segregating
our population on the basis of intellect.
What is worse, the least able amongst us
have the highest birth rates.
The PC fuss over those statistics is far more damaging than the statistics themselves. As smoov has pointed out, the statistics characterize populations, not individuals. You will know about as much about the intelligence of an individual of a particular race, armed with those statistics, as you will know about my height, armed with the statistic that the average height of people in my town is 5' 7''. That is, you will know exactly nothing.
If you know the average height of people in the town down the road is 5' 8'', and Joe lives in that town, would you bet the ranch that Joe is taller than me? Those race statistic certainly don't provide any ammunition for the prejudiced.
The Bell Curve was not saying that blacks didn't deserve an education. It was saying that they needed a different kind of teaching because of their slightly lower overall IQ's. I really wish someone would actually read the book instead of listening to the hysterics who made it sound like the second coming of Hitler.
The chart in reply 13 shows the bell curves of white and black IQ as only slightly varying from each other. This grossly misrepresents the actual variance. I'll say it again (since the first thread has been removed from the web): Because of the 15-point lower average black IQ, the percentage of blacks with an IQ above 115 is one-sixth that of whites. We would therefore expect that the percentage of blacks in intellectually demanding fields would be one-sixth that of whites. It's actually higher than that now, because of the artificial promotions created by race preferences.
At the same time, the percentage of blacks below 85 IQ (the below normal range) is six times greater than that of whites, with all the social problems that suggests.
I highly recommend that people read The Bell Curve for its fascinating discussion (completely apart from the question race) of the correlation between people's IQ and their functioning in life.
#29, if someone wrote a book that challenged some of the sacred beliefs of liberalism, would you not expect the book to be "widely dismissed as flawed"? So, to say that a book such as The Bell Curve was "widely dismissed as flawed" is not an argument. The question is, why were its theories flawed? Since you read it, you ought to be able to tell us.
However, I find it hard to believe that someone who had actually read the book--the statistics in which were all based on the National Longitudinal Study of Youth--would simply dismiss it as "fuzzy statistics at its best."
I'm in no mood to be diciplined for chatting nor would I want this thread removed but I would encourage people who are focused on the differences at the group level to consider whether they are engaged in shooting themselves in the foot.
Take the analysis given above and filter it through a liberal lens. What you get is a perfect rationale for a liberal "cure". Permenant underclasses are abhorent to most people so...
The Bell Curve fell apart precisely because of its correlation of IQ to a host of outcomes with such small amounts of variance explained.
Is IQ important to academic sucess? Sure. My having a 15 point advantage though, does nothing to predict my relative outcome when you consider a fully specified model that includes things like drive, familial support and so forth.
The analogy to sports is unescapable. One can run a 40-yard dash faster than the next guy and still not be a great football lineman. There are too many other factors at work to isolate the fairly invariant independent varible and blame the variation in outcomes solely on that.
A good illustration was at hand this week as
to what just a small gap in performance can
mean.
Annika Sorenstam. Unquestionably the best
female golfer extant if not in history, she
was marginalized by having to have to play
on a course a mere 10 percent longer than
what the ladies normally play.
A baseball thrown at 88 mph might be eminently hittable but increase its velocity
10% and the guy who throws it that hard wins
the Cy Young Award.
Small differences in performance or ability
make for huge differences in atheletics. We
don't even question it that someone who is
only 99% as good as some else can be called
an 'idiot' or a 'bum' and kicked off the team!
Yet the difference in IQ's between the average
white the the average black are enormous as
compared to the above sporting illustrations.
If Anika were every bit the golfer Tiger Woods is except for her opening drive falling 50 YARDS short of his, she'd be the second best golfer in the world.
THAT is the point you are missing.
IQ is not a big factor. Does it correlate to all sorts of outcomes? Sure. The problem is that it explains so little of the variance in those outcomes.
I agree. Good looks, a pleasant personality,
great atheletic ability dwarf IQ in many
areas of modern life. Alec Baldwin is a rich
movie star who sleeps with Kim Basinger not
because he is smarter than me.
Orah Winfrey may or may not be particularly
smart but she is very likable and that has
translated into great wealth for her.
However, entertainment or sports careers are
few in number and increasingly jobs require
more than just the ability to work hard or
be there regularly. They require the ability
to problem solve, trouble shoot, analyze data
or complex machinery to determine the proper
action. Here IQ is more than just being good
at taking a test or manipulating symbols to
score well on it. It is the very heart of
the job you are supposed to be doing.
If blacks do not do as well as others in these
tasks and the evidence all suggests they don't
then what are we to do. Fake it?
"The Bell Curve fell apart precisely because of its correlation of IQ to a host of outcomes with such small amounts of variance explained."
The Bell Curve did not "fall apart." It's still there, as valid as ever. The actual arguments used against it were weak and driven by liberal PC and hysteria. It was dismissed for the obvious reasons.
In fact, the strongest part of TBC (much stronger than its cursory treatment of race differences) was its correlation of IQ to outcomes. Over and over it was shown that with regard to income, marriage stability, accident-proneness, crime--you name it--IQ was by far the most important variable, and, particularly, that it was more important than socioeconomic background.
That argument was sealed when Murray wrote a follow-up article in The Public Interest showing that the same correlations held within families. Thus two siblings, who have the same socioeconomic background, but who are, say, 20 IQ points apart, have the same average difference in outcomes as two non-siblings who are 20 IQ points apart. This demonstrated conclusively that IQ is the single the powerful predictor of outcomes.
An article by Jonathan Kay in Commentary about his experiences as a student at Yale Law school shows the pathologies that automatically develop when a school admits unqualified groups on the basis of racial preferences. When they were admitted, they were told that they were just as capable as the other students, but in fact they were not as capable. So when these black students failed to do as well (for example, none of them passed a race-blind test for the Law Review), they got upset and had to blame something. The something they blamed was the school itself, which they said was racist in its culture, its its portraits and statues (all those white men), in the unconcious attitudes of the white teachers and students, and so on. Meanwhile, no one dared speak the truth about the real reason the blacks weren't doing well, because that would only be adding to the supposed racism.
Thus, as a result of its favoritism toward racial minorities, Yale Law School ended up being condemned as racist and having to drop its standards. All of this flows inevitably from racial preferences in admissions.
I don't support affirmative action so please quit knocking down your own strawman.
The arguments against the Bell Curve from conservatives who "get" statistics have nothing to do with hysteria or PC.
Do you know what multicollinearity is? Have you ever built a regression model? Did you use OLS or a more complicated technique?
You simply cannot claim that IQ is the most important factor when its beta-weight is so small. The r^2 involved is so small that to even talk about some of this stuff is laughable. When you compare people who are 20 points apart in IQ but are not siblings, have you controlled for all relevant factors? How do you know when you didn't have a fully specified model to begin with?
You can't take r^2s in the .1-.2 range and start lecturing people how important one of the betas is when THAT particular beta is itself so small.
Believe me, you can see this effect while *correlating* IQ to a whole host of outcomes.
You obviously aren't making any effort to talk to someone you trust who has done this sort of work, are you?
Once again Landshark parades mathematical concepts that neither I or nor anyone else in this thread have any claim to understanding, and that in any case are irrelevant to the simple points I was making. He also makes no argument, but just lists terms.
Now, there's more interesting information from the Jonathan Kay article in Commentary (not exactly a white racist publication) about law school admissions.
Of 91,000 applicants to law schools in the spring of 2002, 4,500 had LSAT scores of 165 and GPA of 3.5, scores generally needed to get into a top ten law school.
Of that 4,500, 81 percent self-identify as white; 10 percent as Asian or Pacific; and 0.65 percent as black. (He doesn't mention Hispanic.)
That means that out of the 4,500 who were qualified for the top ten law schools, there were only 29 blacks, or 3 blacks per school.
Does anyone think it's a coincidence that the tiny number of blacks who qualify for the top law schools corresponds with the tiny number of blacks (0.4 percent) with IQs in the Very Bright range of over 130?
What I would like to know is how many of the
white/asian/other students with LSAT's over
165 and GPA's of 3.5 were not admitted to the
top ten law schools. I know every self identified 'black' who scored that well would
have been accepted.
Further, what was the AVERAGE score of the
white/asians admitted vs. that of the blacks.
Stanford for example brags that its entering
freshman class not only had more blacks but
also had a higher average SAT score than ever. An example of lying with statistics
since a very competitive school like Stanford
can easily juice up its average by not
admitting any white or asian with an SAT
under 1400 while allowing blacks to enter
with a 1200 which used to be the threshold
when I was not admitted ( I did get into
to UCB though)
What's sad is that the concepts I am talking about are very elementary in statistical analysis.
The fact that you think I'm substituting terms for an argument is simply a sign that the valid, non-hysterical, non-PC criticisms of the Bell Curve are over your head.
You keep bringing the argument back to affirmative action and for the third or fourth time, I do not support affirmative action.
I never have.
Please google multicollinearity for starters... I have taught statistics and data analysis but my students were generally willing to apply themselves. I can't spoon feed this stuff to you.
Oh come on now math is great and multiple
regression analysis cool for making sense
of inchoate data but it ain't always precise.
I invest in biotech stocks and they can soar
or be pulverized by a clinical trials result.
All kind of statistical analysis applied to
the results you know. But guess what, it's as
often as not GIGO. Highly paid and educated
statisticians pouring over a few hundred
volunteers diary entries as to how they felt
after receiving some molecule WE KNOW works.
So I take statistical analysis for what it is
math applied to make a case. Not the truth.
Reply 42 - Posted by:
Landshark, 5/25/2003 10:57:00 AM
"What's sad is that the concepts I am talking about are very elementary in statistical analysis."
"The fact that you think I'm substituting terms for an argument is simply a sign that the valid, non-hysterical, non-PC criticisms of the Bell Curve are over your head."
"You keep bringing the argument back to affirmative action and for the third or fourth time, I do not support affirmative action."
"I can't spoon feed this stuff to you."
How does one respond to someone who makes no arguments except to say "I'm smarter than you"? I tell him I'm not familiar with the mathematical concepts he's referencing and that they're not relevant to my point in any case, and he replies by saying "I can't spoon feed this stuff to you." What an egomaniac!
Also, my last post, other than quickly dispensing with Landshark's irrelevancies, had nothing to do with affirmative action but gave the numbers of top level black law school applicants and how that roughly correlates with the representation of blacks in the upper ranges of IQ.
Larry, larry, larry. If you can't understand the substance of the debate, how are we supposed to argue? I can't help it tht you think the only criticism of Murray is hysterical PC crap. You're wrong.
In my world, "show your work" is not about extra credit, it's about getting to the truth.
I have tremendous respect for Murray and think he's right on a ton of things. The problem is that he won't show his work in a peer reviewed article because guys at my level could shoot him down. If I could do it, think what the real deals could do to him.
He used a very basic regression technique that is not suitable to the data set. You will simply have to trust me since you refuse to go look this stuff up but when you run a model with 12 variables, you will sometimes get that one of the variables is negatively correlated. Drop down to 9 variables and suddenly, that variable is positively correlated.
You and I may agree with a lot of Murray's ideas about what to do with social policy, but his research sucks.
If Landshark is so sure that Murray and Herrnstein's findings about IQ (which, by the way, were supported by a majority of people who actually work in the field) were so fundamentally wrong, he ought to be able to explain it in language that the people reading this thread can understand. But he can't do that. Instead, he just keeps referring us, in his all-knowing way, to certain mathematical concepts he's unable to explain.
For the nth time, I'm not an expert. I base my arguments on my general reading in the field. But at least I've made my arguments in clear and logical language that anyone reading this thread would be able to follow. Landshark is manifestly unable to do the same. So he just keeps referring us to some expert knowledge and contemptuously telling us that we're dopes for not knowing it. His method is transparent.
The PC crowd got its knickers in a twist because they didn't like the argument. Many on the right (there was an extensive article in National Review) argued they were wrong on the methodology. I am simply arguing they are wrong on the methodology. If they weren't, they'd publish in a peer reviewed journal and show their work.
Look, frequency with which you have oil changes is actually a statistically significant predictor of your chances of surviving an car wreck.
I could then argue that the only thing that matters is that people who maintain their cars are safer drivers and therefore less likely to die in a car wreck.
If I did that, I would be committing the same fallacy Murray and Hernstein made.
If you really want to know about survivability, things like size of car, airbags, seatbelts and so forth are a lot more predictive.
BTW, Hernstein and Murray aren't in the IQ field so it's pretty hard to argue the field agrees with them.
So Landshark agrees that there is a 15 point
IQ difference but that it may not make much
difference in terms of certain outcomes such
as income or social class?
That could well be true but not because it
shouldn't but because other factors such as
government policy are preventing it you know.
I have heard, e.g., that some 55% of all
black professionals work for government
agencies. A large part of the rest work in
quasi government employment; private colleges
utilities, non profits etc. Very few are
actually employed in the REAL private sector.
One could ask why. My guess would be it is
because job security trumps income and that
if one is not very good in one's field get
thee to a public sector bureaucracy. You
might say discrimination but since many
private companies would dearly love to have
a 'token' black professional but only the
largest can afford to hire an econmically
moribund or incompetent one.
Advanced statistics can become quite complex and difficult to understand for someone not prepared to digest the mathematics. But the average person can understand variance, covariance, multifactorial analysis, Chi Square, mode, median, mean etc. Putting all of this aside, may I suggest some points which are hardly arguable:
1. As far as I know the only systems of the body that could reasonably be related to intelligence are the nervous and the endocrine systems. There is no reason to believe that the tissue of nerve cells and endocrine glands are different than bone or skin cells being inheritable.
2. There are tests that involve the ability of the brain to process information ( called ISP's)(or Invoked Spike Potentials) A light is shown into the eye and the time to process it is measured. The faster the impulse, the smarter the person. It correlates almost perfectly with paper and pencil tests, circa .95. This is routinely used to assess brain abnormalities, injuries, etc. It has been downplayed with respect to IQ because what you read hear. It is essentially the same kind of physical constant as twitch respone time etc.
My having a 15 point advantage though, does nothing to predict my relative outcome when you consider a fully specified model that includes things like drive, familial support and so forth.--emphasis mine
I think the underlined is a huge overstatement.
It implies that topics in upper-level Calculus courses, for example, would be equally accessible to folks having of a 145 vs. a 130 IQ. I don't buy it.
For some subjects and levels of other subjects, yes--hard work, drive, etc. can overcome great distances. Those factors are sufficient to overcome IQ differentials. For others, either you get it (or can get it) or you don't (and can't).
I've known plenty of folks with lots of drive, solid familial support and decent intelligence who couldn't get to that next level intellectually.
The analogy to sports is unescapable. One can run a 40-yard dash faster than the next guy and still not be a great football lineman.
Right--and the same problem here. Some folks can shoot hoops all day every day for the next three years straight and will never be superior ball players to those who may not need to work near as hard and yet whose play will transcend the former's.
This will be my last comment here because it's not worth the trouble to talk to someone who, despite frequent reminders that he's overstepping the line, refuses to speak without insulting people, and yet who is incapable himself of making the winning argument he claims to be making.
Landshark's argument about oil changes is irrelevant to Murray and Herrnstein's argument about the predictive effect of IQ.
It's very simple. Using the data in the huge National Longitudinal Study of Youth, they looked at people's socioeconomic background in childhood, and compared that to, say, their income years later. Then they looked at their IQ as measured in childhood, and compared that to their income years later, and found that IQ was a larger predictor of income than socioeconomic background. Murray then looked at siblings who came from the same socioeconomic background and even the same home environment, and found the same correlations. It's indisputable that IQ is highly correlated with a whole range of life outcomes.
Goodnight all. And Landshark, speaking of oil changes, if you want to crash less often, you should change your personality.
