More Affirmative Action, Please
Posted by PlanetGrok on March 5, 2010
Much to the suprise of OneSTDV: Another HBD-denialist piece from Newsweek:
Minority Report
American universities are accepting more minorities than ever. Graduating them is another matter.
Well who could have predicted that?
But if the ignorance is not hilarious enough, take a look at the asserted root of all this, and the implicit solution:
But a bigger problem may be that poor high schools often send their students to colleges for which they are, in educators’ jargon, “undermatched”: they could get into more elite, richer schools, but instead go to community colleges and low-rated state schools that lack the resources to help them.
So what we need to do here is prescribe more affirmative action! Let’s make sure LaQuanian (aka “Ca$hmunny”) or Pablo (aka “No Ingles, holmesssss”) don’t go to those community colleges where they won’t graduate – Let’s send them to Harvard where they’ll have the “resources they need”.
Then, once they get there, let’s boost all of their grades by one full letter until the graduation rate is equal to Asian students. Who wouldn’t want to hire one of these fine young gentlemen?
For years private colleges such as Princeton and MIT have had success bringing minorities onto campus in the summer before freshman year to give them a head start on college-level courses. The newer trend is to start recruiting poor and nonwhite students as early as the seventh grade, using innovative tools like hip-hop competitions to identify kids with sophisticated verbal finesse. Such programs can be expensive, of course, but cheap compared with the millions already invested in scholarships and grants for kids who have little chance to graduate without special support.
Jesus Christ. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think a bunch of rappers have any business being within 50 miles of an MIT class, unless there is a nearby prison. Nor will their dexterity in Ebonics assist them in their MIT engineering courses, homie:
Ca$hmunny: Yo what be up wit dat multivariabible calculus, mayne? System dynamism just be too complex fo’ me. Prof Weisenburg be trippin too, wheneva I acks a question.
Pablo: Si
Ca$hmunny: Giving me awl dese F’s an’ shit. I’m finna battle dis fool next time I see him. Werd
Pablo: Si
Me: *Sigh*
Obsidian: “Pull ya pants UP, grimey brothas, put on some AXE products, and let me show you the way to Muhammed”
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
These articles make you wonder what goes on in the minds of delusional liberal creationists. I mean, even before I encountered HBD, I wasn’t that naive.
Planet Grok 
levi johnston said
High dropout rates from community colleges are partially explained by some delinquents who enroll as a part of probation but never go to class or drop.
had an interesting post about the situation faced by many top-flight schools and minorities. They often get blacks which are pretty smart but not as smart as the whites and Asians on campus and nowhere near as hardworking. It is indeed a conundrum faced by individual blacks who are legitimately interested in the sciences or engineering but don’t want to be in over their heads and wreck their GPA and ruin their grad school options.
PlanetGrok said
Yes, but let’s not kid ourselves either, the article clearly was not referring to those probation “students”.
If a kid can’t graduate from a lower tier college on his own, then he isn’t going to perform wonders at the Ivies, even with all that “support”.
levi johnston said
Should say “La Griffe du Lion” and the html shouldn’t be fucked, but yeah
theobsidianfiles said
Planet Grok,
What do you suggest be done, then? Posts like yours proliferate throughout the HBDosphere, but very little in the way of actual solutions, other than merely ending Affirmative Action. So OK, let’s say that magically, Affirmative Action is ended tomorrow, and all the aggrieved smart White guys are now able to take their rightful place as Masters of the Universe.
Now what?
Comments?
O.
PlanetGrok said
What is the solution for hurricanes?
Who knows, they’re a force of nature.
If Affirmative Action ended – then nothing. Mission Complete.
A.A. also does a giant disservice to black people who don’t actually need it, by tainting the significance of their actual accomplishments.
too late said
The whole racial equality morality play does an even greater disservice to white children who are taught from kindergarten though college that they are born evil racists and that the white race, their own race, is responsible for non-white dysfunction and failures. No child should be burdened with this new pc version of original sin. Non-white children are built up with false ideas of equality. If they ever fail in life, they are taught its whitey’s fault. And whites are beaten down to the point where they feel they don’t have the right to stand up for themselves. Loathing your own race is a form of mental illness prescribed to white children. It explains a lot of the growing white dysfunction the equality bunch love to point out.
theobsidianfiles said
Yes, but PG, we do try to prepare ourselves as best we can for hurricanes; unless you’re also cool with Katrina-like things to just happen to large swaths of our fellow citizens.
Come on. You’re a smart guy. You want Affirmative Action to go away. Fine. Then what?
o.
David Alexander said
You want Affirmative Action to go away. Fine. Then what?
I think you’re missing his point. He doesn’t care about what happens afterward. Sink or swim. 🙂
JB said
“Then what.”
Why are you more interested in “ruling in hell” than “serving in heaven”? Because as I see it the logical end result of “blame whitey for all ills” is all of America turns into Detroit and D.C.
It isn’t as if we were in some sort of stasis on this issue — it is the horrifying prospect of exponentially growing political correctness that prompts these calls for reason.
“Then what” is an interesting question. Then, presumably we invest in nootropic research to raise IQs across the board, including among blacks.
We don’t have too many males. We don’t have enough smart males. There’s reason to suspect an innate gender gap in math and engineering.
Vincent Ignatius said
The good thing about hard science grad programs is that A.A. doesn’t work. At the undergrad level, the A.A. admit who can’t cut it in engineering can get by in sociology. At the Ph.D. level, they just fail out and hurt the universities minority retention statistics so they aren’t admitted in the first place unless they have a good shot at completing the program.
theobsidianfiles said
Planet Grok,
If what you say is true, then why are the Legacy Babies of the world, don’t also seem to suffer from such a “taint” on their legitimacy? Why does it only seem to effect Blacks, per your contentions, and not them? For more on this point, please see Adam Bellow’s In Praise of Nepotism. Thanks.
O.
PlanetGrok said
“Why does it only seem to effect Blacks, per your contentions, and not them? ”
This is a perfect example of Obsidian’s inability to hold a logical argument. Nowhere do I make such an assertion, but he ascribes it to me anyway.
There is absolutely a taint on legacy students. Look at the ridicule heaped on Bush’s Ivy League degree. But that’s just not the topic of this post. FWIW, Legacy students make it possible for Affirmative Action scholarships at elite universities by donating large sums of money to these institutions.
theobsidianfiles said
Planet Grok,
OK, fair enough. Basically, you and other HBDers really don’t care about other forms of preferrential treatment, only that which involves Blacks. Gotcha.
Alright then. So we completely eliminate it. Then, Blacks are relegated to their rightful place in society, yes? And, presumably, White guys who got bumped will then properly ascend like they were meant to. Is that how it goes?
O.
OM said
1. If I suck at math, can I still have a high IQ?
2. Regarding “rappers having no business at MIT” what do you think about “Mystery” at MIT? I was watching one video online and he claims that he has given seminars at MIT. My immediate thought was, what the hell is this crap being taught at MIT for, and God forbid if any tax-payers’ money has contributed to it!
Since it is now common for Universities to host all kinds of airy fairy new age cream puffs on their campuses, AFTER HOURS, I was hoping it was some small student “club” that pooled THEIR OWN MONEY to fly him out and give a “seminar” at 7pm on a Saturday night or something.
But the way he was talking you’d think he was an “honorary PhD” from there or something.
My personal opinion is that colleges should teach only hardcore academics and sciences and all the new age fluff should be laid to rest. Students can pursue that on their own dime and their own time if they want.
PlanetGrok said
He wasn’t being funded by the school, I don’t think. He runs a business giving coaching seminars.
But if his seminars result in more high-IQ people mating, then fund away, I say.
“My personal opinion is that colleges should teach only hardcore academics and sciences and all the new age fluff should be laid to rest.”
I agree.
PlanetGrok said
It depends what you mean both by “suck at math”, and “high IQ”. Can you do math, or you just don’t like it? What do you consider “high IQ”?
If you find algebra hard, then you’re probably not very bright. If you find math at or beyond Calculus II hard, you still might be smart, just weighed more toward the verbal side. In my humble opinion.
Math is pure reasoning, even those who do not particularly care for it (like me) can still do it if they are intelligent.
theobsidianfiles said
OM(? Bag Lady, is that YOU?),
I am sorry to inform you, but the Liberal Arts, of which I am sure you know the origins of, has been a part of the Acdademy for a very long time – centuries, in fact. I see no reason why it should necessarily take a back seat to the Sciences. That’s like saying that Oxford should be chucked in favor of Cambridge.
O.
JB said
Liberal Arts has since the 60s largely devolved into Liberal Propaganda Arts — a debased pseudoscience serving the master of Gramscian warcraft. Yes, there are pockets of integrity here and there, but virtually entire disciplines could be eliminated without the world any worse (and arguably much better) for it.
Dwayne Mayor said
“For years private colleges such as Princeton and MIT have had success bringing minorities onto campus in the summer before freshman year to give them a head start on college-level courses.”
That support system seems to be key, as the Meyerhoff Scholars Program also attests. When cognitively-capable Negroes, many of whom come from more impoverished academic backgrounds in poorer school districts and de facto segregated schools, are given a condensed version of the habits of mind and disciplined study (thorough head start programs, mentorship,tutorials in study skills, encouragement etc.) that are a given in white middle-class and upper-middle class homes, they tend to have little problem successfully graduating from top-notch institutions. I once suggested an experiment that would entail taking a large number of at-risk, drug-free young black mothers, and giving them the best pre-natal care possible, and then having their babies immediately adopted upon birth into the highly enriched environment of middle/upper class Ashkenazim Jewish families. Such a study would avoid the innumerable methodological flaws of Scarr’s Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study’ while providing us with a clear answer at just how large of an effect a socio-economic environment has on cognitive development.
PlanetGrok said
Such a study would also have to track adult IQ’s. Some studies of that sort funded by liberals tend to stop tracking IQ – conveniently – in early childhood. You can really tell it is often more of an ideological battle than a scientific one by looking at the holes that both sides have in their studies. I lean strongly toward a hereditarian opinion, but its true that there are gaps and questions on both sides of the argument, otherwise there wouldn’t be one.
Dwayne Mayor said
IQ is pretty set after 20, so I certainty would track the subjects through 20. The problem with many of those early childhood programs is that they end as suddenly as they began. They never continue throughout the child’s youth and adolescence, which are critical periods for cognitive development. To make any gains permanent, you have to keep up the pressure through adolescence. Besides, a few years of early enrichment can’t negate 15 years of living in the wretched conditions of inner city poverty, poor health care, violence, drugs, etc. Hence the benefit of adoption into a highly intellectually enriching upper class Ashkenazim Jewish environment, which would be like Head Start from 0-20.
As far as leaning toward the hereditarian opinion, that really tells us little about how malleable IQ is, which is really the central point. Most HBDers, when they use the term ‘hereditary’, don’t actually mean ‘hereditary,’ but ‘genetically fixed and immutable.’
PlanetGrok said
Well then let me be clear – I believe intelligence is largely genetic. White matter density has been shown to be over 90% genetic, and different people groups have different average cranial capacities, which can not easily be accounted for by environment. These group c.c. differences also correspond perfectly with group IQ differences. Aboriginals, for example, have a brain that is only 85% the size of Europeans.
Dwayne Mayor said
What was the cranial capacity of Neanderthals relative to modern humans?
Dwayne Mayor said
The major problem I have with assuming a causal connection between cranial capacity and IQ, is that when studies are done without confounding variables, the correlation approaches zero. For instance this study done by HBD anthropologist, Vincent Sarich: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18335/
“In summary, although total brain volume and cognitive ability are positively associated in the general population, the same is not true among sisters in the same families. Similar results have also been reported for males (16). This suggests that the direct, gene-based, causal association between the total brain volume and cognitive ability may be of minimal functional significance in modern populations, even if large enough to be evolutionarily relevant. However, significant correlations between STROOP and prefrontal regions found among sisters in the same families suggests that brain/behavior associations may exist for specific tasks in localized neuroanatomical regions.”
I suspect what people tend to do, is take a number of small-scale studies on brain volume and IQ that take no account of many confounders, see some moderate, positive correlation between the two variables and then irrationally leap to the conclusion that there is also a causal connection. But when confounders are largely eliminated, as in Sarich’s study above, the positive correlations mostly disappear, which demonstrates that the correlation between brain volume and IQ is mostly specious, that is, the difference in brain sizes is not cause the of variations in IQ.
PlanetGrok said
What was their IQ? Neanderthals are a fun punching bag, but we don’t know much about them. Cranial capacity predicts intelligence well across the animal kingdom. FTR, I think multi-regionalism is much more likely than some do.
No HBD data-point is ‘proof’ in and of itself. (Although I think one has to be quite willfully obtuse to downplay the significance of the stunning gap between Euro and Aboriginal cranial capacities.) But I think the whole picture that gets painted is quite clear – human evolution did not stop at the neck.
I’ll probably put up a post soon highlighting what I find to be the most convincing evidence for HBD. That way these debates can all be consolidated into one thread, and we won’t have to raise the same points over and over again.
PlanetGrok said
Dwayne,
That is an intra-group study. It does not speak to differences in group averages. Obviously, there are more factors in determining IQ than mere head size. Cranial capacity is an emergent significant variable when looking at populations, and it may be an enabler of other traits that do not instantly disappear when constricted.
I’ll put up an HBD ‘summary of the evidence’ post when I get time and you can wail away there. It’s not a religion to me so I welcome your rational skepticism.
Dwayne Mayor said
“That is an intra-group study. It does not speak to differences in group averages. Obviously, there are more factors in determining IQ than mere head size. Cranial capacity is an emergent significant variable when looking at populations, and it may be an enabler of other traits that do not instantly disappear when constricted.”
It is not enough to talk about the correlations found when looking at populations, because as I said earlier there are too many confounding factors that render those small-scale, not very well designed studies next to useless for determining causal relations.. There is a positive correlation between height and cranial capacity when looking at populations, but again that isn’t very helpful in any way. What we need are studies that help determine if there are CAUSAL LINKS between the correlated variables, and that is why intra-group studies like Sarich’s are so important.
“I’ll put up an HBD ’summary of the evidence’ post when I get time and you can wail away there. It’s not a religion to me so I welcome your rational skepticism.”
Sounds like a plan.
PlanetGrok said
The causal implications of larger population average brain size are clear: Said population will have larger brains on average, and thus be more intelligent. Look, if we went around measuring “leg length”, it might not predict if *I* am faster than *you*, much less if I am faster than my brother, but a large group of people with longer legs will certainly outperform a group of people with short legs in a race.
Brain size comparisons are especially relevant when the population groups are within the same extant species. Neanderthals are a rhetorical red herring, we don’t know what the Neanderthal brain architecture was, so inter-species comparisons are impossible. They also had significantly higher body weight, and it’s the brain size / body weight ratio that really counts, otherwise many large animals would be smarter than us. I will say that if there were two Neanderthal populations, and I had to guess which one was smarter, I’d pick the one with the larger average cranial capacity. Would you?
Not every biochemical pathway has to be explored to establish a fair degree of certainty – It’s not ‘proven’ that gender isn’t just a social construct either, if you ask some feminists.
Dwayne Mayor said
I must disagree, the causal implications are not clear. You can find correlations between almost any quantities under the sun, but it doesn’t provide any answers to the central inquiry, that is, whether the correlations are specious, or rather there exists a causal connection between them. To take your racing example, for instance, if longer legs really made someone a superior runner, then the correlation would show up within families. It is the same with IQ and cranial capacity. Since the correlation virtually disappears intra-group, then brain size obviously CANNOT be more than a minuscule factor in the IQ variation among ethnic groups. If you don’t understand why you have to hold variables constant to get at CAUSAL links I recommend an excellent work on the subject by Judea Peal, ‘Causality: models, reasoning, and inference.’
And I’m not sure if you understood, but Sarich’s study was meticulously designed precisely to discover whether the observed brain size and IQ correlations implied causal relationships: “Hominid brain size increased dramatically in the face of apparently severe associated evolutionary costs. This suggests that increasing brain size must have provided some sort of counterbalancing adaptive benefit. Several recent studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have indicated that a substantial correlation (mean r = ≈0.4) exists between brain size and general cognitive performance, consistent with the hypothesis that the payoff for increasing brain size was greater general cognitive ability. However, these studies confound between-family environmental influences with direct genetic/biological influences. To address this problem, within-family (WF) sibling differences for several neuroanatomical measures were correlated to WF scores on a diverse battery of cognitive tests in a sample of 36 sibling pairs. WF correlations between neuroanatomy and general cognitive ability were essentially zero, although moderate correlations were found between prefrontal volumes and the Stroop test (known to involve prefrontal cortex). These findings suggest that nongenetic influences play a role in brain volume/cognitive ability associations. Actual direct genetic/biological associations may be quite small, and yet still may be strong enough to account for hominid brain evolution.”
“I will say that if there were two Neanderthal populations, and I had to guess which one was smarter, I’d pick the one with the larger average cranial capacity. Would you?”
Sure, if I were making an unscientific guess based on pure intuition.
PlanetGrok said
“To take your racing example, for instance, if longer legs really made someone a superior runner, then the correlation would show up within families.”
I never argued that longer legs “make” someone a better runner, just that it would be a significant, perhaps dominant variable in population. I think you’d find the correlation between long legs and running speed very insignificant within families, with other factors such as ‘length of time an individual spend in daily exercise’ completely dominating. But, zooming out to look at populations, not intra-group individuals, the longer legged ones would certainly have a distinct advantage.
“Sure, if I were making an unscientific guess based on pure intuition.”
Right, I think everyone would.
Looking at 36 sibling pairs is hardly the sample size needed to address any assertions about populations. With populations, factors that are very small on the individual level can become the dominant determining factor of population characteristics.
I really think that one has to be deliberately obtuse to say that the fact that human population cranial capacity aligns perfectly with population IQ is just some big coincidence. Is there even a non-genetic hypothesis for this?
Dwayne Mayor said
“Looking at 36 sibling pairs is hardly the sample size needed to address any assertions about populations. With populations, factors that are very small on the individual level can become the dominant determining factor of population characteristics.”
Again you missed the essential point of the study, which was to determine whether there existed a cause-effect relationship between brain volume and IQ. Again, any correlation that is actually meaningful will ALWAYS show up in intra-group studies, and if it does not, then the correlation was specious. Since brain volume does not bear any causal relationship to IQ in modern humans, it is impossible to argue that because brain volume is largely genetic, that the variation in average IQ between ethnic groups is due to genetics.
“I really think that one has to be deliberately obtuse to say that the fact that human population cranial capacity aligns perfectly with population IQ is just some big coincidence.”
This is an extreme stretching of the truth of the matter, especially when one considers that studies showing a correlation between head size and ethnic groups themselves suffer from a tremendous number of problems (e.g. arbitrarily grouping genetically distinct ethnicities into three main races, lack of controls, contradicting the findings of evolutionary biology, etc.).
“Is there even a non-genetic hypothesis for this?”
Of course. Nutrition and environment.
Avinguda Diagonal said
sorry to be purposefully annoying, but leg length is negatively correlated with running speed for short sprints (< 150 metres or so).
this annoying observation may, however, have consequences here. perhaps there are certain fundamental-level mental tasks — the brain equivalent of wind-sprints — for which smaller brains are more suitable / efficient? reaction time? innate sense of rhythm? fight or flight response? etc.
PlanetGrok said
Dwayne Mayor,
The defining feature of hominid evolution has been a steady increase in cranial capacity – from australopithecines to H. Habilis to H. Erectus to archaic H. sapiens to modern H. Sapiens. This rise in cranial capacity also matches increases in technological advancement (tool use). I highly doubt modern hominids are some kind of stark exception to this trend.
Prominent biologists like E.O. Wilson agree.
Then there are also racial differences in actual brain composition, such as frontal cortex volume, etc.
Dwayne Mayor said
Planet Grok,
“The defining feature of hominid evolution has been a steady increase in cranial capacity – from australopithecines to H. Habilis to H. Erectus to archaic H. sapiens to modern H. Sapiens. This rise in cranial capacity also matches increases in technological advancement (tool use). I highly doubt modern hominids are some kind of stark exception to this trend.
Prominent biologists like E.O. Wilson agree.”
This is meaningless in terms of the current discussion. No one denies that human beings, the homo sapien sapien that originated in East Africa some 150,00-200,000 years ago, are more intelligent and have much larger cranial capacities and brains than the various primates you mentioned. This higher intelligence is ubiquitous throughout the human race and it is to it that we owe all of our survival and dominance of the animal kingdom. This is not the issue at hand. IQ tests measure abstract reasoning ability, which is a particular APPLICATION of human intelligence necessary for success in modern, urban civilization, especially in the academy. Almost everyone had an IQ on the level of a moron a mere century ago, outside of the few literate, intellectuals (per Flynn’s data showing an average IQ in 1900 white America of 70 when renormed to IQ tests in 2000).
The reason for the large gap in the IQ scores of today vs. a century ago is that through mass education, industrialization, literacy, and the spread of mass culture through media, we have become more adept at using our intelligence in the kind of way IQ tests measure, not because we are actually any more intelligent than our grandparents were or because we have larger cranial capacities than they did. And as Sarich’s study I referenced above demonstrated, there is no scientific evidence for any causal link between brain size and IQ in modern humans.
“Then there are also racial differences in actual brain composition, such as frontal cortex volume, etc.”
I’m not even sure what this means, because there are differences in brain composition among all the thousands of various ethnicities. By the way, Dr. Cernovsky reports that American Negroes have the same cranial capacity (1600 c.c.), on average, as American Caucasians (1621 c.c.) and higher than that of Englishmen and French. What people like Rushton do, who aren’t interested in real science so much as promoting an agenda, is aggregate all the data from malnourished African countries and throw it into the pot with the American Negro, as well as aggregate all the data from “whites,” hiding all the ethnic variation in average sizes, to come up with the conclusion that Negroes have smaller brains and craniums than whites. HBDers never like to drill down and talk about WHICH whites, or WHICH Negroes, or WHICH Orientals their referring to, because the scientific data brings down their racial hierarchy.
One of Dr. Cernovsky’s journal articles was posted on Stormfront, of all places, here: http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3628
Interesting enough, Einstein’s brain was significantly smaller than that of the average adult male. http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/04/17-01.html
PlanetGrok said
I am not one of those HBDers who claim that an IQ of 70 is necessarily the genetic level of certain African populations. I do think nutrition and environment come into play, significantly. I’ll admit it is rather laughable to imagine Richard Lynn waltzing up to a tribe of bushmen in the jungle and asking them to take an IQ test when they’ve never so much as held a pencil. Nevertheless, I think the evidence of different outcomes within 1st world countries alone -controlled for socioeconomic status- supports HBD.
I’m not even sure what this means, because there are differences in brain composition among all the thousands of various ethnicities.
Right, and sub-ethnicities of the major races also have varying traits. Southern Italians, for clear HBD reasons, have lower IQs than northern Italians.
Einstein’s brain, if I do recall, had some interesting structural traits not found in most people.
JB said
There HAVE been studies on adoption of East Asian babies into white European and American families, and they wound up doing very well. No “best prenatal” care was required, and I doubt it was given.
Scarr isn’t the only transadoption study we have. Circumstantial evidence is pretty strong that white and East Asian babies do fairly well despite suboptimal conditions, while black and mixed-race black-white babies do significantly worse.
Why do mixed-race babies wind up scoring about halfway between black and white babies in Scarr? It seems one needs to keep making continual ad hoc excuses in the face of the body of evidence.
Dwayne Mayor said
“Scarr isn’t the only transadoption study we have.”
I know. There are two other main transracial adoption studies involving Negroes, and they both confirm the environmental hypothesis, and they have the advatnage over Scarr in that they were actually well-designed. HBDers will never mention them because they obliterate their entire ideology.
“Why do mixed-race babies wind up scoring about halfway between black and white babies in Scarr?”
The Blacks were adopted at a later age than the mulattoes (and whites) and came from mothers with lower educational qualifications (suggesting lower IQ) than the mulattoes and whites. Both are examples of the innumerable metholodoglical and design flaws of Scarr’s study which the authors have admitted. The one single thing the Scarr study does prove hower, is that a middle-class environment does improve the IQ of any child.
“It seems one needs to keep making continual ad hoc excuses in the face of the body of evidence.”
I find this is typical among HBD ideologues. They simply ignore or insist on making continual ad hoc excuses in face of the large body of empirical evidence invalidating their biological determinism, make use of sub-par, badly-designed studies, comptletely neglect intragroup variance, and confuse correlation with causality.
OM said
I guess part of the problem is that collectively, as a society, “liberal” value “intellectualism” and therefore their concept of “equality” means that everyone should be equally smart, which is ridiculous.
Everyone is equal in terms of their intrinsic spiritual value (for those of us who believe in that sort of thing), but no two people are THE SAME.
I find it ironic that “equality” has to be equated with “sameness” in the eyes of liberals who supposedly love “diversity”.
I don’t think it’s neccessary for most people to attend Universities. I think trade schools and “training” courses are sufficient for the kinds of jobs and careers for people who are not going to go on to become scientists, engineers, doctors or professors.
Moreover, I think this training can begin as early as freshman year high school, so that by the time an 18 year old graduates from high school, they can get a good paying job.
The entire educational system in this country needs to be revamped – FOR EVERYONE.
theobsidianfiles said
Yes, but “OM”, the fact is that manufacturing and the like are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. We now exist in a services economy, one that is based on abstract higher thinking and info-technology. So clearly, and I agree with you, everyone won’t be suited for said economy. What do we do then?
You see, I’ve always been of the view that we currently have a surplus of somewhere between 10 and 25 million surplus – mostly Males – but we just don’t want to admit it. Simply put, we have more Men than we need.
So the big question as we move through this and the next decade is, what do we do with this surplus? Planet Grok is quite clear, he’s against Affirmative Action, fair enough. There are at least some here who agree with this view.
So, what then, do we do?
Comments?
O.
PlanetGrok said
Nature is fixing the male surplus. Post on this coming soon.
The Asian of Reason said
We sterilize welfare recipients. We create a cap and trade market for children so richer and smarter people can buy the right to have children from poor people. This solution bypasses the adoption scam.
Or we can put increasing numbers of people on welfare and subsidize them, since the economy is purely on the backs of a limited number of smart folks, it’s up for them to take care of the poor folks, if they decide to do so.
theobsidianfiles said
PG,
Looking forward to what you have to say on the matter.
O.
OM said
PG, read this;
http://www.andiamnotlying.com/2010/types-of-bitches/
The comments praising this “piece of work” as something worthy of a future Ivy League University enrollment are worse than the piece itself.
I loved the comment, “the content or grammar are not important. what’s important is that whoever wrote this is WRITING”.
LOL
Says a lot, but not in the way the commenter intended, I’m sure.
PlanetGrok said
You’re off topic, but that was so flabbergasting that I’ll give you a pass. un-freaking-believeable.
Another Alert said
And check THIS one out:
Online debate rages over white group’s step win –
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g0CiyQnstLPTPGAIas816aHbqqCQD9E42R581
PlanetGrok said
Yeah, I’ve thought about making a post on that. Not sure if I will though.
OM said
How was I off topic? I posted that link because of the reactions in the commentary to “the list” – about how “brilliant” it was, and how whoever this kid is should be “noticed and singled out by their teachers for superior writing skills” and is due to be shipped off to an “ivy league college in 10 years” etc.
Surely that is tied to “affirmative action”
PlanetGrok said
Ok, fair enough. I’m not trippin’.
PlanetGrok said
Those comments highlight an extreme version of a mentality that I used to have.
Blacks often think that whites are unfairly prejudiced. Most aren’t, on the contrary we are unfairly generous towards blacks.
OM said
Left-wing liberal Desi-Americans are THE WORST.
The are often born into much comfort and wealth, raised in strict two parent homes that emphasize education, academic excellence and professionalism. Grow up hearing and viewing their prejudiced elders who nurse biases against other Desis stemming from regions, castes or religions than their own, and somehow let their family members get away with all that, but rail against WHITE people for making objective observances of various peoples (that their own families also make) and even want to beat them up for it.
It doesn’t stop there.
Despite growing up in priveleged circumstances in upper-middle class suburbs, once these Desis reach college age they somehow decide that their plight as “brown people” in the United States matches the struggle of American citizens who stem from slave ancestry and fought for their rights through the civil rights era.
I find that attitude to be insulting to African Americans, but these Desis think they are “getting down” with them, despite never setting foot in an urban ghetto out of fear for their life.
The irony and hypocrisy of these wealthy, priveleged SWPL Indian-Americans knows no bounds.
The Asian of Reason said
AA=
African American
Affirmative Action
BZ said
***Dwayne Mayor said
March 7, 2010 at 6:47 am
“Scarr isn’t the only transadoption study we have.”
I know. There are two other main transracial adoption studies .. and they both confirm the environmental hypothesis, and they have the advatnage over Scarr in that they were actually well-designed. HBDers will never mention them because they obliterate their entire ideology. ***
At what age were the adoptees tested in those studies? In James Lee’s recent review of Nisbett’s book he found that there were conflicing results and more research was required.
You mention that the BB children were adopted later (average age at adoption was 2 yr 8 mo), but the WW children were adopted later than the mixed race children (WW age at adoption was 1 yr 5, BW average age at adoption was 9 months).
***came from mothers with lower educational qualifications (suggesting lower IQ) than the mulattoes and whites.***
This is also consistent with a hereditary position (the lower scores are via genetic transmission)?
**The one single thing the Scarr study does prove hower, is that a middle-class environment does improve the IQ of any child. **
The improvement doesn’t seem that substantial though:
(Flynn-effect corrected data reported by Waldman, Weinberg and Scarr 1996 reported from page 185 of Robert Sternberg’s Handbook of Intelligence)-
IQ average at Age 7: BB 91.4, BW 105.4, WW 111.5, Biol 110.5
IQ average at Age 17: BB 83.7, BW 93.2, WW 101.5, Biol 105.5
Dwayne Mayor said
“At what age were the adoptees tested in those studies? In James Lee’s recent review of Nisbett’s book he found that there were conflicing results and more research was required.”
Age 10 in Moore’s 1986 transracial adoption study and 5 in Tizzard’s 1972 study. In Tizzard’s study black, mulatto, and white children were placed in same enriching institutional environment, and at age 5 the Negroes averaged an IQ of 108, the mulattoes of 106, and the whites of 103.
“You mention that the BB children were adopted later (average age at adoption was 2 yr 8 mo), but the WW children were adopted later than the mixed race children (WW age at adoption was 1 yr 5, BW average age at adoption was 9 months).”
Yes, but there are two things to consider. One, is that the pre-adoptive environments weren’t similar to begin with, so the fact that the Negro children spent the longest in the worst environments put them at a severe disadvantage. Also, the white children were adopted into better homes (higher income/education) than the other two groups. The study is so riddled with design flaws it’s worst than useless. One interesting factoid, however, that Scarr and Weinberg pointed out in a 1992 report is that the scores of the black children who received early adoption placement scored on average an IQ of 110 vs. 98.5 for the late placed blacks (Sternberg, ‘Hanbook of Human Intelligence’, pg. 853) at age 7. One of the big problems with the second set of tests at adolescence was that many of those who participated (i.e. adopted parents, biological offspring, various adoptee groups)in the first tests, did not participate in second (and it was a different IQ test to boot). Many of the lower-IQ whites simply dropped out (we know this because the IQ range of the white adopted children was at 7 was 63 to 143 and 92 to 138 at age 17), skewing the scores of the second test significantly upward for the white adoptees.
As I said, HBDers will always discuss a dubious study like Scarr’s that has no scientific validity due to innumerable structural flaws, but they will never discuss the other two major studies that met the standards of scientific rigour.
OM said
IQ average at Age 7: BB 91.4, BW 105.4, WW 111.5, Biol 110.5
IQ average at Age 17: BB 83.7, BW 93.2, WW 101.5, Biol 105.5
…..Why does IQ go down with age???
BZ said
“…..Why does IQ go down with age???”
In a reasonable environment as a person gets older the genetic influences take on greater importance. I think in that study they were all middle/upper class households so you had extremely good environmental stimulation which would have boosted childhood performance.
There is a recent twin study by Plomin discussing this rising heritability:
“ABSTRACT—The generalist genes hypothesis implies that general cognitive ability (g) is an essential target for understanding how genetic polymorphisms influence the development of the human brain. Using 8,791 twin pairs from the Twins Early Development Study, we examine genetic stability and change in the etiology of g assessed by diverse measures during the critical transition from early to middle childhood. The heritability of a latent g factor in early childhood is 23%, whereas shared environment accounts for 74% of the variance. In contrast, in middle childhood, heritability of a latent g factor is 62%, and shared environment accounts for 33%. Despite increasing importance of genetic influences and declining influence of shared environment, similar genetic and shared environmental factors affect g from early to middle childhood, as indicated by a cross-age genetic correlation of .57 and a shared environmental correlation of .65. These findings set constraints on how genetic and environmental variation affects the developing brain.”
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122581572/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
tsh said
PG, you might find this useful:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php