Tabula rasa, or science denial of the left

[Liriena]

Not in the terms you clearly wish to express it. Your "scientific racism" isn't very subtle, specially after you unironically cited the bell curve.

The idea that there are significant traits and behaviors that are part of some sort of "racial biological essence", which you are blatantly pushing, is nothing more than an ad hoc attempt to cram the square peg of arcane racial categories into the round hole of contemporary genetics.

I'm not pushing essentialism, I'm pushing statistics.

By citing a post from an obscure blog, authored by some economist, and the fucking bell curve?

Again, your bias and intent are extremely obvious.

Human populations cluster and evolve independently

Not to the point of creating a small handful of highly genetically differentiated "races".

[Liriena]

Also, friendly reminder to everyone else in the thread that the bell curve is a pile of bullshit, and here's why: http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/debunk/dBell.htm

The first link gives us an article about how your average American is stupid, which is to no one's surprise. No one is arguing in the Bell Curve that your average American, or your average white American for that matter, is exceptionally intelligent. This does not refute the point in any way.

The rest are speculating on the authors' covert ill intent of racist libertarianism. I see nothing substantial to be addressed.

There's also:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2967209?se ... b_contents
http://www.intelltheory.com/bellcurve.shtml
http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/ ... ingle.html

So your sources are, again, some economist's blog post and a single book that wasn't even peer reviewed and that actual scientists have spent decades debunking.

Maybe you ought to retire from being a peddler of pseudo-scientific racism.

[Seangoli]

Not in the terms you clearly wish to express it. Your "scientific racism" isn't very subtle, specially after you unironically cited the bell curve.

The idea that there are significant traits and behaviors that are part of some sort of "racial biological essence", which you are blatantly pushing, is nothing more than an ad hoc attempt to cram the square peg of arcane racial categories into the round hole of contemporary genetics.

I'm not pushing essentialism, I'm pushing statistics.

Human populations cluster and evolve independently, so it's not a surprise they would evolve a variety of different traits. For all intents and purposes, races are a good proxy for this. It is observable that there is disparity in average cognitive ability among different races. Gaussian distribution ("bell curve") means that slight difference in mean could translate to extreme disparity in the tails. This is not because of "racism", this is because of differences in ability. etc., etc.

Here's the problem: There is no cultural neutral means of assessing innate intelligence or cognitive ability. There are plenty of tests which have indicated significant cognitive differences due to culture. You should familiarize yourself with the Flynn effect. Notably, it poses a fascinating question: If we were to apply current standards of practically any IQ to European populations from just 100 years ago, their intelligence would rank significantly lower than the modern population.

Is it technically possible that there are biological differences in cognitive ability? Sure. The differences are so incredibly minute, and difficult to parse from cultural impact, that it might as well not even exist for any practical purpose. If it did, you would not see the massive leaps and bounds in intelligence testing and cognitive ability when adding any number of environmental stimulii, including eating breakfast in the morning. Seriously, something as simple as eating a decent breakfast has been shown to increases of several percentage points when studying average cognitive ability.

If there is any cognitive difference due to biology, it is so minute and practically nonexistent when compared to the massive gains seen by positive environmental shifts that it might as well not even exist.

[Liriena]

I'm not pushing essentialism, I'm pushing statistics.

Human populations cluster and evolve independently, so it's not a surprise they would evolve a variety of different traits. For all intents and purposes, races are a good proxy for this. It is observable that there is disparity in average cognitive ability among different races. Gaussian distribution ("bell curve") means that slight difference in mean could translate to extreme disparity in the tails. This is not because of "racism", this is because of differences in ability. etc., etc.

Here's the problem: There is no cultural neutral means of assessing innate intelligence or cognitive ability. There are plenty of tests which have indicated significant cognitive differences due to culture. You should familiarize yourself with the Flynn effect. Notably, it poses a fascinating question: If we were to apply current standards of practically any IQ to European populations from just 100 years ago, their intelligence would rank significantly lower than the modern population.

Is it technically possible that there are biological differences in cognitive ability? Sure. The differences are so incredibly minute, and difficult to parse from cultural impact, that it might as well not even exist for any practical purpose. If it did, you would not see the massive leaps and bounds in intelligence testing and cognitive ability when adding any number of environmental stimulii, including eating breakfast in the morning. Seriously, something as simple as eating a decent breakfast has been shown to increases of several percentage points when studying average cognitive ability.

If there is any cognitive difference due to biology, it is so minute and practically nonexistent when compared to the massive gains seen by positive environmental shifts that it might as well not even exist.

B-b-but the bell curve said... D':

[Seangoli]

I'm not pushing essentialism, I'm pushing statistics.

Statistics don't tell you the whys, they tell you the whats. Correlation not equating to causation is probably the biggest rule of statistics, and you should familiarize yourself with that.

Human populations cluster and evolve independently, so it's not a surprise they would evolve a variety of different traits. For all intents and purposes, races are a good proxy for this.

You should study genetic drift and clinal variation then get back to human evolution. The notion that human populations are separated into even remotely distinct evolutionary groupings is antiquated to the point of being laughable. Human evolution is a hell of a lot more complicated than this presents it, and races are not a good proxy for anything beyond taxonomic study for simplicity sake.

It is observable that there is disparity in average cognitive ability among different races. Gaussian distribution ("bell curve") means that slight difference in mean could translate to extreme disparity in the tails. This is not because of "racism", this is because of differences in ability. etc., etc.

And those traits have been shown to be far more readily explained by environmental impacts than by genetics by a wide margin.

[Darussalam]

Not to the point of creating a small handful of highly genetically differentiated "races".

Umm... what are the bottom left list for, again? It's almost like they are implying that ethnic groups have different genetic composition with each other.

They're not 'genetically differentiated' to the extent that ethnic groups are incapable of intermixing with each other, obviously. But they are quite differentiated in a lot of socially relevant ways.

There's also:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2967209?se ... b_contents
http://www.intelltheory.com/bellcurve.shtml

Another speculation of racist intent. Interestingly, IQ tests actually advantaged Jews and Asians over Whites, just as it advantaged Whites over Hispanics and Blacks.

IQ denialism is rhetorically similar with "evolution is just a theory". As Rothman and Snyderman have documented, ""On the whole, scholars with any expertise in the area of intelligence and intelligence testing (defined very broadly) share a common view of the most important components of intelligence, and are convinced that it can be measured with some degree of accuracy." Searching key words "intelligence" or "IQ" in PubMed or Google Scholar will make it evident that intelligence is acknowledged as working scientific research concept and tool. At the very least, in the useful fields.

And as APA reported,

... the relevant question is whether the tests have a "predictive bias" against Blacks, Such a bias would exist if African-American performance on the criterion variables (school achievement, college GPA, etc.) were systematically higher than the same subjects' test scores would predict. This is not the case. The actual regression lines (which show the mean criterion performance for individuals who got various scores on the predictor) for Blacks do not lie above those for Whites; there is even a slight tendency in the other direction (Jensen, 1980; Reynolds &:Brown, 1984). Considered as predictors of future performance, the tests do not seem to be biased against African Americans.

Stephen Jay Gould is not taken seriously by anyone who know a damn about biology. He's quite explicitly an ideological crusader.

[Liriena]

Not to the point of creating a small handful of highly genetically differentiated "races".

Umm... what are the bottom left list for, again? It's almost like they are implying that ethnic groups have different genetic composition with each other.

They're not 'genetically differentiated' to the extent that ethnic groups are incapable of intermixing with each other, obviously. But they are quite differentiated in a lot of socially relevant ways.

Aaaaaaand we made it to Richard Lynn already.

Man, at least be honest about where you want to go with this.

[Heloin]

How come ever single patriarchal "race realist" attempts to hide behind the veil of science when they spout nonsense? Of course there are there differences between men and women, but to pretend those differences make a women less intelligent or less capable then men at things is categorically false. I'm not even going to humour the race argument but recommend you read Robert Sussman's The Myth of Race.

[Liriena]

How come ever single patriarchal "race realist" attempts to hide behind the veil of science when they spout nonsense?

And use non peer reviewed crap and blogs as sources.

[Genivaria]

Not to the point of creating a small handful of highly genetically differentiated "races".

Umm... what are the bottom left list for, again? It's almost like they are implying that ethnic groups have different genetic composition with each other.

They're not 'genetically differentiated' to the extent that ethnic groups are incapable of intermixing with each other, obviously. But they are quite differentiated in a lot of socially relevant ways.

There's also:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2967209?se ... b_contents
http://www.intelltheory.com/bellcurve.shtml

Another speculation of racist intent. Interestingly, IQ tests actually advantaged Jews and Asians over Whites, just as it advantaged Whites over Hispanics and Blacks.

IQ denialism is rhetorically similar with "evolution is just a theory". As Rothman and Snyderman have documented, ""On the whole, scholars with any expertise in the area of intelligence and intelligence testing (defined very broadly) share a common view of the most important components of intelligence, and are convinced that it can be measured with some degree of accuracy." Searching key words "intelligence" or "IQ" in PubMed or Google Scholar will make it evident that intelligence is acknowledged as working scientific research concept and tool. At the very least, in the useful fields.

And as APA reported,

... the relevant question is whether the tests have a "predictive bias" against Blacks, Such a bias would exist if African-American performance on the criterion variables (school achievement, college GPA, etc.) were systematically higher than the same subjects' test scores would predict. This is not the case. The actual regression lines (which show the mean criterion performance for individuals who got various scores on the predictor) for Blacks do not lie above those for Whites; there is even a slight tendency in the other direction (Jensen, 1980; Reynolds &:Brown, 1984). Considered as predictors of future performance, the tests do not seem to be biased against African Americans.

Stephen Jay Gould is not taken seriously by anyone who know a damn about biology. He's quite explicitly an ideological crusader.

Translation: This expert opposes my unfounded bullshit so I'm going to smear him.

Stephen Jay Gould (/ɡuːld/; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation.....
Gould was known by the general public mainly for his 300 popular essays in Natural History magazine,[6] and his numerous books written for both the specialist and non-specialist. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a "Living Legend".[7]

[Arcturus Novus]

Admittedly, I don't entirely understand OP's arguments, but I vehemently disagree with the parts that I can understand.

[Darussalam]

Here's the problem: There is no cultural neutral means of assessing innate intelligence or cognitive ability. There are plenty of tests which have indicated significant cognitive differences due to culture. You should familiarize yourself with the Flynn effect. Notably, it poses a fascinating question: If we were to apply current standards of practically any IQ to European populations from just 100 years ago, their intelligence would rank significantly lower than the modern population.

Is it technically possible that there are biological differences in cognitive ability? Sure. The differences are so incredibly minute, and difficult to parse from cultural impact, that it might as well not even exist for any practical purpose. If it did, you would not see the massive leaps and bounds in intelligence testing and cognitive ability when adding any number of environmental stimulii, including eating breakfast in the morning. Seriously, something as simple as eating a decent breakfast has been shown to increases of several percentage points when studying average cognitive ability.

If there is any cognitive difference due to biology, it is so minute and practically nonexistent when compared to the massive gains seen by positive environmental shifts that it might as well not even exist.

ttps://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... _id=960379
Association between economic outcomes and measured intelligence appear to be even higher within developing African countries than within Western countries

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub
Relationship between GDP and national average IQ was stronger for the mostly African developing countries than it was among the developed industrial countries.

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1988-98683-012
Correlations between employee performance and educational outcomes and cognitive ability did not differ for blacks and whites in Southern Africa.

If IQ has cultural biases then it sure as hell isn't biased against Africans.

Statistics don't tell you the whys, they tell you the whats. Correlation not equating to causation is probably the biggest rule of statistics, and you should familiarize yourself with that.

Likewise, you might want to familiarize yourself with p-values and controlling variables.

The term has been beaten to death, but the actual term should be "Not all correlations are causations." You can infer causation from correlation. If we control enough variables we can see which variable influences which.

Human populations cluster and evolve independently, so it's not a surprise they would evolve a variety of different traits. For all intents and purposes, races are a good proxy for this.

You should study genetic drift and clinal variation then get back to human evolution. The notion that human populations are separated into even remotely distinct evolutionary groupings is antiquated to the point of being laughable. Human evolution is a hell of a lot more complicated than this presents it, and races are not a good proxy for anything beyond taxonomic study for simplicity sake.

...I have suspicion that you're just throwing words for words' sake. Nothing in genetic drift refutes so-called "race realism", and clines do not negate the existence of clusters. Razib Khan explained this better than I could, but the tl;dr summary is that human population density matters.

quote]
It is observable that there is disparity in average cognitive ability among different races. Gaussian distribution ("bell curve") means that slight difference in mean could translate to extreme disparity in the tails. This is not because of "racism", this is because of differences in ability. etc., etc.

And those traits have been shown to be far more readily explained by environmental impacts than by genetics by a wide margin.[/quote]
Transracial adoption studies beg to differ.

Umm... what are the bottom left list for, again? It's almost like they are implying that ethnic groups have different genetic composition with each other.

They're not 'genetically differentiated' to the extent that ethnic groups are incapable of intermixing with each other, obviously. But they are quite differentiated in a lot of socially relevant ways.

Aaaaaaand we made it to Richard Lynn already.

Man, at least be honest about where you want to go with this.

Yeah, it would be quicker if you just say from the beginning "All people I disagree with are racists".

[Traceynia]

This would be an excellent time to discuss the supremacy of Nigerian people. They are extremely educated and successful immigrants who regularly outperform other immigrant groups. I am sure the OP will be very interested in this new evidence and adjust his racial hierarchy to put africans at the top.
https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/the-most-successful-ethnic-group-in-the-us-may-surprise-you/86885

[USS Monitor]

But my observation is that hereditarian leftists have always been regarded as crypto-rightists, or worse, crypto-fascists, by the figures of the mainstream left. You can be an atheist and a rightist, you can be a gay and a rightist, you can be a godless social darwinist and a rightist, but leftism seems to go beyond egalitarian redistributionism and is instead defined through certain key dogma that contradict reality. Reject them, and you're the part of the Intellectual Dark Web, or worse: Alt-Rightism.

tl;dr: We have a serious problem of science denialism from the left in the form of blank-slate social sciences. What do you think about it, and what should we do?

I am left of center and I do not believe that everyone is born with an equal amount of innate ability. I have never experienced this reaction that you describe from mainstream leftists. Disagreement, yes. Criticism of my beliefs, yes. But using language like "crypto-rightist" or "Intellectual Dark Web"? No. I have only been called alt-right maybe once or twice, and I think that is too rare to be considered a "mainstream" reaction.

[Dark Socialism]

This would be an excellent time to discuss the supremacy of Nigerian people. They are extremely educated and successful immigrants who regularly outperform other immigrant groups. I am sure the OP will be very interested in this new evidence and adjust his racial hierarchy to put africans at the top.
https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/the-most-successful-ethnic-group-in-the-us-may-surprise-you/86885

Interesting, not just Africans but Nigerians should rule over us children of Yakub

[Darussalam]

Umm... what are the bottom left list for, again? It's almost like they are implying that ethnic groups have different genetic composition with each other.

They're not 'genetically differentiated' to the extent that ethnic groups are incapable of intermixing with each other, obviously. But they are quite differentiated in a lot of socially relevant ways.

Another speculation of racist intent. Interestingly, IQ tests actually advantaged Jews and Asians over Whites, just as it advantaged Whites over Hispanics and Blacks.

IQ denialism is rhetorically similar with "evolution is just a theory". As Rothman and Snyderman have documented, ""On the whole, scholars with any expertise in the area of intelligence and intelligence testing (defined very broadly) share a common view of the most important components of intelligence, and are convinced that it can be measured with some degree of accuracy." Searching key words "intelligence" or "IQ" in PubMed or Google Scholar will make it evident that intelligence is acknowledged as working scientific research concept and tool. At the very least, in the useful fields.

And as APA reported,


Stephen Jay Gould is not taken seriously by anyone who know a damn about biology. He's quite explicitly an ideological crusader.

Translation: This expert opposes my unfounded bullshit so I'm going to smear him.

Stephen Jay Gould (/ɡuːld/; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation.....
Gould was known by the general public mainly for his 300 popular essays in Natural History magazine,[6] and his numerous books written for both the specialist and non-specialist. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a "Living Legend".[7]

A brief anecdote: Krugman once dissed Gould. It's hilarious.

Anyway, here you go. Some people also proved that Victorian racists were right and Gould was wrong because he outright lied.

[Darussalam]

This would be an excellent time to discuss the supremacy of Nigerian people. They are extremely educated and successful immigrants who regularly outperform other immigrant groups. I am sure the OP will be very interested in this new evidence and adjust his racial hierarchy to put africans at the top.
https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/the-most-successful-ethnic-group-in-the-us-may-surprise-you/86885

I don't believe in racial hierarchy.

But my observation is that hereditarian leftists have always been regarded as crypto-rightists, or worse, crypto-fascists, by the figures of the mainstream left. You can be an atheist and a rightist, you can be a gay and a rightist, you can be a godless social darwinist and a rightist, but leftism seems to go beyond egalitarian redistributionism and is instead defined through certain key dogma that contradict reality. Reject them, and you're the part of the Intellectual Dark Web, or worse: Alt-Rightism.

tl;dr: We have a serious problem of science denialism from the left in the form of blank-slate social sciences. What do you think about it, and what should we do?

I am left of center and I do not believe that everyone is born with an equal amount of innate ability. I have never experienced this reaction that you describe from mainstream leftists. Disagreement, yes. Criticism of my beliefs, yes. But using language like "crypto-rightist" or "Intellectual Dark Web"? No. I have only been called alt-right maybe once or twice, and I think that is too rare to be considered a "mainstream" reaction.

James Damore.

[Vince Vaughn]

This would be an excellent time to discuss the supremacy of Nigerian people. They are extremely educated and successful immigrants who regularly outperform other immigrant groups. I am sure the OP will be very interested in this new evidence and adjust his racial hierarchy to put africans at the top.
https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/the-most-successful-ethnic-group-in-the-us-may-surprise-you/86885

Nigerian immigrants to the US tend to be the from wealthy and educated classes, which skews heavily towards people with a good work ethic and financial intelligence.

Most of them are from the urban, Westernized areas, not the bush.

[USS Monitor]

Maybe some people think that but I think the actual position is that regardless of differences it shouldn't be used to single out or discriminate against a perceived set of people. There should be equality of opportunity. In addition, any average is not a statement on the individual. Finally in all the examples you cite there are far greater similarities than difference, perhaps we should accept the fact we're all basically the same and should be treated as such.

^This.

There are average differences, but people should be treated as individuals and allowed to follow their dreams, not pigeonholed into a prescribed role based on stereotypes.

[Webus]

Yeah the left is so unscientific for rejecting race "science" and recognizing that the individual variation in these capacities is so large as to make the minor differences on average completely meaningless.

[Darussalam]

Maybe some people think that but I think the actual position is that regardless of differences it shouldn't be used to single out or discriminate against a perceived set of people. There should be equality of opportunity. In addition, any average is not a statement on the individual. Finally in all the examples you cite there are far greater similarities than difference, perhaps we should accept the fact we're all basically the same and should be treated as such.

^This.

There are average differences, but people should be treated as individuals and allowed to follow their dreams, not pigeonholed into a prescribed role based on stereotypes.

That is also my preferred scenario.

But the present status quo treats differences in results as caused by unseen "power structures" as opposed to variations in preferences and abilities, and thus something to be "fixed" at a great cost.

[Seangoli]

And those traits have been shown to be far more readily explained by environmental impacts than by genetics by a wide margin.

Transracial adoption studies beg to differ.
[/quote]

From your own damn source:

Loehlin (2000) reiterates the confounding problems of the study and notes that both genetic and environmental interpretations are possible. He further offers another possible explanation of the results, namely unequal prenatal factors: "[O]ne possibility lies in the prenatal environment provided by Black and White biological mothers. The Black-Black group, of course, all had Black mothers. In the Black-White group, virtually all of the birth mothers were White (66 of 68). Willerman and his colleagues found that in interracial couples it made a difference whether the mother was Black or White: The children obtained higher IQs if she was White. They suspected that this difference was due to postnatal environment, but it could, of course, have been in the prenatal one."[6]

There are multiple environmental factors that were not accounted for in the original study, and even the original authors of the study stated that it was inconclusive due to them not being able to fully remove environmental effects from the study. There are a hell of a lot more variables at play when it comes to environment than simply child-rearing, and this has been studied and noted to cause dramatic impacts on testable intelligence.

[Seangoli]

^This.

There are average differences, but people should be treated as individuals and allowed to follow their dreams, not pigeonholed into a prescribed role based on stereotypes.

That is also my preferred scenario.

But the present status quo treats differences in results as caused by unseen "power structures" as opposed to variations in preferences and abilities, and thus something to be "fixed" at a great cost.

In a lot of ways they are, as the differences caused by abilities and preferences has been shown to be minute, particularly compared to the differences caused by environment being far more impactful and far more readily addressed. The former sort of existing does not negate the latter from existing.

[Liriena]

But the present status quo treats differences in results as caused by unseen "power structures"

Because we can credibly trace them back to structural and historical problems, rather than a nazi's biased misunderstanding of genetics.

Also, you don't get to claim that you'd prefer people to be treated as individuals while with the same breath you unironically try to argue that gender and racial differences in outcome are primarily genetic.

Now, be honest: how do you feel about ethno-nationalism?

[Liriena]

"All people I disagree with are racists".

No. Just you, the guy who is citing the bell curve and actual racist pseudo-scientist Richard Lynn.