The Darwin fish is aggressive? What about the bumper stickers that say, roughly, “If you don’t believe in Hell, when you die, YOU’D BETTER BE RIGHT!” Those last words are written in a crackling fire font indicating the unbeliever will be roasted on the eternal barbecue pit by a demented god who would roast someone FOREVER for making an honest decision about belief using the brain that God supposedly gave him or her.

Another thought. I honestly don’t have quantifiable proof but I would suggest that many who sport Jesus fish on their cars also subscribe to the conservative notion that there’s too much whining and hypersensitivity in our culture. Honestly, isn’t it being just a little hypersensitive to take umbrage at some good natured ribbing using a well-known symbol? Besides, I don’t think Christians should be above reproach. Most of them will not hesitate to criticize atheists, agnostics and freethinkers with unsparing severity. Remember that George Bush the Elder, for example, opined that perhaps atheists should not even be considered to be American citizens.

We see crosses, bumper stickers like I mentioned, WWJD key chains and other such symbols ad nauseam. Are those who hold opposing viewpoints to be begrudged a few symbolic representations of their viewpoint?

Am I to understand that, unless the Christians have a 100% monopoly on expressing their viewpoint, then they are being ruthlessly victimized? Will a few Darwin fishies hurt that badly? Do they make Christians the equivalent of St. Justin Martyr?

I plan to print up a bumper sticker of my own that says “No Jesus – Know Peace, Know Jesus – No Peace.” The First Amendment to the Constitution allows me to do this sort of thing with impunity, but if this nation ever becomes a theocracy…well, I’m not so sure.

I couldn’t agree more, godlesscapitalist. I’ve always said if I’m ever appointed a judge (guffaw!!) that I’ll adorn my courtroom with inverted crosses, crucifixes in bottles of urine, Satanic Pentagrams and other such like things. Should somebody not like this, I’ll just defy whatever injunctions are applied. After all, it’s just some stupid court blathering about the Constitution. Why should we pay any attention to that? Moreover, the idea of holding Black Sabbath rituals during the school day “moment of silence” has been repeated often enough that I know further explanation of this is unnecessary.

Christians and other religious types make up the vast majority of the populace here in the USA. In some places like my own Oklahoma City the church density is almost enough to initiate nuclear fission. Christians enjoy the privilege of broadcasting their message in countless media outlets from radio to billboards to cable TV and I’m sure if I could stand the smell I’d uncover quite a lot of it on the Internet as well. And even if you don’t go to church, often the church will come to you as I can personally testify by being awakened at the ungodly hour of 12:00 noon on Sundays by well-dressed and I’m sure well-meaning proselytizers who want to push pamphlets at me about how I’d better shape up or burn in Hell all the while I’m rubbing the sleep out of my bleary eyes trying desperately to focus on these indecently spic and span do-gooders. Do I get all bent out of shape that our money has printed on it paeans to the Almighty which are meaningless to me? Nah! Who gives a rat’s behind as long as the stuff spends?

Atheists have lived for many, many years with innumerable messages broadcast at them to the effect that they’re less than acceptable as citizens and human beings. Now this is something to be justifiably angry about. If I may indulge in a little pretension here, let me make like Martin Luther King Jr. and declare that I have a dream that one day I will have a conversation with a zealous Christian and tell him or her that I’m an atheist and the Christian will not immediately adopt the attitude that there’s something wrong with me that needs to be changed and not even concede the possibility that maybe s/he’s the one in error. I have a feeling this will remain a dream for the remainder of my lifetime but I still hold out hope.

I will admit to you that I was once the kind of person I now disparage. I once did get bent out of shape over the fact we have “under god” in the pledge of allegiance and “In God We Trust” on our money. Who’s to say I’m still not struggling with some of this now? But what I’m learning in my personal voyage of discovery is what liberals have been saying since the Pleistocene and that’s that, instead of getting angry, use your own voice and speak out! I think the next time I walk into a courthouse that has a granite Decalogue which, by the way, is a graven image, I’ll loudly and irreverently say something along the lines of, “What a crock of ….” Well, you know the rest. Who’s gonna stop me?

I also have a few choice words to say about the “Virgin” Mary. “Virgin” indeed! That’s not what I heard!

Yes, it pains me to have to agree that atheists, too, can by over sensitive and angry. As a matter of fact, if you ever visit any of the atheist chat rooms and list servers and whatnot you’ll find it’s often filled with acrimony. You are very artful in the way you speak volumes with such few words and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t sting just a little. We’d all like to be 100% percent right and our ideological opponents to be 100% wrong, wouldn’t we? For my part, I’m a work in progress.

Still, I feel my positive message, which you seem to share, is to learn to not take things too seriously and in that spirit let me say, “Happy blasphemy!!”

I don’t doubt there are racists. All you have to do is a little surfing to uncover a treasure trove of hate sites. Once the term was useful to delegitimize bigotry but now it seems to be used willy-nilly without thought. This is unfortunate because I believe it undermines some of the genuinely positive elements of liberal thought.

Once the left very effectively scored rhetorical points by the observation that some people looked for Communists under every rock. Now it seems the left seeks racists under every rock. How sad.

It happened in 2001 when Eric Crouch won the trophy.

I respect the viewpoints of this board, and there are a lot of them that make sense, but why are the last umpteen posts all about the shortcomings of blacks in America? I mean, if you want to talk about the past, why is McNabb’s hype any more interesting than Limbaugh’s hype of his conservative values, despite his being addicted to painkillers?

I’m as wide-eye open to the reality that the media does corrupt the correct view of race and racial differences in this country, but isn’t it a little excessive on this board?

When I looked at that picture I thought it was Blake Griffin, the half black / half white forward from #2 Oklahoma. He scored 40 points and had 23 rebounds tonight, and will go in the top 3 in this year’s draft. Also, last years #2 pick, Michael Beasley is mixed.

But overall, all black or mostly black players are still dominant in NBA and NFL.

Eugene makes a very good point. This is a small sample and purely anecdotal, but I drive through Oklahoma to Texas often and have noticed that there are no porn outfits on I-35 or I-44. This contrasts Texas where porn stores on highways are relatively common. In this study, Oklahoma has higher porn subscription than Texas.

I had heard that Sean Penn’s rendition of Harvey Milk was so lifelike that those who knew Milk had to leave the set at times.

I had also heard that van Sant took Oliver Stone-esqe artistic license by hinting that Dan White had homosexual thoughts or tendencies. As a person watching the movie w/ no prior knowledge about Milk or his life, I thought that White’s latent homosexuality was part of the reason for his assassination of Milk.

Also, the portrayal of Milk as only caring about the gay agenda and all the glory of that wore a little thin with me. His battle cry was that gays are people too and should enjoy the same rights as everyone else, but when it came time to focus on the rights of others in his district besides homosexuals, Penn wasn’t willing to compromise.

The movie was overrated as was Sean Penn’s performance.

Game is merely a means to shake up the alpha/beta male hierarchy.

To benefit from Game, if a man wants women’s chastity levels to remain somewhat constant (men don’t want to date/marry whores) someone has to lose. Those men who don’t have qualities that women find attractive (money, power, Game) will be left by the wayside.

In this sense, to me, Game is merely the best, most easy tool men have available to create more options for themselves.

It’s easier, and more fun to read some books on the subject and go out with your buddies on the weekends trying to pick up women than it is to work your way up through the boardroom.

RF touched on the point sort of; women don’t *need* a man who is financially successful. The re-ordering of the male/female workplace dynamic with more women making relatively higher salaries than in the past added to the fact that the Government is a proxy for male provision, creates a situation where men *have* to find non-financial means to get women.

I read Roissy. I enjoy his posts and points-of-view, but I can’t help but think that Game is sort of a Ponzi scheme or zero-sum Game. It will work for some men, but it’s not a case of “rising water lifts all boats.”

I used to coach a grade school-age Boys basketball team. We landed the most sought after kid in the league, a tiny black point guard. He was a year younger than everyone else but dominated every game. We went undefeated that season and won the championship, and I’ll have to admit that our strategy was to get the ball in his hands.

The point is taken that these types of recreation leagues should be more geared towards teaching the kids and allowing them to play, but at the same time, the kids and their parents want to win. For this reason, most leagues adopt minimum playing time rules for the kids and coaches tend to encourage each kid to get “touches”, mainly to appease the parents.

Basketball is easily the most easily altered sport. As pointed out before, there are fewer players on the court and the ball is more easily controlled by one player.

As opposed to rec leagues, AAU-type development leagues are geared towards the cream of the crop. As such, playing time is less egalitarian. I see the pitfalls of both, but an AAU league is the best one for sifting out the best players. Those that succeed benefit the most, and those kids in lower leagues don’t have to compete against kids much more skilled than them.

How does this all translate to college and pro basketball? I think it has to make pro ball better. Stiffer competition will only yield the best of the best over time. And people who argue that college bball coaches are merely super recruiters forget the fact that if their teams don’t win with these star recruits, they will shortly be out of a job.

A good coach merely takes the best available players and builds around that guy.

i started reading that article but i stopped when i saw that lady’s picture

testing99:

unfortunately, roissy doesn’t really try to tie game and politics together, although it would be an interesting read.

the two do overlap though. SWPL tend to take the *diplomatic* route to appeasing women. they believe that being friends is the best way to “win”. those with more individualisic ideals realize that you have to stand tall and not take shit, and call a woman’s bluff.

this is the perfect analogy for the arguments for/against UN operations. liberals are always for diplomatic negotiations while conservatives are *usually* more in favor of using more physical tactics.

does this apply to mountainous regions as well? small villages in colorado, idaho, new mexico, and other western states have experienced the same trend.

i think we can expand your theory to include anything that SWPL types believe makes them trendy such as beach life and winter sports.

“In 2002-2004, George W. Bush actively campaigned for zero down and zero doc mortgages in the name of closing the racial gap in minority homeownership.”

So were the banks required to make these loans or were they just making those loans because they had the ability to securitize the loans and bass the buck?

Steve,

roissy brought up that he gets a lot of hits from finland…and i notice that i get an inordinate amount from there as well on my small blog…

a reader at roissy’s a while back said something about the way servers are set up there, perhaps wireless systems or cell phone systems show the origin as Finland even though the sites weren’t accessed from Finland.

i’m not technical like that so i don’t know how these things work, but it sounds like a pretty good explanation.

Steve,

what’s your point here?

i kept thinking you were going to drop some bomb or some accusation that obama had some shenanigans going on, but you present a picture not unlike any other upper middle class couple with small children.

i mean, he’s the president, so his taxes surely warrant investigation, but i’m not sure where the meat of this post is…

AE:

interesting thesis.

i'll add one thing. it seems to me that black men and conservative white men act according to a common authoritative principle. they both live by the teachings of "the school of hard knocks".

many conservative men may not have a similarly impoverished up-bringing as black men, but they don't sugar-coat reality like SWPLs do. both black men and conservative whites know that the world is not a pretty place: black men by experience and conservative white men by observation and introspection.

i engage in some activities that could be considered SWPL. i like blues festivals, art exhibits, etc, and so do many conservative white males and even some blacks, but blacks view a lot of the activities of SWPLs as superfluous and corny. they are not tied to reality in a way, and blacks, more than anybody, feel that they are in touch with reality more than most.

blacks are not impressed by the altruistic efforts of the SWPL set. they view those people as suckers for giving up what is theirs, and therefore respect is out the window. blacks may not exactly "like" conservative males, but they at least can give them respect.

i don't know, these are just quick ramblings, but i agree overall with your thought.

you're making a big leap by assuming that sexual promiscuity indicates the highest level of attractiveness. there are other variables at play.

its entirely possible that females are at their hottest at the age of 17 or 18, but on the average they are likely to be less promiscuous than 23 or 24 year olds.

is this Say’s Law at work? supply creating its own demand?  
 
if fat chicks can’t find clothes that fit them, that’s another incentive for them to lose weight.

what a waste of a post….did you actually *say* anything in this blog post? the answer is no

gotta say, i like the fact that obama is willing to admit when he's wrong. it's a breath of fresh air from Bush who wouldn't back down for anything, even the real weighty issues.

obama knew he shouldn't have gotten involved, and realizing that, he made amends to help keep this situation from getting bigger than it should.

doubt obama will have to worry about dying while driving drunk…i'm sure he'll have a chauffeur the rest of his life.

AE:

i'm in a similar situation here, uncannily so actually.

also, i live in wichita and am 28…not to get sidetracked, but are you living in the KC area?

anyway, early last year i started running around with a group of girls i work with. most were sorority girls, and they ranged in age from 19-23. i was excited by the thrill of hanging out with young girls with energy, that liked to party etc after coming out of a 5 year relationship.

i was initially confronted with the dilemma of paying for drinks, food, and some of a given night's festivities. i also threw some house parties and supplied jello shots and bought some kegs, all to draw people in. the company was nice and everything, but those material purchases have no lasting effect on the girls' minds. now, it doesn't make them immoral, they're just responding to their incentives, but it goes without saying that girls, especially that age, will use you if they can. they're likely still dependent on parents to a degree and haven't been fully cut lose from being provided for.

i think it's your duty to wise them up to the ways of the world. after a couple of months of providing too much for my female friends (i am dating one of them now; she was the one who most adamantly refused favors or material goods from me btw) i stopped. one would ask me to buy her a beer, i told her to get one herself, in a nice way.

anyway, it sounds like competition among the girls is enough for you to bag one of them or maintain concurrent relations if you play your cards right and are into that kind of thing (which is also very similar to my situation last year).

either way, anonymous is right. you can't do that again.

interesting concept re: 10,000 hours versus 20,000.

it goes without saying that diminishing marginal returns are at play if it takes 10,000 hours to be really, really good at something, and an *extra* 10,000 to be really, really, really good.

are there any studies on the marginal percentile effects on those extra hours? just curious.

No way Tiger is taking steroids. He benches about 300 pounds which isn't a crazy number.

Steroids would make him too bulky which isn't conducive to a good golf swing. Tiger isn't the strongest (swing power-wise) player out on the Tour anyway. His strength comes in his physical and mental stamina. The past two weeks you saw Padraig Harrington's legs give out on Sunday; this is from fatigue from playing on long golf courses. Tiger's mental stamina – at least up until this week – has been his competitive advantage.

What the hell? You guys are giving more thought to this than the 12 unaccounted-for years of Jesus' life.

Who cares who he dated? (I hope that was tongue-in-cheek.)

Whiskey:

"Let's accept that on average, Blacks have superior speed and short term strength, as a working hypothesis. Does that mean they make better football players? No. Football is a team game requiring everyone to be in unison, not a series of one on one actions. Take Jerry Rice, unheralded out of college and slow on the verge of being cut. His insight was to promote endurance AND catching the football. He did not get "faster" in the fourth quarter, merely lose speed less than the corners, through superior conditioning, and had better abilities to catch the football. Middle Class Larry Fitzgerald follows the same path (lots of training to catch the football)."

the article is about white running backs. whites have fared better at wide receiver because if they are able to run precise routes, their deficiencies in speed and athleticism aren't as obvious.

this doesn't apply to tailback. with whites, there is very rarely a combination of speed and size. running backs, if they aren't fast (like Barry Sanders) are big (like Eddie George). black tailbacks – if they are big – are usually faster than white tailbacks of the same size. often, white running backs (Mike Alstott and John Riggins) gleaned their competitive advantage from their size to the detriment of speed.

black running backs (brandon jacobs today, fred taylor in his prime, curtis martin etc) were big guys who also had pretty good speed for their size. this makes a world of difference. they had a good enough mixture of speed and size to break tackles and get past the defensive line. white running backs (alstott) were better for short yardage. their speed/size combo couldn't get the past D lines.

interesting. i'm interested in the greater amounts of married men's sexual behavior and that of women's. it trends higher for some reason. is this reporting bias or the fact that married men are unfaithful more than married women?

So what this would imply is that quarterbacks are allocated less efficiently than other positions or players in other sports. Its much less a free market operation.

This being the case, many non-football related qualities are observed in guys who try out for quarterback; much more than in other sports. While other positions and sports do analyze the character and quality of the players, QBs are subject to analysis of other factors. Ricky Williams smoked a lot of pot, but he's still in the league. Lots of other players get into trouble with the law, but besides Michael Vick, most quarterbacks are more straight and narrow and exhibit better leadership and character.

Body language and alpha leadership capabilities are important. A boy is sifted out for that role in high school. His QB demeanor sticks with him through college.

Jody,

how did you degenerate this discussion from the very plausible case that Steve made – that if any white player is going to feel the brunt of racism going forward into the NFL it will be Gerhart – to rallying for Tim Tebow?

This may be a nit-picking, but I wonder if sacks or busted up pass plays are part of yards per rushing attempt or yards per pass attempt.

I think that sacks are counted against rushing statistics, but really, since a sack is a failed passing play, that should be factored in for passing yards per attempt.

I doubt that would change the significance very much; who knows.

There are also trends in the aquirement of resources i.e. defensive lineman versus secondary. It seems to me that the 1990s heavily favored the run; the 2000s could have been less run oriented as defenses stacked up to combat the run. It's possible to account for teams' draft picks to find out the complete shift. Either way, this stuff is interesting.

It's really a purely economic problem.

AE:

You're right about my question. But now I'm thinking about the nature of a pass play.

Does a sack count as a pass attempt? Also, does a scramble that goes for ca. 0 yards count as an attmept as well?

These might be counted against pass yardage, but do they factor in to pass attempts as well. The increase in attempts would have a larger effect on significance than the yards lost since the yards lost/gained is relatively small compared to the total number of passing yards a QB has per game.

I saw a very interesting interview with Grandin on C-SPAN a couple of months ago. The way she talked about her autism it almost seemed as if she were standing outside her body watching what exactly was going on with her mind and her reactions.

I read up on her and found out that she's also professedly asexual.

It is interesting to note the arms race between the three major sports leagues.

The NFL penalizes defenses for once minor infractions. The passing game has increasingly become the most important offensive strategy to the detriment of the run. QBs can't be touched.

In the NBA, the hand check rule has allowed players to score more, and defenses are limited in their strategies. NBA are high-scoring once again, like they were in the 1980s.

MLB has altered the strike zone and juiced the ball (and possibly the players) in order to recoup the losses of the 1994 strike.

All three of these sports hope to create more offensive production which is what crowds really prefer to see.

Well, there's also the access to snow part…

But maybe these are correlated in some way.

This is a timely topic as I'm working on a post on my blog comparing redheadedness to being black.

I'm a redhead so I'll submit my own experiences and traits into the sample.

*I'm left handed
*135 ish IQ (high for the world, not for the Steveosphere)
*mood swings and fiery temper with an extremely laid back baseline
*irritable

I don't even put redheaded women in the same category as redheaded men. As other commenters have said, redheaded men suffer more stigma (or are just found less attractive) than redheaded women. I resent redheaded women acting as if they suffer the same prejudice that redheaded men do.

Also, the phrase "red on the head, fire in the bed" is true.

Anonymous said…
Here is an article that disproves a lot of what you've written: "Murder rates affect IQ scores: study."
…..
IT DOES NO SUCH THING

This is the actual paper.

Note that the effects "faded aways in the window of time" of approximately 10 days. And the found depression is relative to African American scores. From the article: "So that all comparisons are made within race/ethnic group… whites and members of other ethnic groups are excluded."

Given that the mean differences between African Americans and European Americans are measured excluding low SES African American samples (refer to Murray) and given that this study does not compare the effects on populations but only compares them within the Black and Hispanic population…. Keep reaching into that bag of tricks.

Nice spin by the media though.

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said…

"Here is an article that disproves a lot of what you've written: "Murder rates affect IQ scores: study."
I'm not buying it.
…………………

While Liberals try to spin this as "white society effected the gap by allowing for high intraBlack crime rates," the paper actually only said that Black and Hispanic IQ scores were affected by crime rates. Which says nothing about the relation between groups. Didn't Lewontin make the point that moving from intra to inter was an erroneous move?

Jews, Jews, Jews. Just admit…

"I resent the way Jews are so smart… and how they then have the gall to try to take care of their own."

A Jewish professor of mine taught me that people who network between, look after, and take care of their own first are evil and racist and should be outed and Liberalized. The guy was really smart. So I am guessing he was right.

“I am no longer a total individualist when it comes to human identity.”
“Below I present my model in graphical form. One the X axis is a diversity index.”

Razib,

I’m impressed. Not only have you morphed into a sane-semi-right-minded thinker, but you also picked up on the large scale dynamics involved.

1) As for the former there is a balance between the individual and the all: The particular — that Mencian mean between the two extremes. That dreaded us/them

2) As for the latter, the various costs involved in having US/Them configurations, or particulars, needs to be weighted against the cost of having, at the one extreme, an indefinite amount of individual varieties (which maximizes transaction cost and individual licence/ (Liberties) — and with it, in a social context, the threat of bellum omnium contra omnes) and, on the other hand, having just one collective (which minimizes transaction cost and licence/ (liberties) — yet maximizes the threat of systematic societal collapse).

As you note there is a socio/axio/poli/eco/nomics and dis-socio/axio/poli/eco/nomics of scale, which of course is contingent on the sociobiology of the humans, relative to whatever we are talking about — language, religion, political organization, business, etc — given a level of technology.

Of course, what we are talking about is rather important. As you suggest, idioese might not function as well as globalese when it comes to languages, but it might be fine for religions, in the sense of Political Liberalism and one defining one’s personal Good — as as opposed to global Hinduese. Political organizations, businesses, etc. will each have their own theoretical optimal mean between the extremes.

Of course, some of these might work in systems. Hindu-democratic-capitalism might not work in the way Liberal-democratic-capitalism does.

I will note…you see what you are talking about in philosophy too. Western philosophy pioneered one way of thinking, a more objective/logical/dualistic/external way, which led to a quicker development of scientific thinking — and other traditions did their own ways, pioneering different aspects of human reality.

As you know, much of the discourse in what’s left of the West — given globalism and multiculturalism –is fairly anti-particularistic. I guess we will see if that’s an “irrational herd,” of sorts. And if other philosophical perspectives — which have more nuanced take — are better suited for the job.

Wrong! Han Chinese are rather genetically related.

Anon said: "One small point of refinement about the "Asian" or "Chinese" race: it probably doesn't exist as one unitary race. As Han China grew through the dynastic ages, it slowly swallowed other nations and those nations' peoples.

Han are pretty close. Different Han populations have an average Fst value of .002. In European, it's around .009. The Chinese-European population difference is .1100. It's a bit bigger.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2009/11/population-substructure-within-china/comment-page-1/

Bentillman said:"And they're starting from the flawed premise that characteristics define race. That may be how we define species of butterflies or beetles, but we use characteristics as a proxy to enable us to infer common ancestry or relatedness."

Portraying race as "commonalities" and not "common ancestry" is part of the strategy used to deny it. I came across this in Stanfords encyclopedia of philosophy — the author engaged in will-fill ignorance about the meaning of the term. And refuse to update his piece.

By redefining race as "commonality"
they you point out that arbitrary groups are being made "fat Asians, belong, with fat whites" to the fat race" or "Are you saying that these people act different just because the color of their skin"

This is a game —

"But Steve – what you, or at least a lot of your commenters, don't seem to have fully internalized is that "race" really doesn't exist in the traditional 19th century way."
…
It's not clear that race existent in the way you think it did in the 19th century either–

The starting point with race is ancestry that can be traced back to
different historical branches of the human species–

"Professor Fried has correctly pointed out that there is no careful and objective definition of race that would permit delimitation of races as exact, nonoverlapping, discrete entities. Indeed, such criteria do not exist because if they did, we would not have races, we would have distinct species. (Dobzhansky in Mead
1968, 165)"

“knowing a bit about your psychology and dispositions (more than this comment might indicate) i can see where you’re coming from. in fact, yours is a cleaner more logically consistent and easily defensible position. but it also happens to be the minority position, at least as reflecting in human action.”

Utilitarianism, as such, is a rather complex position; I’m surprised you see it as so defensible. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/#ClaUti

Philosophically speaking, wouldn’t it be just as logically consistent to have a consequentialist position which swapped out the hedonism of classical utilitarianism with an aestheticism? Defining pleasures doesn’t seem easier, to me, than defining beauty. As I see it, it would be just as easy to logically defend a philosophy of maximizing the creative diversity of the world as it would be to defend a philosophy of maximizing the individual pleasures of all persons experiencing it. So this isn’t a matter of logic. It’s preference; and value. And values conflict.

I think the issue is that utilitarianism is either more rhetorically defensible or more psychologically coherent, given some other presupposed values. Philosophical value systems work like intuitive factor analyses. Show me a system and I will show you what latent factor, or set thereof, it tries to reduce the multiplicity of human attachments too. Utilitarianism offers a relatively simple set of compelling variable. To the extent you find utilitarianism defensible, you find the values and the relations to be a compelling analysis — but as you know there are often many possible ways to organize a set of phenomena.

Now I would make two points here. 1) This is compelling for people that like easily conceptualized value systems from which they can draw logical inferences and around which they can organize a large portion of their world. (It’s not simplistic — but not hyper-nuanced.) 2) In a system that already promotes pursuing ones own preferences (hedonism), it fits well. That’s a factor — selected by various dynamics — around which other factors need to be organized.

“If those in the developed world do value the preservation of these groups and the richness which they add to the world by their very existence, then a concrete program has to be offered”

I agree with this. But not from a utilitarian basis. Given the above, it makes sense that people who adopt hedonism, will adopt a form of utilitarianism — they will universalize their hedonism as the simplest moral configuration. And in doing so they will see that the hardship incurred by diversity — for enriching the world — needs to be compensated. This is one way to do it, but in that case aesthetics is a secondary value and diversity is only a pseudo-diversity. The other way, is just to reject utilitarianism, and see diversity as one of many primary values. The result will be that you will learn that second language and be less productive. (The national excess can just be given away). As a result there would be less competitive individualism — and less global growth, as so less a loss for other people to be diverse.) The lack of growth would be a problem — that’s less cures and less technology — but if diversity is a value unto itself, then that’s the trade off.)

…..I guess that’s a backwards way of looking at it. Maybe try to accelerate technology to the point where everyone has the luxury to have their idiosyncratic groups and so forth.

If there was an abundance of resources, are we supposing people would diversify — or homogenize? And do we expect an eventual global affluence? If we are looking at this from a consequentialist angle and trying to balance our aesthetic/hedonistic value — which is what this seems to be about — i simportant to consider.

"Why is it people tend to identify more with race than body type and other traits? Why don't tall whites and blacks primarily consider themselves as 'the tall race'? Or why don't good looking people identify themselves as 'good looking race'? Why don't smart people consider themselves as 'smart race'?"

Race means common ancestry — even if that's a UR-myth. So smart people wouldn't consider themselves a smart race, but a smart group, or a group based on something other than common ancestry. And the smart group often does do this — as the case with many sneering-at-the-red-neck liberals.

So the question is: why do people care about ancestry?

If we go back to the race as family equation: why do people tend to identify with their blood relatives. Why do so many adopted
kids go on a quest for their biological parents?

That's a good question and worth consideration. Talking about a tall race just confuses the issue. But I guess that's the point.

“Maybe some rare language would be significantly more effective in using the bionic interface and those people would rule. What if I told the funniest joke in the world and everyone died laughing, except for those who did not understand? Has there every been a lingustic crisis in which language was the savior? Can anyone imagine a scenario in which a certain rare language might act as a mutant survival gene?”

I can imagine a book about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash

"It's hard to know how much of it […] is a reaction to centuries of European racism"

One problem with the whole racism caused the clannishness is that we don't see Huns in Europe. Huns looked different and acted different but melted into the population — giving Eastern Europeans that more Eastern look:

From Wiki:
"They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearful, and they had, if I may call it so, a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes. Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds. Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and arrow, and have firm-set necks which are ever erect in pride. Though they live in the form of men, they have the cruelty of wild beasts."[6]"

As with some of our other well discussed friends, it seems there are always 2 sides to the story:

Leeson, Gypsies.
"Gypsies believe the lower half of the human body is invisibly polluted, that super- natural de?lement is physically contagious, and that non-Gypsies are spiritually toxic. I argue that Gypsies use these beliefs, which on the surface regulate their invisible world, to regulate their visible one. They use superstition to create and enforce law and order. Gypsies do this in three ways. First, they make worldly crimes supernatural ones, leveraging fear of the latter to prevent the former. Second, they marshal the belief that spiritual pollution is contagious to incentivize collective punishment of antisocial behavior. Third, they recruit the belief that non-Gypsies are supernatural cesspools
to augment such punishment. Gypsies use superstition to substitute for traditional institutions of law and order. Their bizarre belief system is an e¢ cient institutional response to the constraints they face on their choice of mechanisms of social control."
http://www.peterleeson.com/Gypsies.pdf

Steve,

Are you familiar with the ongoing research in the field?

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv-GZkw6TEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA425&dq=race+IQ+differences&ots=iB-ci1uoVU&sig=otVV4EOq6gJ11B1rL5dVt4yMQvo#v=onepage&q=race%20IQ%20differences&f=false

Troll said: "Alas, we whites pay the price now for what our ancestors did in the past. Yes, once a long time ago, there was rampant white racism in American society. However, today most whites suffer"

What was so bad about what Europeans did? Compared to what contemporaneous people? I'll play this game, name a crime and we can figure out the global standards of the day.

What Troll means is Europeans have to pay the price of the bad reputation that the leftomarxist media has given them and keeps giving them, particularly in regards to that perspective Black and now Hispanics "discrimination."

"A common species includes those members that can not only interbreed but produce fertile offsprings. By this definition, homo sapiens and Neanderthals were different races than different species of man."

This is PCism. The idea of Neanderthals as a human race has been propagated to circumvent the notion that Non-Africans are a hybrid species. Viable hybrid species are not uncommon, as anyone here who has taken a class in Botany would know.

Steve,

So predictable. I said:

"This is PCism. The idea of Neanderthals as a human race has been propagated to circumvent the notion that Non-Africans are a hybrid species."

And low and behold, what do I read over at "Scientific American" —
"Our Neandertal Brethren: Why They Were Not a Separate Species"?

Surprise! Surprise! We must reclassify the Neanderthal as a race bases on some fallacious logic.

My reply:

Mayr had two concepts of species: his species as metapopulation lineage and his species as intrinsic reproductively isolated population. There is across the board acceptance of the first definition, but not the second — last I checked. Under both definitions, organism which cannot potentially produce viable offspring belong to separate species. Only under the second definition do organisms which can produce viable offspring necessarily belonging to the same species. In that sense, dogs, dingos, jackals, and coyote necessarily belong to the same species. And numerous plant species.

Now, either the species debate was recently resolved — or the author of this article is making a specious argument for why Homo neanderthalensis "must be reclassified." Let me guess — We don’t want to say non-Africans are a hybrid species, so we are moving to reclassify the poor old Neanderthal?

Caledonian said.."Shame you didn't also take a class in Zoology, or you'd know that viable animal hybrid species are vanishingly rare."

In zoology, rare on the species level but common on the organism level, given the present day world population of various canid species (400+million) –why no calls to reclassify based on that? As for the debate in the field refer to the paper and recent discussions in the philosophy of biology. My point still stands.

One problem here is that most people don't accept that genetics could be cause – and, as Levin noted, genetics (as opposed to epigentics) is the only explanation that can not be regressed to oppression. Take this recent 2008 Book:

Page 2: "In the US, race is a cultural invention…it is therefore unlikely that genetics explains culture differences."

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1w0XIJPr2CoC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=The+rise+and+fall+of+the+Flynn+Effect+as+a+reason+to+expect+a+narrowing+of+the+Black%E2%80%93White+IQ+gap&ots=3u2jK_0ZEl&sig=ae_FDyh-UO3EEVSMM_EVDZlqxsg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note the linked "genetics" page though:

Genetics:
"It is common knowledge that a person's appearance — height, hair color, skin color, and eye color — are determined by genes. Mental abilities and natural talents are also affected by heredity, as is the susceptibility to acquire certain diseases."

I guess the inference is a bit of a stretch.

"PS: If the problem is finally "proved" to be genetic, then you immediately lose white guilt, because none of these problems would ever have been Ol' Whitey's fault in the first place, and you also burst the bubble of negro vindictiveness, because you can no longer blame Ol' Man Racism for all of the world's ills."

It weakens it anyways. This is why we have a moral imperative to investigate the true cause of the various gaps.

“the european white race is christ-like, it has taken upon itself the sins of all mankind so that colored people can rape, murder, and torture each other without censure”

Like Marxism 1.0, Cultural Marxism employs the Christian eschatological-Manichean mode of thinking. Cultural Marxism just completely inverts European identity. Instead of having a bunch of noble European people going out to spread the righteous word of some god to primitives and save them from their backwardness, you have a bunch of post-European people bringing in non-European people to save the primitives from their ignoble Europeanness — in the name of liberal moral-theology.

That’s not to say these ways of thinking are idiosyncratic to Europeans — they clearly aren’t. But there does seem to be some cultural connection.

whoa…big red flag in Soleodad O'Brien's post-interview.

She makes a point to point out that Omar Thornton's mom wasn't making excuses for her son but that she was trying to wrap her mind around what caused this to happen, and that she felt bad for the victim's families.

I may be jumping the gun here, but I wouldn't be surprised if O'Brien is making this up. O'Brien couldn't put that part of the interview on camera? It's not an important part of the closure process to show the person closest to the murderer express at least a little bit of remorse or sympathy?

CNN and O'Brien knows they are dealing with a sensitive race issue, and being of the bent that they are, CNN really doesn't want to portray blacks in a negative light here. They don't want to pour it on if you will.

Even if I'm wrong, I'm curious as to why the mother isn't shown on air saying what she reportedly said.

Anon,

"I love how you find it valid to apply the "PC" label to the issue of species classification among humans. Surely you'd have to be addled with political correctness to not have qualms with some people not being fully human, right?"

Part 1. I love how you come across as an idiot. The PCness would be altering the species classification just because and only when we are talking about humans. And you would, indeed, have to be addled with PC thinking — or a profound lack of philosophical depth — to conclude that labeling a Neanderthal as a separate species would mean that some humans are less human, by virtue of their genome being mixed/or not mixed with that of the Neanderthal.

As for the later, are you saying that a Neanderthal would not be human — when classified as a separate species? When mass genetic engineering comes on line and humans, embracing bioliberalism, begin to genetically differentiate themselves on a large scale — will they cease to be humans? If I banged a cat girl or a Vulcan, would any kids be "not fully human" by virtue of genetic differences?

The term "human" derives from the Latin term humanus, which means "earthly beings" — as opposed to gods. It's a moral-philosophical concept not directly related to the scientific concept of homo sapiens sapiens. It implies that all said creatures (L. creatura "things created") exist in the same moral sphere,which is below that inhabited by gods and sacred spirits and above that inhabited by things and profane objects. The former you worship, which is a step above respect and honor, and the latter you use.

As a typical PC liberal, you, of course, are working from the very frame of thought that leads to the idea that "some people are not human." I am not. Your concern is that we also differentiate amongst animals (L. animale "living being, being which breathes"). We distinguish between human animals and non-human animals — and relate to the latter more like more like we do to "things" or objects to be used. And since, like a typical intellectually shallow liberal, you unreflectively work form the Darwinian (philosophical) frame, you define the borders of humanness — of moral participation — in terms of genetics relatedness. I do not.

Part 2.

As a typical PC liberal, you, of course, are working from the very frame of thought that leads to the idea that "some people are not human." I am not. Your concern is that we also differentiate amongst animals (L. animale "living being, being which breathes"). We distinguish between human animals and non-human animals — and relate to the latter more like more like we do to "things" or objects to be used. And since, like a typical intellectually shallow liberal, you unreflectively work form the Darwinian (philosophical) frame, you define the borders of humanness — of moral participation — in terms of genetics relatedness. I do not.

This is similar to how other liberals find "innate" (L. innatus "inborn" related to L. gnasci/L. genus = genetics/race) intellectual differences between humans to be troubling. They unreflectively work form the pre-Darwinian Western frame, which speaks in terms of Aristotelian categories (instead of statistical averages) and defines the borders of humanness in terms of rational capacity — a view with persisted into the 1800's, and was understandable then. By the first frame, a Romulan or Neanderthal, is not human — by virtue of genetics. By the second, an intellectually impaired adult — and possibly infant — is not human, by virtue of cognitive capacity.

I'm not sure what to say. For you, keeping science out of moral-philosophy is "sick garbage" — and I guess that I am too — because you are working from a frame in which science is entangled with moral-philosophy and is entangled in such a way that it can (and often does) lead to the very conclusions you don't like. As the Buddhists would say, change your way of thinking — not the world to fit it. Moreover, don't abuse me, on the basis of the conclusions that you think I draw, based on your projected atavistic conceptualizations.

As a final note, it should be pretty clear the genetic engineering will lead to large scale differentiation. Compared to today, the hominids of the future will be radically dissimilar. So crack open a philosophy book and get used to the idea. And while your at it, stop being a tool of the liberal intelligentsia. They are perpetuating the fallacious ways of thinking that you echo for sociopolitical ends — specifically, as a means of stopthink. And those ends have little to do perceptions of humanness — and keeping the supposed Nazis at bay. If public and large portions of academia could be so conditioned to stopthink and mimic the PC lines when it comes to population genetics, psychometrics, and history — with all the research and information readily available — would it be that difficult to condition people to divorce sciencethink from moral-philosophy? (Since I have to chew your thoughts for you –the answer is: "No.")

(As for Hawks, his point was that given how people — like you –commonly think, it might be desirable to change to terminology; my point concerns how people — like you — commonly think).

"This is the "Group Selection" debate that David Sloan Wilson has written a lot about. Personally, I see no reason why Group Selection is reviled so much."

Two reasons:
1.With humans, groups selection means biocultural evolution. Which means genetic population differences due to culture differences and cultural adaptations modified around genetic differences in the sense of 'norms of reaction.' That is, it's related both to Multilevel selection theory and to gene-culture coevolution.

So, some cultural differences are genetic and some cultural ways are more adapted to certain genotypes; and cultures of the past — of which there were recent significant differences — shaped population genetics.

What don't you get about the being reviled? Go read: 'Guns,Germs,and Steel.' And factor in gene-culture co-evolution for the past 10-thousand years and you get a variant of 'The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution.'

2. Group selection implies that groups act as a unit of selection. Think Kmac. So, populations represent a meta-organism.

Overall, It's really a toss up as to which is more political incorrect. We have the gene-centered Hamilton world, in which individuals try to maximize their inclusive fitness which leads to kin selection or, alternatively, we have the group centered Sloan world, in which individual evolve collectively and so individual fitness is maximized by group fitness.

Well,

This fits perfectly with the non-PC version of evolutionary psychology. Say, Penke, 2010. Bridging the gap between modern evolutionary psychology and the study of individual differences

llortenstein Says…

“I was just pointing out why IQ tests and statistics”

I’m having trouble telling whether or not llortenstein is being facetious. Either way, he presents a good caricature of the product of liberal education.

We have the reflexive IQ-race connection and dogmatic antiracism. (“One of them is even black! Take that, “psychometrics”.”…”Just hand-waving nonsense used as an excuse to talk down to people who are not like them”)

We have the typically presumption that intelligence defines worth — and the absurd reversed naturalistic fallacy that, since humans are equally worthy, everyone, therefore, must be equally intelligent.

We are presented with categorical thinking instead of statistical thinking. We are told, for example, that deviations disprove the case, which makes no sense when talking about mean averages. (“Stephen Hawking can’t have a high IQ, since he is very sickly”)

We have the typical selective anti-empiricism. (“And IQ doesn’t even measure intelligence anyway, it’s just a test.”)

We even have argumentum ad Hitlerium. And the fallacious conclusion that since ideologically loaded science was misused, the problem is the science, not the interpretive frames used (above)

Go look up and read.
Leesony, 2010. Gypsies.

Abstract
"Gypsies believe the lower half of the human body is invisibly polluted, that super- natural de?lement is physically contagious, and that non-Gypsies are spiritually toxic. I argue that Gypsies use these beliefs, which on the surface regulate their invisible world, to regulate their visible one. They use superstition to create and enforce law and order. Gypsies do this in three ways. First, they make worldly crimes supernatural ones, leveraging fear of the latter to prevent the former. Second, they marshal the belief that spiritual pollution is contagious to incentivize collective punishment of antisocial behavior. Third, they recruit the belief that non-Gypsies are supernatural cesspools to augment such punishment. Gypsies use superstition to substitute for traditional institutions of law and order. Their bizarre belief system is an e¢ cient institutional response to the constraints they face on their choice of mechanisms of social control."

“What about epigenetics and the future? I really hope the science progresses further. Until we know its limits and bounds we won’t hear the end of neo-Lysenkoists on the Left and the Creationists on the Right.”

Here was Edith Heard ‘s comment:

It is amazing to see how epigenetics has been propelled into the headlines over the past decade. On the one hand, it has been hailed as an explanation for inter- and intra-individual diversity, and on the other, as a purveyor of hidden information — beyond genes — that can be influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic fluctuations. The ‘hype’ surrounding epigenetics may partly be due to the fact that, since the human genome was sequenced 10 years ago, we have been confronted with the reality, and perhaps inevitability, of our genetic constitution. Epigenetics may provide hope that we are more than just the sequence of our genes — and that our destiny and that of our children can be shaped, to some extent, by our lifestyle and environment. The recent groundbreaking discoveries on induced pluripotency have also brought the reversible nature of epigenetic states to the forefront. Such reversibility brings much hope for treating diseases such as cancer, which have not just a genetic but also an epigenetic basis, for which ‘epidrugs’ can be used to reverse aberrant epigenetic changes (epimutations).”
(Heard et al. 2010. Ten years of genetics and genomics: what have we achieved and where are we heading?)

There clearly is an ideological Lysenkoisian aspect to the promotion of epigenetic.

Perhaps. It's possible that if I succeed in explaining to more people more about how the game is played, that will lead to all sorts of horrible consequences because I, due to my mild personality, just don't understand how horrible people would be to each other if they found out the truth.

“[A]n ideology that tacitly appeals to biological equality as a condition for human emancipation corrupts the idea of freedom Moreover, it encourages decent men to tremble at the prospect of ‘inconvenient’ findings that may emerge in future scientific research ” — Bressler, 1968

Steve,

Let me break this down for you so to help you rest easy at night.

First, there is no inherent connection between acknowledging group differences and acting in horrible ways. Hypothetically, one might just as well celebrate real diversity. As such, the only ways that thinking the despised knowledge would lead people to engage in the feared behavior is if the said people were culturally conditioned or psychosociobiological predisposed to act as such. Now, am I the only one who finds it queer that blank slaters — especially the ones in control of the media and therefore the chalk the writes on the slate — tacitly argue that differences can’t be acknowledged because if so, this will transform everyone into national socialists? Think about it. Obviously, either the concern is about maintaining a game winning position or our supposed blank slaters are not really blank slaters.

Second, to the extent people have acted in a 'horrible' way in conjunction with acknowledging differences, there was a lot else going on. In Europe, for example, biological nationalism, like marxism, developed in context of the collapse of a previous world-view (Christendom), rapid social change, and some idiosyncratic philosophical tendencies which I have discussed before. Moreover, rapid technological change, more than ideology, precipitated the atrocities of the world wars. So the relation between acknowledging differences, per se, and acting horrible is not at all clear.

Third, and most important, even if people are psychsociobiologically predisposed to act in 'horrible' ways — it's hard to see how this is much a problem. People are obviously rather psychobiologically predisposed to notice minor differences and notice patters. We evolved a potent predilection for pattern detection over millions of years. And yet PCism in conjunction with numerous social taboos is so potent that it is able to override this tendency. Are you telling me that — if desired — taboos and PC codes could not be erected to suppress the supposed HBD werewolf lurking in our genes?

I'm not, of course, saying that there wouldn't be a problem if Steve Sailer was syndicated nationally. There would be. But it would not be because of Steve Sailer or his truths. It would be because the reigning ideology is structured such that these truths are dangerous. isteve is, indeed, a lingerie shop in a Victorian age. But last I checked the spread of Victoria’s Secret didn't unleash an epidemic of horrible deeds.

Steve,

My previous comments never posted. Let me restate my general point.

1. We are told that thinking about HBD is dangerous. If it is dangerous, it is only so because either a) we are culturally conditioned to act 'horribly' if we think about HBD or b) we are pychosociobiologically predisposed to act 'horribly' if we think about HBD.

2. It is odd that the blank slaters tell us that thinking HBD is dangerous, since by virtue of being a blank slater they must think a) and yet they control the media and, as such, what's written on our slate.

3. Given 2) there is only a danger if b is true, that is, if humankind is pychosociobiologically predisposed to act 'horribly' if we think about HBD.

4. I have found no evidence of b. But, if so, worry not. If PC/taboos can make people not see what is before their eyes — something for which we have a rather strong predisposition for — PC/taboos could be made, if desired, to keep the supposed HBD werewolf in our genes for coming out.

My verdict: It's not about the inherent dangers of HBD.

michael farris said: "HBD doesn't help normal people feel good about themselves."

True Michael, normal people would not feel good, but would feel indifferent, were much ado not made about inter-group disparities. But, as things are, HBD has the potential to make White people feel LESS BAD about themselves, given that disparities are otherwise blamed on an ubiquitous, and presumably bad, mean, and ugly white (read: active, historic, or institutional) racism in Europe, South America, Canada, the US, etc.
For example, this recent guardian article: 'More Black People Jailed in England and Wales Proportionally Than in US' where crime rates are REFLEXIVELY attributed to "decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system."

Of course, were other people normal, a commonsense Sowellesque counter to the mountains of lies and libels based on HED (human ethnic diversity) and the complexities of life would suffice. But, as it is, investigating and pointing out the HBD behind the situation is necessary to stop the infinite regress of white guilt and infinite progress of an unwanted neosocialism. That is, to be clear, is morally necessary — and as such deserves to be righteousness propounded.

To quote Linda Gottfredson:

"According to social privilege theory, there would be no racial inequality in a fair, non-discriminatory society. The continuing existence of racial inequality is therefore proof of continuing discrimination. The fact that racial inequality permeates nearly all aspects of American life means, then, that racial discrimination permeates nearly all aspects of American life. The fact that overtly discriminatory acts are rarely observed today means only that discrimination has become hidden from view. That seemingly sincere, well-meaning whites deny being bigoted means only that their bigotry is unconscious and they refuse to admit it. That black students perform less well on average than their white classmates means that their teachers must be racist, and the latter seem to prove their guilt if they suggest that their black students sometimes have more difficulty learning the curriculum. The fact that some racial-ethnic groups disproportionately fail to meet objective race-neutral standards is proof of further insidious racism, namely, that these standards were established with the intent to favor the dominant class while appearing to do otherwise. According to social privilege theory, high-achieving groups (at least European whites) are therefore automatically guilty of profiting from an oppressive social system, and low-achieving groups are being robbed of what is rightfully theirs. Every inequality becomes more evidence of entrenched evil. The talk of brotherhood 50 years ago is replaced by talk of reparations and retribution; the hope of mutual respect among the races by mutual resentment."

Given the situation, I for one, have no moral qualms when it comes to HED/HBD Truth-telling.

“With regard to the similarity in the American Indian and Hispanic rates: Are you suggesting that there might be something in the Indian genetic background of mestizos that contributes to the gap?”

Henry Harpending speculates about a genetic explanation.

6Pennington R, Gatenbee C, Kennedy B, Harpending H, Cochran G. Group differences in
proneness to inflammation. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 2009, 9:1371-1380.

Abstract: “All humans are primarily descendants from a diaspora out of Africa approximately 50,000 years ago although there are some indications of admixture with local populations of archaic humans outside Africa. The burden of infectious disease is greater in tropical Africa than elsewhere on earth in historic times, and it was less outside Africa, especially in the New World where passage through the Beringian filter kept many Old World parasites from entering the New World with humans. As a consequence we expect that the immune system, especially susceptibility to inflammation, will be “tuned up” in people with recent tropical African ancestry, intermediate in people of European and Asian ancestry, and perhaps “tuned down” in people of Native American ancestry. We suggest that evolved responses to different pathogen burdens among geographic groups may contribute to higher rates of inflammatory disease in modern people.”

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:O3X_A4Ts4IIJ:science.atmoshome.net/science%3F_ob%3DMImg%26_imagekey%3DB6W8B-4XC9SDX-1-3%26_cdi%3D6650%26_user%3D4861547%26_orig%3Dbrowse%26_coverDate%3D12%252F31%252F2009%26_sk%3D999909993%26view%3Dc%26wchp%3DdGLbVtz-zSkzk%26_valck%3D1%26md5%3D99fd39c7174ab9e60ee5c278cd97cb44%26ie%3D/sdarticle.pdf+Group+differences+in+proneness+to+inflammation.+Infection,+Genetics+and+Evolution&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjh2Tf-pufbSkKN7HcnoHz5zdQszuV-gM45sh7HKwVLiH-O6f89aEWb2HlizjYQkIoVjJrZ88onwQhYMlc4rz2b30GVevjp93TeI508_BW0csaNFTg8rB-WXSfD4x5p65TN3xId&sig=AHIEtbSHodUz0UliMfz-GAng82zYS9W_QQ

“Additionally, particularly when it comes to politics there’s the norm of reaction looming. One might grant that same genetic variation which predisposes Swedes in Sweden to being on the Left or the Right”

You mean importing 50 million East Asians won’t keep the US Red (in the non-Maoist sense)?

Steve,

Pandering to Prejudice, ed?

"Overpopulation" Talk Is Pandering to Prejudice
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24607

"I presume Thilo Sarrazin was thinking about results like this? It would be fun to see Jurgen Habermas respond to Rindermann."

More like this:
"Within North, Middle, and Western Europe, which have been the most frequent immigrant destinations in Europe since the 1950s, the means for immigrants by themselves are unequivocally worse than they are for nonimmigrants, which is in contrast to other countries such as Australia (see also OECD, 2006). And within immigrant groups in Western countries, there are large differences in educational success,student assessment scores, and intelligence tests scores, which correspond to the levels observed in their countries of origin. Because their scores resemble those from their countries of origin or those of emigrants from the same country in other host countries, there is some concern that these scores could increase only slightly or even persist for immigrant groups for generations to come (Boe & Shin, 2005; Levels, Dronkers & Kraaykamp, 2008; te Nijenhuis, de Jong, Evers, & van der Flier, 2004; Vinogradov & Kolvereid, 2007). Thus, it is not immigration per se or being a speaker of a minority language that appears to be important in the formation of cognitive ability at home and at school, but rather hailing from a country that holds an affinity for education and the associated academic values (Guiso et al., 2006, obtained similar results for other attributes
such as attitudes)."

Rindermann and Ceci, Educational Policy and Cognitive Competences
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pps/4_6_inpress/Rindermann_final.pdf

“But this post isn’t a review of Why the West Rules, rather, it’s a lament as to the total intellectual unpreparedness of the West’s intellectual class for the de facto end of the age of white supremacy”

I thought the Western intelligentsia’s preparation was diversification. The goal is to globalize the ‘west’ and make it the center of the globalized rising world. That way ‘we’ get to rule, through being everyone. From the liberal perspective, that is the final metamorphosis of the West, being the end of itself (as a cultural tradition) and the beginning of global civilization, proper.

Apart from possibly China, which may not accept (the ultimately western based) liberal world order — things look to be going fine.

Razib,

“chill on sarcastic snark chuck”

I was serious about my comment.

There are several major views of the world order, of note:

1. Some type of vulgar liberalism: http://www.democracyjournal.org/article.php?ID=6680
2. And a Liberal world order: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/the_rise_of_china_the_future_o.html

The second is based on the universalization of Western Liberal ideas (liberal democracy). Creating a diverse cosmopolitan center is one of the methods of promoting and securing the West’s place at the center of that order.

“If the dominance of the ideal of monogamy is a contingent accident of history, will be see a shift toward greater pluralism in the near future, with the decline of the West?”

Edit: “will we.”

Steve,

What evidence do you have that the Gap is still 1SD? It sounds like something that we should look into.

Moehling said: Luke Jostins: “… you should definitely not be using heritability within populations to try and infer genetic differences between populations …”
Do you agree? This admonition seems not to refer exclusively to twin studies.

Disagree. If Jostin said “you definitely [can’t] infer between group heritability from within group heritability” he would be correct. But he didn’t say that. He said that you can’t use within group heritability to infer between group heritability — which is silly.

Imagine a trait W that is 100% heritable within both population A and B. If one can rule out all environmental factors (X) that might uniquely affect A or B, one could infer a genetic component to the difference between A and B. If the heritability was <100% within A and B, one could make a similar inference, if one had some additional information.

"Steve, middle class Chinese kids typically go to a cram school for a whole afternoon after regular school. I don't know if that makes a difference, but my guess is that it must. Otherwise, parentes aren't going to spend such a significant amount of money on sending their kids there."

Eh, the old SATs are just a measure of SES because high SES kids can get the right coaching?

Sorry, Meta-analyses have consistently found that cram school has a limited affect of about ~ 15 pts. See, for example, Domingue and Briggs, 2009. (12 pts Math; 7 points verbal)

http://dirwww.colorado.edu/education/faculty/derekbriggs/Docs/Domingue_Briggs_Using%20Propensity%20Score%20Matching.pdf

Steve, there's two issues here.

Race- phenotypic-realism (i.e acknowledging that there is a difference in general intelligence and that this is at the nexus of a whole web of social, psychological, and behavior differences) and Race-genotypic-realism (i.e acknowledging that probability that genes contribute the above difference).

The disturbing thing is that there isn't even a silent majority about the former.

I would like to see the Eyferth data. I don't see why the study is thought to provide strong support for the environmental hypothesis. (e.g Wicherts 2005: "In the author's view, Flynn's exhaustive 1980 analysis of Eyferth's work provides close to definitive evidence that the black disadvantage is not genetic to any important degree.")

Here would be my logic: Since the within race heritability of IQ is roughly 0.4 at age 10, the medium age of the kids in the study, the cognitive environment of the white kids would have to be equal to an IQ of 95.3 to drag the White IQ to 97.2. We can assume this is also the cognitive environment of the halfricans.

Assuming no range restriction or assortative mating and discounting the North Africans, the IQs of the Black-White kids as predicted by the genetic hypothesis would be: (91.75 X .4 + 95.3 X .6 =) 93.9 as opposed to 96.5 — assuming you grant that the between race heritability of IQ acts in the manner of the within race heritabiliy and increases with age. Factoring in range restriction and assortative mating (with regression towards to mean) the IQ as predicted by the genetic hypothesis would be 95.5. So the genetic hypothesis predicts about as well (-1) as the environmental hypothesis (-.8).

So, in the normal range, how much of the increasing heritability of IQ (g) is due to age dependent gene expression and how much is due to age dependent g x e interactions — specifically of the g (-enetic disposition) x self selecting environment type? I wouldn’t rule the former out.

Whatever the case, g x ses interactions don’t imply g x e interactions by way of self selecting behavior. It’s one thing to say that environmental factors such as nutrition interact with genes during the developmental process and influences cognitive development; it’s quite another to say that self-selected cognitive environments interact in the same manner; and still another to say that cognitive environments, selected because of dispositions, lead to the changes. If that makes sense.

“The analysis doesn’t just apply to populations over time. You can also look to different groups which are contemporary. In 2003 a paper was published, Socioeconomic Status Modifies Heritability of IQ in Young Children.”

As I see it, there are several different issues here:
1) What causes the Flynn effect? (And does the Flynn effect represent a real rise in g?)
2) What causes the rise in the heritability of g across the developmental process?
3) By what mechanism does the SES x g interaction work?

"There's no evidence Jefferson believed in blank-slatism…

Rather, there's evidence that he disbelieved in it — at least disbelieved in the blank-slatism that Steve's alluding to. (Notes from the State of Virginia, query 14.)

Interesting thought. I was just thinking about it after having read a bell hooks essay in which she basically blames white customers for financing gangsta rap and the culture of misogyny. but then you bring up a point: why don't whites pay to see black people perform in other ways besides sports?

It's a good rebuttal to hooks' point.

Peter,

With regards to your reply to Kiwiguy:

"I'll look at the paper. But Hersch acknowledges the relationship between IQ and earnings. She just says its due to factors like family background and education."

The question is: does Hersh acknowledge the relationship between skin color and IQ.

In the paper, Hersh notes that:

"Available evidence in the scientific literature does not support a link between skin color and intelligence. In addition, the correlation between skin color and ancestry varies considerably."

This suggests that she doesn't. Which is why she deems that IQ isn't a worker skill that needs to be controlled for:

"Because inclusion of additional observables reduces the magnitude of the estimated skin color effect, it is worthwhile to consider what might be missing from the wage equations. Two possible omitted variables are attractiveness and some measure of ability as embodied in test scores."

As it is, both nationally and internationally, IQ correlates with color (for whatever reason). It is a factor, therefore, that needs to be controlled for — and not dismissed.

Now if they'll just ban "truck nuts".

Pete

"Anon,

I've dealt with this argument in previous posts. Yes, there is much more genetic variation within human populations than between them. But we see the same kind of genetic overlap between many sibling species that are nonetheless anatomically, physiologically, and behaviorally distinct."

I was more interested in the basic math. Does the 10-15% between population variance (Fst) (commonly found) translate into 22-35% between individual variance — when we factor out intraindividual variance? Nobody seems to be able to give me an answer to this.

Based on my reading of Fst, it seems like it. But that isn't my field.

" translate into 22-35% between individual variance — when we factor out intraindividual variance?"

This should say: "between individual, between population variance"

Pete,

I’m not sure. We have .10 between races, .5 within races between populations, x within populations between individuals, 1- (.15 + x) within individuals between chromosomes (or whatever). For X = .85, the within individual variance would have to be equal to 0. Yet we know that it isn’t. Intra individual variance is not uncommonly assessed for other animals — so that can’t be it.

I don’t know. Somebody's wrong here and I would like to find out who (Barbujani or Sarich).

"I have trouble understanding Sarich and Miele's argument because we see the same pattern with Y chromosome and mtDNA variability, both of which are transmitted by one parent."

Pete,

Here's a comment from Mountain and Risch (2007)

"Recent estimates of Average Fst are similar to early estimates, with exceptions such as the human Y and mitochondrial DNA (somewhat higher Fst values) and sets of STR loci (relatively low Fst values). A low average Fst for neutral genetic markers suggests that the power to define phenotypic differences in racial and ethnic categories is not typical of a single neutrally evolving locus. On the other hand, an Fst estimate of .10-.15 does not rule out a genetic basis for phenotypic differences between groups…."

Now, they cite Jorde,et al (2000), who state:

"GST values are 11%–18% for the autosomal systems and are two to three times higher for the mtDNA sequence and Y-chromosome RSPs."

Based on Jorde (2000), it doesn't seem that the mtDNA and Y Fst values are inconsistent with Sarich's point. The comment in Mountain and Risch (2004) reinforce, in my mind, the importance of resolving this and — if Sarich is right, having someone publish "Lewontin's Fallacy 2.0."

Jorde, 2000. The distribution of human genetic diversity: a comparison of mitochondrial, autosomal, and Y-chromosome data

Mountain and Risch (2004). Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups.

"If our intra-population variation is inflated by intra-individual variation, the same would be true for all species, and not just our own. Remove intra-individual variation, and you’ll certainly get a higher estimate of inter-population variation. But this will be true across the board. Human races will still look relatively unimportant."

Pete,

Thanks for addressing this. With regards to the point about inter/intra individual variance, the issue of contention is the importance of the between member, between subspecies variance relative to the between member, within subspecies variance. This applies across species. (Though, my guess is that members of other species don’t debate this rather arcane point). The issue comes up since some see Fst –incorrectly, as you note — as a measure of possible heritable phenotypic variance. And since others use low Fst values to imply that there are few practically significant heritable differences between individuals of different races. As noted before, Barbujani and Colonn (2010) state:

"The remaining 85% represents the average difference between members of the same population. One way to envisage these ?gures is to say that the expected genetic difference between unrelated individuals from distant continents exceeds by 15% the expected difference between members of the same community. (Barbujani and Colonn, 2010. Human genome diversity: frequently asked questions)

Barbujani and Colonn (2010) go on to argue that race is a worthless category since there could be few heritable differences between individuals of different races. One way to reply is to just point out what you said about Fst and its meaning. Another way to reply is to grant, for the sake of argument, the presumed meaningfulness of fst and to challenge the validity of the claim that “The remaining 85% represents the average difference between members of the same population….”

Putting aside the issue of meaningfulness, is the above statement true or false?

interesting insight about Hispanics. the reason that people who aren't deeply interested in population demographics (a self-select few, not too far removed from the Wikipedia bunch) were so surprised that something like 1 in 6 people in this country are Hispanic, stems largely from their low group profile.

what does this mean for their future interaction with the status quo population of whites? if they mostly keep to themselves and fly under the radar, does this imply that when they become 40% of the population it will actually only seem that they are 20% of the population to the casual observer?

"the concept of "IQ" is probably gonna be replaced with something like neuron firing efficiency or synapse connection density or maximum electrical output per brain specific region…

I posted Jensen's most recent paper below. He recently commissioned a company to manufacturer state of the art Mental Chronometers as a direct measure of g to test this theory and others. (See: Miele "The Jensen Mental Chronometer" page 58 of the 2010 ISIR Conference abstracts.)

Jensen, 2011. The theory of intelligence and its measurement
https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/jensen-2011-the-theory-of-intelligence-and-its-measurement.pdf

Here's the point: If the B-W or any other difference is a g difference then all these nigglings don't matter. IQ, at its best, is an imperfect measure of g. And g (technically defines as the "substantial co variation among diverse measures of cognitive ability as indexed by an unrotated first principal component score") in a manifestation of brain functioning. You can always raise IQ. Test-retest experiments show this. It's just that there's a perfect negative correlation between the increases and the general factor.

So the real issue is: is the B-W gap a g gap? To the extent it is, all these experiments concerning the manipulation of test scores are uninteresting. On average you could raise some scores for some individuals by retesting or threatening or enticing but if your not increasing brain functioning your not closing the gap. To the extent it isn’t a g-gap, then genetic or biological differences are irrelevant.

Now you can tell that many of these researchers are unfamiliar with the neurological research about general intelligence. If they were familiar, they would be doing (more) studies like to “Karama et al., 2011. Cortical thickness correlates of speci?c cognitive performance accounted for by the general factor of intelligence in healthy children aged 6 to 18 “ to see if there were substantial difference. Instead, they go about as if the meaningful factor is one's raw score on this or that test/subtest.

"I can think of only one example where different levels of group motivation had a sizable effect: the military's AFQT enlistment test was renormed in 1980"

Do you have a citation for this? Both Flynn and Chay et al argue that the 1980-1997 AFQT closing represented a real closing. Murray 2007 seemed to agree.

See: Chay et al., 2009. BIRTH COHORT AND THE BLACK-WHITE ACHIEVEMENT GAP: THE ROLES OF ACCESS AND HEALTH SOON AFTER BIRTH

is it just me or is the news filled with a lot of race issues this week? me likey.

it really is the best news week ever. matt yglesias. IMF leader. Ahhhhnold. Satoshi Kanozawa (sp?) offending everyone for saying what you, Steve, wrote about black women and testosterone several years ago. and now brother cornel west is snarking at brother obama over returned phone calls.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_obama_deception_why_cornel_west_went_ballistic_20110516/

Many people are writing off the impact of greater policing efforts, but what about the increased focus on tactical gang units as a percentage of overall police spending?

As someone mentioned above, we may gain insight by looking at the relative changes in the types of murders.

""Why do Republicans hate thinking about race and IQ, too?"

Steve,

You're not the first to ask this.

"To expose liberal dishonesty as regards the Negro was both a graphic and expedient way to explode all the fallacies based on the equalitarian ideology, yet conservatives concentrated instead on economic and constitutional questions which, at a time of unprecedented prosperity, had comparatively little appeal to the man in the street.

In fact, few of the arguments of the conservatives had much validity except in terms of the correct answer to the innate-equality dogma. If all races were innately equal, then of course our social organization, both nationally and on the world scene, was full of flaws. If they were not, then the whole problem changed and conservative policies took on new meaning. Thus in refusing to challenge the dogma, conservatives were fencing on a scaffold while liberals laughed as they watched the trap door open. It became quite appropriate to refer to the conservative movement and the Republican Party as the liberals' kept opposition. Their members were condemned in advance, set up to be ridiculed and extinguished, amid the scorn and self-satisfaction of the left" Putnam, 1969. The reality of Race.

I don't think sports explains it.

"Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that modern human variation is generally continuous, rather than discrete or “racial,” and that most variation in modern humans is within, rather than between, populations [11],[17]."

More PC bullshit"

No, it's true. Phenotypic differences tend to be clinal — which just says that they're a function of selection due to common environmental factors (e.g. due to common climate).

As for "more variation within," this is the same with the HBD differences that everyone discusses. For example, in a oft cited study Jensen found that the Between race difference (of 12 points in that study) represented only 14% of the total variance (versus 26% between families, 39% within families, etc.). In short, there's no contradiction between "more variation within" and "group X has a mean IQ 1SD below group Y."

I love it. I've been going after Marcotte for a while and am glad to see an esteemed blogger take her down as well.

Re: Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively: funny that IRL Lively is dating Leonardo DiCraprio who is actually 13 years older than her.

Also, why would a feminist like Marcotte want to limit womens' choices? Why would she want to stifle them by criticizing them for dating older men?

It might be helpful to clarify (for the readers and me) the difference between population specific EEAs and frequency differences in shared EEAs. (i.e. Penke. "Bridging the gap between modern evolutionary psychology and the study of individual differences":

"If adaptations were to vary between members of the same species, different individuals must show different complex systems of genetic structures. If individuals with different adaptations then engaged in sexual reproduction (which should be possible for them to qualify as members of the same species), these different genetic structures would be broken up and mixed during the process of recombination, disrupting their complex organization and consequently their adaptiveness (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990a). Thus, complex evolved adaptations themselves cannot vary between individuals. However, adaptations are sometimes capable of producing different (morphological or behavioral) phenotypes under different conditions, and systems of adaptations are sometimes able to tolerate some genetic variation.
")