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8th April 2018, 03:40 PM | #121 |
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8th April 2018, 07:16 PM | #122 |
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I think the difference WITHIN any group is greater than the difference between groups.
Racism is when somebody says that because the group is low, YOU are low. Or high, whichever side of the coin. And there is probably a bunch of genes involved too. And the most scientific way to find them is to compare two large groups of different avg IQ. So yeah, no matter which group you hope to improve the IQ of, (or both) you need to study both groups. Every person has about a half million gene SNPs that vary from the norm. Tough job sorting through them. But bet the seven involved in skin color have nothing to do with IQ. |
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8th April 2018, 08:49 PM | #123 |
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8th April 2018, 08:54 PM | #124 |
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8th April 2018, 09:14 PM | #125 |
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8th April 2018, 10:43 PM | #126 |
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Of course data can't be racist, but interpretations of data can be and historically have always been when it comes to race and IQ.
What if we were talking about Caucasian American men and the genetics/DNA of mass shooting and serial killing? Back to what you said earlier:
Quote:
How would you know the data had totally ruled out nurture, especially if the people collecting and analyzing the data were, say, scientists in North Korea? |
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9th April 2018, 01:26 AM | #127 |
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If some test could definitively rule that white men as a group have some mean average higher distribution of heritable “mass shooter” traits than any other similar group and the concepts were well-defined and the data properly checked then I would have no cause to question it. The fact that it was discovered by North Korean scientists would be of no issue if they could be shown to have done the work properly.
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9th April 2018, 02:19 AM | #128 |
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Ok, so what if it was discovered "definitively", and the effect was HUGE. But then someone else discovered a flaw, and some of it went away. And then more data was collected in a better way, and even more of the effect went away, again and again, until we were left with a fraction of the initial claimed effect. Would that make you wonder if there might be something off with the remainder of the claimed genetic disposition to serial killer/shooter relationship?
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9th April 2018, 02:31 AM | #129 |
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Of course, by definition. The larger the sample size the less the difference.
Exactly, that's what I said. When you apply an academic concept based on groups to an individual then either you're of low intelligence yourself, or you have an ulterior motive. I doubt it too, it's not a causal link. |
9th April 2018, 05:37 AM | #130 |
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I think the best approach is to go with what the data says. Again, I have given the example of height. It seems that diet has very obviously a lot to do with height, but it is unlikely that environmental factors alone would close the gap between a Japanese group and a Dutch group. It may, but then again, it may not. What do you think?
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9th April 2018, 05:47 AM | #131 |
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Only people can be racist, whenever they believe one group of people is superior to another group of people, on account of disparate ancestry. Data may be used to support racist beliefs, and indeed, often are. If you find yourself using data to show that one group is genetically superior to another (in at least some important ways) you are doing racism in practice.
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9th April 2018, 05:58 AM | #132 |
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Yes, if you conclude from the evidence that, say, East Asian people are superior to black people, then yes it is racist. If, on the other hand, you say that the data shows a mean average intelligence higher among East Asians than among black people due, in part, to genetics, then you may just be reporting facts. You can squawk "Racism!" if you like, but that is only the spin you are putting on it.
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9th April 2018, 06:00 AM | #133 |
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9th April 2018, 06:06 AM | #134 |
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9th April 2018, 06:19 AM | #135 |
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9th April 2018, 06:35 AM | #136 |
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9th April 2018, 07:24 AM | #137 |
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As an aside, the discussion between Harris and Klein has been released. (Or if you'd prefer listening to Klein's show.)
It is 2 hours long, so clear some time. |
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9th April 2018, 08:08 AM | #138 |
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It would be racist if I said, "As a result of superior IQ, racial group A is superior to racial group B as humans", or "As a result of superior height, racial group A is superior to racial group B as humans," or "As a result of superior athletic ability, racial group A is superior to racial group B," or "As a result of superior heritable health outcomes, racial group A is superior to racial group B."
However, if I noted that in each case, one group or another appeared to have a different distribution of advantageous heritable traits, but am not making a judgment on the value of those groups (or even of those individuals) then I am not being racist. As it happens, I think that Stephen Hawking was much smarter person than anyone in my family. It is not a declaration that he is a "superior" human to them. Similarly, my three year old son could run faster than Stephen Hawking, but I never made the judgment that it made him a superior person to Stephen Hawking. People should be treated equally in terms of rights in society regardless of their intelligence, height, health, gender, sexual orientation or whatever else. If you decide that people should be discriminated against because the racial group they come from is comparatively disadvantaged, then you are a racist. Neither I, nor Harris is making any such claims. I am prepared to accept the science whichever way it goes, but whichever way it goes has no bearing on how racial groups should be treated in society. That's as clear, and in black and white, as I can make it. |
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9th April 2018, 08:15 AM | #139 |
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Ah, so what you are saying is that it is incontrovertible that Dutch people are superior to Japanese.
Racist! That's a separate issue. It may well be that g is not a very rigorous metric. It's one of those examples I gave where I said the claim is a "target rich environment". If we can cast enough doubt on the findings we don't have to think about it anymore and that would be satisfying enough. However, what if it is a robust metric after all? Then we presumably have to find another hiding place, right? |
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9th April 2018, 08:23 AM | #140 |
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Intelligence, height, athleticism, and health are all important attributes in the game of life (some more than others) but Murray only writes books about the increasing value and centrality of one of them. If we take out the controversial chapters about racial subgroups from The Bell Curve and Coming Apart, what we have left are books about how IQ is by far the most important determinant of life outcomes in modern society.
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9th April 2018, 08:31 AM | #141 |
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9th April 2018, 10:22 AM | #142 |
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9th April 2018, 10:26 AM | #143 |
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9th April 2018, 10:29 AM | #144 |
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9th April 2018, 10:47 AM | #145 |
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9th April 2018, 10:53 AM | #146 |
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9th April 2018, 11:41 AM | #147 |
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In a hypothetical world where the g factor or some other metric had withstood the highest degree of scrutiny to the point that denial or ignorance would have to be responsible for rejecting it, then we'd have to figure out how to internally frame that so as to not translate it into racist thoughts and words.
I'd have to carefully look at all possible data points to know the specifics of how I'd think of it. It seems more likely than not that differences between groups would be in aspects similar to (but far smaller than) than differences between genders/sexes, where something like the neurodiversity model of understanding cognitive differences is useful. |
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9th April 2018, 01:21 PM | #148 |
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Listened to it over lunch today (at 2x speed) and I'm going to say Sam Harris pretty much **** the bed on this one. He made everything personal, whined endlessly about meta-topical minutiae, and generally failed to focus on the scientific or sociological claims which Murray makes.
Bias check: I'm on the relatively short list of people who were already subscribed to both Ezra and Sam's podcasts, but I usually enjoy Sam's show a bit more. |
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9th April 2018, 01:31 PM | #149 |
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I pretty much thought the same. Ezra made some good points the first hour and really kind of owned Harris but the second hour Harris definitely made the better arguments and Ezra had no reply to many of Harris' hypotheticals like his Neanderthal thought experiment.
But overall Harris did come across kind of whiney and really impugned the intellectual honesty of pretty much everyone who criticized him while complaining of the same being done to him and Murray. |
9th April 2018, 01:32 PM | #150 |
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I have an extreme aversion to the podcast format when it comes to highly technical discussions of scientific matters which, by virtue of their very nature, need to be evidence-heavy. So, thanks for listening and giving us the scoop.
Like I've mentioned elsewhere, Harris is one of my favorite thinkers out there. It sounds like if he wants to say Murray isn't full of crap, he needs to buck up and publish a scientific(ish, at least) paper on the topic (no peer review necessary as far as I'm concerned - the entire skeptical community will be more than happy to go over it with a fine tooth comb) but just something where we can at least see what he's thinking other than "the g factor correlates with success and is heritable!" |
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9th April 2018, 01:34 PM | #151 |
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9th April 2018, 01:39 PM | #152 |
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Basically Europeans and some other groups have traces of Neanderthal ancestry, whereas people with exclusively African ancestry do not. Harris claims (based on a thorough investigation into the counterfactual social simulation module in his own mind) that we are only allowed to discuss this phenomenon in polite company because it turned out that way, rather than the other way around.
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9th April 2018, 01:45 PM | #153 |
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9th April 2018, 01:46 PM | #154 |
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What???
LOL I've had two people I encountered online accuse me of not even being human because of that finding. It was very impolite and dare I say it, racist, the way they went about it. The discovery channel and PBS have had specials on it. It's hardly some huge secret only the white intellectual elite talk about. |
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9th April 2018, 01:49 PM | #155 |
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9th April 2018, 01:50 PM | #156 |
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9th April 2018, 01:51 PM | #157 |
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9th April 2018, 01:57 PM | #158 |
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Not to mention an real world example of the counterfactual fallacy.
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9th April 2018, 02:02 PM | #159 |
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9th April 2018, 02:22 PM | #160 |
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Yes but there is a general public idea that Neanderthals were dumb or inferior to homo sapiens. So if only Africans had those genes Harris posits that pointing out such a fact would cause uproar and vilification the same way pointing out blacks score lower on iq tests does. But he says both would be "facts" that people should be able to talk about.
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